Porter Goss

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 12:30 p.m. on Monday next for morning hour debates.

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, it is 9:30 for morning business and 11 for the House.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to underscore any confusion there has been about the time that we will be in session on Tuesday next. We will start morning business, Tuesday next, at 9:30. And we will start the House at 11.

Mr. GOSS

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Colorado [Mr. McInnis], also a member of the Committee on Rules. We are glad to have the gentleman aboard.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Utah [Mrs. Waldholtz], a new member of the committee.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished vice chairman of the Committee on Rules, the gentleman from greater San Dimas, CA [Mr. Dreier]. (Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Camp]. (By unanimous consent, Mr. Camp was allowed to proceed out of order.) u.s. term limits organization running negative attack ads

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to our colleague, the distinguished gentlewoman from Ohio [Ms. Pryce], a valued member of the Committee on Rules.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time remains on either side?

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon], the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Rules. (Mr. SOLOMON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Nebraska [Mr. Bereuter]. (Mr. BEREUTER asked and was given permission to extend his remarks.)

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my respected friend and colleague, the gentleman from California [Mr. Beilenson], pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. Mr. Speaker, this historic 104th Congress has been in session for less than 1 calendar month, a period that in Congresses past saw little legislative progress; lots of talk maybe, but very little action unless you count travel. But with the brisk winds of change at our backs and the unmistakable call for fiscal discipline still ringing in our ears from the American people we work for, we are on our way toward fullfilling our Contract With America and were moving a lot faster than the other major event in this country, the O.J. Simpson trial. We have already passed an historic balanced budget amendment and landmark legislation to curb unfunded Federal mandates. Today we draw the third side of this powerful triangle of reforms to restore fiscal sanity to this institution and to our Government. The line-item veto proposed in H.R. 2 is a real line-item veto, with the type of teeth many of us know are necessary to bring about greater fiscal discipline. It puts the emphasis on saving. It makes it harder to spend taxpayers' money. It increases accountability and it forces the White the Federal budget. It is fitting that we consider the line-item veto under a wide open rule and this is a wide open rule. This is a serious discussion about reining in Federal spending, restoring accountability to the congressional budget process and balancing the powers of the executive and legislative branches of Government. This topic deserves the full benefit of the deliberative democratic process our Founding Fathers envisioned for this House. I am proud to offer my colleagues this wide open rule, one that allows any Member to be heard on issues of concern. I would also like to point out, Mr. Speaker, that we have not only created an open rule, an open rule-plus, but we have several days of time for this issue to be debated on the floor, on the Calendar, and brought to some kind of a resolution. We have, I think, compared to past attempts to discuss this issue, gone way over the edge in terms of scheduling latitude. We have 3 legislative days in front of us compared to really hours only in the past when we debated this issue. And I point out that in those legislative days we also have a weekend which is available for work if necessary. At this point I understand we have 31 amendments out there which have been filed under the option of prefiling, and no doubt we will be hearing other amendments under the 5-minute rule because we do have one very important issue on policy and a whole lot of other issues on precedents. This rule makes in order as base text for the purpose of amendment a substitute that reflects the combined, bipartisan work of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, Chairman Clinger and the gentlewoman from Illinois, Mrs. Collins, and the fine work that they have been doing, and the Committee on Rules. I was pleased to hear the ranking member of the Government Reform Committee, Mrs. Collins, express her appreciation to Chairman Clinger for the fair treatment the minority received in his committee. I hope the minority members of the Rules Committee felt they too had a fair chance to be heard. The spirit of bipartisanship we have seen on this legislation--even as some clearly do disagree on how far a line-item veto should go--has been particularly refreshing and gives me great hope. In the course of the committee process, we consulted frequently with the Parliamentarian's Office for guidance about matters of germaneness, scope and jurisdiction and given the technical nature of some provisions, even the experts were not always in agreement on some of the processes here. For that reason, this rule does include a precautionary waiver for clause 7 of rule XVI, which prohibits nongermane amendments. While this Member and our new committee leadership are generally hesitant to waive standing rules, because of the conflicting advice from the Parliamentarian's Office during the committee process, important language was included in H.R. 2 to give the President the option to propose that savings from his line-item veto be applied toward deficit reduction. While this language may technically have been nongermane to the bill as written, I would think most Americans--and certainly most Members I hope--see the goal of cutting the deficit as highly germane to the subject of line item veto. If we are going to take this step to give the President the authority to cut or reduce spending--or targeted tax benefits--we should also provide the option that the money be saved rather than spent elsewhere. The rule provides 2 hours of general debate, and then opens the bill to amendment under the 5-minute rule. We have included in this rule the encouragement for Members to have their amendments pre-printed in the Record. This is not a requirement-- but it is something all Members might want to consider doing. Even the distinguished Member from West Virginia [Mr. Wise], who has had much experience in this House, I am told found the need for a technical correction to an amendment he wishes to offer through this voluntary pre-printing process. So it is beneficial it simply gives Members and the Parliamentary experts alike a chance to review the language, understand the implications and run the traps on the technical pitfalls. In my view, this type of rule should be called an open-plus rule, because it offers Members a mechanism to better prepare themselves for the floor and the debate. This is a bonus to deliberative democracy, it is not a hindrance. I urge my colleagues to support this rule. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 55 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts [Mr. Blute], who is a major sponsor and has done yeoman's work on this legislation.

Mr. GOSS. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. GOSS. This gentleman from Florida does insist on his point of order, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, I am privileged to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Linder], a member of the Committee on Rules and the Subcommittee on Legislation. We are proud to have him.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, is it parliamentary correct to enter into the Record a document?

Mr. GOSS. Unfortunately, as the gentlewoman knows, that never transpired into final fruition. So what happened is, we have put it back into a process to complete the concern that Mr. Michel had about what does this really mean. And we have done that process of completing what it means.

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, unfortunately, I did not hear everything.

Mr. GOSS. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York [Ms. Slaughter].

Mr. GOSS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I have listened to this debate very attentively. It has been very intense, and I think we have gotten most of the points out. It has motivated me to go back to the Record, however, and try to find out who said what when and what was expected and that was not, because I have great respect for the efforts of the gentlewoman from New York who has offered this amendment. My problem with it is that it seemed very broad, and it seemed, in my view, a little bit unworkable in that it is overbroad. I have some feeling, as we have heard from some of the debate, that the question of over-broadness may very well be a judicial question someday with this legislation. I went back to the amendment, and if I read the amendment correctly that has been offered, we talk about what the term targeted tax benefit actually means, trying to put a description on something that Mr. Michel himself did describe in his words before this body, and I will get to those words. But when we get into the definition of the amendment, and I am reading from this, it says, ``Such term does not include any benefit provided to a class of taxpayers distinguished on the basis of general demographic conditions.'' That is very broad, but it has been further qualified, ``such as income, number of dependents, or marital status.'' Well, that leaves a very serious ambiguity about other demographic questions such as gender, race, age, sexual preference. These are all points that I think now become an ambiguity. I know that the gentlewoman does not wish to give us am ambiguous piece of legislation. I did go back and look into the exact language that Mr. Michel used on April 29, 1993, in the Record, and he said, using his words in paraphrase, ``You will hear that it is uncertain what I mean by the term `targeted tax benefits' by those who oppose this.'' I think that is exactly what we have got here. Those who are basically opposed to trying to get at closing these loopholes are basically trying to put words in Mr. Michel's mouth here about what he meant. If you read the record, it is rather clear that Mr. Michel went through what I am calling special interest tax breaks, all the things we are trying to get at here. When you get to the bottom of what he said, he said, ``I will confer. I will sit down with the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means,'' who was his good friend, who is unfortunately no longer here, as Mr. Michel is not, ``and we will work out the details of this.'' We did work out the details. We did it with slightly different people in different areas. We went through the Committee on Ways and Means, the Joint Tax Committee, and now the Committee on Government Reform, and we have done this in the Government in sunshine, openly, and come to a conclusion of what the best definition is that will work, that will withstand the judicial overview and any other test that can be made of it, and I think we have come up with a better solution than the gentlewoman from New York has. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Blute].

Mr. GOSS. I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.

Mr. GOSS. Reclaiming my time, I would say there are no guarantees in any legislation that we are proposing that I am aware of that is going to provide all of the protections from politicalness. I do not believe anybody has come up with that legislation. I think the gentleman has a point on his side of it and we have ours, I think.