Gil Gutknecht

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I do appreciate what the Blue Dogs are attempting to do. But I would remind Members that they are working off a 5-year plan. Frankly, in many respects I think we should be working off a 5-year plan. I think that is the right thing to do. Unfortunately, we are working off a 10- year plan; and it makes it very difficult for us to really do a comparison. I do want to talk about a couple of things because I think they need to be addressed, because one of the things we have heard last night and we have heard in some of the debate so far today and I suspect we will hear again and that is that we are being reckless somehow that we cannot afford this large tax cut, that the budget numbers do not work. When we had the Director of the Office of Management and Budget in front of the Committee on the Budget, he made a point that actually what we are using for projections in terms of revenue to the Federal Government over the next 10 years are very conservative. As a matter of fact, he told us that if revenue growth to the Federal Government simply averages what it has averaged for the last 40 years, we will not have a $5.5 trillion surplus over the next 10 years, we will have a $7.5 trillion budget. In fact, this is in response to clarify what he told us, I asked him this question: So if revenue growth just equals the 40-year average, we will actually have revenues in excess of $2 trillion more than we are currently using in our budget projections; is that correct? And the answer from Mr. Daniels was, yes, sir, that is correct. So the numbers we are working off of here today are incredibly conservative, and they also assume that we will probably have sometime in the next 10 years an economic slowdown, at least one. But I want to come back to another point that we have heard a lot about today and probably will hear more about and that is that somehow this budget is being unfair to farmers. I really think that is unfair to us, because I want to show the Members, for their benefit, when we passed the farm bill that we are currently operating under, we were saying that by the year 2002, the amount that would be spent on the baseline for the commodity programs would be somewhere between $5 billion and $7.5 billion. Actually, we are going to spend a whole lot more than that. What we see here in this blue line is a declining baseline for the commodity programs. The green represents the marketing loan benefits which have been created because of a weak farm economy. The red bar shows how much is available or has been available in terms of emergency payments. I represent farm country, and I do not care whether Members come from farm country or not, this Congress Republicans or Democrats from either side are simply not going to stand idly by and allow us to lose a generation of young farmers. That is not going to happen. Here is what we have agreed to do with agriculture this year. First of all, we have given them, I think, a very generous baseline of $19.1 billion. In addition to that, there will be available marketing loan payments as well. But let me just show the Members what we do when we add this final bar. We have also told the agriculture community that we will make available up to $8 billion in emergency payments this year. When we add it all together, to say that we are being less than fair to agriculture is less than generous. In fact, agriculture is the only area where we are literally giving them three bites at the apple. We are giving them a generous baseline. We are saying if they have a bill by July 11, we will increase that. Finally, we are making available up to $8 billion in emergency payments. I think that is fair, I think it is reasonable, and I think it is responsible.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from New Hampshire for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, I want to go back to some of the basic principles that undergird this basic budget. I think when people begin to understand that, they will begin to realize it is fair, it is responsible, it is reasonable, and in many respects it is overdue. First of all, maximum debt elimination. I think every American realizes that one of the greatest gifts we can give to our kids is to pass this Nation on to our kids debt free. We pay off the maximum amount of debt possible over the next 10 years. Tax relief for every taxpayer. For the average family of four in my district, ultimately this results in about $1,600 worth of tax relief. That is money that they will get to spend on their priorities, not Washington's. Improve education for our children. That is one of President Bush's top priorities to make certain that our kids are getting the education they will need to compete in the world marketplace. A stronger national defense. I think most of us realize we have shortchanged the kids who serve us in uniform around the world. Health care reform that modernizes Medicare. We all know, if we are honest with ourselves, that something has to happen in the next several years to reform and modernize our Medicare system. Finally, a better Social Security for seniors today and for tomorrow. These are all big goals, these are all important principles, and they are included in this budget blueprint. One of the things we have heard a lot about in the last couple days is, well, this is all built on pie-in-the-sky projections. Well, the truth of the matter is that is not the case at all. In fact, here is a quote from the Congressional Budget Office when they testified before the House Committee on the Budget. Let me read it: ``A recession of average size would probably not alter the 10-year outlook significantly. The reason is that the CBO's baseline 10-year assumptions allow for the likelihood of a recession of average severity will occur over the next decade.'' We are assuming the economy will slow down at least once. In fact, it is even better than that. We are assuming relatively slow economic growth in this budget projection. In fact, I asked the director of the Office of Management and Budget a very serious question. Here is my question: So if revenue growth just equals the 40-year average, we will actually have revenues in excess of $2 trillion more than we are currently using in your budget projections; is that right? The answer is: ``Yes, sir, that is correct.'' What that means, Mr. Chairman, is, if the economy simply grows, if revenue to the Federal Government grows at what it has grown on average for the last 40 years, we will not have a $5.5 trillion surplus, we will have a $7.5 trillion surplus. I think we are being extremely conservative in our projections. Finally, let me just talk briefly because we have heard a lot about protecting our farmers. I said this earlier and I will say it again, no one in this Congress, no one in this Chamber is going to take for granted our farmers. No one wants to bet the farm and end up losing a generation of younger farmers. We are going it be there. We have been there in the last several years. But when we passed this last farm bill, we all agreed that we were going to see a reduction in the baseline for agriculture. But this is what we have actually been spending. If we include what we are agreeing to in this budget resolution in terms of emergency spending, it would be hard for anyone honestly to argue that we are not going to keep our commitment to agriculture. We understand that things are tough on the farm, but the answer is not necessarily in more and bigger checks from the Federal Government. The answer is better access to markets both internationally and domestically. I think this budget is fair. It is responsible. It is reasonable. It has been built on a solid foundation and important principles. I think the American people will agree with it.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Madam Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, if I could just say, I was one who sort of came of age politically under Ronald Reagan, and he was and always will be to me a tremendous teacher of true principles, and he seemed to have a tremendous understanding of the American people. We certainly wish our current President, George W. Bush, the best. And we all, I think, could be better students of what Ronald Reagan tried to teach; and if we learn nothing else, it is that we need to continue to relearn those simple principles, I think we will all be better served.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Madam Speaker, tonight we celebrate the 90th birthday of President Ronald Reagan, and I would like to read some lines from a column that appeared on Sunday in the London Times in London, England. It was written by Andrew Sullivan, and frankly I cannot say this better than he did about a President that I have admired literally for many, many years. Let me read and I quote: ``He will turn 90 on Tuesday, but in all likelihood he will barely be aware of it. The cruelty of Alzheimer's has robbed Ronald Reagan of the capacity for clear memory. But that doesn't apply to the rest of us. ``He seems, in some respects, a historical oddity now, his political and cultural presence obscured by the Clinton psychodrama and the Bush dynasty. But his successors do not begin to compare--either in achievement or legacy.'' Madam Speaker, Reagan stood for two simple but indisputably big things: the expansion of freedom at home and the extinction of tyranny abroad. He achieved both. When he came into office, the top tax rates in the United States were 70 percent. Against all odds, Reagan slashed the top rate to 28 percent and ignited the economic boom that is still with us. He was right about taxation and the role of government. He was also right about the other great question of his day, the Soviet Union. I will never forget the moment I heard his ``evil empire'' speech. It was broadcast on Radio 4 with skeptical British commentary about this inflammatory new president who knew nothing about the complexities of communism. But for all the criticism, what came through in my teenage brain was the actual truth. Yes, the Soviet Union was evil. Who now doubts that? He alone saw that communism was destined to be put on the ash heap of history, as he told the House of Commons, and he helped put it there. Think of Tony Blair and Bill Clinton. In the 1980s, they were nuclear freeze supporters; and yet both now thoughtlessly enjoy the soft and easy fruits of a greater man's courage. The critics harp on the economic deficits of the Reagan era, but the truth is that the Federal revenue boomed on Reagan's watch. What created the deficits was an unprecedented increase in defense spending, the bargaining chip that eventually forced the Soviets to surrender. The end of the welfare entitlement was also presaged by Reagan. Reagan's unlikeliest dream, the nuclear missile defense, is also still with us. Lampooned as ``Star Wars,'' it will soon regain the pre- eminence it deserves in American military defense, as Donald Rumsfeld aggressively moves it forward. He was devoted to his second wife with a romantic zeal, wore a coat and tie at all times in the Oval Office, a room he considered sacred. Madam Speaker, it takes time to recognize greatness and sometimes it appears in the oddest forms. When he dies, this country will go into shock. For Americans know in their hearts that this unlikely man understood the deepest meaning of their country in a way nobody else has done for a generation. Madam Speaker, I remember when Ronald Reagan, just outside of this Capitol, stepped aboard Marine One for the last time and saluted back and left the presidency. I remember turning to my wife and saying, ``He was a long time coming. He will be a long time gone.'' Mr. President, on behalf of a grateful Nation, let me say, thank you, God bless you, and happy birthday.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. If I could just finish here, then you said but we also want another $1.3 billion for school construction. Is that all we are talking about?

Mr. GUTKNECHT. I think we, Members of the House, members of the general public, need to understand how much is enough? I mean, at what point do you see, yeah, that is all we want to spend. Is it $645 billion? Is it $660 billion? Is it $700 billion? We never get a clear answer to that question.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Let me pose another question. Then I would be happy to yield to the gentleman.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Yes.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Or bring it to the floor for a vote. That is all I am asking for.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. I would be happy to. What is the final number?

Mr. GUTKNECHT. But I did not hear a number.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. What is the number? How much?

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Let me just complete my thought here. Our colleague from Texas was quite upset that we had raised the spending caps, and so am I. But as far as I can remember, the President has signed the Defense bill. He did not quarrel with that. So we really are left with this question. Perhaps the gentleman from Wisconsin can tell us how much would be enough? How much more spending do we have to agree to?

Mr. GUTKNECHT. I just want to come back to this point. Does anybody in this House believe that if we had an up-and-down vote on blanket amnesty for over 4 million illegal aliens, does anybody here believe it would pass? So why are we talking about it in the conference? Where did this come from? I do not think it was our negotiators who said, What we ought to really do is give blanket immunity, blanket amnesty to 4 million illegal aliens. I understand that is one of the sticking points. Maybe I am misinformed. Maybe I do not know what is going on in those conference committees. But our negotiators come back and say, We don't want to do this but the White House is saying we've got to do that.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Where is it then? Who is talking about it?

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I just want to first of all say I am really proud of what this Congress has done, and I am proud of what we are doing right now. And I do not know if most people understand what the reason is that we are still here in Washington on just a few nights before the general election, but I honestly believe that there were people down at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue that thought, well, if we just hold them hostage in Washington, eventually we will get the Members to say, we got to go home and campaign, we got a campaign going on, we got to get out of here, we got to get out of here; and the longer they held us hostage, the more that they could extract in terms of more spending, in terms of policy changes. I am proud of the fact that we said no, no, we are not going to do that. We are more than willing to meet the President more than halfway. We are more than willing to relax the spending caps, which some of us do not think was a very good idea. But we do not think it is a very good idea to give blanket amnesty to over four million illegal aliens. We think that is a very bad idea. And I think most of our constituents believe that is a very bad idea.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman mentioned those States, Montana, Delaware, Alaska, North Dakota, Wyoming and Vermont. But he did not say combined, all of those States combined. Now, I do not think there is anybody in INS who thinks this is a very good idea. I do not think there are many Americans who think that is a very good idea. The other issue is ergonomics. Certainly we have got to make some allowances for people who have repetitive motion injuries. No question about that. But the policy that was being attempted to be foisted down our throats could have had devastating impacts on small businesses. And so, we are not eager to do that. We are willing to negotiate. We are willing to meet the President more than halfway. The question is, is he? And so far we have not seen a whole lot of flexibility from the White House. Clearly what they are trying to do is hold us hostage. I am proud of the fact that our leadership said, no, we are not going to do that. We are not going to play that game anymore. We are not going to bust the spending caps the way we have in the past. So I am glad that we are still here. I would rather be home. My wife would love to have me home. She was so lonely, she hates to fly, but last week she was willing to get on a plane and fly out here she said because she was starting to miss me, believe it or not. But I think the people's business is important, and I think we should not allow the poison of partisan politics right before an election to get us to accept a bad deal for the American people. So I am proud that we are here. I am proud of what we have accomplished in the last 6 years. And hopefully we will have a chance to continue that kind of progress, whether it is balancing the budget, continuing to make certain that our welfare system encourages work and personal responsibility, a whole long list of things that we have missed over the last 6 years. We cannot turn our backs on that now.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. How much you want to spend? That is the question we have been asking all week. How much is enough?

Mr. GUTKNECHT. I respect the work the gentleman from Texas has done on the budget. Generally speaking, we agree on a lot more things than we disagree on. But on this whole issue of the budget, the four of us, I would suspect, in a matter of a few hours could probably work out the final details of this budget, language on what we are going to do to reunite families and still preserve the basic notion of our immigration policy. Even on ergonomics, I think we could probably work out language that would be satisfactory to the four of us. But that is not the real question. The real question is, would the President sign it? I think that is where we have the real problem. Because the President has basically played this game of chicken, believing that we would ultimately cave on very important policy questions. He was wrong. He miscalculated this year. Some of us said, no, there is a line beyond which we simply will not retreat. I think we have spent too much money this year. I think you agree with me on that. I think we should have kept those spending caps. I think we can legitimately meet the needs of the Federal Government and all the people who depend upon it for $1.86 trillion. That is what our spending agreement was with the Senate. We have gone over those spending caps already. We can point fingers and say it was the Republicans in the Senate or it was the Republicans in the House or it was the administration or it was this guy or that guy. But we could reach that agreement between the four of us, and I suspect within a few hours we could have that agreement worked out. But I will also suspect the President would not sign that bill.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. They may have been agreed to by the negotiators, but ultimately you have to get 218 votes around this place. Some of us are a little upset about how much we have spent already, as the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) indicated already.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Is it $670 billion? Is it $700 billion?

Mr. GUTKNECHT. If you could just give us the numbers. How far apart are we in the numbers?

Mr. GUTKNECHT. How long do we have to wait? Lord, Lord, how long will it be? When will they tell us how much is enough? We have already gone over the spending caps.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Let me just say, I feel a little like Will Rogers. He once said, ``All I know is what I read in the newspapers.'' All I know is I thought we had an agreement on the Treasury-Postal bill. I thought I read, now maybe he was misquoted, that the President was going to sign the bill. In this business we all know that our word is pretty important. I am not privy to the negotiations. I do not know what has been going on in those meetings exactly. But, as I say, all I know is what I read in the newspapers. And when I read that the President said, ``I'm going to sign that bill'' and then in the dead of night he vetoes it and you have Senators saying that is a declaration of war against the Congress, that is not the way to resolve these differences. Here is my real point. Because I was in the State legislature for 12 years. I have been frustrated since I came here at the way we end these budget sessions, the way we end a session. Because in the legislature, we had Republican governors with Democratic legislatures and we had Democratic governors where the Republicans controlled half the legislature. But in both cases what we did at the end of the session is the governor brought in the legislative leaders, they sat down like real human beings, they sat down reasonably and said, Okay, guys, let's figure out how big is the pie going to be. That was the first question. You decided how much you were going to spend. We had to balance our budget, so that made it somewhat easier. Once you knew how much you were going to spend, whether that was $14.3 billion or whatever the number was, it was relatively easy then to sit down and work out, well, how much goes to transportation, how much goes to education, how much goes to criminal services, how much goes to the various other departments, welfare and so forth. We have never done that. The President has never brought, as far as I know, the legislative leaders in and said, Let's decide how much we are going to spend. Here is the problem. Because what happens is as soon as we think we have an agreement on how much we are going to spend on Treasury-Postal, first of all he vetoes it but then secondly he says, Wait a second. We've got to have more money over here; we've got to have more money over there. You cannot negotiate a moving target. In my opinion that is a terrible, terrible way to do the business of the people of the United States of America. We ought to agree, first and foremost, we are only going to spend, and at this point I do not care what the number is, but we ought to all agree that all we are going to spend this year is $1.91 trillion or whatever that number is. Once we have that number and with just a little bit of leadership from somebody down at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, that agreement could be made in a half an hour. Then we could all begin to work out how much we really need for Treasury-Postal, how much we really need for Energy and Water, how much ought to go for Health and Human Services, how much goes to education. All those other things are relatively easy once you decide how big the pie is. Maybe I am just crazy, because that is the way 50 States do it, and yet it cannot be done here at the Federal level.