Steny Hoyer

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, this debate on the alternative minimum tax epitomizes, unfortunately, precisely what is wrong in this House today: the Republican leadership's refusal to seize bipartisan opportunities where they exist, and its desire to turn every tax bill into a decisive political bludgeon. Let us be honest: every Member of this House, without exception, recognizes that we must fix the alternative minimum tax. That is not what this debate is about. When the AMT was enacted in 1969, it was supposed to ensure that wealthy taxpayers paid a fair share, that is to say, that you did not have your accountants figure out 17 ways to Sunday that you would not pay any taxes to support this democracy, this Republic, this great Nation. We said in a bipartisan way, you ought to pay something. But because it was not indexed for inflation, the AMT today ensnares more and more middle-income taxpayers. That was not the intent of any Member of this House. It forces them to pay more than they would under the regular tax schedule. But rather than trying to find a bipartisan solution to this growing and vexing problem, the majority has offered the legislative equivalent of a Band-Aid that would only drive us further into debt. Make no mistake: the Democratic substitute drafted by the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) is vastly superior. Where the Republican bill would extend current AMT exemptions for taxpayers whose adjusted gross income is less than $40,250, or $58,000 for married couples, the Democratic substitute would say to individuals making $125,000 or couples making $250,000, the Alternative Minimum Tax was not meant for you. You will pay your regular taxes. It was meant for the very wealthy who exempted themselves from taxes. I want you to know that I paid 10 percent more of my income, which is about one-eighth of Dick Cheney's income, the Vice President's. Why? Because he has an extraordinary preference item, $625,000 in income from municipal bonds. Zero taxes. But the soldiers who are defending the assets of those municipal bonds, CDC is protecting the health of those in those municipalities, as well as Mr. Cheney's and mine. Not one nickel of cost in the Republican bill is paid for. Not one nickel. My friends on the Republican side, you are raising taxes, but you are slick; you are doing it by the back door. You are increasing the debt. As a result of increasing the debt, my kids are going to have to pay higher taxes. That is pretty slick. Why do I say it is slick? My kids happen to be voting; but my grandchildren, who are going to have to pay more taxes, are not voting, so they are not focused on what you are doing, this shell game you are playing of pretending you are cutting taxes. You are delaying taxes, is what you are doing; and you are increasing them at the same time. The fact is, the Democratic substitute provides a simpler and broader relief. It is fiscally responsible. That used to be the mantra of your party. Many of your folks talk about it today. They do not vote that way, however. It is ironic, Mr. Speaker, that this Republican majority, which talks about tax fairness and simplification, in the last 3\1/2\ years has only made our Tax Code much more complicated. Let us not perpetuate tax confusion and complexity. Let us help those who need help. Let us pay for what we do. That is the responsible policy. That would make this Congress responsible. We can do so in a bipartisan way. Vote for this substitute.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HOYER. If my friend will yield, I was wondering who is in charge of this splurge of spending that the gentleman is concerned about?

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. The previous speaker was very animated on the fact that we ought not to bring back the marriage penalty. Is it not wonderful that 435 people agree on that? That is not a dispute in this debate. All of us want to give relief. All of us want to make it permanent. Some of us believe, however, there is a free lunch and we want to pass it along to our children and grandchildren. To that extent, it will be a free lunch for us but not for them. Mr. Speaker, the marriage penalty bill that the House Republicans put on the floor today is divorced from the fiscal reality that confronts this Nation. Just think, in 3\1/2\ years the Republican Party has turned a projected budget surplus of $5.6 trillion over 10 years, according to President Bush that is what we had when he spoke to the joint session of Congress, and they have turned it into a deficit of $4 trillion in less than 4 years. This year alone the Federal Government is expected to run a record deficit of half a trillion dollars. That figure does not even include the $50- to $75 billion that virtually everyone agrees will be needed for our war efforts. So what do our Republican friends propose here today? A tax bill that will cost an estimated $105 billion over the next decade. Now it is $200 billion, and then guess what, they take $100 billion back. That is called a shell game where I come from. Not one nickel of that 105 net is paid for, not one nickel. That is right, with a fiscal crisis looming House Republicans would drive us deeper into debt because, as the chairman of the Committee on the Budget, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) said in March, ``We don't believe that you should have to pay for tax cuts.'' They are for free, supply-side, free lunch. Somebody will pay, and it will be our children and grandchildren. My Republican friends do not but our children and grandchildren will surely do so. Make no mistake, Democrats strongly support marriage penalty relief because married couples should not have to pay more in taxes than they would if unmarried. That is fair. We are for that principle. Everybody is for that principle on this floor. As a result, Members have a choice today. They can vote for the fiscally irresponsible Republican bill, or they can vote for the superior Democratic substitute, every penny of which is paid for and will give marriage relief to all Americans. The Democratic substitute is fiscally responsible, and it ensures the benefits of the bill are not nullified by the alternative minimum tax, that shell game of which I talked. I know the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Weller) is not playing a shell game, but we have this AMT. It is a fancy phrase, but it simply means if an individual is below a certain degree of obligation, they make a certain income, we are going to take more. So what they say is, we are going to give you $200; but, guess what, we are taking $100 back. We do not do that. That is why they talk about 205. But it is paid for, and as the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Weller) must admit, it does not add a single nickel to the deficit or the debt. Perhaps when he rises to speak, he will deny that. I hope not, because it is the fact. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote for the Democratic substitute, vote for marriage penalty relief, and vote for fiscal responsibility. The failure to pay for tax cuts not only threatens our economic future but also is an immoral abdication of our responsibility to our children and future generations.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, I thank the majority leader. Mr. Leader, the transportation reauthorization, on a bipartisan basis today, as you know, we extended for 2 months. The surface transportation bill that would have been reauthorized last September was the final phase-out date, but we have extended that a number of times since then. It is my understanding that a meeting at the White House is scheduled tomorrow, to which no Democrat Member has been invited, to decide the overall size of the new transportation bill. First of all, Mr. Leader, can I ask why are House and Senate Democrats not being included in the discussion about this job-creating legislation that is critical to our Nation, particularly in light of the fact that, as you well know, because you and I have been here for some period of time, historically, Mr. Shuster and his counterpart, in the latter years the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar), worked hand in hand on this legislation; the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) and the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar) have worked hand in hand on this legislation, as you know. We voted for it on an overwhelmingly bipartisan basis. But now we, apparently, are not continuing to have discussions with reference to the level of funding on this bill on a bipartisan basis. Can the majority leader inform me, and the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar) who was just on the floor, as to whether or not we might expect to be included in such meetings in the future, so that we could again go forward, as we have in the past on this particular bill, on a bipartisan basis? Mr. Speaker, I again yield to my friend, the majority leader.

Mr. HOYER. Reclaiming my time once again, Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that information. As the gentleman knows, I would hope the Speaker would go into these discussions with the President armed with the fact that well over two- thirds of the House voted for this bill and, therefore, a very strong sentiment that this bill is the appropriate level of funding. And, in fact, I think the Senate level probably would have passed with a pretty healthy majority as well on this floor. In any event, I am hopeful that when the Speaker determines how he wants to proceed and appoints conferees, I would certainly hope that all of the conferees will be included in the meetings of the conference to discuss the resolution of the differences between the bodies and the shape and levels of the conference report that would be reported back to the House.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend, hopefully for assurances that that will happen.

Mr. HOYER. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, I thank the majority leader for that representation. As the majority leader knows, we have been very concerned about that in the past on some of the legislation, the Medicare prescription drug bill in particular. I believe the majority leader and I had a number of conversations on that, and I am pleased at the assurances the leader is giving us on this particular bill. Mr. Leader, tomorrow we had scheduled, as I understand it, the consideration of the budget resolution conference report. That, obviously, is not coming to the floor tomorrow if we are not going to be here tomorrow. Can the gentleman tell me where the negotiations stand on the proposal that some of us feel very strongly about, and obviously a majority of the Senate feels very strongly about, and that is the pay-as-you-go provision which affects both expenditures and revenues? Where are the negotiations on that issue at this point in time?

Mr. HOYER. I think I asked this last week, but let me ask him again because he will be disappointed if I did not ask this. Will the folks, $26,000 and under, that were included in the Senate bill but did not come out of the House here be included as far as he knows in the child tax credit?

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman has listed the alternative minimum tax as a schedule for the floor. I want to ask him the question I asked him about today's bill. Will that go through the Committee on Ways and Means process or is it the expectation that it will come directly to the floor without consideration by the Committee on Ways and Means?

Mr. HOYER. Does the gentleman know whether or not this will be a 1- year extension or 1-year effect on the AMT or will it be longer than that or permanent?

Mr. HOYER. The last question with reference to the particular bill that is scheduled for next week, is it the intention as far as the gentleman knows to treat the handling of that bill the same way the marriage penalty bill was treated with respect to us having a substitute obviously that is germane and in order under the rule?

Mr. HOYER. In addition to the AMT, does the gentleman expect the 10 percent bracket extension to be included as part of the agenda next week as well?

Mr. HOYER. I realize 14 days is a long time away, particularly when we are working, people over here, we are working at least a day and a half a week. It is a pretty onerous schedule that the gentleman has got us on. Might I ask the leader, is he sure we are going to meet next Thursday?

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I take this time for the purposes of inquiring of the majority leader the schedule for the following week.

Mr. HOYER. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. HOYER. That is going to make a lot of our Members nervous, I might say.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentleman from California (Mr. Thompson), for yielding. I also want to thank my good friend from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette), the chairman of this subcommittee, for last year trying to give me the opportunity to speak on my bill. I remember that and recall that well. I thank him very much. I want to thank my good friend, the gentleman from California (Mr. Thompson), the ranking Democrat, and the extraordinary staff assistant that he has on this subcommittee, Susan Brita. Mr. Speaker, for the past 12 years I have sponsored a resolution for the Greater Washington Soap Box Derby to hold its race on the Capitol Grounds along Constitution Avenue. Once again, I am proud to have sponsored such a resolution to permit the 63rd running of the Soap Box Derby races scheduled to take place on Saturday, June 19. The resolution authorizes the Architect of the Capitol, the Capitol Police Board, and the Greater Washington Soap Box Derby Association to negotiate the necessary arrangements for conducting the race in complete compliance with the rules and regulations governing the use of the Capitol Grounds. Therefore, I request my colleagues to join with me and other co- sponsors, including the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton), the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Wynn), the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran), and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen), in supporting this resolution. The Soap Box Derby has been held in the Washington D.C. area since 1991. It has attracted over 50 participants each of these years ranging in age from 9 to 16. The participants work very hard, as all of us know, to prepare their own race cars from the kit provided by the All American Soap Box Derby program. The contestants are given an opportunity to learn basic skills of workmanship and to enhance their building expertise while creating their own style car. Winners of these levels of the local race become eligible to compete in the National Soap Box Derby races held in the district of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette) in Akron. Prior to the national races, they attend a week of camps in Derbytown where they make lasting friendships while participating in a variety of sporting activities. The national races are held in July and give the participants a chance to win scholarships and merchandise prizes. Mr. Speaker, this event has been called, and I quote, ``the greatest amateur racing event in the world.'' I am not sure that it is the greatest, but it is certainly one of the very best and certainly gives to young people the values of self-reliance, of enterprise, of innovation, and of competition. This is a wonderful opportunity for our children from the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia to venture into the world of science while experiencing the spirit of competition. I again thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Thompson) for their leadership in bringing this to the floor.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, this week the American people will see that what our Republican friends lack in policy candor they more than make up for in chutzpah. Why do I say that? This week, as we have just heard, the Republican majority is expected to take up legislation that would permanently eliminate the marriage penalty. Everybody on this House floor is for that objective. But do not be fooled. Democrats and Republicans both agree that married couples should not have to pay more in taxes than they would as unmarried individuals filing separately. That makes sense. That is fair. We are for it. Members in both parties agree that the so-called marriage penalty should be remedied. However, here is the crucial difference between the Republican bill and our Democratic substitute. Our bill is paid for, theirs is not. What is the difference? The difference is that the penalty that we are eliminating in terms of marriages will be passed along to every young family in America, every young person in America. All of my children and my grandchildren will pay an additional penalty in the interest they will have to pay because of the irresponsible policies being pursued by the majority. That is right. With a record budget deficit this year of more than half a trillion dollars, and with a projected 10-year budget surplus of $5.6 trillion inherited by this administration turned into a projected deficit of more than $4 trillion, an almost $10 trillion turnaround to the negative, our friends on the Republican side of the aisle plan to drive us even deeper into debt. The chairman of the House Committee on the Budget, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle), perhaps summed up the Republican fiscal policy best on March 17 when he said, and I am quoting, ``We don't believe that you should have to pay for tax cuts, period.'' Well, Mr. Nussle and my Republican friends, of course you do not; but our children and grandchildren will have to pay that bill. Somebody, sometime, sometime in the future will have to pay the piper. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, this Republican marriage penalty bill will cost $96 billion over the next 10 years. None of it is paid for. And to make matters worse, House Republicans intend to bring up bills in the next 3 weeks to make the 10 percent tax bracket and child tax credit permanent. We are for that. It ought to be paid for. And to temporarily fix the alternative minimum tax. We are for that. It ought to be paid for. Again, Democrats support such legislation, but it must be paid for so that we do not simply say to our children, ``You pay for it''; to our grandchildren, ``you pay for it, we don't want to.'' Democrats believe it is a serious failure to pay for these tax cuts, which not only threatens our economic future as these deficits grow and the American people become more concerned about rising interest rates, as Alan Greenspan last week said was a definite possibility, but we also have a responsibility. We talk a lot about personal responsibility. We passed a bankruptcy bill, and we made it tougher for people to go into bankruptcy because we said they needed to be responsible. I voted for that bill. It was a bipartisanly supported bill. We need to be responsible on behalf of the public that sent us here and on behalf of future generations. Meanwhile, as we debate this tax bill, Republicans on both sides of Capitol Hill are riven by internal conflict. They still have not produced a budget conference report for fiscal 2005 because of the intransigence of House Republicans to accept pay-as-you-go rules. That sounds very common sense. You pay as you go. You pay your bills. We talk about every American family having to do that. That may be the case; but we do not have to do it, and we are not doing it. Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, said applying pay-as-you-go to both expenditures and revenues is essential if we are to have fiscal responsibility. Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle sent us a budget which says we are going to do that; but on this side of the Congress we have overwhelming, almost unanimous, support, if not unanimous support, for that proposition. It was in place from 1990 to 2002. But it was changed. Why? Because it would make us be responsible, and being responsible would not allow us to do some of the things the Republican majority wants to do. Here is what the Bipartisan Concord Coalition said, headed up by, among others, Senator Warren Rudman, a Republican from New Hampshire, and three other budget watchdog groups have said about such pay-as-you- go rules: ``If Congress wants to pass particular tax cuts, it should either reduce mandatory programs or raise other revenues to offset the tax reduction measures, not simply give itself a free pass to enact tax cuts without financing them.'' It feels good for us to say, Hah-hah, we have cut your taxes. Hooray. But unless we cut spending at the same time, which is what pay-as-you- go says we need to do, then do not pass that debt along to future generations. That is all it says. Every responsible American with common sense would say, yes, that is what we ought to do. They have turned the foreign sales corporation bill, another bill which requires that some $5 billion in export subsidies be repealed and replaced by modest tax breaks, into a $170 billion special-interest giveaway. Not only are we creating greater tax liability by passing these tax bills without paying for them, we want to see them pass, we want to pay for them, but now they are talking about this Foreign Service Corporation bill which could cost us and we could fix for less than $10 billion, now they want to make it into a $170 billion tax giveaway. One business lobbyist even told the Washington Post that this bill ``has risen to new levels of sleaze.'' Is it any wonder pursuing those kinds of policies that we have now gone into a $10 trillion turnaround in terms of from black to red? We talk about blue States and red States. We have gone from black, having surpluses, $5.6 trillion, four surpluses in a row from 1997 to 2001, the first time that had happened in 80 years. In just months, that was turned into escalating deficits. Mr. Speaker, I urge my Republican colleagues to come to their senses, to do what makes sense to the American families, to the American public. No married couple wants to have a marriage penalty but I do not think there is any married couple who wants to have their children saddled with the escalating debts incurred in their generation and passed to future generations. For years, House Republicans preened as deficit hawks. Some even suggested that tax cuts are not, in fact, sacrosanct. My friend the majority leader spoke a little earlier. In 1997, the majority leader, Mr. DeLay, who just spoke, said of Jack Kemp, another Republican who ran for Vice President, a former Member of this body, an ardent proponent of supply-side tax cuts: ``Jack Kemp worships at the altar of tax cuts. Jack has always said that deficits don't matter. We think that deficits do matter.'' So said Tom DeLay with reference to Jack Kemp. If they matter, Mr. Leader, why are we not addressing them? Why do we make them worse? Why are we escalating the debt that our children will be confronted with? With this vote on the marriage penalty relief this week, we will see whether Republicans still believe that deficits matter.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that comment. I understand his observation. The gentleman will remember one of the most wrenching caucuses in which I participated was a bipartisan caucus after we tragically lost those 18 members of the service when the Black Hawk went down in Mogadisho, Somalia. And as you may recall, it was extraordinary. I think we must have had 350 of our Members in HC-5 in which Secretary Christopher and Secretary Aspin came and reported to us on the situation on the ground. I understand what my colleague is saying, and he certainly has that right; but I think that the fact that we can meet together to get information together so that we are all getting the same information and hear one another's questions, hear one another's concerns, which reflect the concerns of the 280 million Americans, many of whom have young people overseas, and some, as he knows, because he has met with them as I have that are not so young in the National Guard and Reserve, we think it would be useful to do that in a bipartisan way together so that we could all hear the same information and therefore be able to work together to assist in solving what is a very difficult problem, ensuring to the greatest extent we can the safety of our people and the success of our mission. But I thank the gentleman for his observations.

Mr. HOYER. Is the pay-as-you-go provision still a major stumbling block in the conference, or does the gentleman know?

Mr. HOYER. With respect to the marriage penalty tax bill, will this bill be considered in the Committee on Ways and Means?

Mr. HOYER. Reclaiming my time, I take that as a yes. The gentleman mentioned extending the $1,000 child tax credit. Do you think this time we might include those families that are making less than $26,000 on this go-around? That has been pending for many, many months now, and, seeing as how you mentioned it, I thought I might inquire as to whether or not we might finally include the poorest working Americans in the benefit that has been extended to those that are doing a little better. I yield to my friend.

Mr. HOYER. I doubt that there is any bill that can pass that will take care of all my concerns, Mr. Leader, but I appreciate the information. On those additional items, do you expect them as well not to go through the committee process and be considered by the committee, but come directly to the floor? I yield to the gentleman.