Steny Hoyer

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, let me say, so the Members understand where we are going to be I think at the end game, if we had continued our discussions about how to resolve this, and so the public understands as well, our constituents understand, I believe we can agree, I believe the White House can agree, on a number for this bill that will still be more than one-half billion dollars under the President's request. I hope my colleagues heard that. I believe the White House is prepared to sign a bill that is half a billion, almost $600 million under what they submitted to this Congress. So it is not that they are asking, gee, we ought to include all of these additional dollars. It was, and I want to repeat, in the committee report issued by the majority in the Congress, the Republican majority. It says that their allocation was $1.3 billion too little to meet the priorities. Now, that was still, we understand, $800 million less than the President asked for, which was 2.2. They are adding 1.2 back. So there is still $100 million under what the committee report said they thought, the Republicans thought, was necessary to adequately fund this bill. I repeat again to the chairman, for whom I have great respect, as everyone on this floor knows, we work together closely, I think we can work this thing out; and I know he is frustrated that we have been at it for 8 or 9 days and have not been able to work it out. There are a lot of interests here. The tax provision that was added to this bill, totally extraneous to our bill, has caused us a problem. That is not of the making of the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) or my making or the making of the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) or the making of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young); but it is causing us a problem, and that needs to be worked out. But we ought not to go up the hill just to be shot down and have to go back up it again. Mr. Speaker, I think we can reach an agreement that is almost $600 million under the President's request, and I would urge us to do that. Reject this conference report and approve the motion to recommit to conference. Let us sit down at the table, reason together and come up with a reasonable, positive, productive bill.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, first of all let me say to my colleagues, I really think had we had the opportunity to work on this bill a little longer, I know we have been working on it for 10 days, but, very frankly, we could have done this 8 months earlier had we had real numbers at the start and not been told this is the 1st inning and there are 8 innings left to go. I do not know whether it is the 6th or 7th inning, but, very frankly, this is premature consideration, if you will, because we could work this out. I think we are pretty close to working this out, but we are certainly not close, as the ranking member indicated, with not having added what has been offered by your side to add. That is not added here. We are not close to funding IRS. Let me say something about the chairman's comment about the level of employees of IRS. Let me remind you, he said there were 95,000 IRS employees. In 1992 there were 116,000 IRS employees. What has happened since 1992? Obviously, as the gentleman points out, they have been reduced 20 percent in the level of employees. That happened. Number two, we have millions of additional taxpayers. Number three, the complexity of the returns has increased as a result, very frankly, of some of the tax bills offered by the Republican majority which have become law. Fourthly, we adopted a Restructuring and Reform Act which said we want you to be more customer friendly; that is to say, we want you to give more services, we want you to answer questions more quickly, we want you to be more available for taxpayers to come in to regional offices, all of which were positive things. But then we turn around and we say, guess what though? You do not have any people to do it. That is a shell game. It is dishonest. That is why I voted against the Reform and Restructuring Act the first time around, and it is one of the best speeches I ever gave, and it was a very short speech. I got up and I said if you want to be for taxpayer IRS reform, you need to be for IRS reform at tax writing time and at budget time. That is what this report ultimately said. In this bill, we are $305 million under what Mr. Rossotti, not the administration, asked for. Frankly, Mr. Rossotti asked for more money than this to do his job. So do not go home and tell your taxpayers, boy, we are providing the kind of service that you need, because we are on your side, we are taxpayer friendly, and then pretend that you can go from 116,000 IRS employees to serve 270 million Americans, and, sure, it sounds like a big number, until you decide that there are 270 million Americans that are covered. They do not all pay taxes, some are kids, some do not make enough money, but they are all in the mix. And you go down to 95,000, and then expect to say, oh, well, you can do it. I agree with my chairman, and he and I are good friends and respect one another, and I respect the big chairman, the chairman of the full committee. I think we can work this out. I think we can get pretty close, and I think we can get the administration on board. We did not participate in most of this. Yes, we discussed it, yes, I know the chairman is frustrated by the fact that we have not reached agreement. But you should not have brought this bill forward today, because it would have served the process and our committee if in fact we had worked this bill out and come to the floor together and said we have done what we should have done on IRS, we have done what we should on counter-terrorism, we have done what we should on court houses, and very frankly, we may stay where we are on court houses, with some additional discussion the chairman and I have had. But I would urge my colleagues, this is not the bill we ought to pass. In my opinion, and the President has not told me this, it is not going to be signed. And why do we continue in the 7th or 8th inning, or the 10th or 11th inning, wherever we are in this inning process, Mr. Chairman, I do not know where we are, but wherever we are, we should bring it to closure through agreement, and we are prepared to do that. We want to do it, I think we can do it, I would hope we would do it. I would hope we would send this bill back to a conference, that is a strange conference, because the Senate has never considered this bill. To that extent there was really nothing in the conference other than our bill, and in fact we did not conference our bill, it was added to the Legislative bill, which is why it is there. So, my colleagues, I ask you to reject this. We can do better, and we will do better, and, when we do better, this bill will be whole, all of it.

Mr. HOYER

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

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, today we waste more precious time on yet another bloated tax bill. This motion to override the President's veto, as the chairman has correctly pointed out, will fail. He knows that. The Republican leadership knows that as well. Yet we persist in this play-acting. The Republican leadership must give the appearance of doing something, anything in this do-the-wrong-thing- for-special-interests 106th Congress. What do I mean by that? The reason we do not reach a compromise on this is not because of those who are penalized under the marriage penalty but those who are not penalized, the wealthiest in America. That is why we do not come to agreement with the President. That is why we do not come to agreement on both sides, not because of the couple discussed by the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Manzullo). We can all agree on that. The Washington Post got it right recently when it said of these Republican tax bills, and I quote, ``It is not clear which, if any, will be sent to the President. But that does not matter in a mock Congress. It is the show that counts.'' Here we are at the show. Just like last week's debate on the estate tax where we could give millions of Americans relief, but the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Archer), my friend, the chairman for whom I have a great respect and affection, we are not doing it, because of the thousands that the President will not include in the bill and that we will not include in the bill. We are being forced to participate in this show once again today. Meanwhile, the clock keeps running. There are less than 20 days left on the legislative calendar, and we still have not approved 11 of the annual spending bills that keep the Federal Government operating. The prospects for a Patients' Bill of Rights, a meaningful prescription drug benefit for seniors, a minimum wage increase, a middle-class tax relief grow bleaker by the day. We agree that the marriage penalty must be remedied. Our bill offers $95 billion in relief over 10 years. But instead of reaching compromise, the perfectionist caucus says do it my way or take the highway. The leadership once again forced us to genuflect at the alter of Republican ideology, tax cuts for those who need them the least. That is where we differ, not on the couple that the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Manzullo) just referred to. This bloated tax bill would cost an estimated $292 billion over the next decade. It would squander our surplus while not helping this couple who would pay higher interest rates because of the deficits that would result in the squandering of the resources. It would strip us of our ability to strengthen Social Security and Medicare and, as I said, a prescription drug benefit. Pay down the debt and invest in our children's future. The Republicans' special-interest political agenda is preventing, not facilitating, tax relief for working families. Let us sustain the President's veto, and let us get down to meaningful compromise that will affect millions of Americans that need it most.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I have no additional requests for time. But I know that, on both sides of the aisle, if they were on the floor, all Members would want to rise in support of this resolution. Every Member would want to recognize the importance of the principle involved in the adoption of this resolution, the recognition of those who have been ignored, forgotten, hidden, in part, perhaps, because of the shame that a society shared for on the one hand saying it believed in freedom and on the other hand enslaving a people because of the color of their skin. This resolution is important in my opinion, Mr. Speaker, not only to recognize those who participated and labored and who helped build this Capitol, but it is also important, it seems to me, because it reminds us of the contradictions between our principles and our performance. It heightens our awareness, Mr. Speaker, of the gulf that sometimes exists between our promises and our practice. I introduced, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers). I remember standing with him on the front of this Capitol and supporting him in his leadership of the necessity to recognize the contributions made by Martin Luther King, Jr. who, in 1963, stood just some thousands of yards from where we stand right now and reminded the Nation in a compelling address that we ought to live out the dream and make reality the promises that we had made. Our Nation responded. This Congress responded. We passed legislation to try to make reality the promises of the 13th Amendment passed 100 years before. Whether it was in employment or housing or public accommodations, we said that America was not a land in which we ought to discriminate against individuals based upon such arbitrary distinction as color of skin or national origin or religion. In fact, we are still arguing today about artificial distinctions we make between human beings and whether they ought to be discriminated against, not on what they do to us or laws that they break, but on what they may be that is different from us. Mr. Speaker, that is why this resolution is important, not only as the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Watts) and the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis) have so eloquently pointed out, to recognize the contribution of the individuals who helped build this Capitol and, as the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) has pointed out, built so many others, including the White House, Monticello, and Mount Vernon. I can go on in listing the dwellings that we know are dwellings in which democracy saw its genesis and its growth. This resolution is significant because it also teaches us to be aware daily of the necessity of applying our principles in practice.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. It is an appropriate and, at the same time, regrettable fact that I rise today in support of this resolution. It is appropriate because I am proud to join my colleagues in an attempt to recognize a terrible wrong, to shed light on a dark chapter in our Nation's history. Sad, because it is a shame that this resolution is even necessary. However, it is necessary; and I commend the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis) and the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Watts), my colleagues, for their hard work in bringing this resolution to the floor. This resolution, as the chairman has pointed out, will establish a task force to recommend an appropriate recognition of the slave laborers who built the United States Capitol. Not all of the workers were slaves. There were free men that worked by their side; but there were slaves who, as the chairman has pointed out, were not paid for their work; their owners were paid for their work. And their work helped build this Capitol. That sentence should shock all of our sensibilities. Yes, this temple of liberty was built, in part, on the backs of slave laborers. That is a tragedy, and was a denial of the statement we made to all the world that we believed that all men were created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. Notwithstanding the fact that we published that to the world, we continued slavery in America. Yes, we used slaves in part to build this Capitol. Those workers toiled in the hot D.C. summers to build this monument to freedom, the people's House, the freedom they did not have. Yet, they did not share in the promise of America. There was compensation, as has been pointed out: $5 a month to the owners. This tragic piece of our Nation's history needs to be explored and exposed. We often forget the proud history of slaves in the United States. The government denied them their freedom, but nobody could take away their dignity. They fought bravely in the Revolutionary War to secure our Nation's freedom, yet they were not free. After that noble effort, they worked to build a tribute to this Nation's ideals, this Capitol building, but they were denied the very freedom it symbolized. As a recent article in the Washington Post explains, little is known about the slaves. We know that for a time Phillip Reid, the only slave that we know the last name of, served as superintendent of the project, but the other slaves are known only by first names jotted in dusty ledgers. I hope this task force is able to uncover more details about these men who did backbreaking work for a nation that denied them their fundamental rights. We need to know more about George, Thomas, Harry, and Jerry, and all the others who built this temple to democracy and freedom. Without knowing more about their history, Mr. Speaker, our collective history, our Nation's history, will be forever incomplete. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, it is my real honor to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis), a distinguished civil rights leader, Member of Congress, humanitarian, and the cosponsor of this legislation. A gentleman who has been a giant in bringing the reality of the words that I intoned earlier that are included in our Declaration of Independence, and the promises incorporated in our Constitution, to reality for all Americans.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), one of the most distinguished leaders in our House, one of the senior Members of the House and an American who perhaps was most responsible for ensuring that this Nation recognized the contribution of one of its greatest citizens of the world, Martin Luther King, Jr.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton), the very distinguished Representative in which this Capitol is located. I am sure the irony is not lost on her that there are residents of this capital of freedom that do not have full voting participation in this Capitol.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis).

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, there they go again, Fantasy Island. The Republican majority would rather fight for the wealthiest interests in America than agree to eliminating the estate tax for 98 percent of Americans. They would rather put at risk the soundness of our economy, the stability of social security, the reliability of Medicare, and the ability to pay down the debt while investing in our children's education than give up on a plan that gives a $10.5 million average cut to 329 estates, and a $50 billion cut to the top 2 percent of estates. That is the truth. The truth is more than half of the benefits of this Republican bill will go to less than one-tenth of 1 percent of all Americans. I support the Democratic alternative which gives all estates relief now, not 10 years from now, as this bill does. The President was right to veto this bill. He wants and I want a tax relief bill which is fiscally responsible and is targeted for the majority of working families. This bill would drain more than $50 billion annually to benefit just thousands of families while taking resources that should be used to strengthen social security and Medicare for millions of families. I want tax cuts which will protect family farms and small businesses, but that will also help families send their kids to college, provide for long-term care, pay for child care, and help communities build badly needed schools. We can do this, Mr. Speaker, if the Republican leadership will sit down at the table of democracy and reach agreement with those of us who were also elected to reason with one another on behalf of the American people. If the majority will unlock itself from the grip of the special interest, we can legislate constructively and cooperatively on behalf of all of the people and just not for a very few of the people. Let us sustain this veto.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, let me suggest that it may not be hypothetical at all as it relates to how Members feel they can vote on this particular rule, because they will know if they vote on this rule that they may or may not be precluded from taking such action under the rules that they may want to take. That is why I believe that it is a relevant question at this time, prior to the vote on the rule.

Mr. HOYER. Why not? There is not an answer that exists to that, Mr. Speaker? It is not a theoretical question.

Mr. HOYER. I understand a motion to strike will be in order on any part of the bill. But my point is, I believe I have been told by the Parliamentarian, and I want to make sure that the Members know this as well, that a change in the Treasury, Postal bill will not be germane because the only germane amendment to change the bill will be to the legislative bill because that is the underlying bill. Am I correct on that?

Mr. HOYER. My question, though, Mr. Speaker is if in the motion to recommit a change in the Treasury, Postal bill is offered, will that be in order?

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, we have sad days in the House when we undermine any semblance of comity and of regular order, when we indeed undermine the premise on which so many were elected in 1994 in the so- called revolution, when they came to this House on the premise that Democrats somehow did not follow the regular order, did not follow the rules. The chairman of the Committee on Rules, the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), was one of the major proponents of that proposition. This process is not fair to any Member of this House; and, more importantly, it is not fair to the American public. My colleagues have heard the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Moakley), the ranking member of the Committee on Rules, outline the scenario, the timing under which this was done. I have no criticism of either the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) or the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe), the chairman of our subcommittee, with whom I work very closely. They are, in my opinion, both honorable men who have acted honorably, although they have acted consistent with directions which were not consistent with good order of this House. The ranking member has correctly stated that this bill is approximately $7 billion, give or take a couple of $100 million, over the budget allocation. Yet we came to subcommittee, we came to committee, and we came to this floor and were told, you cannot do this, you cannot add this $1.2 billion. How many days ago was that, I ask my friends, that that was intoned on this floor? Approximately 7 days ago. The principle was ensconced in stone 7 days ago, and now it is gone with the wind in the dead of night, obfuscated. Why, I do not know. The Senate is not going to pass this bill. Everybody on this floor knows that. There is no need to move this. There is no need to shut us out. I heard my friend, and I understand what he said. But the fact of the matter is the Senate had not passed the bill. We have not had a conference. I participated in no meetings. Now, was my staff informed? Yes, they were at approximately 10:30 last night of what was in this, and we have been scrambling ever since to find out, that is what my staff tells me, of the substance of the bill. No discussions from us as to what ought to be in and out. Now, let me say to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), I think what they have added in this bill is appropriate for the most part. That does not mean I think they have done what we suggested be done and which they then rejected on the floor 7 days ago. We ought to reject this rule, not only because of the substance or the lack of substance in this bill, but we ought to, as Members of this House, not Democrats and Republicans, as Members of this House, who I think in many instances respect one another. I know that is the case for most of the appropriators. I cannot speak for other committees because that is the committee that I know best, and I respect and I like the Republican members of the Committee on Appropriations, and particularly that applies to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) and the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe). But I do not respect, nor do I like the process that they have been told to carry out. This is not right. Not for this bill, not for the Legislative bill. I participated in the conference on the Legislative bill. I sat there. We talked about the provisions. We voted at the end. I did not get everything I wanted. As a matter of fact, I agreed significantly in some parts of that bill. But I did not raise any questions. The process was followed. You win some; you lose some. You make your arguments. Here, that was not the case. My colleagues heard the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Moakley). How can the CATS come here $7 billion over budget? It is going to be interesting to watch them vote on this package. Now, I do not agree with them, but if there is any intellectual consistency, I am going to be astounded that they might do that. One may get them to do that. I do not think our Members are going to vote for this bill, not because they do not think the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) that what he added on is appropriate with IRS, with GSA and with other items in the bill. We discussed that. You agreed. I agreed. We do not disagree on that. But, Mr. Speaker, we are going to be here at least for another 30 or 45 days. Let us treat one another and the American public with respect, with consideration. Yes, we will disagree; and, yes, my colleagues will impose from time to time the majority will. That is democracy. But do not do it in the dead of night. Do not recess late at night so one can have an extra legislative day. That is a legislative game to stick it to us, because the rules that they so passionately argued for when they were in the minority ought to protect the minority and that we overran they said, say that one cannot do it in one legislative day. So they did this gimmick. It is a legitimate gimmick. We used it. They complained bitterly about it. They did it last night in the dead of night and came here at 7 a.m. and filed it. This rule ought to be defeated. We ought to be about the regular order and do things the right way and respect one another and respect this institution.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I want to make two points, in response, frankly, to the majority whip. First of all, it was not the Democrats, it was all of us. Let me read from the report of our committee, the majority report, which I supported, which said ``With those additional responsibilities in mind,'' that is the things that are in the bill, ``the allocation is short by approximately $1.3 billion.'' So I tell my friend, the majority whip, that he says it in the report that this is needed. But 7 days ago the gentleman would not do it. Why would he not do it 7 days ago? So he could say to the American public what he has just said now; we are trying to constrain spending: Yes, we think $1.3 billion is necessary; and, guess what, 7 days later we will put it in. But the press release that went out on Friday said no, we are going to have fiscal constraint. For 6 days. For 6 days. Secondly, I would say to my friend there is no need for this, whatever is happening in the other body. We could have considered the legislative bill on its merits in order, and we could consider the Treasury, Postal bill on its merits in order. Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. HOYER. Am I correct that if this rule passes and we go to consideration of the conference report, and then we seek to offer a motion to recommit, that no amendment or motion to recommit which deals with the Treasury, Postal bill will be in order because it will not be germane under the conference committee report because it is on the legislative bill? Am I correct on that, Mr. Speaker?

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

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I understand the proposition of the gentleman. The Majority Whip made that, as well. If that is the case, why does not the majority, which controls both Houses, send the bills as they think they ought to be to the White House and let them veto them and let the American public see what is going on?

Mr. HOYER

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

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. I would say to the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young) for whom I have, as he knows, great respect and affection, and I share that as well for the ranking member. I want to tell him, with all due respect, I am the ranking member of the Treasury Postal bill, and I am going to have to go to the Web site because I have not seen the conference report. There was no conference. I would tell my friends, there was no conference on the Treasury Postal bill, whatever is in the Treasury Postal bill, we are learning secondhand. This is not the way my colleagues ought to run this House and respect one another as Members. This is a wrong way to proceed, and we ought to reject and start back at the very beginning. This is not the way to treat one another. If we want bipartisanship, if we want to positively represent the citizens of this country, if we want to come to this place and be honest with one another, this is not the way to do it. I am the ranking member. I have not seen this bill, and I must go to the Web site to see this bill. Reject this bill.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, today I recognize the unfortunate deaths of two Navy test pilots at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station on July 11, 2000. Lt. Cmdr. Gareth Rietz, 33, and Lt. Raymond O'Hare, 33, lost their lives while training to become test pilots at the prestigious U.S. Naval Test Pilot School. The students were flying on a familiarization flight aimed at refreshing their flying proficiencies following a short break. Both seniors, they were experienced aviators and were scheduled to graduate in December 2000. Commander Bob Stoney, the Naval Test Pilot School's Commanding Officer, in an interview with the Washington Post following the incident, commented, ``What they would have wanted us to do is get back on our horses and ride.'' There are safety and legal investigations under way, but life is returning to normal as a new class is beginning its training. Gareth Rietz, a native of Washington State, ``was the cheerleader for everybody, the coach, the quarterback,'' Stoney said. A graduate of Washington State University, he leaves his wife and daughters behind. Raymond O'Hare, a native of Illinois, was, as Stoney said, ``a tremendously gifted man who seemed to have a calling to higher things. He was extremely smart, good at everything he did.'' A graduate of Harvard University, he is survived by his wife and three children. Before he died, he had been selected for the grade of Lieutenant Commander. Their untimely deaths should prompt us all to take a moment to reflect on the sacrifices that they and thousands of others have made to keep this Nation safe and free. We should also take this time to re- evaluate the benefits for our troops and their families. It is easy for us to take the military for granted in this time of relative peace and prosperity. But the crash at Pax River should remind us that what our military does each and every day is still dangerous. Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues in the House to join me in expressing our sincere condolences to the families of these two proud Americans who have sacrificed their lives for their Country. We should all pause to reflect on the loss of these two distinguished individuals who were being trained as test pilots, an occupation that directly benefits the safety and performance abilities of aircraft weapons systems. I also would ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing the men and women who are left behind at the Test Pilot School to carry on the proud mission of this small elite program which has produced so many American heroes, both the famous, including John Glenn, dozens of Space Shuttle astronauts, and the unsung heroes who quietly dedicate their careers to pushing the technology envelope for aviation systems. Past and present members of the U.S. Armed Forces deserve to have our full and continued support and we should not wait for another tragedy like the one at Pax River, to remind ourselves that our troops are in danger on a daily basis, whether in harm's way or preparing to go into conflict. The men and women of our armed services are defending this nation so that we may go about our daily lives feeling safe and protected. I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues in the Congress to ensure that we provide them with the latest and best weapons systems available and that we continue to recognize their hard work and honor the sacrifices they make on a daily basis.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, this is a bad proposal. It is not entitled ``supply side economics,'' it is not entitled ``voodoo economics,'' however, this tax bill we are debating today and its reckless siblings threaten to pull the plug on our unprecedented prosperity and plunge us right back into the dark days of budget deficits. Even worse, this bill today is a direct threat to the Medicare Trust Fund. To the extent we take funds out of the general fund, they are funds we cannot use to pay down the debt. And to the extent that our extrinsic debt does not go down, our intrinsic debt is tougher. Over the next 10 years, it will drain $117 billion from Medicare. Hear me now: This bill would drain over the next 10 years $117 billion from Medicare. Whatever shell game my colleagues may argue, those are the facts. Every Member of this House knows the real danger of this bill becomes clear when it is added to the tax cuts we have already passed: $900 billion plus. My colleagues, be fiscally responsible, protect Medicare, and vote against this bill.