John Linder

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I think, first of all, it is important to set the differences in how we got here. There has been one difference in the two parties since the day I got here, which was in 1993, and the gentleman from California (Mr. Horn) joined us at that time, and that is the Democrats want more spending and the Republicans want less spending. Indeed, that was the debate supposedly that shut the government down in 1995 and 1996. The President said we are not spending enough money on Medicare, Medicaid, the environment and education. Indeed, we were not that far apart. We projected increasing spending by 3 percent, and he wanted 4 percent. We projected an increase in revenues of 5 percent; the President projected 5\1/2\. We projected increasing Medicare spending over 7 years by 62 percent; the President said 64 percent. We broke down in the second part of this debate, the part that is not spoken so loudly about, values. We wanted the American people to make the choices. We believed their giving Medicare recipients more choices, they would shop their care and bring down costs that entrusts the American people to decide. Indeed, Mrs. Clinton said in public during the debate on health care we cannot trust the American people to make these decisions. In 1994 with a Republican majority for the first time in 40 years, we did something about spending. We eliminated in that first budget about 300 spending programs, and we had a huge fight with the President. But let us look at what changed in the economy and why we are at the point today where we can talk about paying down surpluses. If left to their own devices, this is the 1994 Clinton-Gore Democrat congressional budget, projected out to 2000, and they would have had $4.5 trillion in public debt, about a trillion dollars in new public debt compared to where we are today. Mr. Speaker, my colleagues can see what happened in 1994, with the 1995 budget, it came down. This is what we are looking at; this is what we are looking at today. Surpluses, as the gentleman said, as far as the eye can see and increasing, indeed going back to the last Democrat- written budget, their projection for 2005 is that they would add about $450 billion in that 1 year to debt; we are projecting adding about $400 billion to surpluses. So we have made a huge turnaround, a huge turnaround. In 1998 more spending. In the President's State of the Union address, 85 new spending programs, including 39 new entitlements, more than $150 billion new spending over 5 years; $129 billion in tax increases. Then 2 years later, the State of the Union, a $250 billion increase in taxes and fees on working families, 84 new Federal spending programs. Our good fortune is, none of that passed, and now we are at the era of dealing with surpluses. There have been some proposals, and we have passed some bills in this House, that said if the American people are paying more money into government than it takes to run it, they ought to get some of that back. No, said Vice President Gore, that is a risky scheme. It is, however, not risky for him to spend it, so we have a new plan. We have a plan, if we are not going to get relief for those who pay the bills, for those who write the checks, we are going to promote economic security and fiscal responsibility, we call it the 90 percent solution. Let us take 90 percent of next year's Federal budget surplus and use it to pay off debt while protecting 100 percent of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. We presented the 90 percent plan to the Clinton-Gore administration. The President indicated that his spending requests were piling up, and he said, and I quote, ``whether we can do it this year or not depends on what the various spending commitments are.'' Our 90 percent solution represents a fair middle ground. It is offered in the hope that while we may not agree in all aspects of the budget, we can at least agree to do something about the debt. We leave still 10 percent of the surplus to boost our already substantial $600 billion commitment to our national priorities, such as education, defense and health research. Specifically, we will use half the money to strengthen education with the flexibility funding and support to give our children the best schools and to ensure that for success, schools must have accountability and will use the other half to grant some modest tax relief for working Americans. This turnaround since the gentleman's election has for the first time in 30 years actually paid down debt. After this year, we will have paid down nearly a half a trillion dollars in publicly held debt; that is progress. That is a beginning. Let us do not turn it around now. I think that the 90 percent solution is something that the American people will appreciate. For years, my generation and my parents' generation have voted for ourselves wonderful programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. Unfortunately, we just chose to pass the bill on to future generations, that is immoral. The 90 percent solution will begin to take the burden off my grandchildren.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I agree that the point the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss) made about preserving and protecting the Social Security and Medicare are important. But I want to go back to the point that we have got the chance to pay down the debt, and we have got a significant budget surplus this year with which to do so. There are rumors around this town that the President is not going to sign our appropriations bills, not going to finish the year unless we spend anywhere from $20 billion to $45 billion more in ongoing spending in programs of his choice. If my colleagues will recall, in 1996 it cost us $7 billion in yielding to the President to get him to sign our budget so we could get out of town; in 1998, he held us up for $20.8 billion in more spending just to get the budget process finished; and, of course, those were $7 billion and $20.8 billion that we could have used to further reduce the debt on our grandchildren and their children. I always thought it was kind of strange that the President held a press conference after he signed that ugly budget in 1998 and said, ``The best news is I didn't let them spend one penny out of the Social Security surplus.'' When in fact, of course, we spent $20.8 billion of it. Not one reporter asked him a question about that, but everyone in this town knew that we were going into the Social Security surplus just to satisfy his spending appetites and so we could get out of town. I wish what we would have done some time ago is put a line item in our budgets from day one so that any money not committed to spending programs would be in a line item. That way, when the President comes through at the end of the year he has to say I want to spend this much more money; and we are going to say it is going to come out of retiring the debt because we ought to have a line item in our budgets that is for our children and grandchildren and their children, to get this mortgage of their future off their back, so they can choose their priorities for their lives and the government that they support and not continue to be paying off ours. So the 90-10 deal is a deal the American people ought to embrace. They ought to understand when the President says that we have to spend another $20 billion that it is coming directly out of retiring the debt, directly out of our grandchildren's futures. And once we establish this goal, it seems to me, over this Congress and future Congresses, we can set the pattern just like we have set the pattern of not spending the Social Security reserves, and I do believe this will be a better country for it.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moran).

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) for the purpose of a response.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, not being on the Committee on Appropriations, I am certain that, when that bill gets to the floor and into debate, they can explain that to the gentleman.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, we would very much like to do that. But if 41 of the Democrats on the other side of the Capitol determine to filibuster, they can stop anything from happening. As the gentleman knows, they have to have 60 votes in that body. They are determined not to let anything move at all, not even to let them bring it up without all kinds of amendments that are not germane to the process, which, in a body that has only two rules, unanimous consent and exhaustion, they can put anything on a bill. So they are slowing it down. The fact of the matter is that this House has voted to pass all three of these provisions before. These provisions are before us again today. We are trying to get these passed and out of these bodies so that the President can veto them, because we expect that he will. Then we will be back in September dealing with the differences. It would be easier if they would engage us today and help us with these differences today and move forward with the process. So I would say to my colleagues that this rule, while cumbersome, not pretty, is a rule that gets the process moving. It is not new to us. We remember when Speaker Wright did this some years ago. But it does get the process moving. Let us get to the debate on the bills, the substance of the bills. Let us move this process. And let us get out of town for our district work period knowing that we passed, if not all of them, all but maybe one of them, hopefully all of them, before August, something that has not been done in modern times. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution. The previous question was ordered. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

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

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe), for him to respond.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Treasury, Postal Service, and General Government.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost), 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, H. Res. 565 is a rule providing for consideration of H.R. 4516, the conference report for the Legislative Branch Appropriations bill for fiscal year 2001. The rule waives all points of order against the conference report and its consideration and provides that the conference report shall be considered as read. House rules provide 1 hour of general debate divided equally between the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations and one motion to recommit, with or without instructions, as is the right of the minority members of the House. There are many important provisions of this legislation and I want to briefly discuss the conference report that this rule makes in order. Regarding the Legislative Branch Appropriations, this bill continues our efforts since the 104th Congress to downsize the legislative branch of government. This bill before us today offers additional proof of our commitment to fiscal responsibility and this bill has overwhelming support. In fact, the Legislative Branch Appropriations bill passed the House only 1 month ago on June 22 by a 373 to 50 vote. Mr. Speaker, this conference report also includes funding for the Department of Treasury and general government appropriations. These appropriations fund many national priorities such as enhancing law enforcement, school violence prevention, combatting international child pornography trafficking, and enforcement of our existing gun laws. The Treasury Postal Appropriations bill passed the House last week, and I commend the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) for his hard work on this bill. I want to comment on the inclusion in this conference report of the repeal of the telecommunications tax of 1898. I am very pleased that this conference report eliminates the telecommunications tax, a tax that is currently limiting the opportunities of lower- and middle- income Americans to have affordable access to the information superhighway. This is just one more tax that makes it cost prohibitive for lower- income Americans to go online, and I support the inclusion of this provision in this conference report. The foolish and shortsighted tax policies of the 101st Congress should be stopped as soon as possible. That was the Congress that made that tax permanent that was originally imposed in 1898. This conference report gives us the opportunity to advance this common sense telecom tax repeal. There is no reason to delay sending this to the President as soon as possible. Mr. Speaker, I would like to close by noting that only 60 days ago, on March 25, this House passed the repeal of the telecommunications tax by a vote of 420 to 2. This rule was favorably reported by the Committee on Rules. I urge my colleagues to support the rule today on the floor so we may proceed with the general debate in consideration of this very important conference report. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 565 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, a couple of days ago I was talking with a gentleman from the other side of the Capitol about the appropriation process, and he said that he was deeply involved in the Foreign Ops appropriations bill and that the Members on both sides had agreed on all the differences from the House to the Senate on Foreign Ops. However, he could not get any Members on the minority party or the White House to meet with them. They refused to meet, including the White House. Because they have this strategy to drag it out, stretch it out, do not agree to anything, complain about everything; and then one day, as the Majority Whip said, we will be here in October with a huge appropriations bill that will take in several of these 13 appropriations bills and they will get to spend more money. We heard that throughout this process on 13 bills that we are not spending enough.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, yield 1 minute to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Sanford).

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

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I think I made my point, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, perhaps one, perhaps two; but right now I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would point out that there is a compromise in the works on the Cuban language, language that I joined the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Moakley) in supporting and that will, I presume, be on the agricultural bill. He can rest assured that this will be taken care of on the floor.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the majority whip.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions) for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I do not expect to convince the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kanjorski) what the truth is about the notch. We all hear about it all every time we do town hall meetings, and we hear about it just after some organization in this town that is raising money that sends letters to everyone born between the years of 1917 and 1921 is saying you are being deprived of your due benefit, if you will send me $10, I will fix it. Mr. Speaker, I have been here for 7\1/2\ years and not one of those organizations has appealed to me to fix it. So I decided to find out what it really was. In 1972, Wilbur Mills is running for President, and he promised to increase the benefits on Social Security by 20 percent. His presidency went down in the Tidal Basin, and Nixon picked it up and he promised it, and they had a huge adjustment in 1972. They started with people born in 1910 because they were 62 years old and eligible that year for the benefit. In 1977, they discovered they made a huge mistake. They made a calculation error that was going to bankrupt Social Security, and they had to crank it back to an honest formula. They decided to leave people born between the ages of 1910 and 1916 alone, and those born from 1917 to 1921, 5 years, 1917, 1918, 1919, 1920, 1921, were rolled back a little bit each year for 5 years until they got fairly close to what should have been the right formula, and then they were on the cost-of-living adjustments, the COLAS, for thereafter. The fact is, that group of people called the notch babies, my mother is one, get a higher benefit, compared to what they paid in under the formula, than those born after them, it is not that they get less. It is that they get more, but they do not get as much as the error made for those born between the ages of 1910 and 1916. It was a bank error in their favor, and they kept the cash. So any time you hear somebody stand up and talk about the notch babies, understand one thing, that a fund-raising operation in Washington, D.C. looking for high salaries for its managers has just sent out a scary letter to those born in those areas and looking for money to pay their salaries, never do they come to us, never has one single person come to our office and said help us fix the notch. It does not exist, and the demagoguery we just heard on this issue is an example of scariness.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to take a moment to point out to my colleague from Texas that no Democrat submitted a request for a waiver on amendment. The ones that were denied were only Republican amendments. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he might consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham).