John Linder

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purposes of debate only. Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 137 is a conventional rule providing for consideration of the conference report for H. Con. Res. 68, the budget resolution for fiscal year 2000. H. Res. 137 waives all points of order against the conference report to accompany H. Con. Res. 68 and against its consideration. The rule provides that the conference report is considered as read. The rule further provides for 1 hour of general debate on the conference report, equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on the Budget. Mr. Speaker, the deadline for passing the budget is this week, and I am pleased the House will pass the budget resolution on time. In fact, when the budget resolution is adopted by the House and Senate by Thursday, it will be only the second time in 25 years that the U.S. Congress has met the statutory deadline. As we promised, this Congress has quietly been a workhorse, going about its legislative work in a businesslike manner that we planned at the beginning of the new year. I am not only pleased we have completed this budget resolution in a timely manner, but I am delighted this budget reaffirms our support for less government and more freedom for the American people. Like the first debate on the budget, I expect today's debate will also center upon the differences between the parties and the role of the Federal Government, and I welcome that debate. Mr. Speaker, the conference report is very similar to the budget passed by the House in March. Our budget saves Social Security by ensuring that 100 percent of the money from payroll taxes destined for the Social Security Trust Fund remains in the trust fund. That is $1.8 trillion over the next decade for retirement security. Our budget strengthens Social Security and ensures that big spenders can no longer raid the fund to pay for their big government spending programs. Mr. Speaker, after saving Social Security and Medicare, the real question is what do we do with the remainder of the surplus. The Congress says give it back. When previous Congresses could not figure out how to run the government, they turned to the American people for more taxes. Now that we have a surplus, the big spenders do not want to give the people a refund. They want to spend it on new, wasteful, bureaucratic programs. A few months ago, we received a preview of this debate when the President stated, ``We could give it all back to you and hope you spend it right.'' But the President then preceded to explain that he really should not give back the surplus because Federal Government bureaucrats could make wiser choices with the American people's paychecks than they could. That is the ideological choice we will deal with today. Our budget is designed to provide more freedom and power to the American people. The President's budget was designed to keep the taxpayers' money controlled in this town. We simply believe that individuals make much better choices about their lives than bureaucrats do. The President's budget suggests that the government can make wiser choices with the paychecks of the American workers. Today in America, Federal tax revenues comprise a record percentage of gross domestic product. The President responded to the growing tax burden by saying, ``Fifteen years from now, if the Congress wants to give more tax relief, let them do it.'' I have talked to many of my constituents and most of them were not enthusiastic about waiting until the year 2014 to get a tax refund. Therefore, this budget reaffirms our belief that the people know best how to spend their own money and, therefore, we provide the American people with serious tax relief now. It should be noted that despite the President's rhetoric, his budget would have cut Medicare $11.9 billion over 5 years. The Republican budget rejects the President's Medicare cuts. Even the President's own Comptroller General, David Walker, has criticized the Clinton Medicare proposal for essentially doing nothing to alter the imbalance between the program's receipts and benefits payments. The President's cut in Medicare and his fiscal shell games would have endangered the quality of our seniors' health care. Conversely, our budget locks away all of the Social Security Trust Fund surpluses for the Nation's elderly to save, strengthen and preserve Social Security and Medicare. This budget continues our determined effort to provide more security, more freedom and less government to the American people. The House budget is a common sense plan to provide security for the American people by preserving every penny of the Social Security surplus, return overtaxed paychecks to those who earned it, pay down the national debt, rebuild the national defense, and improve our public schools. Mr. Speaker, for too long this Nation put too much trust in government rules and decision-making. Ronald Reagan argued that we should trust the people because, ``Whenever they are allowed to create and build, whenever they are given a personal stake in deciding economic policies and benefiting from their success, then societies become more dynamic, prosperous, progressive, and free.'' This budget resolution is written in such a way to provide that freedom to the American families and communities by returning power, money and control back to them. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the rule so that we may complete consideration of this historic budget resolution. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Staten Island, New York (Mr. Fossella). (Mr. FOSSELLA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 137 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote on the rule and the budget. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution. The previous question was ordered.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 472, the Local Census Quality Check Act. This legislation is a key element of our commitment to assure that every single American is counted in the year 2000 census. Post-census local review gives officials in every city, county, township and village the opportunity to review the initial results before they become official. This only makes sense. These officials approved the new subdivision that is not on the map. They know the places that mailed forms or a manual count would not reach. They are the best editors that the Census Bureau could ever ask for. This bill empowers them to speak out for their local citizens and prevent mistakes before they occur. Some of my colleagues across the aisle have argued that local officials are already being consulted. I support those efforts, too. But today less than half of the Nation's local governments have participated in the precensus programs. Unfortunately, some are using this important legislation to fight old battles that were resolved by the Supreme Court earlier this year. As much as my colleagues across the aisle may disagree, this debate is not about sampling, it is about getting it right the first time. The National League of Cities, the National Association of Towns and Townships, the National Association of Developmental Organizations have asked Congress for this legislation, to be an opportunity to be a partner with the Census Bureau. I urge us all to support this and make sure that the first check of our census occurs on Main Street, not Pennsylvania Avenue. I must ask the question, what are we trying to hide? What are we trying to slide by? We do not want them participating? This administration cheated with the INS for political purposes in the last election by registering a million new citizens before they had background checks. I would not put it past them to use this method to statistically sample, to manipulate the numbers. What are you trying to hide?

Mr. LINDER

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

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 131 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. I predicted in the Committee on Rules meeting yesterday that the Democrats would trot out the veterans one more time and use them as a pawn in a political battle to try and force a vote. It is even more clear that they are pawns when we see that six people who spoke on behalf of the veterans today, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Gutierrez), the gentleman from California (Mr. Filner), the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior), the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Evans) and the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Brown) are all members of the Progressive Caucus which has put its own budget forth in which they are cutting defense spending by nearly $220 billion over 5 years. In a time when 11,000 military families are on food stamps, they want to cut funding for the military even further, it seems that they are far more concerned about using the veterans as a political pawn than they are allowing our own active members of the military enough income to provide for food for their own families. This has been trotted out virtually every year that I have been here. I have said that they would use the veterans on a vote against the previous question. I urge all Members to vote in favor of the previous question, to vote for a rule that gives a fair opportunity to be heard on several Democrat alternatives to the Republican budget. Mr. Speaker, I include the following extraneous material for the Record: House of Representatives, Committee on Rules, Washington, DC, March 24, 1999. Hon. Denny Hastert, Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Mr. Speaker: As you know, H. Con. Res. 68, the Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for FY 2000, was filed by the Committee on the Budget on Tuesday, March 23. As reported, H. Con. Res. 68 contains matters within the jurisdiction of the Rules Committee. Specifically, Section 5 (the Safe Deposit Box for Social Security Surpluses), which establishes a point of order against consideration of a budget resolution, an amendment thereto or any conference report thereon which provides for a deficit in any fiscal year, falls solely within the jurisdiction of the Rules Committee. Although the Rules Committee has not sought to exercise its original jurisdiction prerogatives on this legislation pursuant to section 301(c) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, the Committee has discussed these provisions with the Budget Committee. It is the understanding of the Rules Committee that the Leadership has scheduled the resolution for floor consideration on Thursday, March 25. In recognition of these facts, I agree to waive the Rules Committee's jurisdiction over consideration of this legislation at this time. Nevertheless, I reserve the jurisdiction of the Rules Committee over all bills relating to the rules, joint rules and the order of business of the House, including any bills relating to the congressional budget process. Furthermore, it would be my intention to seek to have the Rules Committee represented on any conference committee on this concurrent resolution. Sincerely, David Dreier.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), the chairman of the Committee on Rules. (Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks, and include extraneous material.)

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions), a colleague on the Committee on Rules.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Pryce) a member of the Committee on Rules.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Weller).

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to point out that it was President Clinton who said on this floor in his first State of the Union that he wanted to use CBO numbers, much to the applause of all the Democrats in this Chamber. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss), a member of the Committee on Rules. (Mr. GOSS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out that President Clinton's budget was put on the Senate floor yesterday and defeated 97 to 2.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Moakley), 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, House Resolution 131 is a structured rule providing for consideration of H. Con. Res. 68, the budget resolution for fiscal year 2000. H. Res. 131 provides for three hours of general debate with two hours equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on the Budget, and one hour on economic goals and policies equally divided and controlled by the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Saxton) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Stark). The rule waives clause 4(a) of rule XIII requiring a 3-day layover of the committee report. The rule also considers the amendment printed in part one of the Committee on Rules report as adopted upon adoption of the rule. The rule also makes in order only those amendments printed in part 2 of the Committee on Rules report to be offered only in the order specified, only by the Member designated, debatable for 40 minutes equally divided and controlled by a proponent and an opponent, and shall not be subject to amendment. The rule waives all points of order against the amendments except that if an amendment in the nature of a substitute as adopted, it is not in order to consider further substitutes. This is a very important point, because Members need to know that there will not be any king of the hill or queen of the hill procedures used here today. There are no free votes. The rule also provides, upon the conclusion of consideration of the concurrent resolution for amendment, for a final period of general debate not to exceed 10 minutes equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on the Budget. The rule also provides and permits the chairman of the Committee on the Budget to offer amendments in the House to achieve mathematical consistency pursuant to section 305(a)(5) of the Budget Act. Finally, the rule suspends the application of House rule XXIII with respect to the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2000. Mr. Speaker, H. Res. 131 is a conventional rule for consideration of the budget resolution and provides for the consideration of a number of substitutes, including the Blue Dog budget offered by the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Minge), the Democratic substitute offered by the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), and President Clinton's budget. It strikes me as odd that the Committee on the Budget Democrats would not offer the President's budget for consideration, and that as a result, Members on our side of the aisle had to offer it to get it considered. Mr. Speaker, this budget takes advantage of this historic opportunity to save Social Security by ensuring that 100 percent of the money destined for the Social Security Trust Fund remains in the trust fund. That is $1.8 trillion over the next decade for retirement security. The President's plan only sets aside 62 percent of the funds destined for the Social Security Trust Fund, about $100 billion less than the Republican plan. Our budget strengthens Social Security and ensures that big spenders can no longer raid the fund to pay for their big government spending programs. Mr. Speaker, after saving Social Security and Medicare, the real question is, what should we do with the remainder of the surplus? We say, give it back. When previous Congresses could not figure out how to run the government, they turned to the American people for more taxes. Now that we have a surplus, the big spenders do not want to give the people a refund. They want to spend it on new, wasteful, bureaucratic programs. I welcome this debate because it will speak volumes about the differing opinions on the role of the Federal Government in the lives of the American people. A few months ago, we received a preview of this debate when the President said, and I quote, we could give it all back to you and hope you spend it right, closed quotes. But the President then proceeded to explain that he really should not give back the surplus because Federal Government bureaucrats could make wiser choices with your paychecks than you could. That is the ideological conflict we are dealing with today. Our budget is designed to provide more freedom and more power to the American people. The President's budget is designed to keep taxpayer money controlled inside of the Washington, D.C. bureaucracy. The Republican budget expands upon our efforts to provide every American with as much personal freedom and liberty as possible. We simply believe that individuals make much better choices about their lives than bureaucrats do. The President's position on taxes illustrates his belief that the government makes wiser choices with the paychecks of the American worker. In a budget that weighed 12 pounds and was 2,800 pages long, the Clinton budget did not contain any real tax cut. In fact, his budget proposal actually included billions of new taxes and fees. Today, your tax rate is about 2 percent lower than it was 2 years ago because Congress provided the first Federal tax cut in 16 years. Yet Federal tax revenues still comprise a record percentage of Gross Domestic Product. In fact, Americans pay more in taxes than for food, clothing and shelter combined. The President responded to this growing tax burden by stating, ``Fifteen years from now, if the Congress wants to give more tax relief, then let them do it.'' Well, if waiting until the year 2014 to get a tax refund does not appeal to people, they will be pleased to know that the Republican budget states that the surplus does not belong to government. The Republican budget will provide $800 billion in tax relief, including $10 billion to $15 billion in the first year. It is a reaffirmation of our belief that the American people know best how to spend their money. The President's budget, which the Democrats would not even offer today, spends $341 billion of the Social Security surplus over 10 years, it breaks the balanced budget caps, and proposes $30 billion more in outlays than allowed under the law in just the first year. It should be noted that despite the President's rhetoric, his budget actually cuts Medicare by $11.9 billion over 5 years. The Republican budget rejects the President's Medicare cuts, including those he proposed for certain prescription drugs. Even the President's own Comptroller General, David Walker, has criticized the Clinton Medicare proposal for essentially doing nothing to alter the imbalance between the program's receipts and benefits payments. The President's $11.9 billion cut in Medicare and his fiscal shell games are endangering the quality of our seniors' health care. Conversely, our budget locks away all of the Social Security trust fund surpluses for the Nation's elderly to save, strengthen and preserve Social Security and Medicare. This budget continues our determined efforts to provide more security, more freedom, and less government to the American people. In its entirety, our budget is a common sense plan to provide security for the American people by preserving every penny of the Social Security surplus, return overtaxed paychecks to those who earned it, pay down the national debt, rebuild our Nation's defense, and improve our public schools. Mr. Speaker, this Republican budget reaffirms our belief in the Ronald Reagan adage that it is not the function of government to bestow happiness upon us. Rather, it is the function of government to give the American people the opportunity to work out happiness for themselves. That is why this budget resolution is written in such a way to provide more freedom to American families and communities by returning money, power and control back to them. Mr. Speaker, this is a fair rule. I urge my colleagues to support it so that we may proceed with the general debate and consideration of this historic budget resolution and the substitute resolutions. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, testimony by the Congressional Budget Office Director confirms that President Clinton's budget blows the roof off the bipartisan spending caps of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. He stated that the President's budget will exceed those caps by $30 billion in the next fiscal year alone. The balanced budget agreement is under 2 years old, and the President simply cannot stop himself from spending more of one's money. We already know that the Clinton budget included $108 billion in new taxes and fees and not a dime of broad-based tax relief. On the spending side, we knew that the President proposed more than $200 billion in new domestic spending over the next 5 years, including nearly 40 new mandatory programs and almost 80 new discretionary programs. Worse yet, first he said all of the surplus should go to Social Security. Then he said 62 percent of the surplus should be saved for Social Security. Now it is clear that the President's proposal uses even the off-budget Social Security surpluses for new domestic spending programs. Mr. Speaker, we will pass a budget that provides more freedom to American families and, more importantly, will tell the truth to the American people about what is in it.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, we are going to bring our budget to the floor this week and it is going to be a great debate. And from what I am hearing from the other side, it is going to be entirely too partisan. You see, we want to save 100 percent of all the revenues into the Social Security Trust Fund for just Social Security. They want to save 62 percent. It would be bipartisan to agree with them. We want to keep within the spending caps of 1997. That is what gave us the revenue surpluses that we have, the discipline that we agreed to with the White House. What does the White House want to do in a bipartisan way? They want to spend $32 billion a year more than the caps. We want to provide tax cuts. That is a very partisan effort on our behalf. When the Democrats were last in control, in a very partisan way, they gave us the largest tax increase in history. We would like to have the largest tax cut in history. That would be partisan. We will save 100 percent of the Social Security Trust. And what is left over we want to give back to the American people. They want to spend it. That is the bipartisan thing to do. We will pass our budget. The Senate will agree. There will be a great debate. But when it is all over, they will know that Republicans are for less government and more freedom, the Democrats are just for more government.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, sometime during the year 2013, the funds we pay out to Social Security recipients are going to exceed the funds coming in to finance the system. Despite the White House war room rhetoric, the Clinton budget does nothing to save Social Security. If my colleagues do not believe me, they should listen to this. In February, David Walker, the Comptroller General of the United States, stated, and I quote, ``The President's proposal does not alter the projected cash flow imbalances in the Social Security program.'' It is true. The President's proposal does not save Social Security. The only way that Clinton's numbers add up is through a faulty double- counting scheme. This is not a Republican complaint. Some of Social Security's chief defenders, members of the President's party, have said that the President's approach is based largely on imaginative accounting. We do not need any more shell games and number schemes for Social Security. We just need a system that can ensure tomorrow's seniors that their savings will be there when they retire without government interference. We desperately need the President to be a leader on the tough issues. We cannot waste this historic opportunity to preserve the Nation's Social Security program. Unfortunately, the President's budget represents his typical rhetoric and sloganeering at its worst.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Diaz-Balart) for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H. Res. 103, the rule providing for consideration of the resolution regarding peacekeeping operations in Kosovo. This rule ensures a free and open debate and provides Members the opportunity to have their voices heard on this very important matter involving the lives of our troops. The modified open rule passed the House Committee on Rules and it did not provide any preferential waivers. It allows for all germane amendments and complies with the request of the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Gejdenson), who requested that all amendments be preprinted in the Congressional Record. The passage of this rule will, I admit, lead to a wide open discussion on a very public issue, with the prospect of counter argument and earnest debate. I welcome that debate and I expect it to be an extraordinary exchange of ideas and opinions. I will be honest in stating that I have grave reservations about the deployment of American troops in Kosovo, but I also do not see anything wrong with giving Members the opportunity to listen closely to the arguments on each side of the debate. Our allies, Great Britain and Germany, have deliberated and engaged in this debate already, and that leads us to the question underlying the rule we are discussing today: Should the United States House of Representatives have the opportunity to participate in the decision to deploy our troops in Kosovo and debate it today? My personal view is that it would be better if we did not. I would prefer that this resolution inform the President that we are unwilling to fund his adventurism without clear rules of engagement, exit strategies, specific goals and a budget. We have a constitutional responsibility to participate in decisions putting our troops in harm's way. I do believe that would better be the question before us. Having said that, I urge Members to support the fair rule that will initiate a full and open debate regarding the deployment of young Americans' lives in a dangerous foreign land.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that my name be removed as a cosponsor of H.R. 41, the Mass Immigration Reduction Act.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 77 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution. The previous question was ordered.