John Linder

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Smith].

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds. Mr. Speaker, I would point out that unlike 1984 when Speaker Wright brought a $1.3 trillion budget to the floor with 1 hour's notice, not even letting the Committee on Rules see it, everybody in America could have read this. The full text of this budget is on the Internet, Speakernews.house.gov. Speakernews is one word. The Members can do it on the Democratic side even as we speak.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 201 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose 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 201 waives clause 4(b) of rule XI, requiring a two-thirds vote to consider a rule on the same day as it is reported from the Committee on Rules, providing for consideration of specified measures. Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 201 applies to rules for the conference report on H.R. 2015, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, an amendment thereto, a conference report thereon, or an amendment reported in disagreement from a conference thereon reported before August 3, 1997. In addition, the resolution also applies to rules for the conference report on H.R. 2014, the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, an amendment thereto, a conference report thereon, or an amendment reported in disagreement from a conference thereon reported after July 30, 1997, and before August 3, 1997. As Members are aware, House rules require a two-thirds vote to consider a rule on the same day it is reported from the Committee on Rules. In order to expedite consideration of this historic spending and tax cut package that will balance the budget, the Committee on Rules granted a rule that will waive the two-thirds vote requirement for another rule on the spending cut portion of the budget agreement for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. The rule would further waive the two-thirds vote requirement for a rule on the tax component for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Mr. Speaker, the House wants to see the spending cuts conference report on the floor today and the tax cut conference report on the floor tomorrow. We have waited since 1969 for legislation that will bring our Federal budget into balance, and this resolution will help assure that we achieve this goal. The authority granted by this resolution will allow us the flexibility to get the important job done before the August district work period and respond to any changes the other body may make to the legislation through the Byrd rule. Mr. Speaker, this rule allows us to consider a budget that is a victory for American families and smaller government. It is a budget that will provide this Nation with its first balanced budget in 30 years. For decades, Congress proved that it could not restrain itself from spending more money than the Treasury collected in revenues. Past Congresses actually managed to spend all revenues and then some. A new majority arrived in Congress in January 1995 that understand that the solution to our budget woes would be found in controlling spending. When the new Congress arrived, the deficit was $164 billion. In fiscal year 1996, it dropped to $107 billion. It will be approximately $67 billion by the end of fiscal year 1997. There was a report recently that the revenue estimates coming in August may make it even less than that. There was a chronic growth of Government for decades, but we have been reducing the size of Government constantly. We all know that these significant achievements would have been absolutely unthinkable only 3 years ago. With the help of this rule, we will fulfill our promise to the American people to balance the budget by cutting wasteful Government spending, preserve, protect, and strengthen Medicare, and produce real tax relief for middle-class families. House Resolution 202 was favorably reported out of the Committee on Rules yesterday. I urge my colleagues to support the resolution so that we may proceed with debate and consideration of a historic budget that has less Government, less taxes, and more freedom for Americans to spend their money how they see fit. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I am just shocked that this is the first time this has ever happened. I have been here 5 years, and it never happened before when the Democrats were in charge. We will try to make that better for the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Moakley]. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Ganske].

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I am entertained by the crocodile tears that I hear about the length of time not to read the bill when everybody knows they would not have read it anyway. I believe it was in 1984 when Speaker Wright brought a $1.3 trillion budget to the floor with 1 hour notice and even the Committee on Rules did not see it. Let me tell my colleagues what is in this bill. A significant part of the problem with large Government programs has been the Soviet-style administration of them, the central command economy that decides on high what a doctor should earn, what a hospital visit should pay for. And over time, these all become absolutely rife with fraud. We just learned 2 weeks ago that an audit of the Health Care Financing Administration shows that about $23 billion a year is wasted in fraud, overpayment, and misuse. The records are in such disarray that we do not even know at the Federal level who is overpaid and how to recover it, and indeed we discovered in that audit that many people were writing checks or signing checks for the Health Care Financing Administration of the Federal Government without the legal authority to do so. This bill begins to crack down on that fraud. That $23 billion per year over 5 years is exactly how much we are reducing the rate of growth in the increase in spending of Medicare and it is taken out by just fraud and abuse. We heard last week that in administering home health care across this country, roughly 40 percent could be fraud. As much as 40 percent is going to people who are not in homes, being treated for home health care, not unable to leave their homes. Going to the prospective payment system is going to eliminate the incentive to do that. We are going to change the way we deliver these services so that we have less incentive to cheat and more incentive to save. The ability to provide not the $500 child tax credit to low-income working families, that only goes to people who have actual obligations to the Federal Government, but by changing the way in which we provide the formula for the earned income credit, after having learned that 21 percent of the money being spent in the earned income credit is fraudulent; by changing the formulas, the administration and the White House has decided that they can find ways to save $4.5 billion in that program and use that to enhance their earned income credit for low- income working people to replace what the $500-per-child tax credit does for higher earning families. By changing the model, the structure of the delivery of these services from the large Federal command-style bureaucracies, so well known by the Soviet Union that we seem to have adopted here, and getting out the fraud and abuse, we are confident that we can save hundreds of billions of dollars over time and provide better services with the money we are spending. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let me point out that the White House, the conferees have read every word, every summary, every piece of it. And every bill that comes through here we have to trust the folks on the committee or on the conference report to give us the best advice. They have done that. We have got some of the most distinguished Democrats in this House who have signed onto this bill. They know what is in it. We have been debating some of these issues for 3 and 4 years. This is a specious argument to try and delay the action on a very good bill. Most of the arguments against the process have come from the most liberal Members who do not like the bill. I think that is curious. Let me say, this is a rule that we have used in the past under Democrats and Republicans. It is a rule that should be supported as well as the bills. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution. The SPEAKER pro tempore [Mr. Gibbons]. The question is on ordering the previous question.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California [Mr. Dreier], my colleague on the Committee on Rules.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, this is fun. We have just agreed to the largest new budget proposal in generations, a balanced budget, tax cuts for everyone in America, and they want to change the subject to campaign finance reform. The fact of the matter is both sides do not do it, the only side accused of taking illegal foreign contributions are the Democrats. The fact of the matter is, when Bob Dole accepted $75 million of taxpayers' money to run the Presidential campaign, that is all he spent. It was the President that took $75 million and then spent $40 million more illegally. They are not arguing with that. They want to say the system is broken because everyone does it. That is not the evidence. That is not the evidence before the Thompson committee. But if I were in as deep a trouble as they are with respect to cheating on the current laws, I would want to change the laws too.

Mr. LINDER

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.

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

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Goss], a colleague on the committee. (Mr. GOSS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose 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 184 is an open rule providing for consideration of H.R. 2158, the VA, HUD and Independent Agencies Appropriations bill for fiscal year 1998. The rule waives points of order against consideration of the bill for failure to comply with clause 2(1)(6) of rule XI related to the 3-day availability of the report, clause 7 of rule XXI related to the 3-day availability of printed hearings on appropriations bills, or section 306 of the Budget Act related to the prohibition on including matters within the jurisdiction of the Committee on the Budget in a measure not reported by it. I assure the House that this is a technical violation and not a substantive budget violation. House Resolution 184 provides for one hour of general debate divided equally between the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations. The rule waives points of order against provisions in the bill for failure to comply with clause 2 and clause 6 of rule XXI, except as specified in the rule. The rule also waives all points of order against the amendments printed in the Committee on Rules report which may, one, only be offered by a Member designated in the report and only at the appropriate point in the reading of the bill; two, shall be considered as read; and, three, shall not be subject to further amendment or to a demand for a division in the House. This rule also continues to implement two approaches that have been used effectively in recent Congresses by according priority in recognition to Members who have preprinted their amendments in the Congressional Record and allowing the chairman to postpone recorded votes and reduce to 5 minutes the voting time on any postponed question, provided that voting time on the first in any series of questions is not less than 15 minutes. These provisions will facilitate consideration of amendments and guarantee the timely completion of the appropriations bills. House Resolution 184 also provides for one motion to recommit, with or without instructions. I mentioned earlier that there are a few exceptions to the waiver of clause 2 of rule XXI specified in the rule. I want to briefly describe those exceptions at this time. First, the Committee on Rules has left exposed two provisions objected to by the Committee on Banking and Financial Services, one related to a program under the Community Development Block Grant Program for supportive services, and the other relating to an expansion of the secondary market for nonconforming home mortgage loans under the HOME program. In addition, the Committee on Science objected to a provision relating to $35 million in funds being transferred from the EPA to the NIH, and the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure objected to a provision related to the implementation of comprehensive conservation and management plans. Each of these provisions has been exposed to a point of order under House Resolution 184. Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 184 is an open rule providing Members with every opportunity to amend this appropriations bill. As I stated earlier, the Committee on Rules has also made in order two amendments to be offered by the chairman of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Shuster], and the chairman of the Committee on Rules, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon]. I will leave it to those Members to fully explain the substance of their amendments. H.R. 2158 appropriates a total of $70.1 billion for fiscal year 1998, and I want to mention a number of important provisions in this bill. First, regarding appropriations for our veterans, this country has a commitment to our men and women in uniform, and we as Americans owe those dedicated men and women a debt of gratitude. This bill will meet our obligation to our veterans by providing $40.4 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs, $21.7 billion for the Veterans Benefits Administration compensation and pensions, $17.5 billion for the Veterans Health Administration medical care, and $267 million for veterans medical and prosthetic research. It is important to note that these are increases above the fiscal year 1997 appropriations. I also believe our space program has been sufficiently funded this bill. We have all been captivated in the past few weeks by the images broadcast back to us from the planet Mars by the Pathfinder mission via NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. I am pleased that H.R. 258 provides $13.6 billion for NASA, which is $148 million more than the President requested. The Committee on Appropriations has once again had to balance a wide array of interests, and as we work to get our fiscal house in order, we must ensure that all funding is spent efficiently and where it is needed most. This bill achieves this goal. I want to commend the chairman, the gentleman from California [Mr. Lewis] and the ranking member, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Stokes] for the bipartisan manner in which they constructed this appropriations bill. H.R. 2158 was favorably reported out of the Committee on Appropriations, as was the open rule by the Committee on Rules. I urge my colleagues to support the rule so that we may proceed with general debate and consideration of the merits of this very important bill. 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 184 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. This whole discussion has sort of an Alice in Wonderland quality about it. We are talking as though hard working American citizens are being denied basic rights of employment. These are welfare recipients. These are people who have been on welfare for 2 years and did not get a job after 2 years, as the welfare reform requires. So they are doing 20 hours a week of public service. They are getting $8.50 to $9 an hour in cash and noncash welfare benefits without working for it, and they are providing 20 hours a week of public service because they did not get a job as the law requires. Now they want to require, in addition, they get minimum wages on top of that. For that, they get all the protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act, so they could possibly maybe get unemployment benefits, too, when they quit the job, and all the other benefits that accrue to people who go out and work for a living, find a job and support their family the way the rest of America does. It is dishonest, it seems to me, or at least misleading to try and convince America that these are hardworking people just trying to raise their families when in fact they are welfare recipients, getting $8.50 to $9 an hour in benefits from the taxpayers already, who now want to be paid for public service because they refuse to go to work.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. They must be on this subject, or they would be out of order?

Mr. LINDER. On the subject of the resolution.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, if those extensions of remarks on this debate are admitted to the Record, must they be on the subject which is the resolution under consideration, or can they be on the tax bill?

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that if an electronic vote on House Concurrent Resolution 108 occurs immediately after an electronic vote on another question, then the minimum time for that electronic vote on agreeing to the concurrent resolution may be 5 minutes.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. The people watching this on C-SPAN must be thoroughly confused by now, because according to the comments from the other side, virtually everybody in America is wealthy. They have been quoting all day Citizens for Tax Justice, a so-called nonpartisan think tank which is in fact connected to Ralph Nader. The American people ought to know that. The fact of the matter is the Heritage Foundation and other studies such as the Tax Foundation have said that the Republican plan covers 11 more, 11 million, the Republican plan covers 11 million more children than the President's plan. Indeed, the gentleman from California [Mr. Miller] has been concerned about the children being excluded. The Republican plan in his own district covers 24,735 more children than the President's plan. The President and the Treasury Department have been simply unfair to this debate because they recalculated wealth. And in fact they included in your income to consider how wealthy you are such items as employer costs such as payroll taxes, fringe benefits, and pensions. Their proposal says that those people must consider that as their income, even though they do not get it, and goes so far as to say that if they could rent their home out, the home they are living in and buying, that 10,000 a year must be considered income also. Under their calculation of income and who is wealthy, 2.4 million elementary and high school teachers, over half of the teachers in this Nation are considered under their standards rich; 1 out of every 10 union members, 1.7 million of them, under their standards are rich; 8.1 million Federal, State, and local government workers under their measurement are rich. The honest deduction is this, the Joint Committee on Taxation has made it very clear, 93 percent of the benefits go to families with incomes under $100,000. Indeed the largest part of this package is the child tax credit, the single largest part of the benefit is the child tax credit and that is capped at $110,000 for couples also and $55,000 for singles. So this is a fair plan. It is fair for all. For the rest of this day, those of you watching this debate are going to hear the same class warfare, the same argument that the rich are benefiting when in fact the Joint Committee on Taxation makes it clear that 76 percent goes to people with family incomes less than $75,000 a year. They are going to be very surprised to discover how wealthy they are tonight. But when we pass this we will have for the first time in 16 years provided decent, honest, and across-the-board tax relief for all Americans at every stage in life. Mr. Speaker, I move the previous question on the resolution. The previous question was ordered.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. Dreier].

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Norwood].

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon].

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my colleague, the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Norwood].