John Linder

Mr. LINDER

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

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to point out one more time, at the risk of sounding remedial, this will not bring a vote on this floor on the minimum wage. This will bring this rule immediately to the floor with the amendment that the minimum wage will be on it, and it will be struck on a point of order. 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 California [Mr. Dreier], my colleague on the Committee on Rules. (Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself a few seconds to instruct the gentlewoman from Texas. I hope not to sound remedial, but if we defeat the previous question, it comes immediately to the floor of the House. Whereupon, the proposed amendment would be stricken on a point of order because it is not germane. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I would say that the gentleman from Michigan's words have the quality of Alice in Wonderland, seeming to say when I use a word it means exactly what I want it to do. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, it might be pointed out that I did not make any of these claims. All these claims were made by college professors doing studies, including Ohio State, University of California, University of Georgia, University of Wisconsin. All of these are legitimate studies that are in the literature. For someone to stand there and say that there is no evidence that increasing the minimum wage increases unemployment is someone who has not looked at the record. In the 2-year period between 1973 and 1975, we increased the minimum wage 31 percent. Unemployment at the end was 73 percent worse off than before, from 4.9 percent to 8.5 percent. The period 1974 to 1976, when the minimum wage was increased 15 percent, unemployment went from 5.6 to 7.7 percent, 37 percent worse off. In the period between 1978 and 1980, we increased the minimum wage 17 percent, unemployment went from 6.1 to 7.1, 26 worse off. Between 1979 and 1981, we increased the minimum wage 16 percent, unemployment went from 5.8 percent to 7.6 percent, 31 percent worse off. 1989 to 1991, we increased the minimum wage by 27 percent, unemployment rate went from 5.3 to 6.7 percent, 26 percent worse off. And in four of those five occasions, four of those five occasions GDP growth was declining after the raise. To say that increasing the minimum wage has no impact on the economy is to say, then why be so cheesy, give them $20. Then every family will have about $40,000 a year. That it is not going to hurt anybody. Do not be so cheesy with $4.25. If it is not going to impact the economy, give them all a big raise. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let me just say, leave it to the Democrats to suggest that elected officials can give people raises. If they want to give these people a raise, hire them and put them on their payroll, and then they can pay them anything they would like. Of course 80 percent of America agrees other people should have raises, in the abstract. Ask the 250,000 people that the President's leading economic adviser says will lose their jobs over this how much they like it. Raising the minimum wage is income redistribution among poor people. For every four people who get a dollar raise, one person loses his job. I wanted to tell my colleagues some of the bad effects of the minimum wage. Studies by Professor Masanori Hashimoto of Ohio State and Llad Phillips of the University of California at Santa Barbara both show increases in the minimum wage increase teenage crime. A study of professor William Beranek of the University of Georgia found the minimum wage increases employment of illegal aliens. Research also shows the minimum wage increases welfare dependency. For example, a study by Peter Brandon of the University of Wisconsin found the average time on welfare among States that raised the minimum wage was 44 percent higher than States that did not. Economist Carlos Bonilla of the Employment Policies Institute found a dramatic example in California after the minimum wage rose from $3.35 to $4.25. After accounting for the phaseout of AFDC, Medicaid and food stamps. and for Federal, State and local taxes, a single parent earning a minimum wage after it was increased was $1,800 worse off per year than before. Finally, the latest research has shown increases in the minimum wage encourage high school students to drop out, enticed by the lure of higher pay, reducing their lifetime earnings and displacing lower skilled workers at the same time. The 22-percent increase in the minimum wage in 1976 added just $200 million to the aggregate income of those in the lowest 10 percent of income distribution. Only 22,000 men, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and 191,000 women nationwide maintained families on a minimum wage job in 1993. That will decline by 250,000 people in total after we raise it. Thirty-seven percent of minimum wage workers in 1995 were teenagers. Fifty-nine percent were 24 years old or younger. Seventeen percent of minimum wage workers are spouses and are likely to be secondary earners. Sixty-six percent of minimum wage workers work only part-time, including students, the elderly with pension or Social Security income, and people simply looking for a little extra cash. Employers also respond to this, because they are touched, really, by laying off people and cutting back on hours. This is one reason why it is difficult to find a bank teller or someone to wait on you at the local department store. Between 1963 and 1995, average weekly hours worked in retail trade, the industry most affected by the minimum wage, fell from 37.3 hours per week to 28.9, while hours worked in higher- paid industries basically unaffected by the minimum wage, such as mining and construction, increased. Mr. Speaker, this is politics and it is mean politics, using as pawns the very people they are purporting to help to make a political point to the rest of the world on a bill the subject of which is not even germane to. Mr. Speaker, let us move forward with germane discussion of this rule and the bill this rule applies to, and have a vote on the previous question as quickly as possible. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Glens Falls, NY [Mr. Solomon], the chairman of the committee.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Utah [Mr. Hansen]. (Mr. HANSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, further parliamentary inquiry. Could the Chair enlighten us as to the subject matter of the subject under debate?

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, under the House rule XIV, which requires that a Member must ``confine himself to the question under debate,'' is it relevant to the debate on either this rule or the bill it makes in order to engage in a discussion on the merits of the minimum wage?

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

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 303 is a completely open rule providing for the consideration of H.R. 1745, the Utah Public Lands Management Act of 1995. The rule provides for 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Resources Committee. The committee amendment in the nature of a substitute is made in order as base text for purposes of amendment under the 5-minute rule. The rule makes in order a manager's amendment by Chairman Young printed in the report on this rule, debatable for 10 minutes. If adopted, the manager's amendment becomes part of the base text for amendment purposes. As I mentioned earlier, this is a completely open rule permitting any Member to offer any germane amendment. Members who have preprinted their amendments in the Record may be given priority in recognition. Finally, the rule provides for one motion to recommit, with or without instruction. Mr. Speaker, we have called up this rule today, even though it was not scheduled for consideration this week, because the minority gave notice yesterday that it would otherwise call up this rule pursuant to clause 4(c) of rule 11 which permits any Rules Committee member to call up a rule after it has been pending on the calendar for more than 7 days. I don't think anyone seriously believes the minority is simply interested in considering the Utah wilderness bill. This is just one more attempt to circumvent, indeed violate two House rules for ulterior motives--and that is to defeat the previous question to offer a completely unrelated and nongermane amendment to this rule that would be ruled out of order on a point of order. Despite repeated warnings, the minority has persisted in violating House Rule 14 which requires Members to confine themselves to the question under consideration. And they have attempted to defeat the previous question on other rules to offer an amendment that would be in violation of clause 7 of rule 16, the germaneness rule--an amendment that would require the Rules Committee to report a rule on a bill completely unrelated to the subject matter of the rule. Rules Committee Chairman Solomon, in a letter to Ranking Minority Member Moakley, back on May 7, urged Mr. Moakley to join with him in helping to enforce House rules during consideration of special rules rather than violate House rules--specifically, clause 1 of rule 14 requiring that debate be relevant to the pending question, and clause 7 of rule 16 requiring that amendments be germane to the rules to which they are offered. Those pleas for cooperation and adherence to the rules have obviously gone unheeded and ignored. Mr. Speaker, while we are willing to continue the custom of granting half of our hour on debate on such rules to the minority, we would again caution and advise the minority to observe House rules on relevancy in debate and the germaneness rule on amendments to rules. I urge the adoption of the previous question and the rule. Mr. Speaker, I include the following letter for the Record: Committee on Rules, House of Representatives, Washington, DC, May 7, 1996. Hon. John Joseph Moakley, Ranking Minority Member, Committee on Rules, The Capitol, Washington, DC. Dear Joe: The Congressional Budget Office has been kind enough to provide me with copies of its responses to your inquiries on the last two efforts to defeat the previous question on rules to offer amendments directing the Rules Committee to report back minimum wage legislation. As CBO points out in both instances (on H. Res. 412 waiving the two-thirds vote requirement on same-day consideration of rules, and H. Res. 418, the U.S. Marshals Service Improvement Act), the proposed amendments to the rules would not constitute an unfunded mandate (being procedural in nature only), but the subsequent legislation they would direct be reported, ``would impose both an intergovernmental and private sector mandate as defined in Public Law 104-4.'' (Letters from CBO Director O'Neill to Rep. Moakley, April 25 and May 1, 1996). I appreciate your diligence in monitoring these potential rule violations so carefully. By the same token, however, I would respectfully ask you in the future to check with the Parliamentarian in advance on both the germaneness of such amendments to the pending rules and the relevancy of extended debate on this unrelated matter. Our own discussions with the Parliamentarian confirm that: (a) a discussion of the minimum wage was not relevant to either of the above cited rules and thus in violation of clause 1 of rule XIV (decorum in debate); and (2) the proposed amendments to the rules were not germane to the rules and thus in violation of clause 7 of rule XVI (germaneness). Given your earlier, extensive correspondence with me on the subjects of the minimum wage, unfunded mandates, and the need for a strict adherence to House Rules, I would ask that you in turn see to it that during House debate on special rules you and the speakers you yield to observe both of these important House rules by avoiding the use of irrelevant debate on nongermane amendments that would be rule out of order even if you defeated the previous question. As I suggested earlier, a simple check with the Parliamentarian, just as you check with CBO, would go a long way towards ensuring compliance with these two important House Rules on relevancy in debate and germaneness of amendments. I am sure you will agree with me that we do not set a good example for the House so long as we countenance such abuses of the fundamental rules of debate and amendment by mischaracterizing the previous question process and vote as something it is not. I look forward to working closely with you in the future to ensure full compliance with House rules during House consideration of our order of business resolutions. Sincerely, Gerald B. Solomon, Chairman. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, for the purposes of relevant 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 the resolution, all time yielded is for relevant debate purposes only. (Mr. LINDER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks and insert extraneous material.)

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 303 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. LINDER. Then I will close after the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Moakley].

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, let me conclude my remarks by reminding my colleagues that defeating the previous question is an exercise in futility because the minority wants to offer an amendment that will be ruled out of order as nongermane to this rule. So the vote is without substance. The previous question vote itself is simply a procedural motion to close debate on this rule and proceed to a vote on its adoption. The vote has no substantive or policy implications whatsoever. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record an explanation of the previous question.

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 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 30 seconds to point out that the way you increase the standard of living for low-income people is give them more take-home pay. The way you give them more take-home pay is to reduce the governmental burden and tax burden that they bear. Telling other people what they should pay their employees is simply not the way to run the Government. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas [Mr. Tiahrt].

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the following committees and their subcommittees be permitted to sit today while the House is meeting in the Committee of the Whole under the 5-minute rule: Committee on Agriculture, Committee on Commerce, Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, Committee on International Relations, Committee on the Judiciary, Committee on Resources, Committee on Science, Committee on Small Business, and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. It is my understanding that the minority has been consulted and that there is no objection to these requests.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, on the Sunday after Bob Dole's famous ``enough is enough'' speech on the floor of the Senate in December, a commentator said, ``At least there is one adult among them.'' The media enjoyed portraying the conflict on the budget as adolescent behavior when even they must know that we are engaged in the most profound political debate since 1932. It can be defined in a few words: ``Who decides--Washington or you?'' Do we continue 64 years of increasing the role of the Federal Government in making decisions on your behalf, or do we return to freedom and opportunity which made this the wealthiest, most generous nation in the history of the planet? Do we trust the bureaucrats and politicians, or do we trust you? The Clinton victory in 1992 was the culmination of the liberal dream. It is true that he ran as a ``New Democrat''. It is also true that he moved sharply to the left even before he was sworn in. A promise of a middle-class tax cut became the largest tax increase in history. Ending welfare as we know it turned out to be a Government job if no other job could be found. And health care reform ended up being the largest attempted takeover of the private economy in the history of the nation. And, of course, he led off with gays in the military. It is easy to see why that was not mentioned in the campaign. Does anyone believe that Clinton would have won in 1992 if he had campaigned on what he delivered? The Clinton philosophy was outlined best in a 1958 book entitled, ``The Affluent Society,'' by John Kenneth Galbraith. It essentially said that Americans do not make too little money, they make too much, but they make bad choices with their dollars. It is the obligation of an educated government to tax those dollars from them and make better choices on their behalf. If you look at the five major initiatives of the first two Clinton years--the budget, crime, welfare, education, and health care--all called for increasing taxes and increasing the numbers of decisions that would be made in Washington. It is important to point out here that the Clintons are sincere. They truly do want to shape a future for our children and grandchildren that is warm and safe and secure and fair. If you're curious about what that future would look like, read anything that has come out of the Children's Defense Fund over the last 20 years. Conservatives do not seek to shape the future because we do not know how. I could not satisfy 20 percent of the people in any given crowd. Each American looks to the future with different hopes and dreams and talents. I do know this, I could build a future that my daughter would love and my son would hate. So we want to leave your dollars in your pockets and you and 260 million other Americans, deciding on your own behalf hundreds of times a week, will shape the future. You will decide, not Washington. I do not have any idea what that future will look like but I will be right in there with you making my personal choices. Now you see how deep and fundamental are the differences. Who decides? This difference became crystal clear in the negotiations with the President over the budget. Frankly, we were not that far apart on the numbers. We want to increase spending 3 percent; the President wants to increase spending 4 percent. We want to assume a revenue increase of 5 percent; the President wants to assume a revenue increase of 5\1/2\ percent. We want to increase Medicare 62 percent over 7 years. The President wants to increase it 64 percent. Those are the differences on which the President has built his case that Republicans are proposing ``extreme'' cuts. That is not where the discussions broke down. They broke down because Senator Dole and Speaker Gingrich were not willing to compromise on our values. We believe that giving seniors more choices in Medicare will cause them to shop their health care for the best deal and that competition will bring down costs. Let me give you one example. One of the many meetings on transforming Medicare included Healthcare benefits managers. The John Deere Co. has formed its own health care company to control its costs. I asked the president of John Deere health care what it would cost the Federal Government if John Deere kept its retirees in their own health care system. He said $4,000 per year and he would make a profit off them. We are paying $5,200 this year per person. His offer amounted to a 25 percent savings. Why can we not get President Clinton to agree? because the liberals will not let him loosen the Federal grip on your choices. They feel that you make selfish decisions and that bureaucrats make fair decisions. Again, who decides? We also insisted that after spending $5.5 trillion in the war on poverty over the last 30 years, we lost the war. We want to return those Medicaid and welfare dollars to the State and local communities to aid the less fortunate. Again, the liberals cannot let loose of the Federal grip on those decisions. If they return decisions to individuals and communities the glue that holds the coalitions that comprise the Democrat Party dissolves. That glue is the power to decide for you. The level of invective aimed at efforts to reform the welfare state is noting short of astonishing. Governor Engler was accused in the press of causing people to commit suicide. We have been accused of starving children. And you will hear much more. In Thomas Sowell's new book ``The vision of the Anointed,'' You know who the anointed are, the sensitive, the caring, the compassionate, the thoughtful, Sowell notes how the critics of the ``anointed'', from Malthus to Burke to Hayek, always spoke generously of the motives of the left even while questioning their policies. Milton Friedman criticized the Great Society, but he always says it was born of noble intentions. However, the responses from the ``Anointed'' to their critics were always personal. The critics's motives were questioned. They were called mean-spirited, hard-hearted, and cruel. When Thomas Malthus criticized the vision of Godwin and Condorcet he said, ``I do not question their candor or their integrity. I question their politics.'' Godwin's response? A personal attack on Malthus, whom he called ``the malignant man''. John Lewis has equated Gingrich to Hitler and the Republicans in the House to Nazis. That was a new low for those who substitute name- calling for debate. Noting has changed in over 200 years. While attacking us on personal grounds it is increasingly clear that liberals have less interest in program beneficiaries than in the power to decide. That is what the anger is about: losing power. And they will stop at nothing to regain that power, including lying. G.K. Chesterton said, ``I believe in Liberalism today as much as I ever did. But, oh, there was a happy time when I believed in liberals.'' Oh, there was a happy time. It was the time between 1948 and 1968 when poverty dropped from 32 percent to 13 percent and black poverty from 90 percent to 32 percent. We witnessed the largest migration of blacks into management in the history of the country. In 1960 black illiteracy was 16 percent, and the black family was the most conservative, spiritual and family oriented segment of our society. Then the poverty programs kicked in. $5.5 trillion later the poverty rate is 14 percent in general, and among blacks 33 percent. Illiteracy among blacks is rising rapidly. Nearly 70 percent of black babies are born out of wedlock, and the black family is under serious assault. This is not to say that blacks are the problem. They are not. But in 1965, for the reasons we all know, a larger percentage of them were poor, and the Government helped them the most. I grew up in a small town in northern Minnesota near two Chippewa Indian reservations. The Indian children went to school with us. Every fifth-grade class had an Indian child at the top of the class. They did not graduate: teen age pregnancies, crime, alcohol, violence, no father, in the homes. For over a hundred years America rounded the Indians up onto reservations and bureaucrats told them where to go to school, which dentist and doctor to see, where to buy school clothes, and we paid the bill. The influence of the breadwinner was replaced by a bureaucrat with a Government check, and the breadwinner left. I am the only white man that ever played baseball with the Inger Indians. I was the catcher, and we had a pitcher on the team who had a curve ball that looked like it was coming at you from third base. He was offered a minor league contract that summer, but he didn't know if he should take it. I said, ``Look, you're 26 years old and you've never had a job. Take the contract.'' Six weeks later he was back home. I asked him what happened. He said, I just couldn't make it. I didn't know how to get an apartment so the owner had to help me. I kept forgetting where to change buses. I didn't know if I should get a black and white or color TV. I just couldn't make all those decisions. At age 17 I was struck that Government paternalism steals from people the ability to make decisions about their own lives. They are all dead now. Richie Robinson, Esica Ogema, Tom Bowstring, Frank Rabbit, Johnny Wakanabo, Tom Goggleye. Dead too young. Not because Government did too little. Because Government did too much. Having done so well with the American Indian, we have replicated the reservation in every major city in America with the very same results: Teenage pregnancies, crime, drugs, violence, no fathers in those homes. Not because Government did too little. Because Government did too much. In spite of the total collapse of communism and socialism round the world, Liberals continue to believe that they are smarter than the people and that governments make better decisions. They do not know, as we know, that the human being dreams, not for one more Government program but for freedom. The Soviets learned that in just 73 years. Ilya Ehrenberg, a Russian poet, wrote, ``If all the world were covered with asphalt, one day in that asphalt, a crack would appear, and in that crack grass would grow.'' That is the dream of the human spirit. That is the dream of freedom. All of this is to say the following: Liberal efforts to replace your decisions with their decisions have been a colossal failure. It has been a failure for the taxpayer, but much more so for the generations of children destroyed in the process. Why is it so difficult in American politics to commit a truth? We want to end the suffering of the poor in the care and feeding of the Federal Government. We want to rekindle the dream, to free the spirit, to let it soar. This election is going to be the meanest election in your lifetimes. Because there is so much at stake. The Liberals know that another loss could send their party the way of the Whig Party. Like the current Democrat Party, the Whig Party was a disparate collection of groups who had only one thing in common. They hated Andy Jackson. When his presence disappeared, so did they. The four building blocks of the Democratic Party are labor, blacks, feminists, and gays. What in the world do labor and gays have in common? They all have a thirst for the power to make your decisions for you. All four groups want power because they believe that they can gain economic advantage in Washington that they cannot gain in the neighborhood. Again the question: ``Who decides? Washington or you?'' The commitment by labor unions to spend $35 million in negative television commercials is their last gasp. In addition to that, they will spend another $300 million paying the salaries of full-time campaigners in Democrat campaigns. None of that will be reported to the public the way that candidates report the money they raise and spend to the Federal Election Commission. Remember that the next time some ``reformer'' tells you that candidates spend too much money campaigning. But, there is hope. Do you remember Ronald Reagan? It is important to remember how dark the nightfall was when he began running for President. On the eve of his first run for the Presidency in 1975 he spoke at the 20th anniversary of National Review. In a somber moment he quoted something written two decades earlier by Whittaker Chambers. Chambers wrote: It is idle to speak of saving Western civilization, because Western civilization is already a wreck from within. That is why we can hope to little more than snatch a fingernail off a saint on the rack or a handful of ashes from the faggots and bury them secretly in a flour pot until that day ages hence when a few men would dare to believe that there once was something else. That something else is thinkable and there were those at the great nightfall who took loving care to preserve the tokens of hope and truth. Five years later Reagan was President promising to rekindle the American dream. It has been said that the American dream was to own your own home. That is not the American dream. The American dream is to get your kids out of your home. And when Ronald Reagan took office, many Americans wondered if they ever could. We had interest rates at 21 percent, inflation at 14 percent, and 11 percent unemployment. We were also losing the cold war. Between 1970 and 1980 the Soviet Union had increased its influence in Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Nicaragua, Grenada, Mozambique, Angola, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, South Yemen, Libya, Iraq, and Syria. On top of that one-third of our planes unable to fly for lack of spare parts, one-third of our ships in dry dock, soldiers practicing with pretend bullets, and much of our enlisted corps on food stamps. In his first inaugural address Reagan addressed our difficulties at home and abroad. Then he appealed to the best in us. He said, ``We can do this, because, after all, we are Americans.'' The decade of the eighties was the American decade in the American century. I know that the Clinton's, during the 1992 campaign, called it the decade of greed. Maybe they thought every American was trading in cattle futures. Most Americans were not. They were starting businesses, going to church, coaching little league, teaching school, paying taxes, and giving to charity. In less than a decade, Americans, not government, created 4 million businesses and 20 million new jobs. They doubled the size of the economy and doubled revenues to the treasury. They doubled the money they gave to charities--to strangers--because they were generous. And if we get the burdens of high taxes and too much regulation off their backs, they will do it again. America is great, not because of Government policies or wise politicians. America is great because ordinary people do extraordinary things. When we return decisions to the American people and responsibilities to the communities I believe that they, not the Federal Government but they, will once again recapture the greatness we have known. If we fail, America will be the next century's Soviet Union. Not because government did too little. Because government did too much.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the proceedings had during the recess be printed in the Congressional Record and that all Members and former Members who spoke during the recess have the privilege of revising and extending their remarks.