John Linder

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker in keeping with the policies of the past 2\1/ 2\ years that I have been here, I would like to ask unanimous consent that the gentleman be allowed to be maintained on his feet on the floor of the House.

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

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate what the gentleman who spoke just before me brought up, because of an opportunity to respond to what the Ethics Committee is not willing to do. The fact of the matter is the Speaker did submit a contract for its review. The only role that the Ethics Committee has in this is to determine whether the contract is too generous. In fact, any Member can write a book in this House without having approval, but if the contract is too generous, such as Speaker Wright's, where he got 55 percent royalties, it becomes a gift. The same contract that the Speaker submitted before two times and was approved in 3 weeks was submitted this time. It is not being approved by the Ethics Committee because the Democrats refuse to approve the very same contract that Al Gore got approved, that the gentleman from Michigan, David Bonior, got approved. As a matter of fact, one of the ethics charges is that he used an 800 number on the floor of the House. So did 11 others. Do we discharge that complaint, or do we file complaints against the 11 others? One of the charges is that a cable channel carried his course. Every one of the Members plays on the cable channels for free. Do we level charges against each of them? It is time for the Ethics Committee to throw out these ridiculous, frivolous charges.

Mr. LINDER

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

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, is it appropriate under the rules to address specific actions taken in the other body?

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, today and through tomorrow and the next day, the House takes up a historic foreign affairs bill that for the first time in many, many years actually authorizes the spending that we take on behalf of the interests of the U.S. policies in respect to foreign lands. There will be much debate as to whether we are doing it the way other people wish us to do it or we are cutting too deeply, but the fact of the matter is that less than 1 percent of our entire budget is invested in foreign affairs. That is the issue we need to begin to take to the American people. It surprises me when you ask Americans what they think is the largest item in the Federal budget and they consistently say foreign affairs, and indeed it is perhaps the smallest. When [[Page H5388]] you ask people if we spend too much on foreign affairs, in one recent poll, 79 percent said yes. The second question was, how much do you think we should be spending, and they consistently said about 5 percent, and indeed we are spending 1 percent. There will be honest debates as to whether we are giving too much support for one country or another, but the fact of the matter is it is cheaper to support nations in peace than it is to buy more bombers and missiles, and I believe that we are on the right track.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I have discovered the difference between the Democrat and Republican Parties. The Democrat Party lives in constant fear that America is going to discover the truth. The Republican Party lives in constant fear that they will not. The fact is, it is true that in 2 years, according to the Clinton budget, interest on the debt will exceed all defense spending. It is also true that in 7 years, according to Clinton's trust fund advisers, Medicare will be bankrupt and they will not be able to pay any bills for hospitals, any home health care. Mr. Speaker, I think we have entered a new era. It is the age of responsibility. Americans are willing to take responsibility for their actions. They are asking us to take responsibility for our actions. It is true that we have put our children and grandchildren into 5 trillion dollars' worth of debt. The responsible thing is to try and pay that down and balance the budget. It is true that education is an abject failure. The responsible thing is to reform it, not to throw more money at it. It is true that Medicare must be reformed to be saved

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I want to express my support for House Resolution 142, the rule which allows for the consideration of several balanced budget proposals. Only 7 months ago it would have been impossible to imagine debating a bill to actually balance the budget by the year 2002. Under the rule the House will have a historic opportunity tomorrow to fully debate and consider four balanced budget resolutions. In fact, the rule allows for a fifth balanced budget proposal, one from the President of the United States. While I am pleased the rule provides him with that opportunity, it appears that the President has decided to forfeit any leadership on the issue of America's financial stability. In February I watched as President Clinton and House and Senate Democrats refused to support the balanced budget amendment. I now realize that [[Page H5111]] they are incapable of curbing their irresponsible spending habits, so they have decided to play politics with our Nation's future. Americans understand the fiscal trouble the Nation is in and the tough measures required to fix the mess. We must do something about the deficit and the debt now. We are out of tomorrows. The debt and deficit costs all of us money in the form of higher taxes, higher interest rates, and a slower economy. Moreover, it is immoral for this generation to leave our children the bill for our excesses. Our current financial crisis is as much a threat to our Nation's children and grandchildren as Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were to children half a century ago. House Republicans have pledged to balance the budget in 7 years. The generation of World War II saved the world in less time, but we need a united front on this too. The change in the size of the Federal Government we propose will affect all Americans in some way. If we are incapable of sticking together to get control of our fiscal affairs, America will collapse from within. America is capable of solving problems. I believe we will rally together to do it again. I believe the American people are up to this challenge. All around us Americans are discovering better ways to do everything. Yet the Federal Government remains the least-changed institution in America society and the President and his party seem satisfied with that. In times of crisis, Americans pull together. We can no longer skirt the issue, although administration officials Tyson and Panetta have tried to. As in World War II, we need the talents and skills of every individual. This notion is not too romantic for us to conceive that with the help of the American people, we will balance the budget, provide a safe and prosperous future for our children, and save our country. The rule under discussion gives House Members the opportunity to vote on legislation to require the Federal Government to live under the same budget constraints that every American family lives under. We are running out of chances. We are running out of choices. I urge my colleagues to support the rule that will allow this historic debate.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, for several weeks, Democrats have attempted to use shameless scare tactics to dismiss the Republican plan to balance the budget. Americans see through this sham. In recent days, administration officials Tyson and Panetta have suggested the budget does not really need to be balanced by the year 2002. Americans know better. The Democrats are not fooling anybody. Even the Washington Post acknowledges that the Democrats' complaints are ``hollow and unpersuasive.'' The Post calls the Clinton administration budget ``weak and directionless.'' In fact, the Post urges the Democrats to ``stop playing it cute,'' and the President to ``lead on this issue.'' It is disconcerting that the President of the United States would abandon the American people in this manner, but he has. He refused to submit a balanced budget. Thus challenge should be tackled in a bipartisan fashion with input from the Congress and the President. Unfortunately, the President has chosen not to contribute and House Democrats offer nothing but dishonest cliches.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, my daughter is grown and she and her husband have a 1\1/2\-year-old son and another child on the way. The last time an official House committee submitted a bill to balance the budget, she was 2. Today, House Republicans present the first honest attempt to balance the budget. We do so not for politics, but for our children, my daughter and son, and my grandchildren. We do so because my family, your family and families across the country cannot achieve the American dream if we do nothing. If we do nothing, we will pay more interest on the debt than we spend for defense. Moreover, my grandchildren will pay more than $185,000 in their lifetimes just to pay interest on the debt. We will not stand by and watch any child in this country be subject to that type of cruelty. Yet the Democrat Party, which needlessly frightened children of the impending doom of school lunches is utterly unmoved by the threat to the dreams and future of those same kids.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, when such information as you have just heard is presented to the House floor, it needs to be responded to. The fact of the matter is this: Mr. Murdoch was selling a property to the Tribune Co. headed by Quincy Jones, a black entrepreneur. Mr. Murdoch had two contracts for that property, one to be sold at this amount and one to be sold at another amount if he got a Treasury certificate. The beneficiary of the Treasury certificate was the Quincy Jones operation, which would have received that property at less than the amount equal to the Treasury certificates. Mr. Murdoch was going to get precisely the same amount whether or not the certificates were ordered. In the other body, the gentlewoman from Illinois argued that we should open the timeframe for the certificates to be allowed, and she amended the contract to open the timeframe to extend it. The Senate insisted on her position. The House could not get her to remove her position, and so Quincy Jones is going to be the beneficiary of the $38 million or $65 million, whichever the amount is.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, this does not seem all that complicated. It does not change any rates of taxation of capital gains. It excludes 50 percent of the gain. Therefore, you are taxed at the 39.6-percent tax rate. Fifty percent of any gain would be excluded, giving an effective rate of 19.8 percent, a lower effective rate. If you happen to be taxed at a 35-percent tax rate, 50 percent of the gain would be excluded, giving you a 17.5-percent tax. It lowers the effective rate in every instance by excluding half of the gain from any taxation at all.

Mr. LINDER. If the gentleman will yield, I said precisely the opposite. I said we are reducing the amount of income that is going to be taxed or the percentage of income by excluding half the gain.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, well, there was an example of the misleading hyperbole that we have heard for the last several weeks on Republican programs. My friend from Hawaii talks about a bill that passed last week that protected billionaires and, in fact, the bill never addressed the issue. It never addressed the issue. The Senate put some language in a bill that would have dealt with punishing people who leave the United States because of confiscatory taxation. The Senate then receded from their position, because the language was too loose, and the House Committee on Ways and Means could not draft language. Indeed, in the Committee on Rules in discussion of this bill, the issue was raised, and the Democrats dropped the issue and apologized for the misleading information they brought us, because it was not in the bill. It was not in the House-passed bill. It was not in the conference committee report. And, indeed, not a single Democrat on the Committee on Rules voted against the rule that brought the bill to the floor, and now overnight, overnight, they discovered another class- warfare angle and started misleading America about what was in the bill. The bill was to return the exemption for health care premiums for single farmers, for private property owners that had nothing to do with what the gentleman from Hawaii spoke about.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Speaker, this is an extraordinary day for those of us who believe that the American people are better served by dentists, teachers, and football players than by career politicians. I strongly support the rule that will allow for the consideration of House Joint Resolution 2, the constitutional amendment to limit the terms of Members of the House and the Senate. I am pleased that four distinct constitutional amendments will be considered to address the major aspects of the term limits movement. The rule permits 3 hours of general debate and enables the House to engage in a full and fair debate on the length of the term limits, the question of retroactivity, and whether State law can be preempted by Federal law. It is important to note that, in the past, the Judiciary Committee has never even considered term limit resolutions. Furthermore, the full House has never been permitted the opportunity to consider, debate, or vote on term limit resolutions. As you may remember, supporters of the term limits movement were forced to file a discharge petition in a futile attempt to get a discussion of this legislation last year. The Rules Committee was extraordinarily fair in approving four term limit substitutes in this first-ever debate, and it is really rather disingenuous for those who frustrated this debate for decades to argue that we are limiting debate. I support term limits and personally believe that our Founding Fathers never intended for there to be a permanent governing class that would rule from Washington and lose touch with the citizens they were elected to represent. But that is not what we are debating here today. We are debating a rule that will allow the U.S. House of Representatives its first opportunity ever to hold ample discussions about the merits of limiting our service in this body. There are Members on both sides of the aisle who have honest disagreements about the merits of term limits. Nonetheless, when 70 percent of the American people support something, there should be a vote on the issue on the floor of this Chamber. The American people have been denied this debate for far too long, and an affirmative vote on this rule grants them that debate. This is the first rule on term limits in the history of this House, and it is a fair rule. I urge my colleagues to support House Resolution 116 and bring the term limits debate to the floor of the people's house.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I find this debate fascinating on the rule, because for all of the honing and carping which has been raised to an art form on this side about the inability to perfect our bill, no one cares about the inability to perfect the Deal substitute or the Mink substitute, two substitutes which are miles apart in philosophy and intent and direction. You do not care to perfect those bills. You only want to perfect this bill? The fact of the matter is, you would like to have 150 amendments made in order on the majority's bill. You do not really care to amend those, and we gave you gagged, closed rules on those two substitutes at your request. My colleagues, there are some victims in this debate, but it is not children and it is not school lunches. The victims in this debate are candor and honest public discourse. The big-lie theory has just taken over the debate on this bill, and we have so much more to do after this. We have to direct America's attention to a crushing national debt, an economic crisis in a dozen years of humongous proportions. If we cannot begin to discuss these things with some degree of candor and some degree of honesty and public discourse, all of America, including the children, will suffer.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, is it within the rules of the House to continue to refer to matters that are currently pending before the Ethics Committee?

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

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, several years ago the American people were rightfully outraged when U.S. Congressmen wrote checks on empty bank accounts. The House Bank scandal was a disgrace to this body and an example of the lack of fiscal accountability common in Washington. However, there seems to be less anger from the American people and less shame in this Congress today, as the Federal Government continues to write checks on an empty account. The debt has reached crisis proportions, but President Clinton and the liberals have renounced any responsibility to this disaster-- despite the fact that Bill Clinton himself noted in his 1994 budget that if left unattended the debt would force future generations to pay an 82-percent tax rate. We have a moral obligation to clean up this mess. The rescissions package is a good start. The Republicans aim to rescind $17.2 billion. Lobbyists are up in arms. If that many special interest groups hate the rescissions bill, I know we are on the right track.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio [Ms. Pryce].

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

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman may have that opinion if he would like. I am just reading what the city of New York and its mayor said about it. The gentleman can take up his argument with him.

Mr. LINDER. I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close the debate. First, Mr. Speaker, let me address the question of closed rules that keeps coming up from the Democrat side. Not to sound too remedial, but the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Frost] made it clear that the only reference in the contract was to full and open debate, not open rules. The only open rule promised in the contract was on the term limits bill, and it will be open. The ceilings of $250,000 for punitive damages will tend to be floors in the long run. But that is not the way most of these cases are settled. The bill also provides for three times economic losses. Judge Griffin Bell, the former Attorney General, was in my office 1 week ago and said that a case he represented, the famous case of a $100 million settlement from General Motors, with this bill, would have been a $6 million settlement, which is about what the family is going to get anyway. To address a final point about States rights, the gentleman from New York made the case that we are taking away from the States. However, his mayor in a letter to the editor of the New York Times, after pointing out that a jury awarded $18 million to an 18-year-old student who decided to see if he could leap over a volleyball net in gym class and wound up a quadriplegic, awarded $4.3 million to a convicted felon who was caught mugging a 71-year-old. As the thief fled, a transit policeman shot him, leaving him paralyzed. The mugger sued and won. A jury awarded $1 million to the estate of a drunken woman who had entered a closed city park illegally and drowned in three feet of water. Then $676,000 went to the estate of a motorist killed after a drunk drove onto an expressway the wrong way and crashed into the motorist's car. Then the mayor's office in a letter to the editor said this: ``Congress is reviving the principles of single `federalism' and returning power to the States, cities and other local governments. Toward that end, it should enact this simple measure to give cities like New York more control over their own fate.'' The law department of the city of New York wrote in a memorandum in support of the Common Sense Legal Standards Reform Act: ``I write to ask you to support'' these amendments. The city of New York has experienced an exponential growth in tort settlements and judgments. In 1984, New York City paid out $83 million in tort cases; this past fiscal year we paid plaintiffs and their lawyers an astounding $262 million. A substantial portion of that amount went for the all too familiar amorphous awards known as `pain and suffering' damages. Our civil justice system is clearly in need of an overhaul. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this rule and the amendment thereto.

Mr. LINDER

Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members extend their remarks on the resolution just agreed to.