Jim McCrery

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this legislation, though not without some reservations. I share the concern of my chairman and my colleagues about the subprime mortgage crisis. While we are all ultimately responsible for the contracts we sign, there were clearly failures in the market that led people to buy homes larger or more expensive than they could really afford, or to accept mortgage terms that might quickly become unsustainable. The result has been a growing number of foreclosures, which, in turn, puts downward pressure on other home prices. Moreover, when a bank forgives some or all of the mortgage, that cancelled debt is treated as income and is subject to tax. Too many people are learning the hard way about this ``kick-'em-when-they're-down'' feature of the tax code. In August, President Bush recognized the seriousness of this crisis and proposed a temporary provision exempting from tax the income that individuals receive when a bank reduces or eliminates the mortgage on a primary residence. I think that his proposal, a temporary solution to a temporary crisis, is appropriate, and asked the Rules Committee to make in order a substitute which did just that. As my colleagues know, however, we were not given that opportunity, and so we are not debating such a proposal. Nevertheless, there are good policy arguments for making this provision permanent, just as there are for making it temporary. But the important thing is that we do something to help. I am glad the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee decided to move a bill dealing with this crisis. The bill does, however, contain revenue offsets that I do find troubling. Generally, I continue to oppose PAYGO rules that require us to raise taxes in one place in order to provide tax relief in another. Nonetheless, those are the rules that this House has adopted, so I understand the majority's need to include an offset in the bill. The offset being used today will deny part of the capital gains exemption to families who sell a second home which was not always their primary residence. During committee markup, I expressed concerns that the proposal could undercut housing prices in areas of the country where second-home purchases form a large share of the housing market. I understand the chairman's desire to identify an offset within the housing market, and that certainly constrained our choices. I also appreciate the chairman's efforts to include transition relief to limit the effect of this provision on families who may already own more than one home. As has been noted already and will surely be noted again, the bill, including this offset, has been endorsed by several leading real estate groups, and that calms, although it doesn't eliminate, my concerns about the impact the offset may have. Thus, while I do support the positive tax relief in this bill for those with cancellation of indebtedness income, I would prefer to do so without this objectionable offset. It is my hope that as this legislation moves forward, as I believe it should today, we will have an opportunity to reconsider the revenue raises attached to it. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time and request unanimous consent that the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Lewis), who coauthored the original legislation similar to the bill before us today with Mr. Andrews, be allowed to allocate the remainder of the time.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I am only going to make one point during my brief remarks, and then I am going to ask unanimous consent to turn over the time for allocation of time to Mr. Camp. The point that I want to make is that the President's veto will be sustained, and that should allow the opportunity for Democrats and Republicans to sit down in this House and listen to each other as far as how we can reach a compromise on this important legislation. I was a Member of the House back in 1996 when we passed welfare reform for the third time. We had a Republican majority and a Democratic President. The Democratic President vetoed welfare reform twice. Basically, he told us, the majority Republicans, Look, I want Democrats to be at the table to try to get a compromise on this important legislation. That is what ultimately occurred. The President signed welfare reform on the third try. Then, in 1997, we had the Balanced Budget Act. There were considerable Medicare reforms in that act. President Clinton said the same thing. He said, Look, I want Democrats at the table. We allowed them to the table. I was in the room when Democrats, Republicans and a member of the Clinton administration sat down together to hash out the details, very nitty-gritty details, of the Medicare portion of the BBA. That is what should happen now with SCHIP. SCHIP was passed in 1997, as part of that 1997 effort, as a bipartisan effort. It should remain a bipartisan initiative. Unfortunately, the minority in this House and in the House of Representatives was excluded from the outset from discussions regarding the SCHIP legislation. The Senate, yes, had more of a bipartisan discussion. We were never included in that discussion, either. So we think we deserve, and I think the President thinks we deserve, a seat at the table to discuss this very important issue. I hope that is what finally emerges from this veto. I don't know why the majority wants to postpone the override vote for over 2 weeks. It just doesn't make sense to me if you want to get this done in a rational, reasonable manner this calendar year. It seems to me you would want to have the override vote immediately so we could get right on with the business of trying to compromise and give the President something that he could sign. I don't know why they are not doing that. But, in any event, at the end of this road when we sustain the veto, I am very hopeful that the majority now will act as the majority back in 1996 and 1997 did and give us all a seat at the table so we can work this out. With that, Madam Speaker, I would ask unanimous consent that Mr. Camp be allowed to allocate the remainder of my time.

Mr. McCRERY. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3375, a bill to extend the Trade Adjust Assistance or TAA program for 3 months beyond its expiration on September 30th. I want to acknowledge Mr. Herger, ranking member of the trade subcommittee, for anticipating the need for this extension to ensure there is sufficient time to carefully consider reforms to TAA as well as to our programs to help workers if they lose jobs for reasons other than trade. I also want to thank Chairman Rangel and Chairman Levin for their support of this bill. I look forward to seeing the two Chairmen's TAA reform proposal. My colleagues and I have been working on our own proposal too. I hope we can craft a bipartisan, cost-effective approach that helps get all dislocated workers--not just the few who lose their jobs due to trade-- retrained and back to work sooner. It is our responsibility to make sure that all Americans have the opportunity to quickly obtain the skills they need to adapt to globalization. Today, our Committee held a non-markup of the U.S.-Peru FTA and approved, by voice vote, the draft implementing legislation to it. I commend Chairman Rangel for his commitment to quickly move this FTA to passage. At the same time, we must implement the pending FTAs with Panama, Colombia, and Korea to enable our workers and their employers to benefit from the new opportunities created by these FTAs.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the debate this evening should not be about who is for insurance for children and who is against health insurance for children. The fact is that all of us, Democrats and Republicans alike, want SCHIP to be reauthorized. We will vote tomorrow, I believe, for a temporary extension of the program, and I predict that there will be a huge bipartisan vote in favor of extending the program to give this House more time to develop a true bipartisan reauthorization, long-term reauthorization of the SCHIP program. I do expect, Mr. Speaker, this bill to pass tonight, but I also expect the President to veto this bill, and I expect his veto to be sustained by this House. At that point, I'm very hopeful that, for the first time in this process, the minority in this House will be included in discussions about how we should reauthorize the SCHIP program, because to this point, frankly, we have not been included at all. We have not been asked for our recommendations for a reauthorization; we were not even given a substitute when this matter came to the floor originally here in the House of Representatives. So perhaps after the President vetoes and we sustain the veto, then maybe we will be brought into the room and we will have a chance to discuss with the majority what we think is the appropriate level of reauthorization for funding for this program and perhaps some of our ideas with respect to limiting those eligible for this program to the universe of people who were originally intended to be helped by the program, that is, low-income children whose family incomes are too high to qualify for Medicaid but too low to buy a policy in the individual market outside of the workplace. So, Mr. Speaker, this evening I suggest that, rather than point fingers and say you're against kids and we're for kids, you're for tobacco, we're against tobacco, that we get through this debate and then get through the next step of the process, which I hope will be more bipartisan and more cooperative, to allow us to get a real reauthorization that we can all support as we did in the mid-1990s when we created this program. Now, we only got this bill, this so-called compromise, last night, so we've been diligently going through it all night and all day today. We're not sure of everything that's in this bill, but I can enumerate a number of things that we believe to be facts and I think are important in this debate for this particular bill. First of all is the matter of funding. This bill is not even close to being fully funded. Budget gimmicks are replete. The proposal assumes that funding will drop to about one-fourth of the funding in the year 2013, and then another $5 million cut after that. We all know that's not going to happen. But that was done, and I understand, just to make the budget numbers work; but Members ought to know what they're voting for. Another thing that we're told by the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan arm of the House and the Senate, is that under this proposal 2 million children will move from private health insurance to government health insurance. Now, surely that's not what we want. We don't want the SCHIP program, do we, to move children from private insurance into government insurance? That wasn't the intent of this program when it started. And on the tax side, on the pay-for side, this bill proposes that we pay for a program with clearly growing requirements, growing needs with a funding source that is going to be declining, depleting, the tobacco tax. As you raise the tax on tobacco, you exacerbate the trend that has been evident in this country for a number of years of declining use of tobacco. So to propose funding a growing program with a declining revenue source is, I would submit, irresponsible fiscal policy. I have a few other speakers who are going to talk about some of the other weaknesses in this legislation. At this time, I would reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Camp), the distinguished member of the Ways and Means Committee, the ranking member of the Health Subcommittee.

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, before I recognize our next speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I agree with the gentleman that children ought not have to go to emergency rooms to get care, that children ought to be able to go to their family doctor; but there's a good way and a not-so-good way to provide that. This bill provides a government healthcare program for that. We would much rather provide a private health insurance plan for that. I would submit that there is a vast difference in those approaches. Mr. Speaker, at this time I would yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sam Johnson), a member of the Ways and Means Committee and ranking member of the Social Security Subcommittee. (Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan), another distinguished member of the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, due to the imbalance of time remaining, I would at this time withhold calling on a speaker, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I only have one speaker left to close, so I would reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I believe all of the controllers of time are ready to close. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman that spoke right before me, the distinguished chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, said that this bill provides $35 billion for children. This bill actually provides a lot more than that. It's $35 billion in new, additional spending on top of the $25 billion that the program as currently structured spends. So we're more than doubling on paper the cost of this program. And when you consider that there's another, oh, approximately $30 billion that the tax increase in this bill does not cover, we're getting up to tripling, quadrupling the size of this program. Now, the gentleman earlier said that no abuses such as illegal immigrants gaining benefits have ever been identified. Well, I would refer the gentleman to the 2005 HHS Inspector General report in which the Inspector General says that 47 States allowed self-declaration in the United States citizenship for Medicaid and he asked for those States to give him an audit. Only one State did that, the State of Oregon. The Secretary of State provided an audit, and in that audit he found out of 812 individuals sampled, who were Medicaid beneficiaries in that State, 25 of them were noneligible noncitizens. So, Mr. Speaker, under the provisions in this bill, which liberalize the current law treatment of qualification of individuals for this program, we indeed expect to see abuses of this. So, Mr. Speaker, I urge all of us to vote ``no'' on this so that we can sustain the President's veto if the bill passes and then get together for a true bipartisan compromise on this important program.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, as the ranking member of the Ways and Means committee, I have tried my best to work with Chairman Rangel to engender an atmosphere in our committee of comity, an atmosphere that engenders respect for one another's views, and to engender an atmosphere in which we can fully explore and debate and discuss issues. We have very talented members on both sides of the aisle on the Ways and Means Committee, and we are not afraid to discuss issues and to debate differences that we have in those issues. It's a great committee. I gave a letter to the Rules Committee citing 24 instances just since the year 2000 where on tax bills when we were in the majority we gave the minority the chance to offer a substitute, an amendment in the nature of a substitute. Tax bills are always closed to amendments. We don't just allow willy- nilly amendments to tax bills, for good reason. But we almost always offer the minority an amendment in the nature of a substitute. I am not pleased that the Rules Committee, and I suppose with the consent of the chairman, did not offer us an amendment in the nature of a substitute. Vote against this rule.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise today, Mr. Speaker, in strong opposition to H.R. 2776. It seems that many of my colleagues in the majority have developed a sort of schizophrenia when it comes to energy. Throughout last year, they held press conference after press conference saying that the Republicans weren't doing enough to lower the price of gasoline at the pump; yet, since the new Democratic majority was elected, the price of gasoline has jumped an average of nearly $1 a gallon across the country. Now that my colleagues have brought to the floor a bill which they call ``energy legislation,'' which includes substantial tax increases on the oil and gas industry, surely they don't believe this will do anything to bring down gasoline prices. The majority will claim that this legislation is basically the same as H.R. 6, an energy tax increase bill passed by this House in January. That is not the case. This bill contains double the tax increase that that legislation did. This bill has over $15 billion worth of tax increases. Now, some of that is because the Joint Tax Committee reestimated the impact of one of the provisions in H.R. 6, but other provisions are new, including a massive tax increase on United States companies producing energy abroad. And while overseas production of oil and gas might seem like a tempting target for a tax hike, the Statement of Administration Policy has rightly warned that this provision will ``disadvantage United States-based companies by reducing their ability to compete for investments and foreign energy-related projects.'' At a time when worldwide energy demand is increasing, it defies logic why we would unilaterally raise taxes on American companies competing in an international market for future exploration and production deals. What logical reason could there be for using the tax code to help ensure more of the world's oil production is done by non-United States companies? And in addition to raising taxes by more than $15 billion on energy production, the majority has made, in my view, some poor decisions when they decided how to spend the tax increase. Their bill, for example, would allow several Republican-created incentives promoting conservation to expire, including incentives for individuals to buy hybrid cars, to install solar power and solar water heaters, and to make energy-efficiency upgrades to their homes. Even worse, the bill before us would also authorize up to $6 billion in tax credit bonds for so-called ``green energy products.'' At our markup, we in the minority offered a variety of amendments to try to define or limit the allowable uses of these bond proceeds, and those amendments were repeatedly rejected by the majority. During the debate today, we will hear about some of the possible uses of these bonds and our concern that they will amount to little more than green pork doled out to Governors, State legislatures, mayors and city councils to fund all manner of boondoggles and white elephants. The majority could have avoided this debate by accepting language requiring that these products reduce energy consumption or greenhouse gas emissions, but they didn't. In closing, Mr. Speaker, three facts about this legislation should be painfully obvious. Number one, you don't lower prices at the pump by raising taxes on the companies that find, refine and transport gasoline. Number two, you don't increase America's energy independence by raising taxes on our domestic energy industry, making American energy even more expensive compared with foreign sources. And three, you certainly don't improve anything by shoveling money at Governors and big-city mayors with a vague mandate and zero oversight. I urge my colleagues to reject this bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. General Leave

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to allow the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. English), the ranking member of the Select Revenue Measures Subcommittee, to control the balance of the time.

Mr. McCRERY. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, in a continuing dialogue with the distinguished chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, at least in the manager's amendment presented to the Ways and Means Committee during markup on page 10, this is under section 101 of our bill, it states: if a State's expenditures, under this title, exceed the total amount with allotments available, and if the average number of children enrolled under the State plan exceeds its target average number of such enrollees, the allotment under this section shall be increased. Not may, shall. That is an entitlement to the States for as much money as they want for this program. It is no wonder, I would say to my good friend from Illinois, that the Governors are for this. Duh. And with that, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to a distinguished member of the committee, Mr. Cantor. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

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

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I think this has been a good debate today. It has been a good debate in part because I believe a number of Members on both sides of the aisle have learned things about this legislation that they didn't know before this debate. I think there are enough questions that were raised today about exactly what is and is not in this bill to warrant this House taking more time to get it right. The motion to recommit that we will offer in just a few minutes will give this House that opportunity because we in the motion to recommit ask the committee to report back forthwith, which means that this House can today pass what is in our motion to recommit. And in that motion to recommit we will reauthorize the current SCHIP program for 1 year, and we will do a fix for the doctors' reimbursement for 1 year. That will allow this House to give the appropriate amount of time to discover what is and what is not in this legislation that the majority has presented us today and figure out, perhaps in a bipartisan way, the best manner in which to proceed on a long-term basis with the SCHIP program. I would ask those fiscal conservatives in the majority, some of whom have in good conscience complained about some of the actions of the former majority, there are signs in the hall talking about the national debt, and I ask those Members to think before they vote for this bill. Do they really want to establish a new entitlement program that is open-ended in this country, that is not properly funded? It is funded with a tobacco tax. That is going to be a decreasing source of revenue for this country, not increasing. It is funded with changes to the Medicare program, cuts to the Medicare Advantage program. That is not going to have long- lasting consequences? So, really, I want those people who are concerned about the deficit and concerned about the debt to think before they vote for this bill. We are giving you an opportunity in the motion to recommit to sustain the SCHIP program, do what you've talked about doing, fix the doctors' reimbursement for a year, and give us more time to talk back and forth a little bit and explore the consequences of some of the provisions that are in this bill that we think would do injury to the fitness of this country, and we think that we can work together to provide a better way for insuring children in this country, not the way that is in this bill. I believe that this bill is fiscally irresponsible. It is too bad we didn't have fuller hearings and fuller opportunities in committees, in both the Ways and Means Committee and the Energy and Commerce Committee, to explore some of the particulars that the majority decided to put into this bill and just informed the House about within the last 24 hours or so. Had we had that opportunity, I believe Members with goodwill on both sides of the aisle could have worked out what I believe would have been a much, much better bill than what I perceive to be a hastily put together bill that is before us today. General Leave

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, just in brief response to my good friend from California, our understanding of the provisions of this bill and provisions of the law would allow a State to present a State plan amendment to the administration that is not subject to approval. They have to approve it. So it is not up to the administration to approve that. The States can do that at their own will. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Hulshof).

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, it is apparent to me from the misunderstandings apparent in this Chamber on this bill that perhaps we should have read the whole bill in greater detail. Maybe we would know more about it. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to another member of the Ways and Means Committee, the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Lewis).

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, as my colleague, the ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, said earlier this afternoon, we in the minority want to reauthorize the Children's Health Insurance Program. Our motion to recommit, which we will offer later today, will do that. SCHIP should be about a bipartisan program. We think it should focus on low-income children. That was the concept when both parties agreed to create this program back in 1997. But the bill that is on the floor today loses sight of that focus, and, therefore, we cannot support it. We could support it with significant changes. Unfortunately, the Rules Committee did not allow us the opportunity to offer amendments to change the bill, so we are left to our only device as the minority, and that is a motion to recommit. So that motion will act as kind of a sum of our amendments that we would have offered and hoped to have passed, to put the bill in a form that we hope will pass in a bipartisan manner. The bill that is before us today, though, without amendment raises taxes by at least $54 billion. We believe it raises those taxes to fund a massive expansion of government-controlled health care. This is not just about helping low-income children. This bill today seems to be spending government funds to lower middle-class, upper middle-class, even wealthy, perhaps, families to opt out of private health coverage and go to government health coverage. I regret that we have not been able to work together in a bipartisan fashion on this issue. Perhaps when this motion to recommit comes up, we will have enough converts to adopt it, bring it right back to the floor of the House, and we will have a bipartisan bill. Or perhaps if this bill passes and something like it comes back to us in the form of a conference report and the President vetoes it and we sustain the veto, then we will have a chance to operate on a bipartisan basis and reauthorize this program in a timely manner. I hope so. But this bill before us today, in addition to having a substantial increase on the tobacco tax, they try to hide, at least it appeared that the majority tried to hide, a secret tax increase on health insurance plans. When it came before the Ways and Means Committee, we did have a markup. We did have the opportunity to explore this bill, at least the part that was in the jurisdiction of the Ways and Means Committee. We discovered this tax increase. It wasn't in the Joint Tax score of the bill. It wasn't listed as a revenue raiser in their report. We asked CBO. They couldn't tell us about it, but we discovered it in the fine print. It is a tax on health insurance policies. Well, what is that going to do? It is going to raise the cost of private health insurance. Maybe that is what the majority wants, to raise the cost of private health insurance, to drive even more people from private insurance into government health care. This new tax is going to generate money sufficient to accumulate to about a $3 billion pot of money over the next 10 years. That is a substantial sum of money. And, as we have seen from past experience, a tax like this, while it may not be big at first, it is awfully hard to get rid of, and it is awfully easy to increase. This legislation also cuts Medicare funding by about $200 billion. It effectively eliminates the Medicare Advantage program. Now, I know the majority is going to say no, no, no, it doesn't cut Medicare by $20 billion. We add back some Medicare benefits, so the net is not nearly that much. But for the people whose programs are going to be cut, they see it as a cut. They don't understand this ``net'' thing. Medicare Advantage is going to be cut substantially, and Medicare Advantage programs will go away in most rural parts of this country and in a great many inner-city areas serving low-income populations. This bill would effectively eliminate options for millions of seniors who have depended on Medicare Advantage to get better benefits and lower costs for their health care. In addition, the bill cuts $7.2 billion in home health care benefits and $6.5 billion in nursing home care benefits. These are cuts that are real. They are going to be felt by people utilizing those services. These cuts are not necessary. I want to stress, these cuts are not necessary to cover needy children. The majority has deliberately chosen to reduce Medicare funding for some of our neediest seniors in order to expand SCHIP to cover anyone up to the age of 21, including, I have heard here today, people up to 300 percent of poverty, 400 percent of poverty. I would tell my colleagues that have said that, they are wrong. This bill doesn't say you can go up to 300 percent or 400 percent of poverty. It says you can go anywhere you want to. You can cover anybody. If a State chooses under this bill, they can not only choose to cover people of unlimited income, $100,000, $150,000, $200,000. They are entitled to the money. There is also a bonus program in this bill that says if you get a new enrollee, a new child, maybe he comes from having private insurance, maybe he doesn't, but if he is new to this program, you are going to get a bonus, which means you are going to get an even higher Federal share to fund that new enrollee. The State can waive the income eligibility as high as they want. So we create a new entitlement program that guarantees States they can get as much money as they want to cover anybody they want under their government health care program. That is what this bill is all about. That is why the minority is intent on stopping its passage today and getting a better alternative for reauthorization for low-income children. This bill is about expanding government health care. Nothing more, nothing less. The minority's motion to recommit will reauthorize the SCHIP program in its bipartisan form. I urge all of us to wait until that motion comes up, vote for that, and then we will truly have a good program for low-income children in this country. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Perhaps if we had had a hearing on this bill, we could have discovered what the truth is about this discussion of waivers and State plan amendments. But our appreciation of the law is that this is not a waiver. I'm not talking about a waiver so it does not have to be approved by the administration. I am talking about a State plan amendment that is simply presented to the administration and it can contain what is known as an income disregard. The attorneys with CMS tell us that the administration does not have the discretion to turn down an income disregard that is presented by a State. What an income disregard means, in essence, is a State can cover kids from families as rich as they want. And that is our understanding of the law. It is too bad we didn't have, or at least the Energy and Commerce Committee didn't have, a full-blown hearing on this provision or other provisions of the bill so we could have explored that. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Weller), a member of the committee.

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the remaining time.

Mr. McCRERY. And what about the majority?