Jim McCrery

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, much of the debate here today has been misleading, to say the least, including the remarks of the previous speaker. Look. Democrats, I believe, do want to preserve Social Security. So do Republicans. There is no difference. We both want to preserve Social Security. The difference is that for 40 years of Democrat control, they ran a deficit. They spent more at the Federal level than we took in, mounting up a debt on which we had to pay interest and, of course, we could not use that money for Social Security or anything else. So if they had remained in control and continued 40 years of history, of spending more than they were taking in, the only solution to Social Security would have been to raise taxes. Thankfully Republicans gained control of the legislative branch 3\1/2\ years ago, and thanks to our fiscal policies getting government spending under control, we are now running a surplus. We are bringing more money into the Federal Government than we are spending for the first time in 30 something years. So, thanks to our policies, we now have an opportunity to save Social Security, to preserve Social Security that the Democrats want to do and that we want to do, but our way to do it is to use the surplus to finance a transition from the current Social Security program to one that will be smarter, use our money more wisely and even give people back more than they are getting now from the Social Security system. If we take a look at the solutions that have been proposed, none of them spend the entire projected surplus for the next 10 years. They range anywhere from about $650 billion to $900 billion. So we want to use that money to transition to a new Social Security system that will give people more and at least preserve what they have got now. That should be the debate, and that will be the debate, I hope, over the next couple of years, how to preserve the Social Security system. What we have heard here today is a bunch of poppycock and I am tired of it. Let us be honest. Republicans want to save Social Security, Democrats want to save Social Security. Thanks to our fiscal policies, we now have a chance to do that without raising taxes, and I am thankful for that. Dadgum. Let me just speak for a minute about the substitute that we are debating now. If the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Traficant) is correct and if the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) is correct and we are really going to lock that money up in the Federal Reserve in New York, well, guess what? Under the wording of the Rangel substitute, we are not only going to lock up the unified budget surplus, we are going to lock up the Social Security surplus. That is what it says. So if the Social Security surplus is more than the unified budget surplus, which it is over the next five years, you are going to have to come up with some spending cuts to finance your plan. What are you going to cut, Medicare? Give me a break.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I commend the gentleman from Texas (Chairman Archer) for the inclusion in this bill of the provision to modify and extend the present law treatment of active financial services income under subpart F of the Internal Revenue Code. The provision permits United States-based insurance companies, banks, financial institutions, and securities dealers to be treated like other United States companies doing business abroad. It is critical to the global competitiveness of the United States financial services industry. And I might say, in light of the just completed vote on fast track, perhaps a vital necessity. In particular, I commend Chairman Archer and the staff for the resolution of the question relating to the interaction of this provision with the use of so-called hybrid arrangements. In January of this year, the Treasury Department issued Notice 98-11 attacking the use of hybrid arrangements by United States-owned foreign companies. Chairman Archer, along with a bipartisan majority of the Committee on Ways and Means, strongly and rightly opposed Treasury's actions. In response to the overwhelming concern expressed by the committee, the Treasury Department issued Notice 98-35, which provided specific rules with respect to the use of hybrid arrangements and allowed Congress time to review the important policy issues involved. Mr. Speaker, the United States financial services industry is a critical component to United States productiveness both here and abroad. We should not create or endorse policies that hamstring their ability to compete in the global marketplace. This provision is intended to improve the capability of the United States financial services industry to compete with their foreign counterparts, and because of the importance of this issue, I am very pleased that it was included in this legislation. At this time I would like to enter into a colloquy with the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Archer), chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means. Mr. Speaker, earlier this year, in response to concerns raised by the gentleman from Texas and a bipartisan majority of our committee, the Treasury Department announced its intentions to withdraw Notice 98-11 and the related temporary regulations on so-called hybrid entities. Treasury agreed not to finalize future regulations in this area any earlier than January 1, 2000, in order to allow Congress the opportunity to fully consider the tax policy issues involved. Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentleman, am I correct that nothing in the proposal before us would alter the Treasury Department's agreement to allow Congress the opportunity to fully consider the tax policy issues involved before finalizing any regulations in this area?

Mr. McCRERY. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman for that, and I would like to add that contrary to what we will probably hear over and over here, not one penny of the money for this tax cut will be taken from the Social Security trust fund. Please, let us get off that and talk about the merits of this tax bill.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, if one believes in the free market, if one believes in the power of individual choice, if one believes our private health care system is, in most respects, the best in the world and is worth preserving, then listen up. I am going to tell my colleagues about the best part of the Patient Protection Act. It is the part of this bill that really empowers patients. It gives them the ability to choose their own doctors and hospitals. It gives them the economic power to deal effectively with the costs of their health care. It gives individuals the power to take advantage of preventive health care, if they choose. It even offers people the prospect of a sizable nest egg in their later years which they could use for long-term care expenses or retirement. Mr. Speaker, this Patient Protection Act will finally make medical savings accounts available to everyone, and it removes the burdensome regulations that have prevented many individuals and small businesses from obtaining MSAs. This bill allows both small and large employers to make deductible contributions to an employee's MSA. It allows both employers and employees to make tax-favored contributions to a medical savings account. Mr. Speaker, if we really want people to be able to take control of their health care choices, if we really want to make the doctor-patient relationship what it used to be and what it should be, if we really want to create a market with forces that can control health care costs, then we must be for the expansion of this valuable, free market tool: medical savings accounts. That alone should make my colleagues vote for this bill.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the IRS reform bill and in support of the capital gains simplification measure in the bill.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me. Mr. Chairman, as I review the tax portion of the bill that we are voting on today, I note that we are considering the elimination of the 4.3 cent per gallon deficit reduction tax on railroad fuel. As you know, Mr. Chairman, this tax was imposed on the railroad industry in a 1993 reconciliation act, and it was put as well on other modes of transportation, including the inland barge industry. As we head toward the conference on this bill, Mr. Chairman, I would appreciate it if the gentleman would work with me and others to explore the extension of this repeal to the barge industry, to make sure that we maintain a level playing field between competing modes of transportation. It is my understanding that the tax on inland barge traffic generates a rather modest contribution to the Treasury, and paying for it is not going to be extremely costly. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins) for a comment from another member of our committee and the former chairman of the Transportation Task Force of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for his comments. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Archer) chairman of the committee.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I just want to use 30 seconds to respond to my friend the gentleman from New York [Mr. Rangel], who pointed out that Republicans have been in control for the last 3 years. That is true. Democrats were in control for 40 years prior to that, and most of the complexity was built under their tenure. However, I do hope that the gentleman from New York [Mr. Rangel] will join with me and others who agree that the Tax Code is too complex and promote overall tax reform for this country. It is in all of our interests to do that.

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to do two things. No. 1, praise the IRS Reform Act that we will pass today; and No. 2, tell my colleagues and the country that, while this is certainly a good bill, it will offer only slight relief from the burden that the real culprit, our Tax Code, places on our people and their work. First the praise. This is indeed an excellent piece of legislation constructed by two of the most able members of the Committee on Ways and Means, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Portman] and the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Cardin], and the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Archer], our excellent chairman. This legislation will make the IRS more accountable by creating an independent oversight board. It would also establish several important taxpayer rights, such as the ability to sue for legal fees when the IRS is wrong and shift the burden of proof in tax court from the taxpayer to the IRS. Finally, this legislation includes measures to ease the transition to electronic filing of taxes, thus relieving some of the burden on small businesses. Mr. Speaker, the admonition is that this is not enough. As long as we have the complex Tax Code that we have, no amount of IRS reform will be sufficient to relieve the costly burden of compliance. Let me share with my colleagues a few numbers. Thirty-six. That is the number of times the paperwork received each year by the IRS would circle the Earth. Five and a half million. That is the number of words in our Tax Code and the regulations. It is nearly seven times longer than the Bible. Five billion, 400 million. The number of hours Americans spent complying with Federal tax forms. One hundred fifty-seven billion. That is the number of dollars spent by the private sector to comply with income tax laws. Mr. Speaker, I am glad we are going to pass this badly needed IRS reform bill. It is a great piece of legislation. But, Mr. Speaker, we ought not to leave here today thinking that we have done all that needs to be done to relieve our citizens of the crushing burden our current tax system places on them. That burden will not be lifted until we throw the Tax Code in the trash can and start all over, until we create a fairer, simpler tax system for everyone.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Madam Speaker, I request unanimous consent that my name be removed as a cosponsor of H.R. 1173.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I had the good fortune a little while ago to hear the minority leader address the House, and I want to compliment him on the tenor of his remarks. He addressed the House and the Members of my side of the aisle with respect and engaged in an honest debate about tax policy in this country and what it ought to get us. The minority leader spoke about the consumption side of the ledger and how tax cuts ought to go into the pockets of Americans so that they can consume, because after all, he said, consumption is what drives economic growth. And while that is technically true, an economist would say that, I think an economist would also say if you do not have production in society, you are not going to have too many people consuming much, because it is the production side of the economy that creates the good paying jobs with good benefits that allows people to consume. We have tried in this tax bill to balance those concerns. Yes, we want to put more money in the pockets of people so that they might consume more, maybe even they will save a little bit for their children's education or their own retirement. But we also wanted to increase the incentives in the Tax Code for production. We want to help keep good paying jobs here in the United States. We want to encourage people to save their money, invest their money in productive investments; thus, the capital gains tax relief and the alternative minimum tax relief. That will help keep good paying jobs here in the United States and even help create more good paying jobs. We think that is important. This is a well-balanced tax bill that deserves the support of Democrats and Republicans alike.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time to talk about this issue, basically the refundability of our child tax credit. That is a fancy word to mean that somebody gets something from the Government that they do not send in the first place. It is a negative income tax. We already have that in the form of the earned income credit. It is a very generous credit. One can get up to about $3,400 a year back from the Government without paying any income taxes. That is a good program because it encourages people to work rather than rely on cash welfare programs. So I think all of us agree that the earned income credit is a valuable program, but it is already in place, and in fact we increased it in 1993. We made it more generous in an effort to help people who were making those low wages have a livable wage, a livable income for their families. That is in place. What we are trying to do in this tax bill is give a break to those middle-class families that do pay income taxes. This is an income tax cut, so it does not make any sense for us to be here on the floor today talking about not an income tax cut, but basically an increase in what is essentially a welfare program, the earned income credit. And that is what my friends on the other side are doing, trying to confuse the issue. We already have the welfare program in place. The earned income credit; I like it, I support it, but that is not what this bill is all about. This bill is about giving middle-class folks in this country who work hard and pay income taxes a break. Do not be confused. So I would say to my good friends, ``If you want to increase the earned income credit, let's talk about it. If you want to give a break in Social Security taxes, let's talk about it; or in Medicare taxes, let's talk about it. But you know very well if we do those things, there are consequences with respect to those programs.'' I would also point out that if my colleagues want to talk about relief from payroll taxes such as Social Security taxes and Medicare taxes, they ought to know that those folks in our society who are at the lower end of the income scale and pay those payroll taxes are paying for very specific programs that they will benefit from, and in fact those programs and the tax system supporting those programs are very progressive. That is to say, those folks at the lower end of the income scale will get back in benefits much, much more than they ever pay in payroll taxes.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Chairman, my colleagues have heard and will continue to hear criticism from some telling them that the Republicans have written a tax cut that benefits big corporations. I am here to plead guilty, sort of. I say ``sort of'' because there is much in this bill which directly benefits middle-class families, the $500 per child tax credit, education assistance, and exclusions for capital gains on home sales. In fact, most of the tax relief in this bill goes to middle- income families. But our tax cut will benefit corporations, and those who criticize that just do not get it. They cannot see that benefiting those who create jobs ultimately benefits workers as well. Let us look at just one industry in my home State of Louisiana, forest products. Forestry in my State employs some 8,000 in harvesting and transplanting trees and another 26,000 in forest products manufacturing jobs and some 113,000 Louisianans own forestland. Tree farmers in Louisiana plant seedlings, then they wait, 20, 25, 30 years. They endure the threats of flood, fire and infestation. All the while they incur expenses caring for their crop and all the while inflation ticks along. After a couple of decades, if the trees are still standing, they are cut and sold. The capital gains tax reductions in this bill will reward those landowners who risk their capital to grow those trees, and because of the potential for greater rewards, more landowners will decide to risk their capital to grow trees, which will in turn provide our forest products industries with a ready, affordable source of raw material for their factories, which in turn will provide good-paying jobs for a great many people in Louisiana and across our country. But for those jobs to stay here in the United States, our factories must be competitive in the world marketplace. For our industries to be competitive, they must continue to increase their productivity. To increase their productivity, they must continually invest in new equipment for their operations. The alternative minimum tax makes it much more difficult for forest products companies to invest in plant and equipment when they need to. This bill gives some relief from the perverse consequences of the AMT, which will allow more timely investment by forest products industries, giving them a better chance to compete worldwide while continuing to pay high wages and benefits to their employees. The forest products industry and those who work in it will benefit from the tax relief in this bill. That is helpful to an industry that is very important to my State. But there are other industries, ones important to other States around this country, which will also benefit. I urge my colleagues not to attempt to defeat this bill by demagoging it as a tax cut to big, faceless corporations. Corporations are not faceless. They are the faces of all those who work for them and the faces of all those whose retirement funds are invested in them. Let us quit trying to win political points by dividing Americans by income. Let us work together to provide an economic climate that will create jobs for everybody and make everybody richer.

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted 30 seconds to respond to my good friend from California. Nobody on this side of the aisle said that payroll taxes were not taxes. Certainly they are taxes. We recognize that and we created the earned income tax credit specifically for that purpose, to give those families some tax relief against the burden of those payroll taxes. But they do not pay any income taxes so we are not going to give them income tax relief. So I just wanted to make that point crystal clear. They are taxes, we believe they are taxes, we already give them a credit against those taxes.

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Archer] for yielding. I just want to talk for a couple minutes about their question of children in working families that will not receive the tax credit. I think what everybody should know is that those children or at least the families of those children already receive a tax credit, the earned income tax credit. Even though those families do not have any income tax liability, in other words, even though those families pay zero in income taxes, we provide them with a tax credit. We send money back to them from Washington, even though they do not send any income taxes to Washington, so we already give those families a tax credit. Our bill provides some income tax relief through an income tax credit to families with children who pay income taxes. Now, having talked to a lot of folks down in my district on the street about this, that kind of makes sense to them. If you pay income taxes, you need a tax break, you need the child tax credit. If you do not pay income taxes, you should not get an income tax credit. I think that probably makes sense to most Americans, and that is what we are trying to do in our bill. If we want to talk about increasing welfare benefits, which is what the earned income tax credit is, then we can do that. I happen to like the earned income tax credit. I think it is sound policy. It does encourage people to get off welfare and into work. But that is a different subject from giving hard-working, tax-paying Americans a tax break. So I hope that the public will not be confused by the continual harangue from the other side that we are not giving the families of certain numbers of children this tax break. We already give them a tax break. We already give them money back when they pay no taxes. So the bill that the Democrats have proposed is, in effect, an increase on welfare benefits, not a true income tax credit for folks who pay income tax.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, across our Nation this past weekend millions of Americans took part in the weekly ritual of opening their Sunday morning newspaper. For many folks, they first turn to the sports page to get scores or reports on their favorite teams. But this past Sunday Louisianans did not need to check the papers. In their homes Saturday they had gathered with purple- and gold-clad friends to watch the LSU Tigers win the College World Series for the second consecutive year and for the fourth time in the 1990's. Along the way, LSU rewrote the record books, hitting more home runs than any other college team in history. Meanwhile the LSU women's track and field team accomplished what many said could not be done, clinching an 11th consecutive national championship. The championship for the Lady Tigers continued the longest active streak of national championships by any men's or women's program in Division I sports. If you opened the Sunday paper here in our Nation's Capital this last weekend, there was an entire page with stories about the two championships for LSU. Hard work by athletes and coaches on both LSU teams has produced collegiate sports dynasties and has instilled pride in the hearts of Tiger alumni across America. I join the citizens of Louisiana in saying congratulations and thank you to Coach Skip Bertman and his LSU men's baseball team and to Coach Pat Henry and the women's track and field team. Keep going, Tigers.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to express my views on one particular provision of the technical corrections bill before us today. This provision has to do with the eligibility of children for SSI benefits, and changes made in determining eligibility in accordance with last year's welfare reform law. Public Law 104-193; current law defines the period for the Social Security Administration [SSA] to make childhood medical determinations to 1 year following enactment of the welfare reform law. That is, eligibility redeterminations need to be made in required cases by no later than August 22, 1997. However, there may be some cases inadvertently missed during that period. Such children could be discovered during a continuing disability review or other file review after August 22, 1997. SSA argues that these cases, once discovered, could be subject to the medical improvement standard rather than applying the new eligibility criteria. This would result in the continuation of benefits to children who did not meet the new eligibility criteria. I disagree with this interpretation. Congress intended that all children affected by these changes would be redetermined using the new eligibility criteria and not the medical improvement standard. The time period for redetermination contained in Public Law 104-193 was included solely for the purpose of forcing the Social Security Administration to make an expeditious completion of the redetermination of eligibility for all affected children. In fact, the record of the proceedings of the Ways and Means Committee will show that the Social Security Administration was directly questioned as to the amount of time needed to complete the redeterminations. Due to the administration's delay in releasing implementing regulations, the committee has decided to extend the period of time for SSA to determine the eligibility of any child receiving SSI benefits on August 22, 1996, whose eligibility may be affected by changes in the childhood eligibility criteria from 12 to 18 months. The committee expects SSA to comply with the direction of the law, and will hold the Commissioner of Social Security fully responsible for noncompliance.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Saxton], the chairman of the subcommittee, for yielding me this time, and I thank the gentleman from American Samoa [Mr. Faleomavaega] for his kind remarks, and also the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Studds], the ranking minority member of the subcommittee, for their help and cooperation in getting this bill to the floor. Also, as we all know, staff always play an important part in getting legislation through the various hoops and hurdles in the legislative process, and I want to thank the staff of the subcommittee as well for their hard work, particularly Harry Burroughs. This bill, as Chairman Saxton explained, would increase to $20 million the authorization for land purchases in the Tensas National Wildlife Refuge. This refuge encompasses 64,000 acres in two parishes, or counties, in my district, Tensas and Madison Parishes, and the refuge is home to some of the Nation's rarest species, including the bald eagle and the peregrine falcon. The Tensas Refuge also hosts the largest remaining population of the endangered Louisiana black bear. Also, a wide variety of plant species are found in this tract, including the largest tract of bottomland hardwoods remaining in the Mississippi River delta. So it is a very important piece of land, and we want to preserve it for future generations. We have done a good job in seeing to that so far. This bill, by the way, will not enlarge the boundaries of the refuge. It simply will allow us to purchase from willing sellers inholdings within the current boundaries of the refuge, and this will make management of the area easier and more effective, and no land will be purchased from anyone other than willing sellers and owners of inholdings in this existing refuge. In closing, let me again thank the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Saxton], the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Studds], and the members of the subcommittee and the full committee for their support in getting this legislation to the floor. I urge my colleagues to support it and urge its approval.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman of the subcommittee for yielding me this time and congratulate him on the great work in getting this welfare reform bill to the floor today. I also commend the President today for agreeing to sign this most historic bill. I want to talk for just a second about a part of the bill that I helped write, and I have gotten several calls today and yesterday, and some of my colleagues have, regarding the SSI for children's provisions in this bill. I want to assure all those teachers who brought this problem to my attention and to the attention of other of my colleagues this is being taken care of in this welfare reform bill. We do away with a very subjective qualifying criteria that allows children to qualify for a disability when they really should not be on the program and replaces it with very definitive medical criteria that will be much, much superior to the current system. So I want to thank the gentlewoman from Arkansas, Blanche Lambert Lincoln, the gentleman from Wisconsin, Gerald Kleczka, and others who helped me to bring to the attention of this body the very serious problems with the SSI disability for children.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, just a couple of points. My good friend on the Committee on Ways and Means, the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Neal], is a good member of that committee and certainly I listen when he speaks. He talks about a bipartisan bill that was offered here on this floor, and he said that was the only bipartisan bill offered. Well, maybe it was the only bill with a bipartisan list of authors, but the fact is that that bill only got 9 Republicans to vote for it on the floor. The Republican bill got 30 Democrats to vote for it on the floor. So the more bipartisan of those two bills, my colleagues, was not the so- called bipartisan bill, it was the Republican bill that in fact passed this House. Another point. The gentleman from Massachusetts, [Mr. Neal] and the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Levin] talked about how far Republicans have come, and I appreciate their giving us that. We have come a long way from where we started. But so has the President. To give him some credit, he has come a long way. The first bill the President sent to this House increased spending for welfare programs in this country. The bill that we hope he will sign now will save somewhere on the order of $60 billion. So that is coming a long way on the part of the President and the Democrats in this House. And I appreciate that, too. Mr. Speaker, I think this is a classic example of negotiators starting at the far ends, coming to the middle, producing a product that is a compromise but that will move this country forward, that will bring families and children out of poverty finally in this country, give them some hope instead of lives of despair and hopelessness. So I want to congratulate both sides of the aisle, the Republicans and the Democrats, for compromising, coming to the middle, producing a bill that I hope will become law.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Madam Chairman, I want to talk for just a while about the basis for reform. I think it is worthwhile to examine the current welfare system and its results over the last few years. This chart shows very graphically, this line right here is the poverty rate in the United States. Beginning in 1950, you can see it drops until about 1965 or so. Well, it just happens to be that 1965 was the beginning of the Great Society programs, and the avalanche of welfare spending in this country; as it has been said, $5 trillion over the last 30 years. What happens in 1965? It flattens out, the poverty rate, and then even goes up. So nothing has happened on the poverty rate. It has even gone up a little bit since 1965, since we have spent $5 trillion. This blue line right here is spending on welfare. Look, it is going off the chart in 1995. We are not getting the results, folks, that were advertised with all the taxpayer spending that we have done. It is the current system that is trapping children in poverty. It is the current system that is cruel to children. And if you do not recognize that, you have not been paying attention. Now is the time, not next year, not 5 or 10 years from now, now is the time finally to do something about this terrible welfare system that we have got. The status quo stinks. Admit it. Let us do something about it and quit talking about it. We sent the President two welfare bills. We are going to send him another one. We keep modifying it. This one is patterned after the bipartisan Governors' proposal. I have met with the President to talk about welfare reform, and this is very, very close. This bill is very, very close to what the President says he wants. Let us pass it, send it to him, and I hope he signs it.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Madam Chairman, I have a lot of things to talk about. First of all, the issue of unfunded mandates. I have in my hand here a letter from the CBO that my dear friend, the gentleman from Texas, kept referring to, in which the CBO states clearly: The work requirements contained in the portion of H.R. 3734 titled ``Temporary Assistance for Needy Families'' do not constitute an intergovernmental mandate, as defined under the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995. So I hope that will put that to rest once and for all. The issue of earned income tax credit. We received not too long ago a letter from the President in which he said, in listing his objections to our bill, the underlying bill on the floor today, the bill would still raise taxes on millions of working families by cutting the earned income tax credit. Madam Chairman, in trying to satisfy the objections of the President, we took that out of our bill. We do not raise taxes any more, using the President's terminology, on working families by cutting the EITC, but the substitute we are about to vote on does. It does. They do lower the threshold for disqualified income under the EITC in their substitute. They do add additional sources of income to disqualified income under the EITC. Also, they add additional income to the definition of adjusted gross income, which affects the level of the EITC. So we can talk around it all we want, but the fact is the substitute on the floor cuts the EITC by $3 billion in real money to real people. Do not get me wrong, I agree with the cuts. I think they are good. Madam Chairman, I think it is good, our EITC changes. I wish we had more of them. We took them out, trying to satisfy the objections of Democrats and the President. Members ought not to say they do not have those cuts in there, because they do. I think the Castle-Tanner substitute is a good bill. It is far superior to the present welfare system. The base bill, though, is a little better, so I hope people will vote against the substitute and for the underlying bill. Medicaid, I heard my good friend, the gentleman from Delaware [Mr. Castle], talking about how the substitute is better on Medicaid. Again, we have made a change in our bill to satisfy the gentleman from Delaware [Mr. Castle] and the President. Our provision is exactly the same as the Castle-Tanner substitute, maintenance of effort. They have 85 percent, we have 80 percent. My goodness, an 80 percent maintenance of effort requirement is a tough requirement. Vouchers. Our bill provides for a 20-percent hardship exemption at the option of the States. Twenty percent of their entire caseload can be exempted from the 5-year time limit. That is a very generous exemption. You do not need vouchers and you ought not to have them. You ought to have a strict time limit with an exemption for hardship cases. That is what we do in this bill. Food stamps, there are very strict requirements in the base bill for block grants. CBO estimates very few States will qualify.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I would like to add my congratulations to the LSU Tigers baseball team and say ditto to the words of my colleague, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Tauzin]. I would also like to remind everyone that just a few seeks before LSU's baseball triumph the women's track team from LSU also won the national championship for the umpteenth time in my lifetime. They have a great program there, so congratulations to the women's track team at LSU and Skip Bertman's baseball team. Go, Tigers.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, I, too, want to commend the authors of the coalition budget. It is an excellent budget. It is not the best budget on the floor today, but it is an excellent budget. If anyone doubts the positive impact on the budget process that the new Republican majority has had, they need only look at the offerings on the floor of the House of Representatives today and compare them with the offerings of just 3 years ago. There is a marked distinction, a marked distinction in favor of future generations of Americans; in favor of dealing honestly with our Nation's fiscal problems. I want to commend those who have brought honest budgets to the floor today. I also know, however, that some of these same authors of the coalition budget just 3 years ago voted against a tax increase. They voted against President Clinton's tax increase. Yet, they stand on the floor today, just 3 years later, and say, ``Oh, well, we were against them then, but today we think they are okay.'' That is essentially what they are saying when they refuse to give back to the American people any portion of President Clinton's tax increase of 1993. The Republican budget gets back for the people less than half of the tax increase that was passed by one vote in this House 3 years ago. I do not think that is too much. I would like to do more. I would like to give more of that money that we took from the American people in 1993 back to them, but at least we get a good start in the Republican budget. The coalition budget, as good as it is, taxes more and spends more. That is the key difference between their budget and the Republican budget. Please vote no on this coalition budget. Support the Republican budget.