Jim McDermott

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, although both sides of the aisle strongly disagree on the merits of this bill, I think both parties will agree that in the last few days we have seen a truckload of statistics, charts, graphs, and surveys arguing for or against this tax cut plan. However, there is one thing that both sides agree upon--that the Republican tax cut plan will increase the deficit by $189 billion. Worse still, the Republican majority is proposing that we pay for over half of this deficit increase with an I.O.U. for $100 billion. Not real money, but a promise to pay in the future. No one knows what will happen in the future when the appropriators actually identify where the cuts will come from to achieve the $100 billion in savings. We have before us a so-called illustrative list of proposed cuts by Budget Committee Chairman Kasich. I am sure that I am not the only Member of Congress who is dubious at best, about anyone's ability to mandate spending cuts. If the Republican majority so firmly believes in this tax cut plan, why have they not come up with the specific spending cuts which they promised to identify for the American people? When President Clinton lowered spending caps 2 years ago, he did it to cut spending, not to give the money to the wealthy. We have been down this road before. In 1981, Congress passed President Reagan's tax cut bill without any accompanying spending cuts. As a result, the deficit soared and we face the budget mess we are in today. How many Members on the other side of the aisle remember that in 1981 the Reagan administration projected a balanced budget by 1984? Sound familiar? As Yogi Berra would say, ``It's deja-vu all over again.'' The Republican leadership is asking for a giant leap of faith. They are implicitly forcing Members to sign a second contract, not with the American people, but with the Republican leadership to vote for a budget reconciliation bill that has not been written and currently does not exist. Unlike the recent rescissions bill which spared projects in key Republican districts, everything--including Social Security--will have to be on the table to find the $100 billion in real cuts. In September you will be asked to vote for a budget reconciliation bill that drastically cuts programs and services in your district to pay for this wasteful tax cut bill. Many of you will have a lot of explaining to do. The agreement by the Republican leadership to link the tax cuts to a balanced budget plan is toothless and misleading. This phony agreement allows the leadership to get their tax bill enacted without having to commit to any guaranteed deficit reduction. There is absolutely nothing in the agreement that even remotely looks like an enforcement mechanism. This agreement makes it all too clear that it is more important to the Republican leadership to keep their political opiate--a promise of tax cuts--no matter how damaging the long-term consequences. The unfairness of who gets what of this bill are too numerous for me to recite. No matter how you analyze this bill, families with higher incomes receive a disproportionate share of the total benefits from these tax cuts. Chairman Archer knows this. That is why he is trying to change the focus of the debate from who receives the majority of the tax bill's benefits to what percentage of total income taxes are paid by the rich. Good try, Mr. Chairman, but it will not work. The real issue today is not the total proportion of income taxes the richest 10 percent of the population pay, but how much of a tax benefit high income families receive under the contract when compared to current tax law. Under the Republican bill, the rich get richer so it is logical that they will pay additional taxes on the extra money they earn. In contrast, a working class family that is not able to take advantage of all of the new tax breaks contained in this bill will simply not benefit nearly as much. The majority of these tax cuts will not benefit working class Americans. Under the Republican theory of ``trickle-down-economics,'' working families will not even get wet. For example, the richest 1 percent of Americans who make more than $267,000 will pay 18.23 percent of the tax burden under the contract, up 2 percent. But what Chairman Archer does not say is that those same families--the top 1 percent--will an average tax savings of more than $11,000 per year under the contract. In contrast, the majority of American taxpayers whose incomes are less than $44,434 will pay 16.1 percent of the tax burden under the contract, a drop of 0.2 percent. But, these families only see an average tax savings of $760 or less. That's right, the rich will get $11,000 in tax savings from this tax plan and the majority of Americans will get $760 or less in savings. Is this what the Speaker means when he talks about the ``opportunity society'' for the American people? By voting for this bill with its fairy tale $100 billion I.O.U., the Republican rank-and-file have given up any remaining shred of independence they so briefly entertained last week. They might as well give their voting cards to the Speaker and allow him to vote yes for them on passage of the budget reconciliation bill in September because after today they have no choice. In September the voters back home will be wondering why they sent you here. Did they want you to vote your conscience or to play the childish game of ``follow the leader?'' Unfortunately, we have so few Members who do the former and far too many who do the latter.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Yes, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, if I understand the ruling the Chair is about to make, you are saying for those who do not understand arcane tax law, if we raise taxes on people but we do it in a sneaky, kind of back-door way of doing it, that, Mr. Speaker, if we do it in a legislatively, carefully crafted way, we can get away with it. If we do it straight out and say to small business, your taxes go from 14 percent to 19 percent just like that, that would require a 60-percent vote. But if we can find some way parliamentarily to swing around it, whatever the effect on people is does not make any difference. Is that what the Chair is saying?

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, are we now doing amendment No. 18?

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, to extend debate, as Mr. Gibbons' designee, I move to strike the last word, and I ask unanimous consent to be allowed to yield blocks of time.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman and Members of the House, this is another one of the fig-leaf amendments. Now, this place is starting to look like a fig tree. Every time they bring the bill out, people look at it and say, ``Well, this needs a figleaf.'' We took benefits away from legal immigrants in this country. Now, I went to the Committee on Rules and asked for the right to give those benefits to legal immigrants, and I was joined by the gentlewoman from Florida [Ms. Ros-Lehtinen] and the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Diaz- this little figleaf that does not do anything. It knocks a half a million people off the aged and disabled rolls. It is a help for a few pitiful people who cannot walk into the office and file. Now, that, in my opinion, is about 1 inch when we ought to go a mile. If you are a legal immigrant in this country, you are working here, you are paying taxes, and bad times come to you, you ought to be entitled to everything else that every American is, and I think that this is only a half a loaf. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. Berman].

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Kennedy].

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, to extend the debate I move to strike the last word, and ask unanimous consent to merge that additional time with the time I am presently controlling.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Deal].

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I would just point out to the chairman of the committee that he is mixing apples and oranges. The gentleman has taken away the guarantee of child care. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Stenholm]. (Mr. STENHOLM asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. We have talked about numbers here. The fact is that the bill that came out of the committee, proposed by the gentlewoman from Connecticut [Mrs. Johnson] and others, repealed $4.6 billion in child care. That, plus the $8 million that the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Deal] has, is more than $12 billion, which is more money than was presently in this bill. So there is no question. The gentlewoman from Connecticut [Mrs. Johnson] assures us that there is no dealing with polls here, nobody is worried about polls. Well, I have a story from the Washington Times on the 5th of March where the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Goodling] says, ``The only major area of concern I have is the area of day care.'' This has been known since the 5th of March, when it was in the committee of the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Goodling]. He did absolutely nothing about it. When it gets out here on the floor and the American public figures out what it is all about, suddenly they say, in the poll, the Republicans are cutting child care; they should not be doing that. So we suddenly have this little fig leaf amendment. I urge that Members vote against this fig leaf amendment and for the bill of the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Deal].

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Clement]. (Mr. CLEMENT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, to extend debate, as the designee of the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Gibbons], I move to strike the last word and ask unanimous consent to merge that additional time with the time which the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Kildee] is now controlling.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. de la Garza.] Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, listening to the debate, a name burns in my mind and in my soul. Alejandrita Hernandez, 6 years old, her parents working in a field in Florida. She is found raped and killed under a truck. These were poor working people, and if you reduce by one the availability of child care, I want it to burn in your mind, Alejandrita Hernandez. We are talking about savings to give tax credits to the rich. We are talking about not welfare, not revamping. We are missing the boat altogether. As good intentioned as all of us might be, you have not done anything to help Alejandrita Hernandez. You cannot bring her back. But it would burn in my mind and soul that her name would be forgotten so that we can give tax credits to $200,000 and over. minute to the gentleman from California [Mr. Bilbray], who has had a lot of experience in this area.

Mr. McDERMOTT. I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Levin].

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Kildee], and I ask unanimous consent that he be allowed to control that time.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Levin].

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, Members of the House, we have again a fig leaf on the other side. They have written the bill, they have gotten it out here. Then they did a poll. On Monday they did a poll; a Republican pollster did a poll, and found that 67 percent of Americans believe the Government should help pay for child care for mothers on welfare. They found that 54 percent of those surveyed opposed eliminating requirements to State-set minimum health and safety standards for child care. So they said, ``This is awful what we did. We've cut 400,000 kids out of child care.'' So they have come out here with an amendment today. It is a fig leaf. It puts 100,000 back on. There is still 300,000 kids who will not get welfare child care under this bill. There should be no mistake about it; this does not solve the problem. The gentlewoman from Connecticut [Mrs. Johnson] is absolutely correct. It is a fig leaf because they got a poll that said they were in trouble. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut [Mrs. Kennelly].

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Frank].

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, the fundamental difference between the Democrat and the Republican approach to what we do about welfare is what you believe is the fundamental problem. If you beat on people, they will go to work; that is what Republicans believe. Now, if this bill were in effect in 1982 when Ronald Reagan, and we had that big sweep and we were close to the wall, the unemployment rate in the State of Washington was 12.1 percent. The national unemployment rate was 9.6 percent. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says the underemployment rate in the country at that time was 16.5 percent, and in the State of Washington it was 20 percent. That includes those people who were involuntarily working part-time and discouraged workers. Now, when you say you are going to take a 16-year-old kid and drive them out into the street by taking away the money for their kid and that somehow they are going to magically find a job when there is 20 percent of the people unemployed or underemployed in the State of Washington, you simply live in a dream world. This is a bad bill.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Cleveland, OH [Mr. Stokes].

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, as the designee of the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Gibbons], I move to strike the last word, and I ask unanimous consent to be allowed to yield blocks of time.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, is this amendment time on the amendment we are discussing or is this on the next amendment?

Mr. McDERMOTT. A parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman.