Jim Nussle

Mr. NUSSLE

Mr. NUSSLE. Why did the gentleman not take the opportunity in 1993?

Mr. NUSSLE. Why did it take the gentleman so long? Is that a revelation that just kind of came to him?

Mr. NUSSLE. Is it a revelation? ``Let us put it in the Highway Trust Fund?''

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, listening to the last speaker, he said how the Democrats want to give it to the American people. They sure want to give it to the American people, the way they did in 1993 when they raised the taxes, the largest in American history. I would like to go back and talk a little bit about why they raised the tax. You would think that they raised the tax in order to repair roads, or to fix potholes, or for mass transit, or for senior transportation, or to make sure that our bridges were in repair. Is that the reason? Absolutely not. And now we have the ranking member running into the House today saying it went for deficit reduction. But you did not, And it did not go to roads, it did not go to bridges, it did not go to potholes. It went for deficit reduction, they say. But did it work? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. In fact, it went for wasteful Washington spending, so that you could tell the folks back home what kind of great job you were doing in your districts and what kind of great job you were doing on deficit reduction, when in fact all you did was take more money out of their pocket, bring it out here to your pocket, because you believe you spend the money better than they do. Let me tell you a little bit about gas taxes and how it all works. I have a friend of mine, Don Gentz, who runs Don Gentz Standard in Manchester, IA. He tells me the folks in Manchester do not even realize the price of a gallon of gas. Do you realize gas prices back in 1965 were only 20 cents? Do you realize in 1975 it was only 45 cents? In 1985, it was only 98 cents? And today, it is only about 80 or 90 cents? Why are you paying so much money when you pump, stick that nozzle in your tank? Why do you pay $1.20 or $1.30 or $1.40 or $1.50. Why are you not paying what the oil refineries have as their cost? Why do you not pay what Don Gentz pays to put that gas into his tank in the ground? Why do you consumers not pay that? Because the Democrats believe that they spend your money better than you do. So they raised gas prices through the gas tax. And now, in 1995, instead of paying just 80 cents, you added another 40 cents on. We just want to take a small part away. The reason is very simple, and this is the whole crux of the debate. Who do you think spends your money better? Do you believe the wasteful Washington bureaucrats and Representatives and Senators in Washington do it, or do you think the people back home, who pump their gas every single day so they can get to work and drive their kids to day care and make sure they get some money in their pocket at the end of the day, that they do a better job of spending that money? I happen to believe in Don Gentz. I happen to believe in the people that are driving to day care. I believe we ought to reduce this gas tax.

Mr. NUSSLE

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Let me start by suggesting that what we have here today is a real opportunity. I think what the Black Caucus has put together is probably the only real alternative that will be on the floor today. It balances the budget. It is a real budget, with real priorities. It is just using real numbers. What you have been able to put together is a real balanced budget. There is no quarrel on this side I am aware of with the compliment that in fact you have done fantastic work in coming forth with that priority. I think it is maybe a way of trying to answer this gentleman's question about why we are in opposition is just a matter of priorities. Certainly that is what this debate needs to be about. Just to set the tone, and hopefully it will work this way, hopefully you are not going to come out and say Medicare cuts. We do not cut Medicare. We can talk about reductions, we can talk about reductions in growth, we can talk about saving, we can talk about lots of things like that. But please do not come out with that, because we think we can sincerely have a debate over your budget and our budget without using the kind of rhetoric. So I start with a very sincere compliment that I think is shared by my side of the aisle with regard to the budget that you presented. Let me also suggest this. It is different than the so-called Blue Dog budget, in that the Blue Dogs really just endorsed the status quo, and, basically, it is a reendorsement of the 1993 tax increase. The Clinton budget does not use real numbers. The deficits go up in the first couple of years and it does not get to balance by 2002. What my Democrat colleagues have been able to put together, I say sincerely, is a great effort and I compliment them on it. Now, where do we differ? Where we differ, quite honestly, is the comment I tried to talk a little bit about yesterday, and that is when the woman came up to me after my town meeting and said: You know, you have it all wrong out there in Washington. It is not more government. It is not more government programs. We have tried that. We have tried growing the government. We have tried more government programs. She was about 90 years old, and what she told me was when she was a little girl in her neighborhood, that is where they solved problems. Now, Norman Rockwell is not around anymore. There is no way it can work exactly like that. But unless we establish a partnership between the Federal Government, the State government, the local governments and, more importantly, families, individuals and communities to solve these problems, I do not think we are going to get there. We spent $5.3 trillion on the War on Poverty since the 1960's, and I do not think there is anybody here that is suggesting we won that war. We have not even made a dent in that war in many respects. The second thing I would just say is, I met a gentleman in Waterloo, IA, who happens to be a black American, who in his neighborhood has established, we have all heard of Neighborhood Watch, well, this is the ultimate of Neighorhood Watch. He has gone into his community, neighborhood and community, and organized neighbors to solve poverty, drugs, crime. This guy is walking around late at night in his community with a gang of adults and parents, and what they are doing is they are saying, We are not going to wait for the Federal Government. We are not going to wait for the State government. We are not going to wait for Congress to pass a bill or get its act together or debate the budget. We are going to clean up our community today. We are going to solve local problems today. What the Republicans want to do is give him the resources. We do not want to just hire more bureaucrats to get that job done. We do not want to just establish more status quo programs. I say respectfully, while my colleagues' budget proposal balances, what we are concerned about is that it really continues much of this perpetuation of big government and more programs and more bureaucracy. So we have a difference of opinion. I know that is where my colleagues are coming from. Where we are coming from is that that has been tried, and we want to get it back to the local level. That is the difference between the two plans, in my estimation.

Mr. NUSSLE

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Chairman, my friend from Michigan said that this is about numbers. This is not about numbers, this is about people and families. We can do better. Our plan helps, because we allow people to earn more. We allow families to earn more, and we allow them to keep more so they can do more. Let me tell you about a person. We are going to talk about people. I had a woman come to one of my town meetings who I think put our budget in perspective, all these speeches we hear. She had a simple message for me. She said, ``You guys out in Washington don't get it. The problem with America today is air-conditioning.'' I said, ``What are you talking about?'' She said, ``The problem is air-conditioning.'' She was 90 years old. She said, ``When I was a little girl, we used to sit out on our front porch to keep cool during the summertime.'' In the neighborhood that she lived in, neighbors would watch neighbors. She said they would take care of one another. Her neighbors were worse to the kids in the neighborhood than their own parents. They were stricter, and would take care of one another. In Iowa, a covered dish solves about everything for a neighbor. Obviously that is not what we are suggesting here. She was suggesting with the invention of air-conditioning, people began to move inside. They began to move away from their neighbors, to move away from their neighborhood. For 40 years in Washington, we have been asking them to move even further away from their front porches of America. We have been asking them to move to Washington to solve problems, instead of the neighborhood, the family, the community. And we have taken from them so they cannot earn more and so they eventually cannot do more. Let me give you an example of this. I have a town in my district hit by a twister. That is the popular movie right now. We got hit by a twister about 5 years ago, a town by the name of Worthington, IA. This town was devastated. It destroyed just about the entire town. Most people who have been watching the movie I am sure would think after the kind of devastation you see in a town like that, that maybe people would just leave. It is a town of about 800 people. This town decided they would pull together. With volunteer money, because they knew they could not raise taxes like the Democrats did in 1993, this town decided with volunteer help, volunteer contribution, they built a city hall, a fire department, a community center, and they even went together and put in a library. This is a community that decided to help themselves. And when asked how did the Federal Government help you, there is not a program in the world, there is not a program the world, that would have helped them. Nothing at all. They could not get any help from the Federal Government. But they decided to pull together as a community, and, with local help, they were able to get this job done. I think that is the kind of attitude we need again in this country if we are going to solve problems. $5.3 trillion since the 1960's to solve the war on poverty. What has it gotten us? Not less poverty. It has gotten us more poverty. But what are the community action agencies and groups doing in our communities, such as the Salvation Army, organizations that derive their strength and their spirit from individual initiative and opportunity and responsibility for others? That is exactly the kind of spirit that we need. It gets money out of Washington. Our plan puts money back in communities and families, back to the front porches of America. So when you look at this budget and you say to yourself, what is this really as a bottom line? It is a question do you want it at a bureaucracy, a fancy white building, downtown Washington, filled with bureaucrats, or do you want that money on the front porches of America, the great front porches, that for years in this country solved our problems and in the future will continue to solve our problems if we will just let them. Families need to earn more, they need to be able to keep more, and, with that, they will be able to do more. And when it comes right down to it, it is a matter of who you trust. We know who Republicans trust. We trust individuals and families, because they make better decisions. In Washington, unfortunately, the opposition says bureaucracy makes better decisions.

Mr. NUSSLE

Mr. NUSSLE. We have a President that vetoes everything.

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding time to me. I know it is typical that you yield to members of the Committee on Appropriations, so I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this. When the gentleman talks about wanting to run over here and objecting to this bill, I came over here on pretty quick notice when I heard this was coming up. I heard that negotiations had broken down in trying to get agriculture authorization onto this bill. It is very disturbing to me that, first of all, we had to go through this because the President vetoed the bill. We are now operating under the 1949 act because the President vetoed the bill. We hear that, over in the other body today, the majority leader, the gentleman from Kansas [Mr. Dole], wanted to bring up authorization language for agriculture, farmers that are talking to their bankers as we speak, making planting decisions, talking to their suppliers, and that there is one Member of the other body sitting over there dragging his feet, objecting to this coming up, objecting to the negotiations so we could put this on this bill and calm the fears of many farmers out there that are trying to dig up someplace in their attic or basement a copy of the 1949 act. Mr. Speaker, it would be one thing to shut down the Government, I suppose, on some farmer's whim because they are having a difficult time understanding the 1949 act, if it was not for the fact that we know that the leadership in the House, in a bipartisan fashion, are working to figure out a way to deal with this problem possibly as soon as next week. But we have got to, I would say to my colleagues, stress to the minority leader in the Senate, Mr. Daschle, who continues to object to this change, continues to object to allowing farmers the kind of confidence that they need when they talk to their lenders, when they talk to their suppliers that they know what they are going to have to deal with next year. I am not going to object to this. I am going to support it. I urge Members from the farm country to do so. But we have to put pressure on those folks in the other body.

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, regardless of the state of the history, which, of course, is a Presidential veto, the fact of the matter is we are here today. There appears to be bipartisan support to attach language to make sure we have authorization for agriculture. There is one person over in the Senate who is blocking this.

Mr. NUSSLE

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, if I could even go one step further than that, I think the beauty of this amendment, prior to this unanimous- consent request, was that it is a clear signal to the lobbyists, do not send anything. Then we do not have to decide. Then there is not a problem. Now we are saying that baseball caps and other items, other items of minimal value, now it becomes a judgment call not only on the giver but also the receiver as to what else may be included, which goes to the gentleman's point, but also to what is of minimal value. The beauty of this amendment, which was a gift ban, which exempted out the family and everything else, was that it not only was a suggestion to us but it was a clear signal to those who might want to give. I think that was the beauty of it. I would hope that the gentleman would continue to object.

Mr. NUSSLE. If the gentleman does not, I might.

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, I object.

Mr. NUSSLE

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. On July 24, the citizens of Waterloo, IA, spoke to the Speaker of the House and myself during a town meeting. During that visit, the Speaker made a commitment to the people of Waterloo that we were going to act today on this important legislation. So today we do act. I commend the chairman, the gentleman from New York, [Mr. Lazio], and the gentleman from Iowa, [Mr. Leach], and many others who have worked tirelessly on this issue. I want to read to you the pleas of the citizens group in Waterloo that has been working on this issue. In part it says this: when a drug dealer lives in Federal housing, more specifically in section 8 housing, we find our battle is not only with the drug dealer, but also with the Federal Government. They went on to say, as poor families sit on waiting lists, sometimes for years, to receive section 8 housing, drug dealers roll up their thick wad of twenties and continue to get their rent paid by the Federal Government. Federally funded housing should be the most crime- free housing in our Nation. Instead it has become synonymous with drugs and violence. Being poor should not mean you are forced to live among drug dealers and violent criminals. Therefore, families are forced to live with drug dealing and with violent neighbors because of regulations that go unenforced by Housing and Urban Development. Today we will stop this practice by this important legislation. We answer the pleas of Leon Moseley and Donna Jones and many others from Waterloo and across the country that have been pleading for help and action by the Federal Government so that they do not have to live in communities that are full of drugs and violence. I commend this entire Congress for working in an area where Housing and Urban Development would not.

Mr. NUSSLE

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, on Thursday, September 7, my vote was not recorded on roll call vote No. 640. Had my vote been recorded, I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. NUSSLE

Mr. NUSSLE. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to engage with the gentleman from California [Mr. Packard] in a colloquy. Mr. Packard, in reviewing the conference report language, it appears that the intent of the subcommittee is to prohibit all moves by Members of their offices. As my colleague knows, as part of the transition we are attempting to consolidate Member offices, consolidate split suites where there are two rooms and one room that is located elsewhere. We want to make sure that the bipartisan building commission, as part of the transition, still has the ability to consolidate suites, and I want to make sure that even though there is a prohibition, that that prohibition is more if a Member's term is limited for one reason or another by death or resignation and not for the incidental consolidation Members' suites.

Mr. NUSSLE

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, on Monday, July 24, I missed a series of rollcall votes--Rollcall Votes No. 555-562. Had I been present during those votes, I would have cast my vote in the following manner: Rollcall Votes Number: Position 555 (Gejdenson Amendment to H.R. 70)...............................No 556 (Miller Amendment to H.R. 70)..................................No 557 (Final Passage of H.R. 70)....................................Aye 558 (LaTourette Amendment to H.R. 2002)............................No 559 (Foglietta Amendment to H.R. 2002).............................No 560 (Smith Amendment to H.R. 2002)................................Aye 561 (Smith Amendment to H.R. 2002)................................Aye 562 (Hefley Amendment to H.R. 2002)...............................Aye

Mr. NUSSLE

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. I, as a member of the Committee on Ways and Means, am delighted today to welcome our newest Republican, the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Greg Laughlin, to the committee and welcome him to the Republican majority in the House. I fully expect that this resolution will pass and, as a member of the committee, we are all looking forward to working with him on the important issues that we know we need to face this year. He has been superb and hard working and we know he is going to be a very articulate member of the committee. As we participate in this debate today, I think it is important to address some of these trumped- up and now glossed-over charges, trying to deflect the debate from the resolution today to scare tactics to senior citizens instead of what we ought to be talking about, and that is the ratio on the Committee on Ways and Means, not some trumped-up political charge that the minority leader or anybody else decides that they are going to do today. Mr. Speaker, our chairman, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Archer], has been and will continue to be very fair to the Democrats, more fair than they were to us when we were in the minority. Despite the hysteria coming from some on the minority side, we do not intend to let those distortions and exaggerations stop us from managing the committee in a fair-minded and a fair-handed way that earns the respect of the American people. First let us talk about the record, about the history of this committee, which was so glossed over in the last statement. Let me state for the record that the addition of Congressman Laughlin to the committee will hold Republicans to 59 percent of the seats on the Committee on Ways and Means. Not since 1923--the Republicans were in the majority, by the way, 1923--has the majority party enjoyed less than 60 percent of the seats on the Committee on Ways and Means, regardless of the majority ratio in the House of Representatives. Even when the Democrat majority held just 51 percent in the House, they received 60 percent of the committee seats. With Congressman Laughlin on the committee, we will only be at 59. Again, we are being fairer to them than they ever were to us. But they say we have 53 percent on the floor and 59 percent in the committee. That is unfair they say. Well, let me point out that in 1981, following the Reagan landslide, they had 56 percent on the floor and 66 in committee, a spread of 10 points. We again are fairer to them than they were to us. Eighteen times, eighteen times in this century the spread between the floor and the committee has exceeded or been equal to six points; the most recent being 1986. Today's spread is exactly six points. Again, we are fairer to them than they were to us. I think it also should be noted that in 1955, the last time the Democrats had 232 seats, which is what we have, the Democrats held 60 percent of the committee. Once more, we are fairer to them than they were to us. Mr. Speaker, I think that this is going to be very simple. They have been stung by defects, and they need to move on to the business of this country.

Mr. NUSSLE

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. What a difference 2 years makes, Mr. Speaker. We are paying our bills even during an emergency. I commend the gentleman. gentleman from Oklahoma [Mr. Istook].

Mr. NUSSLE

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Chairman, well, I thank my good friend, the chairman of the Committee on the Budget, for yielding. You know, folks, we have had about 4 hours of debate now, and we need a little bit of a break. We need to take a break from all the rhetoric and have a little bit of fun. The folks listening and the folks here in the Chamber, we are going to have a little budget quiz at about halftime. I [[Page H5166]] have got some questions for you for the 1996 budget debate quiz. Question No. 1, here we go, let us start. You do not need a No. 2 pencil, just follow along, listen carefully, and then mark your answers. The 1996 budget quiz: I will present a 5-year plan to balance the budget. Who said that? Is it A, Representative Mark Neumann, the budget we will be debating tomorrow, is it B, Senator Phil Gramm, candidate for President, fine Senator from Texas? No. It was, C, President Bill Clinton said, ``I will present a 5-year plan to balance the budget.'' Anybody get that one right? It is a trick question, a trick question. Here is question No. 2. Mark your answers. We think the task of balancing the budget is one that we have to actually take responsibility for ourselves and just do it. Who said that? Was it our fine chairman, John Kasich from Ohio? It sounds like him, does it not? Is it B, Senator Pete Domenici, from the Senate Budget Committee? Maybe. No, wrong again. It was C, Vice President Al Gore said, ``We think it is our responsibility to balance the budget.'' Have they taken responsibility? Does not sound like it to me. Go on to the third one. Question No. 3, when we have a Medicare Program that will grow at 11 percent and a Medicaid Program that will grow at 16 percent next year, when neither the population nor the morbidity statistics affecting those population groups are growing anywhere like that, we know we can get savings. Who thought that we could get savings from the Medicare and Medicaid Programs? Was it the AARP? Probably not. Was it the American Hospital Association? That sounds like them. No, it was C, the First Lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, as she testified before the Senate Committee on Finance. You did not get that one either? I can tell. Well, we will go on to the final question. This is a tough one. Listen carefully to this. Today, Medicaid and Medicare are growing up at three times the rate of inflation. We propose to let it go up at two times the rate of inflation. That is not a Medicaid or Medicare cut. So when you hear all of this business about cuts, let me caution you that that is not what is going on. Well, you probably heard a little bit about that today in the debate. So who do you think said that? Was it John Kasich? Sounds like Kasich. Sounds a lot like Kasich. I have heard you say that, John. Is it B, Senator Pete Domenici? No, it was again, C, our President, Bill Clinton, who knew full well that allowing it to grow at a slower rate than what it currently is growing now is not a cut. So as you listen to the rest of the debate, keep in mind our little 1996 budget debate quiz.

Mr. NUSSLE

Mr. NUSSLE. I thank the gentleman, my chairman, for yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, I have had an opportunity and I spent most of the afternoon listening to the debate. I must say it has been pretty clear to me there are two philosophies at work here. The one philosophy is the one I believe I brought to Congress and I believe many of my Republican friends brought to Congress. That is, that individuals and families make better decisions about their daily lives than Government can for them. They spend their money better. They make better decisions about their family, about their future, about deciding what their American dream is all about and how they are going to reach it. Yet there is another philosophy here in Congress and here in Washington, and, that is, that bureaucrats and Congressmen make better decisions about people's daily lives than they can for themselves and that the only kind of compassion we can have in this country is one that comes out of a word processor, one that is printed on paper, one that is paid for by a Government check, and that is basically the two competing philosophies. So, yeah, there's a lot of whining, there's a lot of crying about the future because the future is changing, because Americans are saying, ``We've had enough with Government check compassion. What we want is we want to take back our future.'' If there were $500 sitting right here on this podium and we had to decide in this body here today who would spend that money the most wisely, would it be Government bureaucrats and Congressmen or would it be families. I can tell you what the vote would be. The Republicans would say, ``Please, let families take back their future, let them decide how to best spend that money.'' Yet the vote on the other side would be very clear as well. They would say, ``We don't trust families. We think that it's the Government's money. It's not even the family's money. We're giving the tax cut.'' Who ever heard of giving a tax cut when it is the family's money to begin with? All of us that balance our checkbooks around our kitchen tables, particularly my friends back in Iowa, know who the money belongs to, knows that it is their money that they earned, that they worked for, that they want to make decisions about, whether it is for their farm or their family, their future, a college education. They are the ones that know how to manage that money. Today we will decide the future of those two philosophies. I know Republicans are going to trust families.

Mr. NUSSLE

Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of House Resolution 120--a resolution regarding the American citizens held in Iraq. I commend the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Stearns] and the gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman] for their leadership on this issue. It is a tragedy that William Barloon, of New Hampton, IA, and another American, David Daliberti, who mistakenly strayed across Kuwait's border and into Iraq, have received the extremely harsh sentence of 8 years in prison. I am encouraged by recent statements by Iraqi officials that the two men could be released in the near future, and I urge President Clinton and Secretary of State Christopher to continue their work to secure the release and safe return from Iraq of Mr. Barloon and Mr. Daliberti. Mr. Speaker, I support these two Americans, and I stand with their families and all Americans when I urge for their safe, speedy return and pray for that to happen as soon as possible.