John Olver

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I would say to the gentleman from South Carolina that it may be beneficial not to know anything about hydrogen research to be a part of this debate here today. As a scientist I support hydrogen research, and one of the last research programs I worked on in my academic career was in fact a hydrogen fuel cell research program, and it was one of the most promising ways to utilize hydrogen as a fuel. The distinguished chairman of the committee claims that the Hydrogen Technical Advisory Panel has recommended more spending than is even included in H.R. 655, and indeed the distinguished chairman is correct if we include the demonstration projects that the HTAP believers should be done, but the distinguished chairman has opposed the inclusion of those demonstration projects and in fact they are not included in the legislation. Under those circumstances, I wonder why we would be offering funding or defending funding as high as would include those demonstration projects. As an aside, I would say I believe we ought to be authorizing demonstration projects as proposed by the HTAP, but they are not included in the legislation and we should not be authorizing funding for them. So a little bit later I am going to offer an amendment that would provide for exactly the amount of funding in this bill that would provide for the research and development that the HTAP calls for, that HTAP is essentially a peer review panel for the whole program. Peer review panels are something that the chairman very strongly supports, as I support also. But I would strip out of it in the amendment I will offer later funding which goes beyond what is authorized in the bill and what is recommended by the HTAP panel and its recommendations, and I will offer that amendment at a later time.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Rebecca Lobo of the town of Southwick, MA. A senior student athlete at the university of Connecticut, Ms. Lobo has distinguished herself as an excellent scholar and superb basketball player. The entire First Congressional District is proud of her considerable achievements. In addition to being a key contributor on this year's NCAA Women's Basketball National Championship team, Ms. Lobo has received numerous prestigious awards. She is College Sports Magazine's National Player of the Year, Women's Basketball News Service's National Player of the Year, a unanimous first team All-American, and the Big East Conference Player of the Year (for the second consecutive year). Equally impressive athletic honors are certain to follow. A political science major, Ms. Lobo is just as intimidating in the classroom as on the hard court. Indeed, she earned a 4.0 grade point average during the last three semesters at the University of Connecticut. This dedication to her studies has brought her the distinction of being a Rhodes Scholar finalist, and the only Big East basketball player ever to be named both the Big East Player of the Year and the Big East Scholar-Athlete of the Year. Even more impressive is the fact that Ms. Lobo has accomplished this latter feat two times! Rebecca Lobo's unparalleled excellence in sports and in school makes her a fine role model for young people all across the country. The people of Southwick, MA, took the lead in recognizing Ms. Lobo's example when the board of selectmen voted to rename the road to Southwick-Tolland Regional High School the ``Rebecca Lobo Way.'' The board's chairman, Paul Salzer, explained that the town chose ``Rebecca Lobo Way'' as opposed to ``Rebecca Lobo Street'' because, ``It is indicative of a `WAY' to get ahead in education, in athletics.'' In fact, during their successful quest for a championship, Rebecca Lobo, and her teammates on the Huskies, have already served as inspiration for hundreds of girls across the country, as well as igniting interest in women's basketball for thousands of men and women. No collegiate basketball team, male or female, has ever won more games than this team, and they did it through teamwork, while upholding the best traditions of this country's true scholar-athletes. I ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating Rebecca Lobo on her successful college career. Her academic and athletic achievements do, indeed, lead the way and are an inspiration to us all.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, under this bill, the rich get richer, and the poor get more numerous. But that is what you would expect from Republican fiscal policies. This bill hides the fact that more than half of all the tax cuts under the legislation goes to two handfuls of our wealthiest Americans, two handfuls in percentages, of course. Under this bill, the benefits do not go to the middle class, which has been the constantly repeated lie along the way. I just want to talk about one provision. Take one provision. President Reagan signed in 1986 a provision that made the biggest corporations in America pay at least a minimum tax. Now this is going to be repealed, taking $15 billion and giving it to the largest corporations, Anheuser-Busch, Coors, Boeing, du Pont, General Dynamics, PepsiCo and Texaco and Westinghouse and Xerox. That money is being taken from people who will become poorer because of this legislation.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, Speaker Newt Gingrich, the Speaker of this House, has called the tax cut for the rich bill that we are going to be debating today the crown jewel of the Republican Contract on America. Well, he is also quoted in the Washington Times yesterday. Speaker Newt Gingrich quoted fairness is the animating principle, end quote, of the bill says House speaker Newt Gingrich who attacks the Democrats' argument as, quote, class warfare, unquote. Well, I am going to leave it to the American people to decide if it is fair to take $15 billion of financial aid from the children of middle and low income families, who would want to use that financial aid to go to college, and use the $15 billion to allow some of our biggest corporations in America to pay no taxes. Corporations like Anheuser-Busch, Boeing, du Pont, General Dynamics, PepsiCo, Texaco, Westinghouse, and Xerox--all of them would be allowed to pay no taxes under this bill. Is it fair to take $50 billion of heat and housing aid from elders and nutrition from young people and child care and subsistence from poor people and give that to the wealthiest families who make $200,000 a year? Is it fair?

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Lower tax break.

Mr. OLVER. Fine. I will yield if you would take less than a minute so I will not lose any of my time.

Mr. OLVER. No, I do not have time to yield.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I think that the discussion here that has been going on really is most appropriate because tomorrow we are going to be talking about the beginning of the debate on the middle-class tax cut. We have all heard a great deal about the middle-class tax cut over the last couple of years, and the reason why we have been talking about a middle-class tax cut is that the middle class really is very anxious. Jobs have been insecure for a number of years, for quite a few years. The cost of health care in the last 15 years has gone up by an enormous amount. The cost of educating your college-age kids has gone up tremendously, much faster than inflation. In sum total, I think it can be summarized in this chart, which shows what has happened over the last 15 years or thereabouts, or at least the 15 years from 1979 to 1993 when for different parts of the electorate, different parts of the citizenry and the electorate, of course, the rate at which people's income has gone up has been very different from the rate at which inflation has gone up. People's income, for people who are relatively low- and middle-income folks down here at the left side of the chart, has actually been going up slower than inflation for that 15 years, and so the broad middle class in here has seen their incomes erode for a long period of time. The very high-income people in the top 20 percent, these rightmost two bars representing the top 10 and the next 10 percent of all people's incomes in this country, they have seen their incomes in that 15 years go up considerably faster than inflation and have done pretty well in that period of time. So we have heard, theretofore, a great deal about a middle-class tax cut in order to give people down in this region, which the middle of the American citizenry falls right in this region, who have lost a little bit in the last 15 years certainly, and those who are in the lower middle class and those who are low-income working people and down there have all seen their incomes go down, and so indeed they should be very anxious. Well, so what do we have now coming up? We are going to be starting debate on a $190 billion tax bill. By the way, there is not a single economist who came before the Committee on the Budget in all of our hearings yet this year who suggested that we should be giving a tax cut of this sort when we are running the kinds of deficits, when we are running 200----

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, is this my time or not my time?

Mr. OLVER. If I may reclaim my time, I think that I am not sure exactly where that chart is from. It is hard for me to see it, but we tried that economics. It was called voodoo economics by the gentleman who was later the President of the United States and who had served as Vice President under President Reagan.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. I'm not sure how many economists or how many economics books would agree that there is a direct proportion of the nature that you have just described. I do not think there are very many of them that do. However, it is clear that what is happening here is that $15 billion, for instance, of the elimination of the tax, the alternate minimum tax on corporations, which you would give back $15 billion to corporations, would be taken by the Republican proposals as $15 billion directly from financial aid for American students, who really do cut across the middle class in this country.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, the Republicans say that the war on poverty has been lost so they are making war on poor children instead. I have got to hand it to them, though, they do not just target welfare kids, the Republican contract on America cuts income and food stamps and school breakfast and lunches, and nutrition for young mothers and care for abused children, and day care for children while their parents work, $50 billion in cuts for nearly 10 million families whose income is less than $20,000 a year, both working families and nonworking families, the Republicans do not seem to care which, families where more than 20 million children get their start in life. Are the Republicans using those $50 billion to cut the explosion of deficits from 12 years under voodoo economics? Not on your life. They are using those $50 billion taken from low-income families and their children to give tax cuts to the richest 2 percent of Americans. Only in Newt Gingrich's America would taking $50 billion from 25 percent of Americans and giving it to American millionaires be even thinkable.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. The gentleman is correct in indicating that it would be possible to move money from others of the five large block grants in this welfare bill. But take, for instance, the child care bill. You claim you want to put people to work. Our bill requires people to go to work.

Mr. OLVER. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. OLVER. I think if the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Hoke] would remember, I was very careful to point out that my 8,000 children are at risk of losing their school lunches, and the major reason why that is possible is because we have lumped several programs together in a block grant, which is the movement of the plates that has been talked about from last night. In that process, 20 percent of that money can be moved at the whim of the Governor of Massachusetts to other programs in a whole series of different block grants. So there is extreme danger that a very large number of children may be left out of food in this particular program.

Mr. OLVER. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to add my little figure of the 8,200 students in my district in Massachusetts who are in danger of losing their School Lunch Program. Mr. Speaker, we are nearly at the end of the debate on the Welfare Reform Program, and I do not understand really how anybody who has been listening to this debate or watching this debate could really understand the essential differences between the major bills, the Deal bill named after Congressman Nathan Deal from Georgia, and the Republican bill because I have rarely seen such deliberate misrepresentation in a debate. Today we saw Republican Representative from Missouri--and each of us has our charts--claiming with his chart that the Deal bill does not require work, does not require people to work, when the fact is that because--it was only because the Republican bill was ridiculed all over the country for not requiring work that they added an amendment just yesterday that brought the work requirement in their bill close to the Deal bill. We had another top Republican leader from Pennsylvania going to the very edge of personal vilification today in suggesting to a Member that it was corrupt and immoral, yes, the words corrupt and immoral, not to support the Republican version of this legislation. Well, my colleagues, the Deal bill had the strongest work requirement of any of the bills by honestly recognizing that if you care about getting people to work, you have also got to combat illiteracy and provide people with job training and a good piece of education and maybe some job placement services and reliable and safe child care so that parents can go to work. All of those programs were cut under the Republican bill. All of those provisions were cut under the Republican bill. Also a bill, by the way, that does not cut breakfast and lunches in a mixture, in a whole shell game of block grants. And it does not cut protection for abused children, and it does not cut day care for children so that their parents can work. That was the kind of a bill that every Member of my party proudly voted for, and it represented real reform and a real opportunity to change the way we deal with welfare people in this country. Now, Mr. Speaker, the Republicans say that the war on poverty is lost, so they are substituting a war on poor children for the war on poverty. Five million families with 9.5 million children who are living on AFDC, plus millions more families with millions more children who are working families but low-income working families, those families would, under the Republican bill, lose $50 billion of income and of food and of care for children while the parents work. And for protection for children, protective services for abused children, all of those would be given over instead to some of the wealthiest people in America. It is not to balance the budget, not even to deal with the deficit that we have in this country that we have been running. That is the kind of deficit that has been building, those huge deficits under President Reagan and President Bush year after year after year after a nearly balanced budget for many years beforehand. Not to do anything like that because they added an amendment that allows this money to not be used for the deficit but to be used for the tax cut that I have described. This $50 billion, and I have left out the $17 billion that is used to pay by way of legal immigrants and changes in the legal immigrant status, this $50 billion is exactly the amount of money that would be used in the next 5 years to provide tax cuts for the top 2 percent of Americans, those families making more than $200,000 per year. Mr. Speaker, only in Newt Gingrich's Washington would cutting $50 billion in food and housing and income for low-income working and nonworking people and shifting that to the wealthiest Americans, only in Newt Gingrich's America would that be even possible.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Bonior], my good friend, the minority whip, for yielding this time to me, and I must say I agree totally with him on the points that he has made about the confusion that has evolved in trying to deal in open, good consideration in committee as well as here on the floor in the Committee of the Whole. But the minority whip made the point in his opening statement that this was the low point in the procedural debates here in the House, in the Committee of the Whole and in the House, so far this year, and then the majority leader withdrew his motion and offered a motion which is worse in two ways. So, it is worse in two ways. The first way is in that it also included today, which was clearly the error of the majority leader in not having included today, Wednesday, in the original motion. So the confusion is added to today, in Wednesday's debate, but then the clustering of votes, which makes it worse again in the way that the clustering of votes creates a situation here of people not knowing, not having been able to be present, and having taken part in the debate and hearing the debate because they are in committees. This is to allow the committees to continue their work when the most important work that we can be doing is going on here on the floor on this very, very important piece of legislation. So that the clustering of votes negates the possibility of Members taking part in debate in this area while the action is going on in committees. We are starting debate on the amendments on the welfare reform bill, which is as important a piece of legislation as any piece of legislation that we considered in the 103d or the 104th Congress. There was nothing more important--not the crime bill, not the deficit reduction bill, not the primary and secondary education bill, not the balanced budget amendment of this year. We can take the primary and secondary education bill, which we debated for many days under an open rule, where Members came up for 5 minutes as important amendments were debated for 2 hours, the less important ones for only 10 or 20 minutes, and then a vote. Yes, it was possible to go and deal with things in the committee at the same time because there were long debate periods on very important amendments that were before us. But in this motion, what we have is debate on the welfare bill coming up with 31 amendments, with 20 minutes of debate allowed on them, and at the same time the majority leader has put forward a motion to allow every single committee of the Congress to be sitting, going through markups and going through hearings at exactly the same time we are going to be debating that extremely important piece of legislation. I think this is indeed truly the low point in the procedural operations of the 104th Congress, and I certainly hope that this motion will not be adopted.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, the second campaign in the war on poor people has begun. This time the wounded and the victims will be poor children. Hot school lunches and hot breakfasts, WIC that provides nutrition and education that helps to reduce low birth weight children, protection for abused children, day care for the children of working families, all of these will be cut under the so-called Personal Responsibility Act. However, these are hardly welfare programs. These are the very supports which keep children healthy and allow working families to stay off welfare and continue working. Why then are they included in the Republican welfare bill? All of these cuts will just about pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent in our country. The wealthiest 2 percent, the families with more than $200,000 of income, will be taking the advantage from this. I ask my colleagues to join with me in voting against the Personal Responsibility Act. It is time to stop this insanity.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, I do not think a single person out of 100 would have understood what the chairman of the Committee on the Budget had said earlier. It was Beltway convoluted arguments and discussion and apology for what is going on here. The simple fact of the matter is that the amendment that is being offered here by the majority would allow the 5 million families with 9 million children, $50 billion taken over 5 years from these families who have incomes under $15,000 a year, and give it to 2,000,000 families who have incomes of over $200,000 a year. That is the simple fact of what this amendment allows to happen. That is a result that we should not allow. It is a shell game and something that one of my colleagues suggested that the majority ought to be ashamed of.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. How can you get savings if you have not cut something?

Mr. OLVER. Yes, thank, you very much. I recognize that the gentlewoman and I both serve on the Budget Committee, and the Budget Committee has had to deal with scoring the items that gentlewoman has just finished speaking about. The two nutrition programs that the gentlewoman has spoken of show savings by your own party's count and by the Congressional Budget Office of $6.6 billion over the next 5 years. That is the school-based nutrition program and the family nutrition program. How can you be claiming savings on those programs if in fact there has not been something cut?

Mr. OLVER. Would the gentlewoman from North Carolina yield?

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, we have debated for many hours today on the welfare reform bill, the so-called Personal Responsibility Act, and it is a very important piece of legislation indeed. The Republicans say that this bill is about sacrifices. And indeed there are going to be 5 million families, and in those 5 million families there are 9.5 million children who are indeed going to make some sacrifices. Because for each one of those families, for each of the next 5 years on average, they will use nearly $2,000 worth of income and food and care for children while the parents go to work and care for abused children and such. And every one of those 5 million families has under $15,000 of income at the least $2,000. Why are we doing that? Is it to balance the budget? No, not even the first step on that. Not a single economist of some 20 or so, mostly chosen by the Republican majority for their willingness to say what the majority wanted them to say, not a single one of those economists supported the tax cut as a way to get about balancing the budget. Is it to reduce the deficit? Well, here is a chart that shows indeed what the deficit is and what it has been over a period of time. And you can see this massive deficit that was built up during the Reagan years and the Bush years, year after year, after many years of nearly balanced budgets and then slowly rising, but this huge deficit in the Reagan and the Bush years, year after year after year. But, no, it is not going to reduce the deficit. Because after the amendment that we adopted today which allows the savings to come from the welfare bill, the welfare reform bill, those savings are not to be used for reducing the deficit. They are, in fact, to be used to give a massive tax cut to the richest among us. Fifty billion dollars of moneys from families, from the 5 million families with under $15,000 a year is going to be transferred. Fifty billion dollars is going to be transferred to the 2 million families who have now presently over $200,000 per year. Each one of those families is going to see almost $5,000 per year for the next 5 years on average of tax reductions. Now, where is the sacrifice here for those 2 million families who presently make over $200,000 per year under the present tax laws? Where is the sacrifice there? I know, if you hadn't already guessed, there is not a single family of a Congressman or Congresswoman who is going to be sacrificing a penny in that process. And what are we as Americans going to be gaining from this? Are we going to get growth in the economy by putting people to work or a lower unemployment rate? Well, every time the economy looks as if it is going to take off and grow a bit or the unemployment rate goes below 6 percent, the Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan, raises the interest rate to cut the growth rate and to put people out of work. Where is the sacrifice for all of those 2 million families that are going to be given $50 billion in tax cuts that is going to be taken from the 5 million families and their 9\1/2\ million children, families that have less than $15,000 a year of income? Well, there is a sacrifice here ultimately, even if it is a little hard to see. And it may take a few years to see it, and it comes in crime particularly. Because we are going to see in a few years down the road thousands more people in prisons, prisons that cost $60,000 a cell to build and $20,000 to maintain a prisoner in one of those cells. We are going to see more drive-by shootings and more thefts and robberies and house breaks and drug abuse and sales of drugs. And it will only take a few more years. That is a few years down the road. In all of my years in the legislature of my State, and there were quite a number of those, and my few years, 4 years now, in the Congress, that is the most vicious and the most far-reaching attack on children that I have ever seen, and I have seen more than a few of those in my years in government. Because whenever you need to cut revenues, whenever you need to cut expenditures, children are targeted. They can't fight back. They can't vote. But some of us are going to fight back for them.