Rob Portman

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. I thank my colleague from Georgia for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, I thought what I might do is respond to some of the comments that have been made on the other side of the aisle, first to my friend from New York, the ranking Democrat on the Committee on Ways and Means. I was there with him in the Committee on Ways and Means when we had a good hearing, a good markup on these issues, and I appreciate his support of the Portman-Cardin provisions which are really the base of this legislation. There has been something added since that time, which is that those ``captains'' are prohibited from trading their stock at all during a blackout period so long as 50 percent of the participants in the plan are affected by the blackout. So you supported us in committee, we had a good bipartisan product, we had a good debate on it, we made some changes to accommodate some of the gentleman from Maryland's and your concerns and others, and then we added to it by actually putting in place what you indicated a moment ago is your biggest concern: that there is nothing in here to keep the captains from trading stock when the sailors cannot. I know there are some other issues. There is investment advice in here that was not in our bill, although we did have the pretax investment advice proposal. I would just hope that those listening to the debate today who are still trying to decide whether this is the right legislation to support or not, particularly on the other side of the aisle, would take a look at the bill. The gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) earlier who spoke in opposition to the bill because he said it did not do anything, I hope he would look at what came out of the Committee on Ways and Means and the gentleman from Ohio's committee more carefully because it does do a lot. Right now if you are in a 401(k), your employer can say, ``You're tied in till you retire.'' If it is an ESOP, they can only tie you until you are age 55. Plus you have to have 10 years of participation. So if you arrive at age 46, you have to wait until you are age 56. But with 401(k)s, they can go even further than that. The legislation before us today makes a substantial change and directly affects what happened at Enron. The employees at Enron had to wait till age 50. They could not unload the stock if they wanted to. What we are saying is, once you are there 3 years, you are vested, you can unload the stock. Three years, instead of waiting until you are age 50 or 55 or 65 or whatever the employer wanted to do under current law. Or the employer can instead choose a 3-year ``rolling,'' which means that when you get stock, you can only be required to hold it for 3 years. That is a big difference. For those on that side of the aisle who say there is no change here, that this is somehow worse, how can that be worse? Think about the employees who are in 401(k)s around this country who are taking advantage of that employer match but who want to have a little more choice. Do we not want to give that to them? Why would you vote ``no'' on this? This is going to help millions of people be able to have more choice. It also has a very important component, which is more information and education. On the information side, it says you now have to be told about a blackout. Right now there is no notice requirement for blackouts. A blackout is when a company stops all the trading in their stock, in their 401(k) plan or other pension plan during a period of time, for example, when they are changing plan administrators or managers. Right now there is no requirement for a notice. Some say Enron provided notice, some say they did not. That is really beside the point, because this is not just about Enron. The point is that right now there is no ability for employees to know when they are going into a blackout period where they cannot trade. We say it has to be given 30 days before the blackout. That is new. There is no requirement now. Again, for my colleagues on that side of the aisle to stand up and say this does not change things at all, I hope they are looking out for the interests of the employees, but I have got to wonder. Is this all about politics or is it about making real change that is going to make a real difference? We had a 36-2 vote out of the Committee on Ways and Means on this issue because the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) and other Democrats looked at the bill, read the bill, understood its impact on workers and supported it. Finally, in order to be able to make informed choices, because we are giving people more choices, we are giving people more information, you want to give people more education. I thought there was a bipartisan consensus about that. I thought we wanted people to be better informed so they could make better decisions on their own. 401(k) participants have gone in the last 22 years from a few thousand employees to millions of Americans. With over 235,000 plans, 42 million Americans now enjoy the benefits of this. Do you not want to let them have a little more education so they can make these decisions? This bill says on a pretax basis, you can deduct out of your paycheck money to go out and get advice, wherever you want. You can get it from whoever you want. You can get 300 bucks or 400 bucks or 500 bucks to go out and seek advice. Pretax. That is a pretty good deal. Again, that came out of the Committee on Ways and Means. I appreciate the gentleman from New York supporting that. It is a good provision. It is going to help people to get the information they need to be able to make these decisions we are now empowering them with. Rather than saying you have got to hold onto that stock until you retire, we are saying, you should diversify. We want to give you the information to do so. And then in Chairman Boehner's committee, the provision was added to say the company ought to be able to go out and get advisers to come in who are certified advisers, who disclose any conflict of interest they might have or potential conflict of interest, and they ought to be able to offer advice. That passed this House with over 60 Democrats supporting it last year, in November. That is not a controversial provision. The final thing is that we require not just more diversification options, more choice, more information, more education, but we actually force the employer now to tell employees they ought to diversify. When an employee now enters into a plan, we are going to require for the first time that they be given a notice which says, ``Guess what, it's not a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket. You ought to diversify.'' That is in this bill. It is not in current law. Then every quarter, they are now required to provide a benefit statement telling the employee what is going on with their plan and another notice saying, you ought to diversify. Because for retirement savings, it is not a good idea to have all your eggs in one basket. Information, education, choice, equals security. This is a pretty straightforward, commonsense piece of legislation. I have enjoyed working with the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin) on it for the past 3 or 4 months, enjoyed working with the administration, with the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), with the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), with other Democrats on the Committee on Ways and Means. I would just hope that today in a political year, where there is a lot of partisanship, that we can set some of that aside for the good of the workers, not the people at Enron solely, the people all around this country who are in 401(k) plans that have the huge advantage of getting an employer match. For those people, we ought to offer them better information, better education opportunities, and more choice. That is what this is about. This legislation, Mr. Speaker, has been bipartisan from the start. I am disappointed from what I have heard this morning from the other side. I would hope that at a minimum we can stick to the facts today, and if at the end of the day some of my colleagues on that side think this is such a great political issue that they just have to vote ``no,'' so be it. But let us not as we go through this debate mislead the American people and mislead our colleagues as to what is in this legislation. It is good, solid legislation that does address what happened at Enron. It is not the silver bullet that is going to solve every problem in our pension area, but it makes substantial progress. It does not turn the clock back. It moves the clock forward. It gives people information, education, security, that they need. I would strongly urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to look at the bill and if they do so, I believe they will support it.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the business in order under the Calendar Wednesday rule be dispensed with on Wednesday next.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns on Monday, April 15, 2002, it adjourn to meet at 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 16, 2002, for morning hour debates.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 2 p.m. on Monday next.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. There is no other legislation, other than the suspensions on Tuesday, that is anticipated at this time.

Mr. PORTMAN. It is my understanding that the Committee on Financial Services marked that legislation up today. It is being looked at now. It is unlikely to come up next week. More likely it would come up in later weeks. But we are still looking at the legislation.

Mr. PORTMAN. If the gentlewoman will yield further, it looks as though the tax bill will be scheduled for Thursday, and the child custody bill will likely be scheduled for Wednesday.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. I am pleased to announce that the House has now completed its legislative business for the week. The House will next meet for legislative business on Tuesday, April 16, at 12:30 p.m. for morning hour, and 2 o'clock p.m. for legislative business. The House will consider a number of measures under suspension of the rules, a list of which will be distributed to Members' offices tomorrow. On Tuesday, recorded votes will be postponed until 6:30 p.m. For Wednesday and Thursday, the majority leader has scheduled H.R. 476, the Child Custody Protection Act. The majority leader is also working with the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means to bring legislation to the floor next week to repeal the sunsets on the Bush tax relief plan that was passed by Congress last year.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of our time for purposes of control to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), the chairman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth), a member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I think the gentleman addressed the concerns, and all I can say is the underlying bill does address them. If you are an Enron employee, you had to hold that stock until you were 50 years old. What this underlying bill says is, you cannot do that anymore. A company cannot require that the employee hold the company-matched, it goes into a 401(k), until the employee is age 50. In fact, you cannot do it for more than 3 years. There is an initial 5-year period where you can unload 20 percent per year so you do not disrupt the markets; and after that point, you cannot hold an employee with the corporate stock for more than 3 years. The handcuffs are off. That is a big change. Under current practice, you can hold somebody until they retire. You can hold them for 40 or 50 or 60 years. It also provides more education, and this is extremely important. I think there is a consensus on that among people in this area, on the outside and people here in Congress, that we have to provide people with better tools so that they can make better decisions once they have been given more flexibility and more choice. We have disagreed here on the floor as to what kinds of tools those should be; but I think we agree, for the most part, that we ought to be getting people more advice. There are three ways this bill does that. First, it says that every time someone gets into a plan, they have to be given a notice saying you must look at your portfolio and you should diversify; in retirement, you should not have all of your eggs in one basket. It also says that on a quarterly basis, you get a report as to what is going on in your plan. That is not currently required. None of these are. It also says, under commonly accepted investment practices, you should diversify, in plain English. Second, it lets employees, on a pre-tax basis, pay for investment advice. That is not currently available. It could be like a cafeteria plan or like an eye glass plan or a health plan or a pension plan. It lets employees have a tax preference to go out and get investment advise on their own. They can choose whoever they want. That is expensive. That is one reason why people do not seek it. That is what the surveys show. So we are trying to help people. Finally is the investment advice piece that passed this House last November with 64 Democrats supporting it, and that piece says the company should be able to bring in people who are certified, qualified, who disclose any potential conflict of interest, who have a fiduciary responsibility to only do what is good for the workers; otherwise, they face penalties, and those people offer advice. That is a pretty practical way to do it, because some companies will be willing to pay for that and offer it. We want to encourage that. If we really believe education is a problem, and I think most of us do, we have to do something that is going to address it directly and that is really going to work in the real world. I think this substitute and the proposal there would not work nearly as well in the real world because I do not think employers would take advantage of it. Finally, we provide a lot more information in this bill. We tell people when there is a blackout period. Right now there is no requirement for that. Thirty days before a blackout period, and now you have to have a notice. That is going to help people who are stuck in a situation like the Enron scandal. So this is much more than Enron. It affects 55 million Americans who are in defined contribution plans, particularly those who are in a plan where you can get some corporate stock as a match, which is not the majority of plans, unfortunately, because we want these plans to be generous; but it will help millions of Americans, and it would have helped people who were stuck in the Enron situation. It would have helped them. Someone said that there is not adequate protections in here or there is nothing in here relating to what is good for the goose is good for the gander or, as someone said earlier, the captains ought to abide by the same rules as the sailors. Well, there is. First of all, if you are a captain or if you are a goose, and you have something of a 401(k) plan, you have some assets in a 401(k) plan, you are treated like everybody else. You are subject to the same blackout notice, the same blackout period where you cannot trade. The question is, what if you have stock outside of the 401(k)? Should you have an additional requirement for those employees of a company, senior executives or not, who have stock outside; and we say, yes, you should. If half or more of the people in a company are affected, as was the case of Enron, then you cannot trade during a blackout period, even though your stock has nothing to do with a 401(k) plan. That is a big change from current law. I think that needs to be clear. We are doing things that change structurally the way we deal with pensions in this country. Not every business is happy about this, but we have tried to achieve a balance. Because at the same time that we are providing more protections for the workers, information, education, disclosure, accountability, all equaling more retirement security, we are also very sensitive to this balance. Remember, there are 42 million Americans in 401(k)s, 55 million Americans in other kinds of plans. When we add them all up, there is $2.5 trillion of assets in these plans. We do not want to do harm to these plans. More important, there are 70 million Americans, half the workforce, who have no plan at all. They do not have anything. They do not have a 401(k). They do not have a SIMPLE plan, a SEP, or any retirement savings through their employer. The whole goal of this Congress over the last 5 years has been to expand pensions to those people. Where do they work? In small business, that is where the great bulk of them are; in small businesses, businesses that do not have a lawyer, they do not have an accountant, they do not have somebody to go through this maze, with the burdens, the costs and burdens and liabilities of pension plans. That is the real world. That is why, on a bipartisan basis, this House has acted, with over 400 votes on this floor, to pass legislation to expand pensions to these smaller employers by cutting down on the costs and burdens and liabilities. The alternative we are looking at here, the substitute we are debating right now, increases costs, burdens, and liabilities. In fact, it makes people personally liable for decisions that they have no control over with regard to pensions. Now, if one is a small business person and is trying to decide how to get into this business of offering pensions, and is worried about the costs, burdens, and liabilities, and now you discover you could have a criminal liability, a personal liability, more costs, more burdens, what are you going to do? Mr. Speaker, it is a voluntary system. We need to provide incentives. All the surveys show that. They all show the same things: Small businesses are going to get into providing pensions and the pension coverage we want them to provide only if it is easier, less expensive, less burdensome, and has less liability. That is the direction we ought to be going. So we do have a balance here. We do provide the employees more rights and protections, and we think that is appropriate, but we do not go so as far as to discourage those people who are already offering plans, and again, more importantly, to discourage those that might be interested in getting into the pension business now that we are offering higher contribution levels, more protections, lower costs and burdens and liabilities. We cannot go the wrong way here. We cannot go too far. My concern is that the substitute does go too far. Remember, in 1983 there were 175,000 defined benefit plans in this country. Those are the good, guaranteed plans. There were 175,000 of them; today there are 50,000. This Congress has, over time, added costs and burdens and liabilities to those plans to the point that most employers throw up their hands and say, I am not going to offer them anymore. We did things last year in this Congress to encourage defined benefit plans. We increased the limits, made it easier to offer them. But we do not want defined contribution plans, the 401(k)s, to go the way of the defined benefit plans, do we? Do we not want more pension coverage? In a voluntary system, we ought to do everything we can to encourage them. There are a couple of provisions that I see in the substitute that I am concerned with. Why should internal dispute resolutions be prohibited? Employers and employees alike like that, public and private sector alike. Why increase litigation costs? Why increase litigation? I do not get that. Why would we want to vote for a substitute that has increased litigation, increased costs? Second, there is an amendment in here, well-meaning, trying to close a loophole, by a colleague of mine in the Committee on Ways and Means, not vetted. It is a brand new amendment. It did not even come up in committee. The one that came up in committee was a different amendment. It has to do with those deferred comp plans that are not qualified plans. The Treasury Department has not even looked at it. We have not had a hearing on it. I would urge my colleagues not to move forward with this amendment until we have a chance to look at it and see what effect it would have. We do not want to, by trying to protect workers, create additional problems that will lead to less retirement coverage. So the underlying bill has important structural changes: more information, more education, more choice, more security, more accountability. The substitute, while well-meaning, goes too far and strikes the wrong balance. This Congress ought to be working to expand retirement security, not to decrease it. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Weller), my colleague on the Committee on Ways and Means. (Mr. WELLER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I am so glad my colleague, the gentleman from California, did not get too partisan there at the end, as he said he would not. I do not know how he could be much more partisan than that. Again, I think it is a sad day on the floor of the House when we have that kind of rhetoric over legislation that traditionally has been bipartisan, and that in fact is commonsense legislation that helps working people. I do want to apologize to the gentleman because earlier I said I had thought he had voted for the provision he was talking about. It passed the House 407 to 24. It has passed the House five times, as he knows. But he was not one of the people who voted for that, and I apologize for saying that. Earlier speakers have said there are no bona fide structural changes in this bill. The gentleman from California (Mr. Stark) has just talked about it in strictly political terms. Let me tell Members what the bill does. It provides more education, it provides more information, and it provides more choice to workers. That is what it does. All of that leads to more security in retirement. In terms of education, it says to workers that we are now going to allow them to get pre-tax advice. They can take pre-tax dollars, and go out and get their own advice. I think that is a good thing. There is a bipartisan consensus in the pension world that that is one of the things we need to focus on now is giving better information so they can make informed choices. It also provides for investment advice the employer can provide to the employee. It also provides for the first time a requirement that employers, as people enter 401(k)s or other retirement plans, send a statement which provides generally-accepted investment principles that say, you ought to diversify. To put all your eggs in one basket, as in the case of Enron, is a bad idea. That notice is good. We want to do that for the workers. It provides more information. For the first time ever, we are going to say that if there is a black-out period, that is when they cannot change their stock because that is when we are changing plan managers or plan administrators, they ought to know about that. We provide for a 30-day notice period. It is not in current law. That is an important change. It lets people get out of the stock if they want to. In terms of choice, right now if you are in a 401(k) plan, your employer can tie you with the employer-matched stock until you retire. At Enron, it was age 50. In an ESOP it could be up to age 55 plus 10 years particpation. We say no, it ought to be 3 years. Once you are there 3 years, you ought to be able to make that choice with better education, with better information; to be able to sell that stock you have gotten through an employer match. That is what this bill does. It has been mischaracterized today. There has been a lot of rhetoric on the floor, but those are the facts. Those are substantial changes from current law. Those are structural changes to the law that are going to give the workers in this country more security in their retirement by giving them better information to make choices, by giving them educational tools, and by giving them choice, and empowering them to make decisions for their own retirement.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sam Johnson), who is chairman of the Subcommittee on Employer-Employee Relations of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, as well as serving on the Committee on Ways and Means. (Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Madam Speaker, I rise this evening in strong support of this legislation. It is good commonsense legislation that will help protect taxpayers. This is a busy week for a lot of Americans. Millions of us are filing our tax returns, trying to get them in by April 15. This is time for us to provide a little bit of help. In 1998, this Congress passed historic legislation to restructure and reform the IRS and included over 50 new taxpayer rights and substantial reforms to the way the IRS operates. This legislation tonight, I think, builds on those efforts; and I commend the chairman and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Houghton) for bringing it forward. Madam Speaker, tax records do contain sensitive and personal information; and no one, not even the employees of the IRS, should be allowed to see them without a legitimate reason. This legislation makes it very clear that there will be stiff penalties for IRS employees who explore taxpayers' records without proper authorization. It also encourages broader use of electronic filing. This is extremely important. The IRS is able to process tax returns in a much more timely fashion with electronic means. It is also less expensive for the IRS; and, therefore, the taxpayers save money. And electronic returns have been shown to be more accurate. There are fewer IRS errors, and this is great news for taxpayers. We want to encourage it, and so will extend the filing deadline until April 30 for those willing to file electronically. The legislation we are debating today also adds some commonsense reform to IRS penalties. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Houghton) talked about these earlier. Many individuals and companies make innocent mistakes on their tax returns and are then hit with outrageous fines and penalties. This bill allows the IRS to waive unfair penalties for taxpayers with good records who have made honest mistakes. The bill is good news for low-income taxpayers. It substantially increases the funding available for low-income taxpayer clinics. This is something that we put in place with the restructuring reform act, the thought being that when low-income individuals are involved with disputes with the IRS, they need a little help, and these clinics have proven to be very successful in helping taxpayers who do not have the means to be able to deal with the IRS when disputes arise. I commend the chairman for bringing it forward and providing funding for it. There are a lot of other important things that this legislation accomplishes. We have heard from the other side of the aisle about the section 527 provisions. As I see it, these are also sensible changes. The changes in section 527 are in keeping with what our original intent was in Congress in passing 527 reforms. This relates strictly to those organizations and entities that only deal with State and local issues. All it says is that we should not have burdensome and duplicative filing requirements at the Federal level where there is a State filing. This State filing has to be substantially similar, and any time there is any Federal involvement in any way, taxpayers have to file at the Federal level. Madam Speaker, I do not see the loophole here. I think the legislation we have on the bill this evening is going to help taxpayers. It makes sense. It is the kind of stuff we ought to be doing as we approach April 15 to help Americans with their dealings with the IRS.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for yielding me time. Mr. Chairman, and I came back to the floor when my friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey), was talking about seniors; and he made me very concerned because he was not talking about our budget. There is nothing in this budget that reduces funding for Medicaid. In fact, Medicaid increases. There is nothing in this budget that reduces funding for Social Security. In fact, the trust fund is totally protected. All that has happened since I have been in Congress in the last years with regard to Social Security is two things: one, the Republican-led Congress increased the earnings limit to let people who want to work who are seniors keep their Social Security money. So it increased benefits. The second is in 1993 Bill Clinton proposed reducing benefits by increasing taxes on Social Security beneficiaries. That is all we have done. Otherwise, we have retained the guarantee in law that the social security trust fund is sacrosanct, and it is. The tax cut last year had nothing to do with the Social Security trust fund. It did not touch the Social Security trust fund. The question is very simply, Are we going to use a surplus to pay down more debt, which is what we have been doing? And we paid down almost a half trillion dollars worth of debt. I think the seniors out there deserve to get a little truth and honesty in budgeting. What we have done over the last 4 or 5 years is we have reduced the national debt by using the surplus to pay down the debt, and I am all for that. Now we are in a situation where because of the recession and a lowering of receipts and because of the need for us to fund the war on terrorism and protect this country, we are, instead of using more money to pay down the debt, using some money to defend this country and increase our economic performance in the future. That is the facts. None of this relates to the Social Security trust fund. I am on the Committee on Ways and Means. I work on these issues, as does the gentleman from California (Mr. Stark); and he knows as I know, as does the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle), that the trust fund is sacrosanct. We cannot and will not touch the trust fund. The question is what we do with the surplus. In this budget we in a very responsible way deal with the three issues we have facing this Congress. One is national security, increasing defense, the biggest increase in 20 years. Second is homeland defense. We more than double what we need for homeland defense. And the third is economic security, including retirement security. And that same tax relief bill that the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey) talked about as hurting retirement security, helped retirement security. It provided substantial resources for all of our seniors to be able to save more for their own retirement by letting them save more in their IRAs, 401(k)s, defined benefit plans. It increased economic security. It did not risk our seniors' economic security. This is a sound budget. I urge my colleagues to support it because in fact it keeps the promise to our seniors. It does not touch Social Security. It does not touch Medicare except for an unprecedented $350 billion increase in Medicare funding. More than the United States Senate, with almost every Democrat voting for it, proposed to increase just a year ago. This is something that is unprecedented, to allow our seniors to have prescription drug coverage and to modernize Medicare. This will increase the kind of retirement security we want to provide for all our seniors. I urge my colleagues to strongly support this budget. Do what is right by our seniors and vote ``yes'' today.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a friend and distinguished constituent, John Smale, the retired Chairman and CEO of The Procter & Gamble Company and former Chairman of General Motors Corporation, who will have the honor of being inducted into the American Advertising Federation's Advertising Hall of Fame in New York City on March 19, 2002. The Advertising Hall of Fame is the most prestigious honor bestowed in the advertising industry. It is awarded to individuals who have set the standard for lifetime advertising excellence. John Smale joins a notable group of industry luminaries that includes David Ogilvy, Ray Kroc, Jay Chiat, William Bernbach and William Paley. John Smale was selected because he has been a major proponent of the power of advertising to build brands and an advocate of building global brand loyalty through advertising. He is truly a pioneer and an innovator. He joined Procter & Gamble in 1952 and later, as an associate advertising manager in 1958, he began informing the American Dental Association (ADA) about Crest toothpaste's fluoride-based anti- cavity research. After the ADA awarded Crest its first seal of approval in 1960, Crest became the category leader with its ``Look Ma, no cavities'' advertising campaign. Under his leadership as Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer in the 1980s, John engineered an aggressive series of landmark changes that restructured the company from the coveted brand management system--where products compete against one another--to a broader one of category management. Significantly, this allowed the P&G manager to oversee both the product and its advertising. He was committed to new product development and invested $2 billion into new acquisitions that resulted in tremendous growth, making the company the nation's leading personal care products company. He did this while emphasizing P&G's strengths in market research and without compromising its basic values. During his tenure, the company expanded from 24 categories to 39, and owned the leading brand in most of them. John Smale engineered other important company changes, many targeted to the company's enormous global expansion. In Japan, the world's second largest consumer market, he hired Japanese managers, and required those from the U.S. to study Japanese language and culture. In 1992, he was elected Board Chairman of the General Motors Corporation where he also designed a major restructuring program. But his significant influence didn't end in the corporate boardroom; he is also an effective civic leader. In the late 1980s, he unselfishly chaired the Cincinnati Infrastructure Commission--known as the Smale Commission--and enlisted other community leaders in an examination of ways to make critical improvements in the city's infrastructure. The Commission's report is widely viewed as the most comprehensive assessment of the city's physical assets. He has also served on the Board of Directors of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, the Nature Conservancy, and the National Park Foundation; a trustee of the Cincinnati Institute of Fine Arts and the Cincinnati Museum Association; a member of the Board of Governors of United Way and the National Advisory Board of Goodwill Industries of America. John Smale is an innovator and achiever. One veteran corporate analyst ranked him as one of the top three chief executives of the past half century. As he receives advertising's most prestigious honor, we congratulate him and thank him for his vision, his commitment and his service to his community and his country.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the 1st Annual Queen City Classic Chess Tournament, which will be held in the clubhouse of Cincinnati's Paul Brown Stadium on April 6, 2002. Chess has been played for centuries, and it is one of the oldest games still played today by literally millions of people around the world. It is a challenging game for youth which can improve a child's ability to concentrate and can boost his or her self-esteem, which often leads to improved performance in the classroom. Chess also teaches players of all levels important skills (logical sequencing, careful planning, patience, strategy and good sportsmanship) that will be invaluable throughout their lives. The 1st Annual Queen City Classic Chess Tournament was organized by a local community leader, Penny Pomeranz, as a way to provide children in the Cincinnati region with more opportunities to play chess in a competitive environment and to encourage children to learn to play chess early in life. It will bring together kindergartners to high school seniors from Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. Mr. Speaker, I hope my colleagues will join me in recognizing Cincinnati's 1st Annual Queen City Classic Chess Tournament. All of us in the Cincinnati area appreciate Penny's hard work, and we wish her and all the organizers the best on the Tournament's debut on April 6.

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Madam Speaker, I tell my friend who just spoke on the other side of the aisle that we had an opportunity to help States in regard to health care in the previous three bills that came to this floor for economic stimulus. I do not know whether the gentleman was on those, whether he voted for them or not; but we have had that opportunity, and we will have it in the future because this House will act to deal with the issue of the uninsured. I thought it would be helpful to talk for a second about how we got to where we are right now. Let us start with why we are here. We are here because of the recession, and we are here because of the horrible events of September 11 and the deepening of the recession that that caused. In reaction to that, the House back in October, 5 months ago, passed legislation on this floor, then again passed it in December, then again passed it in February, each time focusing on two things: one, helping those who are unemployed, including the extension of unemployment insurance; and, second, helping to get the economy back on track so we can get people back to work. That has been the focus of all the three previous efforts. Each time as the House has passed these bills with practically unanimous Republican support and some support from the other side of the aisle, these bills have been blocked by the other body. Despite the fact that we believe there is a majority of the other body that supports the legislation, at least the legislation in December and the legislation in February, the other body has chosen to block that legislation, despite the fact that during this time the recession has dragged on and on and on. That is why we are here today, because as the other body has blocked each of these good-faith efforts again to get people back to work, the House has reacted by altering the legislation, trying to address the very concerns that were raised on the floor of the other body and some concerns that were raised on the other side of the aisle here so that the bill which was brought forward in December, the bill which was brought forward in February, was altered from the original legislation to try to be sure we could get through that Senate gauntlet, excuse me, the other body's gauntlet and get the bill to the President for signature because we care about helping people who are unemployed but also care deeply about getting people back to work and re-creating those jobs in the American economy. The House stayed focused on that every time. The House stayed focused on helping people. Now we are here. The other body finally blocked legislation indicating to us that now we need to alter the bill again. We have once again done so. This time we have fewer incentives for jobs, but still have incentives for jobs. We kept at it. Again, I must say that I applaud the chairman's personal perseverance and patience in this effort. I think, frankly, politically many people argued we should have done something else, we should have blamed the Senate or the other body for blocking this legislation. Instead, we have persevered. We have done what we can to try to get this bill done. Again today we are hearing on the other side of the aisle more support for this legislation. I certainly hope the other body is listening, because it is time. It is 5 months too late; but it is time for us to move to help those who are unemployed, to extend unemployment insurance, to provide other assistance but also to help get people back to work, to put in place some incentives so that new jobs can be created and folks can get back to work helping the U.S. economy. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan), a valued member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth), a member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Watkins), a valued member of the Committee on Ways and Means. (Mr. WATKINS of Oklahoma asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the distinguished Speaker of the House, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert).

Mr. PORTMAN

Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I cannot believe that my friend from Texas thinks we should not try, that we should not try, to help those who are currently unemployed because of the events of September 11, because of the recession, and we should not try to help people get a job. People want a paycheck. Yes, we got to help those who are currently displaced by the horrible events of September 11 and the worsening economy that resulted, but ultimately we are going to get these people back to work. That is what they want, that is what they deserve, that is where they are going to get the dignity they want and the financial security they want. On September 11 our economy got a whole lot worse. It was already struggling. Americans are now looking at this body for help. Not politics. They are looking for help, and we are going to try, and we are going to try and try and try. This is the third time that we have brought to the floor a balanced package that helps those who are displaced. In fact, it helps those who are displaced who have lost their jobs a lot more than the clean unemployment insurance legislation that the gentleman just proposed. It does more than extend for 13 weeks. It does more to take care of their health care. We are going to hear more about this later, but what we are proposing is something much more generous for those who have been unemployed, but also, very importantly, to get those folks back to work. A million people have lost their jobs. So we are going to try. We are going to try and try again. Maybe the third time is a charm. Maybe Valentine's Day will bring something special. Maybe we can show a little heart today and help people, not just with their unemployment, but for them to get back to work. It does two things. First it helps get the consumer back in the business. It helps give people some more money back in their own pockets to get this economy going. The economists we have talked to, and we have talked to dozens of them, all agree. We need to get the consumer back into the business of buying and getting this economy going from the bottom up. It does that. It helps those who did not get tax relief last year because they do not pay Federal income taxes. Who can use it more than those people? They are going to get out there and spend that money. We want to help them to do it. It also helps those who are middle-income American families by accelerating the tax relief we passed last spring. Second, it incentivizes businesses to go out and create jobs. Now, when I am home talking to my small-business people, they are very excited about what is in this package. They want to see an immediate expensing of 30 percent of anything that they buy. That is going to help create jobs. Small businesses are going to benefit directly by this. This is not about politics; this is about jobs. This is a balanced package. I urge my colleagues to help everybody, those who are unemployed, but also help those people who are currently employed whose jobs are at risk, to ensure that we can get people back to work and to do so quickly.