Charlie Rangel

Mr. RANGEL

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. McNulty), a member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, it is so unfair to use political labels like tax and spend. We are very anxious to work with the majority to get a budget and to get this thing done right, but if they just want a political issue they have it. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott). (Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost), a distinguished Member of the House.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin), a senior member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Matsui), a senior member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I agree with the Speaker that this is a serious problem that we face. The President of the United States agrees, and God knows if the majority wanted to take care of this and not want a political issue that was going to be vetoed, they would have reached out to the Democrats, they would have reached out to the President, they would have had hearings, and we would have targeted the relief. Why did they pile on so many tax cuts that were totally unrelated to the marriage penalty? Why did they make certain that the President was going to veto this because they completely ignored the budget process? They have so violated their own budget rules that in order for this issue to come to the floor, they have to waive the regular rules, just to bring it on the floor. They have no budget to deal with Social Security, no budget to deal with Medicare, no budget to deal with the national debt; but they intend to take this $1.8 trillion tax cut and feed it to the House piece by piece. It would seem to me that it is not too late for us to decide what issues are important enough for us to work together on. We voted for the rule. We supported the rule because it gives us an opportunity to get a bill that the President will sign, a bill that really deals with the penalty and not with just a broad tax cut. The President said he will veto this because there is no provisions made for anything that deals with the budget. So I know that the Republicans want to have a political gimmick for Valentine's Day, and that is what this is all about; but it is not too late for us to work together. It is not too late for us to take care of the marriage penalty. It is not too late for us to take care of Social Security, Medicare, affordable drugs, to do something for education. Let us all work together. There are enough things for us to argue about come November; but I think the American people would want us to start working together, not as Republicans, not as Democrats, but as the House of Representatives. Mr. Speaker, no one discussed this bill with me or any of the members of the committee that are not in the majority party. We have had no hearings, the President's bill was never discussed. Our input was never asked for. It is not too late for beginning to get something productive in this year, this last year of the session. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RANGEL. 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. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield the remainder of the time to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior), our minority whip.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi). (Ms. PELOSI asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. RANGEL. That is a good point.

Mr. RANGEL. No. I only want to do what is right for the people, regardless of their registration.

Mr. RANGEL. Would the gentleman explain his point, please?

Mr. RANGEL. If the gentleman would yield, would the gentleman restate his question?

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, it is really interesting to see my distinguished chairman asking for the President's leadership on Social Security. He sure did not ask for any leadership for that $792 billion tax cut, and I do not hear them asking for leadership, since they are in the majority, on any other issue. As a matter of fact, we can talk about the Archer-Shaw plan all we want. We do not have any legislation that has been submitted to our committee or to the House floor for consideration. But I guess we are still waiting for the President to provide leadership for this legislative body to fix Social Security. Now the President comes and says he wants to fix the marriage penalty, but you do not ask for his leadership on that. You go in the back room and you come out with this tax cut. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm).

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her comments. I think, basically, Mr. Speaker, that the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson) may have set the difference that we have between our approach to this very serious tax problem. We like to have a budget. We like to take care of the things we have to take care of. And we like to target relief. The gentlewoman is suggesting that if we give this relief now, that, sooner or later, the House and the Senate will have a budget. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), a man who has worked for many, many years on this budget problem, who may be able to explain this new Republican concept to us. (Mr. STENHOLM asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, is the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson) saying that she is supporting recommending a tax cut before we have a budget? Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson) to answer the question.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Becerra), a member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. RANGEL. If we can find out how much it costs, and make certain we take care of Social Security, we can work it out together.

Mr. RANGEL

Mr. RANGEL. And take care of the rich at the same time.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I will be a minority for a long time but not in this House. I joined the gentleman in supporting the rule because he was fair enough to allow us to do the right thing in the substitute, but one of the arguments against our bill is that it provides no relief because we say Social Security, Medicare and paying down the national debt. I do not know why the gentleman's people do not want to do that first, but they will be given an opportunity to do all four of them and take care of the marriage penalty.

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

Mr. RANGEL. I yield to the gentleman from California, the distinguished, intelligent, and intellectual chair of the Committee on Rules.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, when the President recommended relief for the marriage penalty, everybody in the House understood and agreed that we should do it. Then the President asked the Republican leaders to please come over to see which areas of the budget they could agree to. If they were serious about taking care of that, they would have raised that issue. Probably the President would have said that they can take care of this problem with one-third of the amount of money that they intended; but they are not really concerned just with the penalty, they are concerned with a substantial tax cut. If the Republicans were serious, they would have said, let us go to our Democratic colleagues. And we would have said, being the politicians that we are, we do not think the President was as generous as he should have been. We would have increased the amount. We would have given more benefits, even to people who had no penalty. But do Members know what we would have done? We would have said, let us have a budget first. Let us see what we are going to do with Medicare. Let us see what we are going to do with social security and paying down the national debt. Then we would have come in with a generous bill that is our substitute to take care of the penalty, and not just to reward those who are already fortunate in the high-income brackets that have no marriage penalty. We will have an opportunity to do this, but it is really strange. In the last year when they came up, I say to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Moakley), with the $792 billion tax bill, our Republican friends were not nearly as irresponsible as the gentleman would have them to appear, because they knew ahead of time it was going to be vetoed. So they love the country, they just love gimmicks. So this time they made certain that the President was going to veto the bill. They made certain that they had no budget to make them accountable in the bill. They made certain that they went to the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Rules and had him fold into this and waive all of the budget restrictions, and then they came to the floor and they said, we want to take care of the problem. Well, guess what, this is not for married people. They could have gone to Hallmark if they wanted to do something for Valentine's Day. But to use the Tax Code without hearings, without negotiations, without discussion, that is a bit much.