Charlie Rangel

Mr. RANGEL

Mr. RANGEL. Madam Speaker, I rise to compliment the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, indeed of the conference, for his eloquent remarks on the subject of partisanship and this Congress and assure him that, in the next Congress, I hope that the Democratic majority would be able to be more bipartisan. The question I thought was on the floor was not of being partisan, but the question of why are you suspending the rules of this House bringing in marshal law for a 600-page bill that is so complex that lawyers around the country are going to call it the lawyers' welfare bill?

Mr. RANGEL. Madam Speaker, I think most New York Members in the Congress probably have more self-esteem than we need in order to negotiate ourselves around this Congress, but my friend from upper New York is really better than all of us because he is telling us what is involved in a 600-page bill that has just been filed 5 minutes ago. Now that is extraordinary. What is not extraordinary is that the leadership on the Republican side are using an extraordinary provision to avoid the rules, which only say that the Members of Congress ought to know what the gentleman from New York knows. He knows everything that is in the bill. Members of the Congress ought to know what is in the bill. They should understand the feeling of fishing tackles, and bows and arrows, and tax credits for animal manures. They should be able to understand how you are taking away charitable contribution, how we are converting the collection of taxes from the Internal Revenue Service to private corporations. They should understand that we are putting $42 billion in tax credits to allow our jobs to be exported overseas, which is something that we were trying so desperately hard not to do. Martial law? How would the people understand what we are doing here? What are we rushing off to do? The bill costs $140 billion. They will come and say to us that it is paid for. Well, how are we to argue that if we do not have a bill to see how you pay for it? And the truth of the matter is, they call it paid for, but it is called phase-ins, it is called delaying the time it comes into operation, it is called sunsetting. There are so many things in this bill that, if they were so proud of it, they should let us know. He called the bill FSC. FSC is a short-term expression of foreign service corporations in which we have been alleged by the World Trade Organization that we give some $70 billion in tax subsidies to exporters. What does it really mean? We could have really made ourselves look good in the eyes of the world by adding the $70 billion and, if we wanted, give a cut. Instead, we spend twice that much for items that are so unrelated to the bill in front of us. The bill is so bad that the Secretary Treasurer condemned the bill in a letter that he sent to my chairman, Bill Thomas, saying it has taken care of everything else except the tax issues that the bill was there before us. We have everybody here telling us that this thing is so important. I stand to be corrected because the gentleman from New York is far more a genius than I thought. I thought the bill was filed. He now understands bills that are not filed. And he is asking us to please inherit the genius he has to be prepared to vote on a $600 billion bill. This is $146 billion and then you take the $140 billion that we borrowed before, we would have a $286 billion bill that we borrowed the money for so that we could give it back to the corporations. It may sound good on the eve of an election. If I understand this procedure correctly, we have to have martial law to avoid having 3 days for Members of Congress, who are not as smart as the proponent of avoiding the rule, to be able in 1 hour to vote on this bill. That is so truly unfair, not to Democrats, but to Democrats and Republicans. It could be in the speed to go home and not to fulfill our responsibility that one taxpayer, one old lady, one young person that may just want to know what his future is going to be with the deficits the Republicans are leaving on them, what did you vote for? I have been in conference. We voted on bundles of amendments, 15 of them with one vote. We wiped them out. Was it open? Yes. But crimes are sometimes committed in the open. It is not all done in the darkness of night. But at the end of the day, conferees are asking me, What finally ended up in conference? Because we do not know. Nobody in the House of Representatives today will know why we needed martial law, what is in this $600 billion borrowed bill, if you combine it with the other preelection tax cut; and we should have at least time, no matter how badly Republicans need to go home, especially to stop the rumors about the draft, but that is another subject; but you have to get home for whatever reason. But you should really give Members of Congress, new Members, older Members, time enough to know what is in the bill.

Mr. RANGEL

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, well, we have been denied the opportunity, at least the Members, to actually see what is in these 600 pages of statute and another 600 pages to explain what they mean. But, once again, I would ask Americans to go to waysandmeans.house.gov, because if the Members do not know everything that is in this bill, then maybe their lawyers would be able to tell them, because if this is what simplification is all about, we are going to have a pretty rough time filling out our taxes Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the outstanding minority whip, to share his views on this complex piece of legislation. I have been advised he has been at this website all evening studying the bill.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 additional minute to the gentleman from Maryland, but I want to advise the gentleman that when he suggests that we read the bill, that the bill has not been distributed to the Members.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I do not have anyone left who wants to talk about tobacco, but I wish I had known the chairman would be this flexible. I had some draft legislation that I could have possibly gotten into the conference report, but I just did not know. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Lampson), who would like to speak on a tax issue.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. We have taken care of sales taxes and tobacco. I do not know whether we are taking care of the Treasury, though, because they had sent a terrible letter to us indicating that they thought that this bill had too much in the way of special interest tax provisions, which benefited few taxpayers and increased the complexity of the Tax Code. The President indicated he wanted to simplify the Code. We know the only major Republican bill we have in the House is the national retail sales tax. So maybe, once again, I can say that since the Members of the House have not had the opportunity to review this five-pound bill, that people can go to WaysandMeans.House.gov and find out whatever else Santa Claus has brought in bringing us this gift package on the eve of an election. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RANGEL

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, by now we are all aware of the enormous toll exacted by Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne on the Caribbean. Indeed, the cumulative force of these disasters has claimed thousands of lives and displaced hundreds of thousands of residents. The tourism and agricultural sectors of the Caribbean, of which so many nations are dependent, have been battered. While total monetary damage to the region has yet to be firmly established, it is easily in the billions of dollars. These staggering statistics not only sadden us, they clearly compel us to take significant action. The United States has already distributed some assistance, and the administration has requested an additional $50 million in emergency funds for the Caribbean in the supplemental appropriations bill we have before us this week. While this assistance is appreciated, substantially more is needed if we are to make a meaningful impact. An October 4th editorial in the Washington Post noted that the requested assistance for the Caribbean is a minute fraction of the $12.2 billion requested for southern States affected by the recent hurricanes. I myself have joined other friends of the Caribbean in this House in asking that the administration at least double the size of its request for the Caribbean. In light of these funding needs, I am extremely pleased to support the resolution introduced by the gentlewoman from California, H. Con. Res. 496. Congresswoman Lee's resolution represents a non-partisan appeal to provide adequate humanitarian assistance to our neighbors in this time of crisis. I am proud to be a co-sponsor of this legislation, and urge my fellow colleagues to lend their support to this critical measure. We have all borne witness to the difficult road our neighbors have taken towards democracy. As such, we must always strive to ensure that their road is free from obstruction. This resolution is but one step in that ongoing effort. Again, I sincerely thank Congresswoman Lee, and offer my whole-hearted support for her resolution. [From the Washington Post, Oct. 4, 2004] Calamity in the Caribbean In Haiti the bodies are still turning up. Reports from the island republic mention Haitians shoveling corpses out from under branches and mud--the detritus of Tropical Storm Jeanne and the floods it triggered last month. Perhaps 2,000 are dead, and more may be missing. In tiny Grenada, whose landmass is scarcely twice that of the District, 90 percent of the buildings on the island were damaged by Hurricane Ivan. The hurricane also decimated Grenada's nutmeg trees, which take a decade to become productive, and devastated hotels, mainstays of the tourist industry that provides the island with 70 percent of its income. The storms paused long enough in the Caribbean on their way to Florida to deliver knockout blows to the bantamweight islands. Americans fixated on Florida may have barely noticed, but the destruction and suffering in the islands was overwhelming. The Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, the Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and St. Lucia--all were damaged. Grenada's recovery will take years. Haiti, no stranger to calamity, is suffering a catastrophe. An estimated 300,000 people have been made homeless by floods. In the northwest, where Jeanne unleashed much of its wrath, food and potable water are scarce. Highways are cut or impassable; Port-de-Paix, a town of 45,000 on the north coast, is reachable only by air. In the port of Gonaives, Haiti's third-largest city, marauding gangs desperate from thirst and hunger have attacked trucks hauling bottled water and depots holding humanitarian food stockpiles. Fears of famine are rising, since flood waters and mud covered some of the most fertile acres in the country. Poverty, deforestation and the virtual absence of effective government all conspire to deepen the misery. President Bush has proposed $12.2 billion in aid for hurricane-damaged areas, mostly in Florida and other Southern states. The package includes $50 million for the islands, nearly half of it for Haiti. We hope Congress passes it quickly, but let's be blunt: The amount set aside for the Caribbean nations is a pittance--not to mention a fraction of what was spent on U.S. military interventions in Haiti and Grenada. Americans who wish to help may send their own donations. One conduit for such private support is CARE, which has been active in Haiti for 50 years and is deeply involved in the current relief efforts. Information is available at www.careusa.org.

Mr. RANGEL

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to applaud the candidness and the honesty of the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services to admit that they are using the Rules of the House of Representatives to rebut the rumors on the Internet that President Bush wants to enact a draft. I thought we did this through the Republican National Committee. This is a political thing. It may be vicious to believe that people do not trust the President when he says no, and they do not trust Rumsfeld, and they do not trust Republicans; that is a terrible political problem, but do not use my House of Representatives to correct it. Do not use the rules of this House to correct it. This place is a place for legislation and not to play political games. If you do not have the trust of the American people when you say there is not going to be a draft, then you had better use the Republican National Campaign Committee to rebut it. But each time you think you have to run an election on the Rules of this House, after all of us are gone, we have an obligation to those who succeed us to abide by the Rules of the House that were left to us for one purpose: not to win elections, but to legislate. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 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 Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee). (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. RANGEL. Yes, it is.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, the question that I raised before I raised the point of order is not whether he supports consideration of the bill but whether he supports the bill.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the right to object.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, based on that, I raise a point of order, and I would like to claim the time in support of the resolution.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill because it gives this great august body an opportunity for the first time to discuss whether or not the administration or the party in the majority intends to have a draft. I suspect that one of the reasons that this has to be cleared up before the election, the evidence clearly indicates that everyone in the Pentagon, the Defense Department, has indicated that we need a robust military force in Iraq. All of the evidence indicates that we have exhausted our active troops; we are exhausting the Reserves; we are exhausting the National Guard. We have a back-door draft, where we do not let people who enlisted and have finished their term get out. In addition to that, the Army is over there in combat. Where the normal term is 1 year, the Pentagon has indicated they are going to reduce it to 6 months, to go along with what the Marines do, because of fatigue. It just seems to me as many times as the administration says that they are against a draft, all we hear on the Internet and around the country is that, after the election, they are going to have the draft. If they are going to have the draft, I support this legislation, even though, quite frankly, I would have preferred that the bill be referred to the Committee on Armed Services, because I think it is important enough to have hearings on this matter and for the administration to really show why they really do not need to get people through an involuntary conscription. But since they knew I had this bill and since they knew it was election time, I rise in support of the bill, even though I would gladly yield to the committees of jurisdiction, because it just seems to me that, if we abuse the system by continually taking legislation for the purpose of embarrassment and not in order to say that it is so noncontroversial that we should put it on the suspension calendar, then, no matter who is in the majority, we are violating every principle of the House, and that is the reason why the Parliamentarian and the Speaker have decided that I am in control of the time. This system should be used only when there is no controversy. But I am not a Member of the House that runs away from controversy. Those who run away from it are those people who have the responsibility to discuss bills in the committee with hearings and bring the legislation so the American public can see what you do believe before an election. But now you cannot even decide who is for the bill, who is for consideration, ``I want it up; I want it down.'' It is a political thing that you are using that determines the lives of people as to who fights in wars and who is exempt from wars and who should do national service. It is a disgrace, what is going on here today, and you cannot find anyone to put the blame on. You are against your own bill. It came out of your Committee on Rules. You have the majority. But yet you need some way, some vehicle. And just because justice does not cave in to people who are hypocritical in nature, we got the time to tell you why we support the bill and why we oppose the bill. But, unfortunately, we are doing this on the suspension calendar. The majority, I guess, will say that this is a noncontroversial issue, because if you do not admit that it is controversial, then you are saying that it should not have been on this calendar in the first place. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I would like to inquire whether the proponent of this motion to suspend supports the bill, and, if he does not, whether or not his motion is in order.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. My Republican colleagues have convinced me they will not vote for a draft before this election, and I appreciate their sincerity in stating that. But I support my bill for the very reasons that the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha) has done so. If the issue is the protection of our country against an enemy, then all Americans should have the opportunity to fight and defend for all our freedom so that we can sit here. And there should be a plea for the rich and the poor, which is so eloquently stated but not followed, to be volunteering and joining and having the honor to say they defended our country at a time of war. Mr. Speaker, that is not going to happen before the election, and because of my 34 years in the House and my respect for the rules, as much as I appreciate the fact that the leadership has brought my bill up, even though they did not support it, they have brought my bill up because they have a problem with the President's integrity on this issue. So as much as I appreciate that, what I appreciate more are the standing committees that we have in this House, and so I would hope that my bill will be referred to the committee process for hearings so that the entire House of Representatives would understand the necessity for this legislation. But on this I will vote ``no''.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith). (Mr. SMITH of Michigan asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. RANGEL. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, are we allowed to use the floor of the House to campaign and specifically name the Presidential candidate that we are supporting? Did I frame my question correctly?

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I would like to close, and so if I only have 1 minute remaining, I reserve it.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews). (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers). (Mr. CONYERS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 7 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha) who is an outstanding member of this House of Representatives, and he is in support of this bill.