Paul Ryan

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, today is a day of prayer and mourning for America, the victims, and their loved ones. But it is also a day of resolution. We are resolved to bring those responsible for this atrocity to justice, swift and sure, and make clear that America, that freedom itself, will never be held hostage to terror. With a fresh awareness of all our vulnerability, we must move forward to secure our Nation. With hope that cannot be defeated, we must turn toward the best within us, put aside our differences, respond to the continuing crisis, and begin the process of rebuilding. May God bless America.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, as we come together today, in continued shock and deep mourning our hearts go out to all who lost loved ones, friends, and colleagues in yesterday's tragic attacks. As the terrible course of events unfolded yesterday, our nation drew together in shared grief and in strong support for one another-- especially for the families of those killed or injured. We need to do all we can to help them now and in the wrenching weeks ahead. We must preserve the solidarity now shared by all Americans and our allies in other countries in the wake of this horrific act of war. We are resolved to bring those responsible for this atrocity to justice-- swift and sure--and make clear that America, that freedom itself, will never be held hostage to terror. An act of war has been committed against the United States, and we are justified in considering a declaration of war in response, once we find out who planned, executed, and enabled yesterday's terrorist strikes. In this, we stand ready to support our President as the Commander in Chief of our country. With a fresh awareness of our vulnerability, we must move forward to secure our nation. With hope that cannot be defeated, we must turn to what is best within us, put aside our differences, respond to the continuing crisis and begin the process of rebuilding. In searching for this hope, amid the sorrow, we need only turn to the firefighters, police officers, medics, and rescue workers who have put their lives on hold--and often in mortal danger--to respond to this crisis. Their courage, determination, and action are examples for us all.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time. I am curious as I watch this debate over medical savings accounts from the other side, if you are so much against MSAs, then why do you expand MSAs in your own bill? The Ganske-Dingell bill has medical savings accounts expansion and extension of them in their own legislation. So if they are so rotten, why are you advocating them in your own legislation? Mr. Chairman, what this bill is about is whether or not we are going to improve the quality of health care for all Americans. That is the sole purpose of this bill. What this amendment gives us a chance to do is determine whether or not we can also improve the accessibility and affordability of health care. We all know that health care is getting too expensive, that it is inaccessible for too many people. This bill will do many great things to improve the quality of health care, but we need to work on making it more affordable for working families and we need to make it more accessible. Association health plans, which is also in this amendment which is being ignored right now, allows the small little guy, the small businesses to band together to jointly purchase health insurance so they can get that big volume discount purchasing power that the big companies have. That is what we are accomplishing in this. We are giving small businesses, where 85 percent of the working family works for, the chance to get the same kind of health insurance deals that large corporations do, making health care more accessible and more affordable. Medical savings accounts as validated in the opposition's bill also expands freedom of choice in health care.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time. Mr. Chairman, we all want higher fuel efficiency for cars. Everybody believes in that goal, but we do not want to accomplish this goal at the expense of vehicle safety and workers' jobs. This chart shows what the amendment is proposing. They are proposing a steep, steep increase in CAFE standards in an unworkable time line. One point that I have noticed that has not been shared on the floor today is this: The foreign automobile manufacturers have more CAFE credits than the American automobile manufacturers do. So when this amendment passes, what we will be accomplishing is a shift in market share. We will be compromising American jobs. That means less Tahoes, less Suburbans, less Cherokees, less Wranglers and more Land Cruisers, more Range Rovers. So we are not going to pull these big SUVs off the road because the market demand is still there. Mr. Chairman, this will put us at a competitive disadvantage. It will cost us jobs, thousands of jobs in America with no practical result, because the gap will be filled by the foreign competitors who will get an unfair competitive advantage over American auto producers if this amendment passes.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, today I am reintroducing the International Monetary Stability Act, which I introduced in the previous Congress. The need for such an act is more pressing than ever. Over the last decade there have been no fewer than seven major currency crises in developing countries. They have occurred in Africa's CFA franc zone (1993-94), Mexico (1994-95), East Asia (1997-98), Russia (1998), Brazil (1999), Turkey (2001), and Argentina (right now). In addition, there have been numerous minor crises. These currency crises have often brought recession, bank failures, and political upheaval to the countries concerned. Some have spilled over to other countries and have even affected our own international trade and financial markets. American workers who produce goods for export to developing countries have seen their international competitiveness whipsawed by currency crises. It is no accident that, for example, U.S. steel producers have complained about the practices of producers in Brazil, South Korea, Russia, Ukraine--all countries that have had currency crises in recent years. Amid the currency turmoil that has affected so many countries, the U.S. dollar has remained reliable. Though not perfect, the dollar is the standard by which other currencies are judged. The contrast between the performance of the dollar and the performance of most other currencies has created growing interest in official dollarization, whereby a country substantially or totally replaces its own currency with the dollar. By eliminating the national currency, dollarization eliminates currency crises. Until recently, Panama and a handful of microstates were the only independent dollarized countries. However, East Timor and Ecuador became officially dollarized last year, joined by El Salvador this year. Dollarization is being debated around the world, particularly in Latin America. An important barrier to official dollarization is loss of seigniorage, the profit from issuing a currency. Currently, a country that dollarizes loses seigniorage to the United States. Besides this economic cost, dollarization also has a political cost, which is the feeling that a country that gives up its national currency receives no consideration from the United States for doing so. The International Monetary Stability Act would permit the United States to share with officially dollarized countries some of the extra seigniorage we would earn from them becoming dollarized. The Act would not require the Federal Reserve to change U.S. monetary policy. Nor would the Act compel the United States to share seigniorage: if the Secretary of the Treasury judged that it was not in our best interest, he would not have to do so. Nor would the Act restrict countries that wish to dollarize: as is already the case, they could dollarize without qualifying to share seigniorage. Without the International Monetary Stability Act, other relatively small countries may join those I have mentioned and become officially dollarized in the years to come. However, the larger the country, the higher its government and people perceive the economic and political costs of dollarization to be. The larger developing countries are precisely those whose currency crises have had the greatest international effect, including on the United States. The International Monetary Stability Act would reduce the perceived costs of dollarization in a way that would benefit both the United States and countries interested in dollarizing. It would provide a creative alternative to the policy of big international bailouts, which are well intentioned but have failed to prevent further crises in many of the countries that have been the largest recipients. Mr. Speaker, monetary stability is in the interest of the United States and the rest of the world. Through the International Monetary Stability Act we can help extend its benefits.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I think it is important as we listen to this debate to hear what the opponents are saying. They are not attacking this bill head-on. They are chewing around the edges. They are trying to set up roadblocks. They are trying to put new provisions in law with respect to the civil rights acts. What they are trying to do is make this program unworkable. We hear this comment repeated over and over: Catholic social services, Lutheran social services is getting all this government money. That is true. The large, high-financed, well-established churches do get Federal funding. They can afford the attorneys, they can afford the accountants, they can afford the largesse to afford these complicated tax structures to get this money. That is not what this bill is about. This bill is about the little guy. This bill is about the people who have those small, faith-based organizations in our inner cities, in our rural areas, who know the names, who know the faces, of those who are in need. The problem that we have had with this Federal Government, with the welfare state, with our approach to poverty, is that we have treated the superficial wounds that have plagued our population but we have not treated the soul. We have not treated the heart of the problem. The goal here is to let those small institutions of civil society throughout America, those faith-based organizations, who know the name of the person in need, who are there in the ghettos, in the streets, to help them, to sight their problems and to help them and to get assistance. This bill is about discrimination. We are discriminating against those groups from getting equal treatment of our laws to help these people in need. It maintains every point of our current civil rights laws today. There is no civil rights law that is degraded in this act as we move forward. We are simply removing discrimination against these groups. I urge passage of this bill. I think this bill has the potential of changing our culture more so than any other measure we may be considering here in this Congress. I think those who are on the other side are well-intended, but I think it is the right time that we pass this legislation. I urge its passage.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Chairman, I would like to express my concerns about the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. This group has recently begun promoting tax harmonization among nations. The OECD believes developing nations, like Liberia or Grenada, should not be allowed to set their own tax rates to attract needed capital to their economies. Instead, the OECD says that nations should adopt all higher tax rates more among the lines of those in Europe. This is unfair to the nations who need foreign capital to promote economic growth, and it also goes against the free market concept that tax competition keeps taxes lower worldwide. As the chairman knows, the United States contributions to the OECD, which are distributed through the State Department, constitutes roughly 25 percent of its budget. I do not think that our tax dollars should be used to promote an idea so contrary to the kinds of policies that have historically made our economy so strong. I think we should be ready to reconsider future funding of the OECD if they continue with their support of tax harmonization.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I think Liberia is probably a poor example. But, nevertheless, to promote an institution that promotes higher taxes worldwide rather than lower taxes worldwide is an institution that is probably not worthy of our support. And I thank the chairman for engaging in this dialogue. Amendment No. 30 Offered by Mr. Moran of Virginia

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words, and I rise in favor of the amendment. Mr. Speaker, I am in support of this amendment from a good- government-taxpayer point of view. This program has failed audit after audit after audit. Just the most recent GAO audit has given it a failing grade. This program is 6 years over its original completion date, and it is almost $4 billion over budget. For us, as the legislative branch of government, to properly conduct our proper oversight role over the executive branch, to see if their proper stewardship of our taxpayer dollars is making sense and is being implemented well, and for us to walk away from these kinds of abuses, is quite simply irresponsible. I support the Kucinich amendment. I do not think it strikes a devastating blow to our nuclear stockpile program. In fact, I think this is a good thing, because it says that if an organization is going to take taxpayer dollars, they have to spend them wisely, have a good plan in place, and that we will not chase good money after bad. These audits need to be passed before we can reward this program with the funding they are asking for.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure of mine to be here to hear the words from Pastor Ron Auch from the Prayer House Assembly of God Church in Kenosha, Wisconsin. It is a pleasure to celebrate the things that he has done on behalf of the residents of Kenosha County, and the fact that he was able to address the Nation in prayer this morning is a tribute to the sacrifices that he and his family have given to all of the folks in Kenosha. Mr. Speaker, I know first hand the kinds of healing and gifts that he has done for constituents. He has helped friends of mine in their problems. He has brought the Savior into their lives and brought hope and spiritual healing to countless people. Now he is building a new church, the Prayer House Assembly of God. It is 2 years old in Kenosha and up and running quite well. He has brought spiritual healing to the people of Kenosha, Wisconsin. I thank Pastor Ron for giving us a wonderful word to start our day's business today.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me this time, and I appreciate all the hard work and time he has put into putting this tax plan together. As I look at the motion to instruct conferees, I know that the actual motion to instruct violates the very Democrat plan that has been offered here on the floor previous times, as the chairman just mentioned. So not only does it violate the earlier Democratic substitutes that we have seen, it also backs us off of the very important commitments that we have achieved in the budget resolution that we are achieving in this tax bill. Number one, what we are accomplishing here with this conference report as we roll this through is to put the details into the tax provision of the budget resolution. We have a vision which is the 10- year budget, which has very important priorities but in that budget has very strict provisions that do these things: pays off our public national debt as fast as possible to a very negligible, almost zero dollar amount by the end of this decade. Two, once and for all, once and for all, for the first time in 30 years, we will stop the raid on the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds by making sure that we apply those dollars to those very programs, and to pay off the national debt, which helps us with those programs on top of that. And, third, we see that the American taxpayer, the hard-working families of America, continue to overpay their taxes. After we pay down our debt, after we improve Medicare and Social Security, people are still overpaying their taxes. And that is why we are taking a very important step by giving people some of their money back. We are putting money back into the paychecks of the very hard-working taxpayers who gave us this surplus in the first place. So what is important to watch is that as we take a look at this motion to instruct, it actually dilutes those commitments. It actually takes us off of the very commitments we seek to achieve, on hopefully a bipartisan basis, which is protecting Social Security and modernizing Medicare, and we have a $300 billion provision to modernize Medicare with a prescription drug benefit; paying down our national public debt; and, yes, as people overpay their taxes, giving them some of their money back. And we are doing it in such a way that it will help stimulate the economy, create jobs in this country and do it, yes, fast enough to make a difference. Now, as to the criticism that this bill is being rushed through, that just simply is not the case. Take a look at the Senate. We can see they are clearly not rushing things. As the chairman mentioned, amendment after amendment, 110 hours of debate over this bill. Since January, we have been working on this provision. And, as a matter of fact, on these very provisions that we will hopefully be achieving in this bill we have been working on for 3 years. Vote after vote in Congress, bill after bill has been passing Congress. This is the crescendo effort to finally give people some of their money back. It is a bipartisan- bicameral effort. Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on the motion to instruct.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I would like to share with my colleagues an accomplishment by a young man serving in the United States Army. Captain William W. Coppernol, who is from Burlington, Wisconsin, has received the General Douglas MacArthur Leadership Award. This award is given to those Army officers who embody the leadership ideals of General MacArthur. After my meeting with him this afternoon, I can certainly see why he was chosen for this prestigious award. Captain Coppernol is an excellent example of the American military servicemember. He grew up in a city not far from me in southern Wisconsin. His family is still there, with his father working in Milwaukee for the FAA and his mother working at Burlington Catholic Central High School. Captain Coppernol is now stationed in Minnesota, which he is happy about because his parents can see their grandson, William, more often. While Captain Coppernol is a family man, he is also an Army man. He is a bright man who plans to make a career out of the Army, and our country should be thankful for it. This ``Army of One'' is a true asset to the United States of America. I congratulate Captain Coppernol on receiving the General Douglas MacArthur Leadership Award.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) for yielding the time to me. Mr. Speaker, the other side has nothing to offer but fear itself. As I watch these public policy debates coming to the floor of Congress, you can see two schools of thought at play here. One seeks to prey on the emotions of fear and envy in the American people and to exploit those emotions to keep more of their hard-earned money in Washington. The other school of thought, what we are trying to achieve is to appeal to people's emotions of hope, of accomplishment, of success. We punish success in the Tax Code today. The small businessman, the small businesswoman, the entrepreneur in society today, which is the engine that drives the American economy, is what gives us our jobs in this country; yet, we tax them at punishing tax rates, higher than we tax IBM, Exxon, the multinational corporations in this world. What we are trying to achieve by lowering the tax rates on entrepreneurs, on small businesses, on the American families, down to 33 percent is to simply say that we recognize that what creates this economy, that what grows this economy, that what creates jobs are small businesses and entrepreneurs. We need to feed that engine, because if we fall victim to the politics of fear and envy, as the other side is suggesting, we will continue to take more and more dollars out of workers' paychecks. We will continue to raise the bar and the hurdle on what it takes to build a small business, to employ people, to risk-take and become an entrepreneur. Mr. Speaker, there is a tremendous toll gate in the middle class, on the way to becoming the middle class. We are penalizing success in this country. The other side wants us to continue to penalize success in this country. They want to appeal to the worst emotions in you. They want to suggest that this is nothing more than a tax cut to Bill Gates' or Sam Walton's heirs. That is not what we are doing here. What we are trying to accomplish is this: You are overpaying your taxes. You ought to get some of your money back. We are protecting Medicare. We are modernizing Medicare. We are protecting Social Security. We are paying down the national debt as fast as we can. And even after doing all of those things, you are still overpaying your taxes. What we are simply saying is rather than take your money and find new ways to spend it for you here in Washington, we want to give it back to the American people, put the money back into their paychecks as they overpay their taxes, and revive this engine of economic growth, small businesses and entrepreneurs, and prey on people's hopes and dreams and aspirations. That is what this all about. That is why it is important to lower that top rate to 33 percent. I know these numbers may be confusing to some. But what it means is whether or not we are going to answer the call to revive this struggling economy, whether or not we are going to put jobs in front of fear and envy, these are the things that are on the line right here. That is why it is important for us to pass this tax bill, because it is our job to grow this economy and save jobs in this country.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman) for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, I would like to right now just thank the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman) for putting this excellent piece of legislation together. Specifically, I want to thank them for including that section 415 provision. This affects thousands of building trades workers in southern Wisconsin who because of this law are going to have a better pension system that they deserve, that they paid into. So I want to thank them for including this very valuable provision. There is another important part of this, and that is times have changed. When our pension laws were written a generation ago, it was a different kind of an economy. People had the same job for 30 or 40 years of their working lives. They did not move from jobs, but that is not the case today. People change jobs all of the time, but the problem is our economy and our pension laws have not caught up with those times. This important piece of legislation catches up with the times and allows pensions to become portable so as people change jobs they can bring their pensions with them without an adverse consequence on the Tax Code; and most importantly, this thing does great things in two great ways for our society. It allows people to save for their retirement, improve the savings rate, so they can maintain the kind of standard of living they enjoyed during their working years in their retirement years. Again, by saving, by putting more money aside, we are putting more money into the economy. We are improving the liquidity of capital for small businesses, for job creation, for entrepreneurial activity. So when we increase our savings rate, not only do we help the actual person who is saving in their retirement, we are helping the ability to create jobs in this country. We are sparking economic growth in job creation. So this bill not only fixes many problems that are facing building tradesmen, people who are just nearing retirement, women in the labor force, it is updating our pension laws so they respond to the types of jobs we have in today's economy. It is improving people's standard of living, and it is helping grow the economy and produce jobs in the economy. This bill is clearly a win/win for America. That is why it received such bipartisan support. I urge my colleagues to vote yes on this bill.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit for the Record an article about Tracy Scheide Marciniak, a fellow Wisconsinite. She was brutally beaten 4 days before she was supposed to give birth to her son, Zachariah. I would like to submit her story for the Record. Her husband at the time punched her twice in the abdomen and brutally beat her. Her husband refused to call for help until it was too late. By the time she reached the hospital, Zachariah had died from blunt force trauma. Her ex-husband, Glendale Black, was convicted of assaulting his wife, but not of murdering Zachariah, their unborn child. In the aftermath of this violent crime, the Wisconsin Legislature enacted one of the nation's strongest unborn victim's laws. Regardless, there is no coinciding federal law. If this incident were to happen today in a federal jurisdiction, the killer would still only be prosecuted for assault. This needs to change. H.R. 503, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, can fix this injustice. Passage of this bill would make it a federal crime to harm an unborn child during a violent criminal act. Federal judges could impose the same punishment as if injury or death occurred to the unborn child's mother, except for the death penalty. I disagree with those who believe that Zachariah was not yet a human being. Had his mother gone into labor a week before her husband abused her, Zachariah would today be a healthy and happy child. There was no difference between the Zachariah that was in his mother's womb when she was beaten with a Zachariah that may have been born a week earlier. He was still a living person. There should be no exception in the criminal code for violent acts on babies inside the womb as opposed to those who are in their mother's arms. The current law makes no logical sense and should be changed according to this act. Zachariah is a biblical name. In the Bible, Zachariah and his wife Elizabeth were faithful followers of God's commandments. They never had any children and were both too old to do so. As Zachariah entered a room within the temple he presided over, Gabriel appeared before him and told him that he and his wife will have a son. God blessed this couple for being faithful. Their child was blessed, as was Tracy's child. In scripture, Zachariah means ``God remembers.'' We will not forget Zachariah. Because of him, hopefully violent offenders will not only be deterred from hurting pregnant mothers, but from harming their unborn children. One Victim . . . Or Two? My name is Tracy Scheide Marciniak. On February 8, 1992, I carried within my womb an unborn baby boy, Zachariah. We were in our ninth month, only four days from delivery. That night, the man to whom I was then married, Glendale R. Black, brutally beat me. He knew that I very much wanted my son. He punched me very hard twice in the abdomen. Then he refused to call for help, and prevented me from doing so. When he relented, I was taken by ambulance to the hospital, where Zachariah was delivered by emergency Caesarean section. My son was dead. The physicians said he had bled to death within my womb because of blunt-force trauma. I nearly died, but I recovered. In 1992, Wisconsin, where the crime occurred, did not have an unborn victims law, and state prosecutors were unable to convict Glendale Black under a law that required them to prove that the assault was intended to kill Zachariah. So, Black was convicted of his assault on me, but not of any charge that recognized the loss of Zachariah's life. He is already eligible for parole. In 1998, in response to my case and others like it, the Wisconsin Legislature overwhelming enacted one of the nation's strongest unborn victims laws. But federal law still fails to recognize unborn victims, like Zachariah. Even today, if Zachariah had been killed in the same manner in a federal jurisdiction, his killer could be prosecuted only for assault. That is wrong. Congress should approve the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (H.R. 503, S. 480). Under this bill, if an unborn child is injured or killed during the commission of an already-defined federal crime of violence, that child will be recognized as a victim. Opponents of the bill have put forth a counterproposal, known as the Lofgren Amendment. I have read it, and it is offensive to me, because it says that there is only one victim in such a crime--the woman who is pregnant. Please hear me on this: On the might of February 8, 1992, there were two victims. I was nearly killed--but I survived. Little Zachariah died. Any lawmaker who is thinking of voting for the Lofgren ``one-victim'' amendment should first look at the picture of me holding my dead son at his funeral. Then I would say to that representative, ``If you really think that nobody died that night, then vote for the `one- victim' amendment. But please remember Zachariah's name and face when you decide.''

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. First of all, I would like to congratulate the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Weller), my friend and colleague, for taking the lead on this issue, not only through this Congress, but through the past Congresses. The American people and all married people in this country owe him a debt of gratitude once this becomes law. So our thanks to the gentleman for his effort on this. Mr. Speaker, we are hearing all of these excuses on the floor of Congress today as to why we should not do this. What is the excuse? Well, I am hearing this excuse that it would be fiscally irresponsible for us to pass this legislation. We cannot afford to spend this money on tax cuts. That is essentially the opposition that we are hearing from the other side. Well, it really comes down to a philosophy, a difference of opinion. It is not the Federal Government's money in the first place to afford to spend this money on tax cuts. This is a surplus which came to Washington because taxpayers overpaid their taxes. That is what a tax surplus is. On top of it, it has fit very well within our budget, which pays down the debt, which stops the raid on Medicare and Social Security; and on top of that, as taxpayers continue to overpay their taxes, we are taking a look at the problems in the Tax Code, and we are looking at this great problem. Is it right for the American economy, for the Federal Government, to tax people because they get married? No, it is not right. We should not be doing this. It is a horrible disincentive built into our Tax Code that penalizes the greatest institution of our culture: marriage. That is why it is important that we vote for this bill. That is why it is important that since we tried to pass this before and it was vetoed by the past President, we have an amazing opportunity, on a bipartisan basis, with Democrats and Republicans joining together, as have the authors of this bill, to pass this and tell the American people, you are no longer going to be penalized for getting married. I urge a yes vote.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake) for his leadership on this issue. Mr. Chairman, if my colleagues are concerned about the job losses in America, if they, like me, are concerned about the thousands of layoffs that are occurring, if they are concerned about the high energy prices which are taking money right out of our economy, then they ought to vote for this budget, because this budget, in addition to protecting Medicare and Social Security, in addition to bringing back responsible spending, is the real progrowth, pro-job-creation tax bill budget resolution. This budget cuts taxes not next year, not in the year 2006, but it cuts taxes this year, and it does it in a way that is going to be good for our economy. It is the most progrowth tax bill we have on the floor today. It is the best answer toward getting jobs back on line in this economy. It is the best answer that we can send to our constituents. Help is on the way: More money is going back into the taxpayers' paychecks this year. We are serious about getting this economy back on its feet. I urge a ``yes'' vote on the Republican Study Committee budget.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, there is just one big bottom line to this debate today: People are overpaying their taxes. We are going to hear a lot of debate today saying it is too risky, the process is backwards, all of these things. What is behind these remarks is basically this: They want to deprive people from getting their tax payments back. They want to keep the size of the bite of Washington out of workers' paychecks as big as it is today. Look at the whole perspective of this. This tax bill, in its entirety, is 6 cents on the dollar. The tax relief plan is 6 percent of all the Federal revenues over the next 10 years. So the idea that this is too big and irresponsible is irresponsible. Make no mistake, Mr. Speaker. If this tax bill is defeated and this money comes to Washington and is laid up on the table, it will be spent by this body and we will not get tax relief. This bill is responsible because we are first paying off our public debt. We are protecting the Medicare and Social Security trust funds; and, most importantly, we are giving every hard-working American some money back in their paychecks. I urge passage of the rule and passage of the bill.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me this time. I have been listening to this debate with a lot of wonder. I am a newer member to the committee and a newer Member to Congress. It is amazing to me the excuses we are hearing to further separate people from their own money. We hear that this tax cut is just too big, it is irresponsible, we cannot handle it. I refer Members to this chart which shows that this is six cents on the dollar, six cents on the dollar that every American taxpayer is sending to Washington over the next 10 years. $1.6 trillion out of $28 trillion. More importantly, what is this all about? People are overpaying their taxes. Everybody who pays income taxes are overpaying their income taxes. That is why we are trying to pass this now. I hear this bizarre excuse that the process is wrong, that we should do this bill in October, not in March. I encourage Members of Congress to take a look at this chart. This was the cover of Newsweek not too long ago: ``Laid Off, How Safe Is Your Job?'' In the First District of Wisconsin, we are losing jobs by the thousands. We do not have time to wait to give people money back in their paychecks. Energy costs, job rates, they are chewing up the paycheck of working Americans. We are trying the highest tax burden we have in the peacetime history of this Nation. It is time, it is more than time, that as people overpay their taxes, especially after we are paying off the debt and protecting Social Security and Medicare, as people continue to overpay their taxes, we give them some of their money back. That is what we are doing today. All of these excuses are other attempts to further separate people from their own money as they overpay their taxes, so, guess what, they can spend that money here in Washington.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit for the Record an article written by former Senator Robert W. Kasten, Jr. The Honorable Bob Kasten served in both the House of Representatives (1975- 81) and the Senate (1981-93). Mr. Kasten writes to remind us of the fact that the Federal Government is the largest polluter in the United States. He brings to our attention anecdotes from the states, which illustrate the states' difficulties enforcing local environmental laws on the federal government. He writes about the federal government's lack of accountability in cleaning up its own toxic waste sites and its attempts to push cleanup responsibility and costs to local levels of government and to private landowners. According to a Boston Globe article last year, ``federal agencies have contaminated more than 60,000 sites across the country and the cost of cleaning up the worst sites is officially expected to approach $300 billion, nearly five times the price of similar destruction caused by private companies.'' In contrast, private Superfund site clean up is estimated at a fraction of the federal government at $57 billion. The article goes on to say that the EPA Inspector General has found that, federal agencies are increasingly violating the law, with 27 percent of all government facilities out of compliance in 1996, the latest year figures available, compared to 10 percent in 1992. Department of Energy and Department of Defense environmental clean up budgets are routinely last priorities in the appropriations processes. For example, this year I worked to cut construction funding in the Energy and Water Appropriations bill for the DOE's National Ignition Facility (NIF)--a bottomless money pit that the GAO has determined to be mired in waste and technological difficulties--and suggested that this funding be transferred to the DOE's waste management account, where I believe the money could be put to better use. The final appropriations bill increased the Defense Environmental Restoration and Waste Management fund by $490 million dollars. In comparison, the NIF project, which is 100 percent over budget and 6 years behind schedule, was appropriated $130 million for FY 2001. The NIF boondoggle was granted nearly one-third of the total increase of the environmental clean up budget. Clearly the federal government has other agendas than the environment. We need to look more closely at Federal Government's own environmental problems. The State and Federal Government can work together to modernize environmental laws, streamline the bureaucratic process, and focus less on punishment and more on figuring out the best way to reach high environmental standards and compliance. America's Largest Polluter--Guess Who (By Sen. Robert W. Kasten, Jr.) Here is a question that really ought to be put to both the presidential candidates, but especially Vice President Gore, in the final weeks of the campaign: Can you tell us who the largest polluter in the country is? And--important follow- up--if you are elected president, what would you plan to do about this defiler of our planet's future? The answer, as market environmentalist Becky Norton Dunlop notes in her forthcoming book, Clearing the Air, will surprise many Americans. It isn't Exxon, duPont, or even, with respectful apologies to Ronald Reagan, trees--although trees are, as Reagan said, a major source of certain ``pollutants.'' Rather, as Dunlop notes, the largest polluter in the United States is: the United States government. Federal vehicles are not only numerous, but, in many cases, don't meet federal clean air standards. Temporary bureaucrats who commute to major federal centers, especially in Washington, D.C., often do so in vehicles that aren't locally registered, and thus don't meet area pollution requirements. There are even a large number of federally-protected toxic waste sites. And of course, the federal government's sorry effort to blame land-owners who didn't pollute for the chemicals put on their property by others is a major reason why the vast majority of Superfund sites around the country haven't been cleaned up. Dunlop knows about federal pollution first-hand. As Secretary of Natural Resources for the state of Virginia from 1994 to 1998, she had to go to court against the Gore-Clinton Environmental Protection Agency to stop some federal agencies from polluting, or protecting polluters being harbored because they were federal contractors. For this, she won the ire of some extremists for whom environmentalism means not making the air, water, and soil cleaner, but expanding the federal government's ability to strong-arm states, cities, companies, and private citizens. Even some environmentalists are starting to realize the irony, as Scott Harper of the Virginian-Pilot put it recently, that if you're looking for the biggest polluter of all, ``it's government--the same authority that's supposed to protect the environment.'' The Boston Globe did a whole series on the issue of government pollution in 1999. This summer, USA Today did an expose on federal agency pollution dating back to the 1940s, a series that has led to Senate hearings this fall. But you don't have to go back to the history books to find federal polluting. It's going on right now, under the man supposed to be the environmental vice president, Al Gore. Now, to be sure, one reason the federal government is the largest polluter is its sheer size. The federal government owns more vehicles, buys more products, employs more commuters, and does a lot of other things in much greater volume than any company. (That the federal government is so vast is, in But size isn't the only reason government pollutes so much. Far from it. A major contributing reason is that federal authorities frequently attempt to shift the expense for cleaning up their pollution to other levels of government, or to private landowners--allowing federal agencies themselves to continue polluting while blaming others. As Dunlop recounts, for instance, in the mid 1990s, the EPA, run by former Gore aide Carol Browner, tried to prevent the state of Virginia from making the federal government clean up one of the worst toxic waste sites in the country. Avtex fibers. The plant had been kept open thanks to Colin Powell and the Bush administration because it was producing valuable products for the federal government. That's understandable. What was wrong was the effort by the Clinton Administration to avoid making the party responsible for the pollution, namely Uncle Sam, from paying for the cleanup. ``Can you imagine,'' as Dunlop notes, ``if the guilty party had been a major corporation?'' EPA ultimately paid a huge fine to Virginia in the Avtex case but only after a legal struggle. Today, Browner brazenly takes credit for having cleaned up the site. The government as a polluter is a vital issue all by itself. But in an election where trust, character, and taking responsibility have become part of the debate, it may be especially important. Wasn't it Al Gore who was led an exhaustive review of everything the federal bureaucracy does, the ill-starred ``re-inventing government'' crusade? How does Gore square this effort and mission, and his vaunted attention to detail, with the fact that he apparently paid little attention to the polluting activities and policies of governmental itself? Here we see the intersection of something Al Gore claims to revere, namely clean air and water, with the place where he and Bill Clinton have had the most direct control, the federal executive branch. And instead of a record to be proud of, the story of EPA in the 1990s is one of political vendettas, bad science, and ``the buck stops over there.'' I'm no Jim Lehrer or Larry King, but if I were, I know that I would point this out. It isn't a nit-picking question, and it isn't a personal attack--instead it goes to policy and the future. And it would sure be interesting what Al Gore has to say.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions) for yielding to me. Mr. Speaker, I serve on the Committee on the Budget, and we work very closely at taking a look at whose numbers add up, what we are going to do with the Federal budget surplus. I have here an apples-to-apples comparison of the Bush plan for the surplus and the Gore plan for the surplus. I think it is very important to put aside all the rhetoric you hear, because a lot of times when you listen to politicians' rhetoric, when you listen to the presidential campaign rhetoric or the media's interpretation of the rhetoric, you do not actually see what is being proposed. Let us take a look at what is actually being proposed. We have a monumental chance, a historic opportunity to use this surplus to address the many challenges facing our Nation. We have a chance to pay off our national debt. We have a chance to shore up Social Security. We have a chance to modernize and fix Medicare, and we have a chance to let people keep more of their hard-earned money as they continue to overpay their taxes. What the Gore plan does is it says for every dollar coming into the Federal Government in the form of a budget surplus for the next 10 years, we are going to take 46 cents out of that surplus dollar, 46 cents out of every surplus dollar will go toward Washington, will go toward new spending. Mr. Speaker, 36 cents of every surplus dollar will go towards Social Security and Medicare and paying down the debt. You take a look at the Gore plan, he has said in his speech and I notice in the debate we are going to pay off the debt by 2012. The Bush plans the debt off even faster. It puts more money towards preserving Social Security and Medicare and paying off the debt. It puts 58 cents of every surplus dollar toward paying off the debt, preserving Social Security and Medicare. The point is, if my colleagues take a look at the blue slice of this pie in the Bush plan, after paying off the debt, after stopping the raid on Social Security, paying off the debt in 12 years, after having a meaningful prescription drug benefit, people are still going to be overpaying their taxes, and Governor Bush is proposing that 29 cents of every surplus dollar go back to the people who gave us the surplus, the taxpayers. What is the alternative to that vision? It is not paying down debt. It is not a question of cutting taxes or paying off debt. It is a question of after paying off the debt and shoring up Social Security and Medicare, giving people their money back or spending it on new programs in Washington, which is what the Vice President is proposing. He is proposing a minor 7 cents out of every surplus dollar going back to the taxpayers who gave us the surplus in the first place and a whopping 46 cents of new spending out of every surplus dollar. So the question that the Vice President has answered, is, it is not a question of paying off debt, it is a question of not giving anybody their money back or spending more money on new programs in Washington. If my colleagues take a look at the amount of spending, Bush wants to spend $278 billion over the next 10 years above and beyond the current budgets for national defense, for education, for fixing Medicare. Gore wants to increase spending by $2.1 trillion. He is proposing the largest spending increase in 35 years to double the size of the Federal Government in 10 years. That is the proposal you see with the Gore budget. Mr. Speaker, this is a huge election. This is about philosophy and vision. The question is, do you want your money to come to Washington and to stay in Washington, so that Washington then can give you some of your money back if you engage in behavior that they approve of; or do you want to keep some more of your own money in your paycheck to begin with? Do you want us to become fiscally responsible and pay off our debts before we launch into new spending sprees and creating more programs? These are the questions that are being answered that are going to be on line in the ballot this November between Bush and Gore. I would like to thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions), who has orchestrated this hour and thank him for the time he has given.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, hopefully Tuesday, September 26, marked the turning point in the misguided antitrust suit against Microsoft when the Supreme Court turned down a Hail-Mary plea by the government to hear Microsoft's appeal. Two new studies, one from the Institute of Policy Innovation and one from the Association for Competitive Technology calculate the annual economic damages caused to our economy would range between $20 billion and $75 billion a year. I would like to quote Milton Friedman, the Nobel Laureate Economist who said, ``Silicon Valley is suicidal in calling government in to mediate in the disputes among some of the big companies in the area and Microsoft. The end result will be that an industry that up to now has been able to proceed at a marvelous pace with little or no government regulation is now going to have government all over it. It is going to spend in legal fees over the next 10 or 20 years, money which society would benefit from much more if it were spent in the kind of research and development that has brought us many miracles in the area of Internet, in the area of home computers, industry computers, and all the rest.'' The Berkshire Hathaway vice-chairman, Charles Munger, says ``The Justice Department could hardly have come up with a more harmful set of demands than those it now makes. If it wins, our country will end up hobbling its best-performing high-tech businesses.'' I urge an end to this madness.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the Senate bill (S. 1198) to establish a 3-year pilot project for the General Accounting Office to report to Congress on economically significant rules of Federal agencies, and for other purposes.

Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I also just want to thank everybody who put a lot of hard work into this bill. I think we have a good bipartisan compromise. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.