Martin Sabo

Mr. SABO

Mr. SABO. I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for yielding. Mr. Speaker, is the gentleman from Wisconsin telling me that the bill in its current form would spend $147 million more than the discretionary spending caps we set in 1995?

Mr. SABO. The Obey substitute requires, Mr. Chairman, the Obey substitute requires that the outlays be there to pay for it. The amendment clearly increases outlays by about $288 billion in the current fiscal year and about $600 billion over 5 years.

Mr. SABO. Would I not be right in saying that if we follow that amendment, 50 percent of the Congress could choose to deploy troops but it would require 60 percent of the House and the Senate to raise the debt ceiling to pay for the deployment of those troops.

Mr. SABO. Let me just simply ask a question. Clearly there are many of us who think the Federal Government should be able to respond to emergencies, whether they are international or domestic. Clearly the House said ``no'' when we adopted the balanced budget amendment. I am just curious what your judgment is for the future. We are wrapped up in this discussion now in its consistency, and I clearly think the Obey amendment is consistent with the balanced budget amendment. But let us project to the future. Let us assume that the decision is made that we need to deploy troops, whether it is made by the President as Commander in Chief or whether it is made by Congress. How will that deployment be paid for in the future and what kind of procedure does Congress have to do to make that decision in the future under that amendment?

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SABO

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

Mr. SABO. So it is not only a limited amendment, but it is something that sort of rushed through committee that is changing this historic relationship that our country has had with our allies?

Mr. SABO. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.

Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I am just curious, NATO has been rather important to this country for 45 years, almost 50 years. Were there extensive hearings in committee as we write new law to change that historic relationship?

Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman yielded 30 minutes without reservations.

Mr. SABO

Mr. SABO. Let me finish a minute. I am not one who talks about pork. I think there is good cause at times for demo projects. I do not condemn them. I have been involved with them. Sometimes they are contract authority, sometimes they are authorized and appropriated money. I have got a couple right now that are partially one, partially the other. The authorized part would be subject to line-item veto; the contract authority would not. There is absolutely no reason for the distinction.

Mr. SABO. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, all expenditures by the Federal Government go into making up what our outlays are each year. We have hundreds of trust funds in the Federal budget. If we said every one of them was exempt, we would be talking about tiny portions of the budget. The reality is that if our judgment is to pass this base bill, it should apply to appropriated dollars, it should apply to contract authority, frankly it should apply to new or expanded entitlement authority, and it should also apply to tax expenditures and tax cuts. If we really wanted to have a fair bill, it would be in toto. There is no reason for the sake of consistency to say that it should apply to appropriated dollars which would be going to good programs, maybe bad programs, maybe some in between, and the same with the contract authority--lots of good programs, some maybe not so good--but what we are saying in this bill is we want to subject those kinds of expenditures to the scrutiny of the President, who can prevail if one- third of the House or the Senate will stay with him. Mr. Chairman, for consistency's sake, let us have it apply uniformly.

Mr. SABO. I yield to the gentleman because the gentleman is right in what he says in terms of the ability of the President with the support of one-third of the Congress to wipe out a whole program, but that would also include education programs, legal aid, a variety of other things.

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, Members, I rise in support of this amendment, maybe for reasons different than others. I do it for the sake of consistency, not for the sake of pork versus goodness, or whatever else may be talked about today. But the reality is the base bill today transfers incredible power to the President to modify spending decisions by the Congress, and the President, with the support of one- third of the Congress, can maintain those decisions. When the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Shuster] says that a President might be able to wipe out a highway program, he is right, but that also applies to a whole host of other worthwhile expenditures. Why have one covered and the other exempt? I know of no good reasons. Mr. Chairman, I am not one----

Mr. SABO

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield, so I can understand this bill and the rationale for it here, to give unprecedented power to the President, is that the history is that Congress has appropriated less money than Presidents have asked for.

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I am curious. I heard my friend, the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Taylor], speak of this earlier. I am curious what the record is over the last 40 years in terms of requests for appropriated dollars versus what the Congress has appropriated. If I am not wrong, Presidents have traditionally, both historically and in recent years, whether it be Reagan, Bush or Clinton, they have all asked for more appropriated dollars than Congress has appropriated. Am I not right?

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I am just curious. I just thought I heard the gentleman say that the reason for this bill in this form was the inability of the Congress to control appropriated dollars. Is that accurate?

Mr. SABO

Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I believe that an increase in the minimum wage is needed to restore equality to salaries for millions of Americans. For that reason, today I am introducing the Minimum Wage Amendments Act of 1995. This legislation will increase the Federal minimum wage to $6.50 an hour--an increase that will help nearly 5 million Americans better provide for themselves and their families. In today's economy, minimum-wage workers are often unable to support themselves for one simple reason--the minimum wage has not kept up with the cost of living. In the 1960's and 1970's, for example, a full-time year-round worker making the minimum wage earned enough to keep a family of three above the poverty line. Today that same worker falls nearly $3,500 below the poverty line. To supplement their minimum wage, workers are often forced to seek assistance from taxpayer-financed Government programs such as food stamps, housing subsidies, and medical assistance. Congress has tried to help. In June 1989, Congress passed legislation increasing the minimum wage. Under that legislation, The 1989 Fair Labor Standards Act, the minimum wage was raised from $3.35 to $4.25 per hour. Still, the minimum wage has not kept pace with the rising cost of living. In fact, the current $4.25 per hour falls almost $2.25 short of the real value of the minimum wage in 1968. This failure to increase the minimum wage to a level that provides a living puts enormous pressure on social programs. In my judgment, all full-time workers should make enough money to live off their wages. From the time of President Roosevelt, a fair minimum wage helped ensure a responsible relationship between workers and management. Today, a fair minimum wage is critical to millions of working Americans. More than two-thirds of minimum-wage workers are adults, and it is estimated that one in five minimum-wage workers live below the poverty line. When working Americans are unable to support themselves and their families, they are left scrambling to pay their bills and put food on their tables. Today's minimum wage is too much minimum and not enough wage. We can not be content with an economy that helps those at the top of the economic ladder climb further up while those at the bottom slip further down. Mr. Speaker, today I am also introducing the Income Equity Act of 1995. One of the most disturbing trends of the past decade has been the increasing polarization of income in this country. To use a familiar phrase: ``The rich have gotten richer and the poor poorer.'' In fact, the gap between rich and poor families is now larger than at any time since the Government began compiling those statistics. Put another way, average income of the poorest fifth of the population has fallen from 93 percent of the poverty line in 1973 to 83 percent in 1987. The next poorest fifth has an average income of twice the poverty line. On the other end of the spectrum, the richest fifth has an income that is almost nine times higher than the poverty line. Clearly, the income gap continues to widen. More single-parent, female-headed households are stuck in the bottom end of the wage scale. Wages for low-income and young workers have been stagnant. These trends have helped contribute to a growing class of working individuals who are having a tough time making ends meet. This poverty is especially damaging because it hits children so hard. Today, an alarming one in five children live in poor families. Poverty and the problems associated with it--malnutrition, inadequate health care, disadvantages at school, and crime--impair a child's ability to perform later in life. Those basic problems erect barriers that make it tough for children to ever achieve. We need to reverse the trend toward growing income inequities. My bill, the Income Equity Act, would not only raise the minimum wage to $6.50 an hour, but it would also limit the tax deductibility of executive compensation to 25 times that of the lowest paid worker in the same firm. For example, if the lowest paid worker of a business is the clerk who makes $10,000 a year, the business will only be allowed to deduct $250,000 in salary and bonuses for senior employees. This provision simply draws attention to the incredible income gap present in most businesses. Business owners will be forced to take a long, hard look at how they compensate both those at the bottom and those the top of the income ladder. The bottom line is that Americans who work full time should be able to provide for themselves and their families without turning to the Federal Government for assistance. Both Democrats and Republicans alike want to see individuals excel in the workplace. We want to see families living well and doing so independent of Government intervention. A liveable minimum wage is an essential extension of the work ethic--it tells individuals that work is important and should be rewarded appropriately. Mr. Speaker and Members of the House, I hope you will join me in supporting an increase in wages for working Americans.

Mr. SABO

Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, and Members, I rise in opposition to this rule. This year for the first time the Budget Committee was given legislative jurisdiction over legislation coming before the House. This bill was the first bill for which this committee received referral. The committee held no hearings, made no judgment, no examination of this legislation, despite the fact that much of what is in this bill has very direct impact on the budget and the Budget Committee. There are expanded duties for the Director of the Congressional Budget Office. Whether the resources in this bill are sufficient for that office to do its duties we do not know. There are new and additional responsibilities for the Committee on the Budget to make estimates of the costs of mandates, a substantial new and different responsibility. Again, the committee has had no hearings, no discussions on how we are going to handle that process. The bill also makes reference to what the budget can or cannot do. What those references mean is not very clear from what the bill says. It indicates, and this goes far beyond the question of mandates, where I understand the bill says, in Minnesota, if we dumped our sewage on the Iowa border, that is not of national concern unless the Federal Government pays for it--I have a tough time understanding that. But the bill goes far beyond that. It, for instance, exempts Social Security. Does that mean Social Security retirement, Social Security disability, other portions of the Social Security Act? It has very specific language on changes in entitlements, and I know it does not apply until October 1. Mr. Speaker, there are major questions as this bill relates to our budget process that were not heard.

Mr. SABO

Mr. SABO. No; no. The copy of the bill we have. It says, ``This bill applies to anything that would place caps on entitlement upon or otherwise decrease the Federal Government's responsibility to provide funding for States, local government or tribal governments under the program.''

Mr. SABO. Page 25, II.

Mr. SABO. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. SABO. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, I intend to vote no on this bill. Let me just say as background, before I came to Congress I spent 18 years in the State legislature, 8 years heavily involved with putting State budgets together, with that primary responsibility in dealing with the relationship of the State to local units of government throughout our State. So I fully understand the impact; maybe not fully, I understand partially, because I do not know if any of us understand fully the impact of the relationship between one unit of government to another, and I understand there is a problem of mandates. But what I fear is happening here is total overreaching. I find unbelievable that we could start as a basic premise of law, as a Federal Congress, to say to someone like me from Minnesota, at the top of the Mississippi, that if you want to dump your sewage into the Mississippi at the Iowa-Wisconsin border, it is of no relevance to the Federal Government unless the Federal Government pays the full bill. That is the concept of this legislation. [[Page H349]] Second, we exempt the most obnoxious things we do except conditions of Federal assistance. Maybe that is appropriate when it is tied to the financial assistance, but we regularly tie in other policy unrelated to that basic program, more often by conservatives than by liberals. We try to tell the States how to structure their sentencing, because we are so much smarter than the State legislatures. That is not prohibited by this bill. But I have a question to the chairman of the Government Oversight, as I project for us to meet the terms of the contract of a balanced budget amendment by 2002, the tax cut, simply freezing defense outlays, we will need to cut Medicare outlays by program changes by a minimum of $225 billion over the next 5 years, more than likely $250 to $275 billion; Medicare at least $115 billion, more than likely $125 to $150 billion. Page 25, II, how would that apply as the Congress makes those cuts that are going to be required under the contract?

Mr. SABO

Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I am going to vote for this amendment, but it has nothing to do with truth in budgeting and all the other rhetoric I hear on how we put budgets or appropriation bills together. Every appropriation bill that comes to the floor shows last year's appropriation, this year's appropriation, and normally, the President's request, no baseline. When we consider what has happened historically to budgets, we do look, and one measurement is what has happened to actual changes in dollars in programs from year to year. We also look at what has happened in appropriations and spending in relationship to inflation. We also at other times look at the relationship of expenditures to the gross national product. They are all legitimate analyses of what is happening to the Federal budget. Somehow my Republican friends seem to think that we should never consider the impact of inflation on Federal spending. Any family that looks at their budget, if their salary is frozen for a number of years, and the cost of food goes up, the cost of clothing goes up, the cost of gasoline goes up, it is obvious that they have fewer dollars to purchase fewer goods and services. The same is true of the Federal Government. We measure them in a variety of ways, and my friends on the other side like particularly to use inflated baseline when we talk about defense. The truth is that defense budget authority peaked in 1985. Adjusted for inflation, it has been cut by 35 percent. Unadjusted for inflation, it has been cut by 10 percent. I tend to hear when we get that debate, my friends on the right use the baseline number, my friends on the left use the unadjusted baseline. The truth is both are active. This is a harmless amendment, but it does not do anything significantly different. It is not a new truth in budgeting amendment.