Jim Saxton

Mr. SAXTON

Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. SAXTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, S. 1802 is the Senate version of H.R. 3579, a bill to transfer the property known as Ranch A to the State of Wyoming. H.R. 3579 was introduced by Congresswoman Barbara Cubin on June 5, 1996, and passed the House on September 4, 1996. Ranch A consists of a lodge, a barn, and associate buildings and includes approximately 680 acres. The property is located in Crook County, WY, which is within Sand Creek Canyon and includes the headwaters of Sand Creek. The Fish and Wildlife Service acquired the Ranch A property in 1963, but has had little to no oversight of it since 1986. The Wyoming Department of Game and Fish currently manages the majority of the Ranch A property and, up until 1995, raised trout and transplanted the trout to waters around the State of Wyoming. The bill authorizes the transfer of 600 acres to the State of Wyoming to be used by the State for fish and wildlife management and educational activities. S. 1802 also transfers 80 acres to the Black Hills National Forest. S. 1802 is similar to measures the House of Representatives has approved to transfer certain Federal fish hatcheries to non-Federal control, and it contains the standard language requiring that the property revert to the Federal Government, if it is used for something other than the authorized purposes. I urge my colleagues to support this noncontroversial piece of legislation and I compliment our distinguished colleague, Barbara Cubin, for her effective leadership on behalf of her Wyoming constituents. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SAXTON

Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and concur in the Senate amendments to the bill (H.R. 2660) to increase the amount authorized to be appropriated to the Department of the Interior for the Tensas River National Wildlife Refuge.

Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. SAXTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SAXTON

Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous remarks on H.R. 3804, as amended.

Mr. SAXTON

Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California [Mr. Bono], the author of the bill, who has a longstanding interest in this issue. (Mr. BONO asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3804) to remove the restriction on the distribution of certain revenues from the Mineral Springs parcel to certain members of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, as amended.

Mr. SAXTON

Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on the Senate amendment to H.R. 3068.

Mr. SAXTON

Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the Senate bill just passed.

Mr. SAXTON

Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Rochester, MN [Mr. Gutknecht].

Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3068 was passed by the House on May 16, amended by the other body on September 19, and sent back to us for further action. The amendment added by the other body consists of section 2 and section 3. Section 2 would amend the Jicarilla Apache Tribe Water Rights Settlement Act by extending, for 2 years, the time during which the tribe, the State of New Mexico, and other parties to the suit must work out various details to this water settlement and have those details included in a court decree adjudicating the water rights in question. Section 2 of H.R. 3068 is important, is fair, and should be supported by the House. Section 3, added by amendment by the other body, would amend the San Carlos Apache Tribe Water Rights Settlement Act of 1992 by extending to June 30, 1997, the date for the parties to this settlement to reach agreement on certain matters which are part of that settlement. This amendment to H.R. 3068 is important, is fair, and should be supported by the House. In summary, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on H.R. 3068, as amended by the other body. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. SAXTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SAXTON

Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, first let me say that I support the rule and I will vote in favor of the bill itself today. However, I am deeply disturbed by one aspect of the bill. Most of the provisions of the bill, I think, are in accord with good sound policy. However, this bill does contain one provision, to exempt the Immigration and Naturalization Service from both the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. This provision is intended to address an issue that has to do with the California-Texas-Mexico border. However, the way this section is written, the exemption applies to the entire border of the United States, not just the California-Mexico border near San Diego. This waiver is not necessary, either in theory or in reality. Section 7, as a matter of fact, of the Endangered Species Act provides the framework to address any fence building. I have letters from the Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior stating that these waivers are not necessary. Mr. Speaker, if it is important enough to exempt the Immigration and Naturalization Service from these important environmental laws, then we have to grow food, why do we not just exempt the Department of Agriculture? We have to get around in this country, so why do we not just exempt the Department of Transportation? And flood control is extremely important in my district, so why do we not just exempt the Corps of Engineers? Mr. Speaker, this is a bad provision, and while I am going to vote for this bill, I pledge to spend the next 2 years making sure we straighten out this part of the bill which, to me, is a serious problem.

Mr. SAXTON

Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, for some of us, public service is a part of our being. Those who have chosen this path give up a part of their life for the betterment of their community. Nobody exemplifies this more than Beverly Mayor Frank Costello. For six decades, Mayor Costello has selflessly given his time and hard work to his country and community. Beginning with World War II and continuing through the Korean war, this Bronze Star recipient served his country in the U.S. Army, retiring in 1968 with the rank of captain. After his heroic military service, Frank Costello turned his talent to local needs. He was elected to the Beverly City Council in 1968, a position which he still holds today. In 1972, he was successful in running for mayor and has been loyally returned to office at each election. While this may have been enough for most, Frank Costello continued to give to his community. He has served as chairman of the Beverly Sewerage Authority since 1985, the City Planning Board for over 20 years, and the chairman of the Burlington County League of Municipalities for the last 12 years. Additionally, he has been the chairman of the Beverly City Democratic Party since 1986, and was president of the New Jersey Mayors Association from 1990 to 1996. While we do not belong to the same political party, I know that the residents of Beverly--Republican, Democrat, and Independent--could count on Frank Costello to do what was in the best interest of the community. On behalf of the residents of the city of Beverly, the Third Congressional District, and the people of the United States, I would like to thank Mayor Frank Costello for his dedication, loyalty, and tireless efforts in serving his community and country.

Mr. SAXTON

Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing a bill to stop an increasingly common problem facing America's marine manufacturers. This problem, originally brought to my attention by a boat manufacturer in my congressional district, entails the theft of proprietary designs with respect to the production of boat hulls. Such piracy threatens not only the integrity of the U.S. marine manufacturing industry, but the safety of America boaters as well. Boat manufacturers invest significant resources in the design and development of safe, structurally sound, and often high performance boat hull designs. Including research and developmental costs, a boat manufacturer often invests as much as $50,000 to develop a design from which a single line of vessels can be manufactured. When a boat hull is designed, and the engineering and tooling process is completed, engineers then develop a boat plug, from which they construct a boat mold. The manufacturer is then able to produce a particular line of boats from this mold. In contrast, those intent on stealing the original boat design, rather than developing their own, can simply use a finished boat hull in place of the manufacturer's plug to develop or splash a mold. This copied mold can then be used to manufacture a line of vessels with a hull identical to that appropriated from the competitor at a cost well below that of the company that originally designed the hull. Hull splashing is a significant problem for consumers, as well as manufacturers and boat design firms. Consumers of copied boats are defrauded in the sense that they are not benefiting from the aspects of the hull design, other than shape, that are structurally relevant to safety. It is also more unlikely that consumers are aware that a boat has been copied from an existing design. Moreover, if manufacturers are unable to recoup at least some of their research and development costs, they may no longer be willing to invest in new, innovative boat designs--designs that could lead to safer watercraft for consumers. The Boat Protection Act of 1996 would work in concert with current Federal law to protect American marine manufacturers from harmful and unfair competition from unscrupulous foreign and domestic rivals. I urge my colleagues to support the Boat Protection Act of 1996 and stand with me in my effort to protect the American public and the marine manufacturing community from the assault on American ingenuity caused by hull splashing.

Mr. SAXTON

Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. I would commend the gentleman for the leadership role he has brought to bear in bringing this measure to the floor today, because I think it is of very notable importance. Mr. Speaker, let me say it is entirely appropriate that we should make note of the event that occurred in Dhahran in June of this year. It is, obviously, our intent to speak today to the families of the people who were involved in that very disastrous event, so it is appropriate and fitting that we make these remarks on behalf of the people who were involved and who died on that date. I think it is also appropriate, Mr. Speaker, that we note that while we remember an event that occurred, and remember the families that were affected by it, it is also important for us to look ahead. It is important for us to understand this event in the context of the future, and what it could mean to servicemen and servicewomen, their families, and other civilians who travel outside the United States, and in some events that could even occur here at home. Mr. Speaker, those who have the objective of disrupting the American presence around the world have found what many of us believe is a new way to accomplish that. In the past, when people wanted to use force to bring about change of one kind in one part of the world or another, they would use what we refer to today as conventional force. Since World War II, or the middle of World War II, the United States has been the predominant nation or the predominant force in terms of conventional power and our success at conventional warfare. I think the many nations around the world have understood that today. They have understood that they need to find another way to bring about the changes that they seek. That was learned, I think, in the Middle East by a number of Middle Eastern nations during the history of the State of Israel, during the last 50 years or so, when war after war was won by the Israelis. Other people who wanted to disrupt Israeli society and perhaps drive Israel out of existence used a form of warfare today known as international terrorism. That international terrorism, of course, still goes on in the Middle East, and this event which occurred in June is evidence of that. In 1991, we decided that we did not like an event that was occurring or about to occur in the Middle East. It happened to be the invasion by Saddam Hussein of our friendly associate, Kuwait. And so once again we demonstrated our capability to carry out a conventional act which educated in some respects some countries in the Middle East as to our ability to carry out a conventional defense of that country. It is notable that since 1991, the acts of terror against American personnel, both military and civilian, overseas has increased. In 1995, there was a bombing in Riyadh where five American servicepeople lost their lives, and, of course, this bombing in Dharan is further evidence of the increase of terror against the United States, against Westerners, and against people who are considered to be, by them, unfriendly to certain countries in the Middle East. And so it is important for us to note several things about these events. First, we have to note what they are not, or what we believe they are not. They are not just random acts acting out against the West. They are well planned, the perpetrators are well trained, they are well financed, and in some cases, in many cases perhaps--perhaps in most cases--we believe today they are sponsored by certain states in the Middle East. Countries on the suspect list, of course, are Iran, Sudan, Syria, perhaps in some cases Iraq, some forces out of Turkey, not the Turkish Government necessarily but some forces in Turkey, some forces in Saudi Arabia, some forces in Egypt, and perhaps other countries, Libya in North Africa. These are well-planned, well-carried-out events which are intended to accomplish a purpose. Usually that purpose is to drive out or disrupt the American presence in certain quarters of the world. I think it is important to understand these things in the context of the Dhahran bombing and for us to take note as an institution as to what it is the Americans face overseas.

Mr. SAXTON

Mr. SAXTON. This shows clearly what happened in terms of various income groups under the Reagan tax policies beginning in 1981 and going through the year 1988. The claim by some on the other side of the aisle always is that, well, Reagan was great for the rich people because their taxes were cut and they all profited, you know, the rich people, and Reagan took care of them. Nothing could be further from the truth, and these statistics prove that. There are three colored lines here which represent taxes paid by various income groups. Here in 1981 this green line shows that people who were in the top 1 percent of the wage-income earners in this country paid 17.6 percent of the total tax burden. People who were between the 51st and the 95th percentile paid 57 percent, and the bottom 50 percent of the taxpayers in the United States in 1981 paid 7.5 percent. Now, if we jump all the way to the other end of this chart--of course each year goes across, 1982 and 1983, all the way over to 1988, we find that in 1988 the people who were in the top 1 percent of the income class in our country no longer paid 17.6 percent of the total taxes, but paid over 27 percent of the total taxes, an increase of nearly 10 percentage points. Conversely, people who were in the bottom 50 percent, who paid 7.5 percent of the taxes in 1981, by 1988 paid only 5.7 percent, and so they dropped almost 2 percentage points over the 8 years of the Reagan administration. So this is a clear indication that once again these growth policies that we talk about, the Dole suggestion that we ought to once again reduce tax rates, the Dole suggestion that the capital gains tax is too high, the Dole suggestion that people ought to get a $500 tax credit for each child in the family to reduce the burden of taxes on families, is not only a nice thing to do for families, it not only makes them feel better and not only gives them a little bit more money to spend each year, it is a significant amount of money to spend each year; but more importantly, or at least equally importantly, it makes the economy do better, it makes the economy grow as we have historically done since World War II. It gets us out of the 2.2 percent rate of growth back on track toward 3.5 percent, which is so important to job creation, which is so important to increasing wages, which is so important to opportunities for young people to progress and move up. So that is what the Dole program is about. If we can continue, as we have, under this leadership in the Senate to reduce spending, to continue, as we have, in this House to reduce spending and still get this growth policy in place, we will certainly do so much better for families than we have during the past 3 years since the huge Clinton tax increase went into place.

Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, I have had the pleasure for the last 2 years of serving as the vice chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, and I found it to be quite an interesting task because I am not an economist and, in fact, I do not think any of the members of the Joint Economic Committee are true economists, although some studied history and some courses in economics, but none of us are truly economists. Our job is, however, to try to understand as best we can, as Members of the House who are former schoolteachers or real estate salespeople or car salespeople or doctors or housewives or lawyers or whatever we may be, we need to understand the process of our Nation's economy so that when we enact laws here we will know, hopefully before we enact those laws, what effect those laws have on the performance of our country's economy. And of course in order to do that we do talk with economists and we do read things that they have written and we try to understand ourselves and explain to our colleagues what it is that we have done or are about to do or may do in the future that will help our economy grow, help to provide jobs, help to provide a larger set of opportunities for people who are involved in the economic sector, as we all are as we make our daily livings. And to the extent that we can be successful in doing that, and to the extent that we can successful in imparting what we think we have learned to our colleagues on both sides of the aisle, then we are successful as Members of the Joint Economic Committee in carrying out our function. Now, as I have gone about the business of this task over the last couple of years, I have also talked with lots of American people who are involved every day in the economic system; people that work, people looking for jobs, people looking to advance, people looking to get wage increases and people just looking to go to work every day so they can earn a wage to bring home to their families. And I have noticed in the last several years that there has been a marked upturn in people who know that I do this job here and who have come to me and have said, well, this year I am not making as much as I made last year. What is wrong? And people who have said, well, when I go to look for a job, like my son or daughter did when they graduated from college, all they could find was a temporary job because employers did not want to pay benefits. When other people go looking for a job or go into the workplace they say, well, gee, I have not been able to advance as I thought I would. All of these kinds of things have made people nervous about the economy and nervous about opportunities, and for the first time public opinion polls show that it is the opinion of the younger generation that they probably will not do as well as the former generations. This is unique in our country's history, because always before the new generation aspired to do better than the older generation and thought they would and were optimistic about it. But today that is not the case. And so the Joint Economic Committee set about trying to find out what it was that was causing this aura of pessimism about our economy. We had a lot of research, read a lot of books, listened to a lot of economists and we began to see that there was, in fact, a trend that is occurring, and that trend was not necessarily good news for Americans. I brought some charts with me today to try to demonstrate what it is that we have found about our economy. This chart has two lines on it. I hope those who are further away can see it has a solid line and kind of a dotted line. The dotted line shows what economic growth has been in our country and how well the economy has done since World War II. It is a rather steady increase. That increase is actually about 3.5 percent, on average, each year. In other words, the economy grows. There are more jobs by a substantial margin each year since World War II than there were the year before. As the economy grew, wages went up and people prospered and everybody was happy. The black line shows what actually happened in the economy at any given point along that trend, and we can see that at some point the black line, in terms of what was really happening, was above the dotted line and that other points, when there was a recession, it fell back to or below the dotted line. But by and large, until this point, the lines tracked along pretty well together. Where the dark line begins to fall below the dotted line, that happens to be in 1993. And the Congressional Budget Office here, which does all kinds of economic projections and forecasts and estimates about money and what is going to happen and economic growth, has forecasted here that the outlook for the future is different than it has been since World War II. The outlook in terms of economic growth actually falls off in the next decade or so, according to the Congressional Budget Office. They say we will not grow at the traditional 3.5 percent any longer. It will be closer to 2.2 percent. That gap widens as we go out into the years beyond the year 2000, and once we get to about 2005 or 2007, our economy actually will be performing at 15 percent less on total performance than it is today. And so, this is evidence that we see for the first time of what is making American workers nervous, have not been able to do so good on the job. I see direct evidence of it, says the worker. My wages have not gone up this year. In fact, they have gone down. I have not been able to find that new job that lets me advance. My kids graduated from college and can only find a temporary job. Companies are downsizing and rightsizing and merging and trying to find ways to do things because CBO's and managers of businesses, big businesses as well as small businesses have discovered that the CBO and other economic projectors, people who do projections, are saying that we probably, given these situations that we find ourselves in today's economy, we are probably not going to grow at the traditional 3.5 percent. We are probably going to grow at more like 2.2 percent. So this has caused concern throughout our economy. Mr. Speaker, if we look at where this began to happen, it began to happen about 1993. Well, what does this mean to the American people? If we look at different segments of the economy we can see here, for example, what effect does this have on small businesses? I should say at this point that what happened in 1993, we think, is that we had a big tax increase. We had a tax increase that took more out of the pockets of the folks who have money to spend in the private sector who go to the grocery store, who buy appliances, who buy clothes for their kids when they go to school. Took money out of their pocket--and it was the Clinton tax increase--and said, send that money to Washington because we need to have more money to spend in Washington. We need to balance the Federal budget, as it was said. I think it was called the Deficit Reduction Act, which actually was the biggest tax increase in our country's history. When we found out what happened, and all of you have heard about small business. You know, it has been said in our country year after year after year after year for decade after decade that small business is the economic engine that pulls the train. When we begin to look at what the Clinton tax increase did in the beginning of 1993, we find out that it had a tremendous effect on small business. This is one of the factors that we have identified as being bad for the economy, bad for new jobs, bad for economic growth, bad for wages, bad for opportunities. Young people have started to say for the first time in our history we cannot aspire to do better than the last generation because things have gone awry. This is what happened to small business. The tax increase, the income tax increase that occurred is paid, 70.3 percent of it is paid by small business. And so no wonder those small businesses that provide the incentive, the engine that drives our economy, all of a sudden 70 percent of this new tax increase that this House passed--I am proud to say I did not vote for it--70 percent of those revenues are paid by small business. So it has had a tremendous effect on the free enterprise system in our country. The young people who would like to get jobs at the corner grocery store, those jobs are not there; and if they are, they are temporary. All the folks that take part in that part of the economy are having a more difficult time, but it also had some other effects. It had some effects on all Americans or on most Americans. We can look at this next chart, and it shows what happened during this period of time to wages in our country. Wages in our country have not done particularly well since that large tax increase because small business was directly affected by it. The median income has also suffered. In 1992, the median weekly income in our country was $493. In 1993, the year the Federal Government increased taxes with the Clinton tax increase, in 1993 for the last time we saw growth in median family income, weekly income, I should say. It grew from $493 in 1992 to $498 in 1993. Then the rest of this chart is self-explanatory. Median weekly income for American workers has gone down consistently ever since. It is more evidence that things are not going well for workers and another reason why today's young generation is not as optimistic about the future as they once were. In fact, I stood right here at this podium in 1993 when that tax increase was being debated and said that this tax increase would be bad for our economy, and others of my colleagues did the same. But the tax increase went through anyway. So what do we do about this? Of course, this is one of the functions of Members of Congress who are interested in making our economy grow. Not only do we need to identify the problems, but we need to make some suggestion about how we can remedy the problems.

Mr. SAXTON. Well, the gentleman is exactly right. As your class, 70 freshman who came here, 71 freshmen who came here on the Republican side have clearly demonstrated that we can reduce the rate of growth in spending and that we can move these two lines closer together. President Clinton, incidentally, Mr. Wamp, President Clinton has talked a lot during his campaign appearances about reducing the deficit. And it is kind of funny to say, but it seems to me that it was the Congrss that actually put in place the provisions and the budget process in the appropriations bills last year. And now, of course, we are following suit again this year, with the 71 freshman, with people like John Kasich who have led us in the budget debate, like our majority leader, Dick Armey, who believes so much in what we are talking about here on the floor tonight. It is kind of interesting that President Clinton has found it possible, seemingly possible, to take credit for that.

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

Mr. SAXTON

Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. SAXTON

Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on the special order today by the gentleman from Alabama [Mr. Callahan].