John Shadegg

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to recognize this as an unfunded mandate and to stand on principle. We are telling governments all across America, cities, States, counties, that they must pay a wage but we are not providing the money to pay that wage. We are doing what we told the American people in the Contract With America we would not do. This is not rocket science, it is simple and straightforward. It is a matter of keeping our word. An unfunded mandate imposed upon the States is unfair and it is wrong. It not only will cost the employees of Mr. Ugdah their jobs, but it breaks our faith, and anybody who voted against unfunded mandates has to recognize this is a vote of hypocrisy. We must vote to sustain this point of order if we voted to ban unfunded mandates.

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, this is not about raising the minimum wage. It is about putting young minority students out of work. Raising the minimum wage will put 1 out of every 4 minority workers between the ages of 17 and 24 who are out of school and working today out of work. Some of the most eloquent testimony I heard on this issue came from a District of Columbia businessman, Abdul Uqdah. This is Abdul Uqdah. He started a business 16 years ago with $500 and 3 employees. He now employs 14 people. He appeared before our committee and begged us not to raise the Federal mandate minimum wage. Why? Because it will not work and because it will put minority youth out of work. He said, and the fact is, raising the minimum wage will put one out of every four young minority workers in America who hold a job today out of work. This is an unemployment act that hurts minority youth, and it is a shame.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Chairman, there is a stark contrast between the Republican budget and the President's budget on one issue. On the issue of tax cuts there is a clear and flagrant difference. The Republicans give real, meaningful tax cuts. The President gives essentially no tax cuts and, indeed, in the last year of his budget he raises taxes by $14 billion just to bring, by smoke and mirrors, his budget into balance at the last minute. Mr. Chairman, I make no apology for arguing for tax cuts. We Republicans trust Americans to spend their money more wisely than we do. But let us talk about that issue. We are here concerned about the deficit and the debt. The truth is we have an anemic economy growing at 2 percent a year. Historically our economy has grown over the last 30 years at 3.6 percent. Now it is growing at only 2 percent. If we could enact the tax cuts that President Clinton vetoed, we could unleash this economy. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting a budget that stops the situation where Americans pay more in food and clothing than they do in taxes.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Chairman, one of my colleagues came to the floor a few minutes ago and said that this debate is not about numbers, it is about philosophy. It is about vision. It is about where America is going, about whether America is going forward or going backward. We need, America needs, a budget that saves our children's future, but that is not the budget that the Democrats will offer. The budget the Democrats will offer is a budget based on fear and class warfare. I hope my colleagues in America are listening to and watching this debate. Their budget is based on fear, is representation, and class warfare. Our budget is based on hope, growth, and opportunity. The difference between these budgets is that we trust the American people to take care of themselves. Members heard the last speaker bemoan all the different cuts. He would have us cut nothing. Indeed, he would have us grow spending more and more and more, and debt more and more and more. These two children are the grandchildren of one of my colleagues. They face a debt in their lifetime of $188,000, each of them. Look at their faces. Their answer is more debt and more spending. What has that spending gotten us? Let us take one issue, the education issue. They would tell us, the President would tell us, that we are gutting education and that we are stealing from education funds in America. They would tell us we should spend more and more and more. Let me say about spending: It is not true that Washington knows best, and more spending does not necessarily make better education. Since 1980, the budget for the Department of Education has more than doubled. It has grown at a pace of more than 7 percent. That is twice the growth of the economy. The United States today spends more per primary and secondary pupil than any country in the world. What have we gotten for it? What has that side that wants to take you back to more spending done for you? What that has gotten, what their excessive spending has gotten us, is 187 different studies that show there is no significant correlation between education spending and performance. What has their spending done? SAT scores have dropped nearly 60 points in the last three decades. Math and science scores for students in America ranked behind China, Korea, Taiwan, the former U.S.S.R., England, and Slovenia. What has failed is their centralized big government solution. If America is to move forward, we must trust the American people. We cannot burden them with more debt. I urge my colleagues to reject the past, to reject excessive spending, and to join us in passing a budget which protects their future and does not burden them with an immoral debt.

Mr. SHADEGG. The statistics I have cited are accurate.

Mr. SHADEGG. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. If the gentleman would yield briefly? I simply want to thank the gentleman for his assistance in moving this piece of legislation forward, thank him for cosponsoring the bill, and tell him that I spoke today with the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Canady], the chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary. He has indicated to me just what you have indicated; that is, that we are hopeful that we will get hearings on this legislation in the near future and that it can move forward. I appreciate the gentleman's effort on its behalf. I appreciate your support, and I think it is a step in the right direction.

Mr. SHADEGG. I commend you for your efforts and wish you the best.

Mr. SHADEGG. If the gentleman would yield again, let me just simply say I commend you for this effort, and I want to pass on something. One of the greatest influences in my life, as I suppose in, hopefully, many American boys' lives, is their own father. My father was a tremendous influence on me, and he was very fond in the later years of his life of saying that the problem with the Congress was that it had come to believe that it knew how better to run every American business and every American's life than those individuals themselves. And that is the kind of notion that I think your effort is going at. The simple truth is that the 535 Members of this Congress, House and Senate combined, no matter how well-intended, and the huge army of bureaucrats that we control, and there are thousands, tens of thousands of bureaucrats that we control, simply cannot know better how to run the day-to-day lives of every American and the day-to-day businesses of every American business or of every American church or synagogue. We simply cannot run those organizations better than they, and the myth of the mystical bureaucrat that can do it better than we can is indeed dead wrong.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to address an issue of what I believe is of grave concern for this Nation, and that is an issue dealing with the fundamental law of the land. I hold here the Constitution of the United States, and all of us as individuals learned about this document and studied it in grade school and high school civics. Some of us might have even gone back since then and read a provision or two. I want to focus on the importance of this document and on the importance of an issue that I think has become abused. Mr. Speaker, this document sets forth the vision of our Founding Fathers for a powerful central Government, but with limited and specifically enumerated powers. Now, why did they spell out that? Why did they say that it should have certain powers and that they should be significant powers, but that they should be limited and specifically enumerated? Well, if you reflect on your history, you will realize that the Founding Fathers of this Nation had themselves recently escaped an oppressive central Government, a central Government which took the form of a king, a king who could at will order whatever he wanted and command or demand what he chose. The Founding Fathers, fearing that we might return to that system, felt we should spell out in a single document which would bind the Nation forever those powers granted to the Federal Government and that they should be adequate and complete for that Government to do its jobs. But they recognized that there were many States which would make up this Union and that those States would play a fundamental role, and they addressed and they considered the division of power between the Federal Government on the one hand and the States on the other, and to address that concern they spelled out in an amendment, which I want to call to the attention of my colleagues here in the House, the 10th amendment, which reads, and I think it is important for us to understand what it reads and to think through its meaning, the 10th amendment to the U.S. Constitution addresses this issue of what level of Government should exercise which powers. And it says specifically: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to the people. Now, Mr. Speaker, many of those in my freshmen class were elected on a platform that has to do with that, the 10th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. We have watched through our lifetimes, and I have watched through my lifetime, as the Federal Government located here in Washington, DC, thousands and thousands of miles from my constituents at home in Arizona, has sought to bring to itself more and more and more and more power, and in doing that what it has done at the same time is to reduce by ever-growing amounts the power and the authority of all the good men and women who serve in State legislatures around this Nation, all the good men and women who serve on county boards of supervisors or city councils. Indeed as the Congress has arrogated unto itself all this power, it has left less and less power for individual citizens of this country. Now, why should that be of concern? It really is kind of simple, and that is what this boils down to: The truth is my constituents back in Phoenix, AZ, have a better chance of affecting a decision if they can go down to their city council or down to the board of supervisors or even down to the legislature and raise an issue, than if in order to affect that issue they have to come all the way here to Washington, DC, thousands of miles from my home. I believe it is critical for this Congress to recognize that in ignoring the 10th amendment over the past several decades and in arrogating more and more power to ourselves in Congress, quite frankly so that politicians here can buy themselves back into office, what we have done is we have taken power away from the citizens. It is time to end that. Now, how do we end that? I want to talk to my colleagues tonight about one simple idea, and that is the notion as set forth in a bill which I have introduced to this Congress, which would, I believe, restore meaning to the 10th amendment of the U.S. Constitution. I hold a copy of it here. It is H.R. 2270. It is for Federal legislation quite unique in that it is less than 3 pages long. It is a simple bill which simply says that before any one of our colleagues, before any one of us here on the floor, could introduce a new bill calling for the Federal Government to take on some new project or some new legislation, you would have to spell out the powers granted to it to do that under the U.S. Constitution. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this and to set the terms so that we could not debate on this floor legislation in areas that the Constitution did not grant us the authority. It is a simple idea; it is H.R. 2270. It says, out of respect for the 10th amendment, before we introduce a bill, we must spell out the constitutional authority that gives us, the Congress, the power to legislate in that area. It is a critical first step.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Chairman, I would like to rise in support of this legislation, but I cannot. I cannot, notwithstanding its surface appeal. We would all agree that trust funds ought to be used for a trust purpose. But that is not the debate that is before us today. The debate that is before us has to begin with where we are, and where we are is that we have not managed these funds in the fashion we told the American people we would. In point of fact, we said we would not use general fund monies for this purpose, and we have, and this is not a debate about misuse of trust funds. The chart I have put up makes this case fairly clear. Since 1980, total spending for highways from the trust fund we have brought in $214 billion, we have interest of $21 billion, we have spent a total of $235 billion. But we have added in general funds funding $63 billion on top of the trust fund spending of $228 billion, so we have spent a total of $291 billion. The point is, for those Americans out there paying revenue taxes, gas taxes, other types of taxes, into these funds, please understand, this is not a debate about the misuse of those funds. We have used more than we have promised. But it is a debate about the budget control. If we enact this legislation, it will make it almost impossible to balance the Federal budget. That has to be our first priority. I urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Chairman, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Wolf]. (Mr. WOLF asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, it is with great sadness that I announce the death of a courageous American who fought for more than four decades on behalf of the principle that no worker should be forced to pay union dues as a condition of employment. Thomas F. Quinlan, Sr., father, husband, teacher, small businessman, and public servant, died February 11 at his home in Wheaton, IL, where he moved after retiring to be near two of his six children. As a history teacher in New Milford, CT, for 24 years and owner of a small lakeside resort for 20 years, Tom Quinlan appreciated the importance of right to work for both workers and small businessmen. Mr. Quinlan also served three terms in the Connecticut general assembly, from 1954 to 1960. During those years, he worked tirelessly for enactment of a Connecticut right to work law, but was frustrated by the State's powerful union political machine, fed by the forced dues of the very workers whose rights Mr. Quinlan was working to protect. But he never gave up. After leaving electorial politics, Mr. Quinlan carried on his efforts, to bring the benefits of voluntary unionism to Connecticut's workers by helping to found, and serving as president of, the Connecticut Right to Work Educational Committee. Tom Quinlan was also a leader in the fight against compulsory unionism on the national level, serving as a board member of the National Right to Work Committee, which has led the fight for worker freedom across the country for over 40 years, from 1965 until his recent passing. As a member of the committee's board, Mr. Quinlan helped guide the right to work movement through its successful battles against big labor's attempt to repeal section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act in the mid-sixties, the phony labor law ``reform'' bill of the seventies, and the so-called anti-striker replacement bill in the nineties. His last service to the cause of freedom was helping to launch the campaign to pass the National Right to Work Act (S. 581/H.R. 1279), which will soon be voted on in the Senate. That Congress is even considering repeal of those sections of Federal labor law that authorize forced-dues contracts is in no small measure due to Mr. Quinlan's work. Remembering his departed colleague, National Right to Work Committee president Reed Larson recalled his optimism, ``No matter how many temporary setbacks right to work forces suffered, Tom Quinlan remained confident that our cause was just and would prevail in the end.'' I stand before this body to pay tribute to Tom Quinlan's achievements and to offer my condolences to his family and friends. All Americans owe a debt of gratitude to this former history teacher and small businessman's tireless efforts on behalf of right to work, and those of us who remain active in this fight should share Tom Quinlan's firm belief in the eventual triumph of the right to work cause.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, the fundamental essence of the gentleman's question is, is this workable. I believe the answer is, indeed, clearly it is workable. I think the language or the points that you make now highlight the difference between that language which is before this body today and the language of the rule, because what we have done is to let go of the original language proposed in the constitutional amendment introduced by the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Barton] and indeed embraced a different concept. That language would have said any increase in any tax rate or any increase in the base to which a tax is applied would require a supermajority; thus, the difficulty which you found in the language. Some would argue that, indeed, that is the preferable way to go, because it would mean that not only would we hold down increases but we would stop changing the Tax Code on a daily basis. Indeed, we made some 4,000 changes of one kind or another in the Tax Code in the last decade. But that is not the language that is before us today. The language of the rule which you just raised, the language which, indeed, was constrained by rule, the legislation you referred to, is not the language that is before us today. The language that is before us today embraces the concept of revenue neutrality, and, indeed, that is the language which we put in the Arizona Constitution in 1992, and which has been placed in many other constitutions.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Certainly I am aware of that. But what we have seen is that in all 10 States, the economy has grown more and jobs have expanded more.

Mr. SHADEGG. It applies to some taxes in various States. They are not uniform across the Nation.

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I believe those are 3 of the 10 States which have supermajority requirements, as does my State of Arizona, enacted in 1992, pursuant to an initiative drive with the support of 72 percent of the electorate.

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

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, it has been a privilege to be a part of this debate today, but it has been at times a very sad debate. At times we have heard from the other side that this is simply politics. That is dead wrong. This amendment raises a straightforward issue regarding fiscal responsibility. Should this Congress and this Federal Government be more responsible about spending the money it has? If you believe it should, then indeed you should vote for this amendment, because simply by making it harder on this Tax Day, 1996, for the government to reach into the pockets of average American citizens and take more money out, we will force discipline on this Congress and we will cause this Congress to be more cautious, more prudent and more judicious in spending the money that we do take from those citizens. All day long, Mr. Speaker, I have heard the other side talk about this as an attack on the sacred principle of majority rule. Well, bunk. This is not an attack on the sacred rule, the sacred principle of majority rule. Indeed, the very reason for placing it in the Constitution is because Constitutions are designed to protect minorities, to protect minorities against the tyranny of the majority, and indeed in this Nation where now the average American spends more on taxes than on food, shelter, and clothing combined, since the adoption of the 16th Amendment, we have a tyranny of the majority on the issue of taxes over the minority. Mr. Speaker, the second issue I have heard makes me question whether anyone has bothered to read the amendment. Indeed, all day long I have heard my colleagues on the opposite side decry that they could not do any tax reform, they could not close corporate tax loopholes they could not provide additional funding for Medicare or child care, or for anything that they believed was a worthy cause. That is dead wrong. I urge them to read the language which was left here because, as written, this measure provides for ``revenue-neutral tax reform''; that is, any measure which raised taxes on some but lowered taxes on others could be passed with a simple majority. Indeed, the other point they have made all day is that this is an outrageous debate which is radical, which is politics, which is a public relations ploy, theater and grandstanding. Let me tell them, they are again wrong, because in 10 States in this Union, an amendment just like this one has already passed. Are they saying that it is radical of those States? If they are, they are telling one-third of all Americans that they live in a State which has adopted a radical grandstanding political theater of an amendment. That is right; one-third of all Americans live in a State which has adopted a tax limitation amendment just like the one before us tonight. It is not radical, it is indeed a reasonable reform, a reform that two law professors have said would attempt to retrieve the original values of the Constitution, rather than a radical innovation. Let us look at what has happened. In those States which have adopted supermajority, taxes have climbed more slowly than in other States. You would expect that. Spending has climbed more slowly than in States which do not have a supermajority requirement. Those you could predict. Let us look at the economic effect. We hear a lot of talk about the economy and jobs. In those States which have a supermajority, which have done what we have proposed to do here tonight, the economy has grown at 43 percent since 1980 to 1992. In those States which have refused to do what we do tonight, the economy has only grown at 35 percent. What does that mean? It means that the growth in the economy creates jobs, and indeed the study reveals the same: higher levels of job creation in those States which have a supermajority requirement. The other side often talks about the importance of creation of jobs. This measure tonight would do more to enable us to create jobs in this Nation than anything else we could do in the 104th Congress. That is why the last fact is rather evident and why the other side hurts, because once examined by those facts, once made real to them, what happens? A survey result revealed that 64 percent of Democrats support a tax limitation because it creates jobs; that 68 percent of Federal employees support tax limitation. Why? Because they are sick of wasteful spending at the Federal level; that 71 percent of union members who pick up that tab also support tax limitation, and that 73 percent of all Americans support tax limitation. This is indeed an idea whose time has come. We have a tyranny of the majority in taxes in this Nation. I urge my colleagues to support this reasonable reform to restore the Founding Fathers' intent, and the intent that we should not have a tyranny of the majority over the taxpayers in this Nation.

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Colorado for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this constitutional amendment. It is an amendment whose time has come. It has well embodied the principle that enough is enough. Six times since 1980 this Congress has raised taxes on the American people. In 1993, the largest of those tax increases passed with the barest of majorities. There is a simple premise behind this constitutional amendment, a premise embraced by 73 percent of all Americans, a premise adopted by the 10 States that already have a constitutional amendment requiring a supermajority, indeed, the 10 States whose population represents one- third of all Americans, and that is the premise that the U.S. Congress needs to be more responsible about spending the tax dollars it takes from American taxpayers. If you believe in that premise, then you should not oppose this amendment, but support it. Because by making it somewhat more difficult to raise taxes yet again, we will force on this Congress a level of fiscal discipline which has been missing. Indeed, if you look at this Congress and the past Congresses, our record of fiscal discipline, of spending cuts, is abysmal. The gentleman earlier on the other side referred to George Will and implied that Mr. Will had criticized the language of this amendment. But he omitted the conclusion of Mr. Will. And the conclusion of Mr. Will at several of the different points in his article was that this was indeed a good amendment. He said: The properly reverent reason for amending the Constitution is to revive those of the framers' objectives that have been attenuated by political developments since the framers left Philadelphia. Mr. Will continues: Such am amendment will be voted on by the House on Monday April 15, tax day. Such an amendment could represent a restoration of the values embodied in what the framers did in Philadelphia. This is indeed not an extreme amendment. I would cite the words of a professor from Cardozo Law School and the University of San Diego Law School who said: The amendment should be seen as an attempt to revive the original values of the Constitution, rather than as a radical innovation. In a Nation where the average American family spends more on taxes than on food, clothing and shelter combined, this is not a radical amendment of the extreme right. It is an amendment supported by labor, it is an amendment supported by rank and file Democrats, it is an amendment whose time has come, and I urge its passage.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his leadership. I simply want to conclude my remarks as a part of this special order by saying we in the Congress have a tremendous opportunity today to deliver to the American people on a promise we made a year ago. On this day when we exact their tax return from them, when we reach into their pockets one more time, we have a chance to tell them that we are going to impose the discipline of a supermajority requirement in the U.S. Constitution. I urge my colleagues not to miss this opportunity to support this amendment.

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, the gentleman raised the question of whether or not tax increases have solved the deficit problem. I am sure the gentleman is aware that the history is, as he points out, the opposite. Each time we have increased taxes by a dollar, studies show we have further increased spending by not $1, not an equal amount, but by $1.59. So we have driven ourselves with each new tax increase to solve our deficit problem, not taken ourselves out of debt, but put ourselves further into debt.

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, as the scoring by CBO is currently performed, we could easily enact a capital gains tax cut, and would not require a supermajority to do that. Some of us, though, would argue that CBO ought to embrace the concept of dynamic scoring, which might change that analysis. But as the measure would currently be scored, a change in our capital gains tax rates to lower those tax rates could be accomplished by a simple majority vote, which means that a lot of arguments we have heard already today and a lot of arguments we will hear tonight about how the rule adopted here on the House has had to be waived simply does not have any application to this debate, because the language of the amendment differs from the language of the rule which we adopted on the first day of this Congress.

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, our goal is to allow and to continue to go forward with revenue-neutral tax reform. Should we shift from the income tax to a sales tax to a VAT tax, whatever we deem is necessary, provided it is revenue-neutral, it can be accomplished with a simple majority. That provides the flexibility that our colleagues on the opposite side of the aisle are so deeply concerned about.

Mr. SHADEGG. Well, as having been the chairman of the initiative drive who put it on the ballot and then pushed it over with the vote of 72 percent of the legislature supporting it, it has worked extremely well. Where we had seen a spate of 9 successive tax increases in a row, we have not seen a general tax increase since that measure was enacted. I would point out that the measure enacted in Arizona is much like the one we are proposing here; that is, it allows revenue neutral tax reform, so that if we want to change the code in some respect we can, so long as it is not a tax increase. And whenever in Arizona a tax increase is required, that is when the supermajority, two-thirds, is triggered, just as the language we are proposing here today would do.