John Spratt

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Baldwin).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for participating, and I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Sanchez).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin).

Mr. SPRATT. I thank the gentleman for his observations and participation. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Etheridge).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I recognize the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs. Christensen).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt).

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bentsen).

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding time to me. Mr. Speaker, this is about the most important part of the campaign for the revolution, the revolution in the South, where the revolution was largely won after the fall of Charleston in the back country. The whole matter has been popularized by Mel Gibson and others in a movie called The Patriot. The story now needs to be told right. There are over 200 battles and skirmishes, military incidents. We need this national corridor to tell it right. We had 1 million visitors to 8 different battlefields in South Carolina in the year 2000, and even more now. This is a perfectly fit bill for those circumstances. The story needs to be told right and well. I would like to commend the chairman and the ranking member for allowing this bill to come to the floor. I urge everyone to vote for it.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, the end of September marks not only the end of fiscal year 2002, but also the expiration date for crucial mechanisms of budget discipline. I rise today to inform my colleagues that I have introduced the Restoring Budget Disciplines Act of 2002, a bill designed to extend budget enforcement mechanisms and get us back on the path of balanced budgets. I invite all members, from both sides of the aisle, to co-sponsor this legislation. The 1990s were a decade of great fiscal progress, as we converted chronic deficits into hard-won surpluses. There is widespread agreement that the discretionary spending caps and the pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) rules--which were originally established in 1990 and which expire today--played a critical role in achieving this progress. Indeed, in his recent appearance before the House Budget Committee, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan testified that the spending caps and PAYGO rules have been effective, and noted that ``[lsqb]f[rsqb]ailing to preserve them would be a grave mistake.'' The bill I have introduced extends the PAYGO rules through fiscal year 2007. As you know, the PAYGO rules require that the cost of all mandatory spending increases and all tax cuts enacted during a session be fully offset. If this condition is not met and the net effect of all tax legislation and mandatory spending legislation enacted during a session reduces the surpluses or increases the deficit, then the rules provide for a sequestration of resources by the Office of Management and Budget. The bill also takes important steps toward extending the discretionary spending caps. The precise levels at which these caps should be extended can emerge only from bipartisan negotiations. But this bill puts the Congress on record as supporting a renewal of the caps, and it provides for the extension of key provisions of the Budget Act pertaining to the caps once such levels are set. The fiscal progress of the last decade was achieved largely as a result of budget agreements between the White House and Congress. Now is the time for bipartisan action to renew the budget enforcement mechanisms that were created and extended in those landmark agreements.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is very basic. What it does is it takes blanket immunity which is added to this bill and replaces it with selective indemnity. The bill as it stands would exonerate contractors who provide all kinds of equipment, gear and protective devices, undertaking the most serious sort of responsibility from any liability whatsoever for the products they provide. Any. Just across the board, blanket immunity. Instead it would say let us go back to the model of an old law called Public Law 85-804 and allow on a case-by-case basis, not a priori, but case-by-case indemnification to be provided to these contractors so they would have protection if they were sued in certain cases under certain circumstances. It makes far more sense than to try and sit here in judgment on all kinds of liability situations which we cannot even begin to foresee, much less render final judgment on. 85-804 has been on the books for as long as anyone around here can remember. Lockheed Aircraft Corporation almost went bankrupt in 1971. It was the authority of 85-804, the extraordinary authority of that law that had been carried forward for at least 60 years that allowed us to put Lockheed back on its feet. It is the largest contractor today. That is basically what we are saying here today. Let us use the extraordinary authority given agency heads which has been used sparingly, to negotiate these agreements selectively case by case as opposed to doing this across the board. What we are doing here with this amendment is replacing something that is novel and new, untried and vast, with something that has proven to work. It is that basic, that simple, and that is why we should adopt this amendment.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, this conference report does far more than just give the President fast track authority. Packed into these 400 pages is something called the Andean Trade Promotion Act, and if you come from textile country, this is no trivial matter. These provisions open up duty-free access for Andean textile imports that is four times current trade. Also packed into this conference report are major amendments to the Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act. These almost triple the amount of apparel that can come in duty-free from the 26 countries in the Caribbean and Central America. As if that were not enough, this conference report goes on to expand the African Growth and Opportunity Act, doubling the amount of apparel that can come in duty-free, unencumbered from 35 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Over the last several years, believe me, I come from textile country, hundreds of plants have closed and textile apparel workers by the thousands have lost their jobs. By opening our markets in this report to a flood tide of new imports from the Andes, from Africa and from the Caribbean, from 70 countries in all, this bill can only add to an industry that is already hemorrhaging from a trade deficit that is running right now at $62 billion. Let me cut through all the technical detail and give you one example of how gratuitously generous this bill is. Right now Caribbean countries can ship duty-free to this country knit apparel made of regional fabric to the extent of 336 million square meters. This bill would expand that 336 million square meter limit, or cap, to 500 million square meters by October 1, and to 970 million square meters by October 1, 2004. That is unprecedented and totally unnecessary. It is true that it closes the so-called ``printing and dyeing'' loophole, but this bill opens up a bigger gap and does no net good on the whole. These concessions are unprecedented, they are unnecessary, they are an unmitigated disaster, and if they indicate the kind of trade agreements that will be brought back for a fast track vote, they are reason enough to vote this conference report down.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, few would question the goals of H.R. 4946. Most of us see the need to provide assistance to those burdened by the costs of long-term care. However, once again we are approaching an issue with fiscal impact in a vacuum, without a plan to guide us. Republicans claim that this bill is consistent with their budget resolution, because the resolution provided for some tax relief. But the House has already adopted tax bills totaling $43.145 billion through fiscal year 2007. The 2003 budget resolution provided for only $27.853 billion over five years. Attached is a table compiled by the House Budget Committee Democratic staff that documents these figures. There is no room for these tax cuts under the fiscal plan that is supposed to be our guide. Either these tax cuts are not real, and we are passing tax bills that will never become law; or the 2003 House Republican budget is not real, and we are about to tax cut our way even deeper into deficit, and spend even more of the Social Security Trust Fund surplus. We continue to consider legislation without any coherent Republican budget plan. The Republicans claim that their budget provides tight fiscal management. But then the Republican leadership again and again schedules legislation that violates their own budget. Mr. Speaker, as we speak, we are sliding deep into deficit. It is time for all of us to sit down together and hammer out a real budget that saves Social Security, pays down the debt, and protects national priorities.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would take $30 million out of the space-based kinetic intercept program, leaving $14 or $15 million for concept definition, which is the status of it anyway, and instead, shift that $30 million to another program, a vitally important program as part of missile defense which has been debited by this bill, the airborne laser bill. So it would not decrease by any means the total amount appropriated by this bill for ballistic missile defense. It would simply reallocate within those accounts $30 million, shifting it, as I said, from the space-based boost phase interceptor over to the airborne laser system to make up for 50 percent of a cut which the committee has made in that particular program. Mr. Chairman, some 15 years ago when the SDI program, Strategic Defense Initiative, was first begun, it was to be a layered defense. There were to be ground-based layers and space-based layers. One of the space-based layers was a space-based intercept system. It would have been a satellite which would have housed many different smaller satellites, each of which would have housed many different interceptors, each of which could be fired at missiles as they were launched, or even in the midcourse, as they came towards the United States. The problem with this system, in addition to the fact of being an enormous system, was that in a fixed orbit in space a target this large with that many interceptors on it was a very valuable target and a very vulnerable target; and any country able to fire at us an ICBM that really put us at risk would also be able to build what is called a DANASAT, a direct ascent ASAT, to take out that defensive system. So to avoid the inherent vulnerability of having predeployed satellites in space, the idea of Brilliant Pebbles was conceived. This system, the SBI system, was abandoned and Brilliant Pebbles was taken up. The idea of Brilliant Pebbles was to make this target not so valuable and not so vulnerable by making each satellite a single interceptor. Each would have been self-sufficient and able to sense what was coming on and able to propel itself towards that oncoming missile and take it out. Members can imagine how daunting this technology is. Because the technology was so daunting and the cost of lift and other things was so enormously expensive, the Brilliant Pebbles program was abandoned, as well. We have spent substantial sums of money, therefore, on space-based interceptors and boost phase interceptors in space. We have abandoned both. We should learn from our mistakes. We should learn from our mistakes and concentrate on what has worked and put our assets where they are likely to pay off in the near term. That is exactly what we are trying to do today. I am not opposed to boost-phase intercept. In fact, what I am trying to do is shift some money from a system not likely to work any time soon into a system that shows the promise of being an effective space- based or boost-phase interceptor, the ABL, the airborne laser. Why do I do this? One reason for doing it is that if we look at what the Missile Defense Agency, the BMD agency is doing today, we will see they have a full plate, a fuller plate than they have had since SDI began. They are developing a ground-based midcourse interceptor; they are developing two or three variations on a ship-based mid course interceptor and a ship-based boost-phase interceptor; they are developing theater systems like the PAC-3, the THAAD, the MEADs. They are developing laser systems, airborne laser systems, and space-based laser systems. They need to winnow down some of these systems and focus on what works and try to bring those things that are most feasible to fruition, as opposed to going off in pursuit of a million different ideas. So that is what we would try to do here, refine the focus of the program on a system that is likely to work, taking out of a system that has been proven not to work in at least two iterations over the last 15 years. Let me say that this system right now, this so-called space-based boost-phase intercept system, is relatively, relative to the defense budget, a small system. It is $23 million, or $23.8 million is the funding level for this year. The President requested $54.4 million. We would leave in the budget $14 million for this program; but as I said, we would shift the program. Now, it does not seem like it is really crowding anything out at that level of funding. What we have to do is look at what the MDA, the Missile Defense Agency, has provided us in a backup and justification charts for the cost growth they expect in this particular program, the boost-phase intercept program. They expect the cost to go up to $510 million.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, this program will go from today's modest level to $510 million in just 10 years. When it gets to that level, it is going to crowd out and preclude something else. The ABL, on the other hand, the airborne laser, needs money to buy, number one, a second airframe, a Boeing 747; and, number two, and even more critically, it needs some money to buy long lead time items that will make this airframe a suitable platform for a laser that will weigh 200,000 to 250,000 pounds and has to have absolute stability if it is going to work and be functional at all. What we would put back in this budget, we would take the money out of one program and put it back in the ABL so we could buy those critical long lead items. If we do not buy those critical items, if we let the $30 million deletion stand in this budget, we are going to find that this program is going to be stretched out and out and out, and it is not going to be ready to be tested to determine whether or not the power system, the laser system, will have the power necessary to be an effective system by the year 2005 or 2007. Mr. Chairman, this is a very constructive amendment, and it does not take a dime out of the overall program. It will enhance the prospects for boost-phase intercept. It will ensure that the money we are spending on ballistic missile defense is being spent more effectively and is being spent towards accomplishing the purposes that we have set out for the program. I urge support for this amendment.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. I can ask unanimous consent.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I object to the references to the other body, when the Chair has previously advised the other side that it is improper to refer to action in the other body in support of the motion and which they are supposed to argue otherwise independently against.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, we are not trying to stop an increase in the debt ceiling. Here is what we are trying to stop. This year, in the most dramatic fiscal reversal we have seen in the time many of us have served in this House, our budget will be in deficit to the tune of $320 billion. Next year, according to our best calculation, our budget will be in deficit by $373 billion. Over the next 10 years, by $2.785 trillion. That is what we seek to stop. If my colleagues vote for the bill instead of the motion to commit, what they will be voting for is fiscal denial instead of fiscal discipline. They will be voting for a little absolution, a ticket past the next election, a ticket past the next budget resolution, but we will simply put off dealing with this problem, this serious problem, this dramatic reversal. We wanted to present a plan that would have allowed the budget to be increased by $150 billion and then another $100 billion without any obstacle. But, after that, we could only increase it if we had in place a budget that would be back in balance by 2007. That is what we really seek. In the absence of being able to offer that plan, what we offer instead is the closest thing to it, an increase in the debt ceiling of $150 billion which will bring us back to this problem which we will have to address but will allow us to keep to our obligation to our creditors and, at the same time, allow us to keep our obligation to our children and not leave them burdened with overwhelming debt.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, just 18 short months ago, OMB and Treasury both told us that there would be no need to raise the debt ceiling for at least 7 years, not until 2008. OMB told us that they foresaw surpluses coming that would total $5.6 trillion over the next 10 years. A year later, when OMB sent up its budget, the budget that we are now working upon, it contained a simple pie chart. Look at page S-415. According to OMB's own pie chart, 40 percent of the surplus was a massive miscalculation. It did not take sufficient account of the economy; it technically was deficient. Seventeen percent of the surplus was wiped out by spending increases, much of it for defense, and 43 percent, 43 percent of the projected $5.6 billion surplus, according to OMB's calculation, had been wiped out by the tax cuts, or would be wiped out by the tax cuts enacted last June. Mr. Speaker, this is the chart, this is the line on this chart right here, this blue line at the bottom, that we would have followed had we followed the budget resolution that we proposed, had we not taken the proposal that the Republicans made and that the President made. This, instead, is the chart that, the line that we are on, the red chart, that is additional debt. That is the bottom line. This is a bar chart that shows us where we might have been with the publicly-held debt. We could have retired all of the publicly-held debt if we had husbanded our resources and earnestly tried to do it. We had that opportunity. We would have actually paid off most of the publicly- held debt; and, instead, we are going to accumulate $2.8 trillion in additional debt because of the budget that we adopted 2 years ago and still now are implementing. That is why we find ourselves tonight in June, 2002, not June, 2008, but June, 2002, raising the debt ceiling by $450 billion. Many of us Democrats will not support this bill before us because last year in 2001 we proposed a budget. Speaking of compartmentalizing, we had a budget. We proposed a framework for the budget, and we proposed to set aside in our resolution one-third of the surplus to be used for debt retirement until we had finally reached some agreement for making Social Security/ Medicare solvent far into the future. We wanted to commit that extra third of the surplus for that purpose, and our Republican colleagues roundly rejected the idea. They passed a massive tax cut that left no room for error, and that is why we are here tonight slipping through in the space of 1 hour a $450 billion increase in the debt. We believe that the Government has to meet its obligation, but we do not want to make the Treasury play games with our trust funds. Many of us on this side will vote for a debt increase of $150 billion. This allows us to meet our obligations to our creditors and at the same time meet our obligations to our children, passing a budget that gets us back in balance.

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to have made in order an amendment to this bill in the form of H.R. 4758, which is a plan to raise the debt and at the same time commit this Congress to balancing the budget again by the year 2007.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I rise to congratulate the National History Day finalists from my district in South Carolina--McArn Bennett, Bryan Blair, Jordan Thomas, Meagan Linton, Mary Carolyn Hudson, and Angel Burns. The students were part of a nationwide group of 2,000 finalists participating in the National History Day contest at the University of Maryland at College Park June 9-13th. They brought with them the products of months of research in the form of dramatic performances and museum exhibits. McArn Bennett's exhibit, ``Discord in Harmony: Revolution and Reaction in Jazz,'' won first place in the nation in the category of senior individual exhibit. He received a gold medal and $1,000. Bryan Blair's exhibit, ``The Orangeburg Massacre: Revolution, Reaction, and Reform in South Carolina'' was one of 17 student projects selected to be presented at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. It was ranked 11th in the nation, and he won a partial-tuition scholarship to Chaminade University in Honolulu. An exhibit by Meagan Linton, Jordan Thomas, and Mary Carolyn Hudson entitled ``Tears of Sorrow, Tears of Joy: The Reaction to the Assassination of Abe Lincoln,'' was shown at the White House Visitors Center. Their exhibit was ranked 12th in the nation. Angel Burns won applause for a ten-minute individual performance entitled ``Septima Clark: Queen Mother of the Civil Rights Revolution.'' I want to salute all of these students for their outstanding work, and I also want to recognize their teachers, Gail Ingram, from Cheraw High School, and Debbie Ballard, from Long Junior High School. Together, they have brought a great sense of pride to their schools and their communities and helped make history come alive for their students.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, we all know the circumstances last year when we voted to repeal temporarily the estate tax. OMB was predicting a surplus of $5.6 trillion over the next 10 years. Today that surplus is gone, vanished, thanks to tax cuts, terrorists and recession, and overestimation of the surplus in the first place. This year we expect a budget in deficit by $314 billion, excluding Social Security. Over the next 10 years we expect that deficit to be $2.6 trillion. We will consume all of the Social Security surplus and all of the Medicare surplus if that is true. Even last year, estate tax repeal had to be shoehorned into the budget to hold the tax cut to no more than $1.3 trillion. That is why there was a repeal one year, reinstatement the next year. Even this year those who favor repeal do not favor it until 2010, 2011. They are putting it off. And they are understating the cost because the near- term cost seems low, but look at this chart and you will see what the long-term cost is. The long-term revenue loss in the second decade of this century resulting from the repeal of the estate tax will be $1.1 trillion. How much is $1.1 trillion? That is one-third of the cost, 40 percent of the cost of making Social Security solvent. That is enough to pay for a robust, full-fledged Medicare prescription drug package. That is the opportunity cost of what we are doing. Last year you needed a shoehorn to get it into the budget. This year you will need a shovel. What you will do is dig a hole in the budget that is deeper than ever. You will put us back in structural deficit like never before. This is ill-advised. Vote for the substitute. Exonerate those small businesses by voting for the substitute from any kind of estate tax and keep the budget intact.

Mr. SPRATT

Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, the debate we have before us is about a supplemental spending bill, but it is not about supplemental spending for the war on terrorism, not this debate. When it comes to fighting terrorism, we are not going to be stinting about the cost. We want to win. We support our troops. We support our President. We are ready to vote for supplemental spending to win the war on terrorism. Let us make that clear. But the leadership of this House, knowing that this supplemental would be widely supported, cleverly stuck on it provisions that are totally unrelated to the war on terrorism which we cannot and do not support. One provision in particular sticks in our craw. Members have heard us talk about it. It is seemingly innocuous, just a passing reference to ``the debt of the United States.'' But this passing reference is a coy trick, too clever by half, particularly with a matter of such gravity as the national debt of the United States of America. Because what this bill would do without a direct vote, without open acknowledgment, what this bill would do is open the back door for an increase in the national debt of $750 billion. Now, we all know that the national debt ceiling will have to be raised by $750 billion, and probably before it is all over with, even more. I voted for it before and I will vote for it again. But if we let it slip by, if we let it pass, buried in this bill, I will tell Members what we will be voting for: We will be voting for 2 more years of avoidance, 2 more years of dodging the issue, 2 more years of not dealing squarely with the problems of our budget, the deficit, and the debt that has put us so far in debt that we now need $750 billion in debt ceiling increase. Look at this chart. It is just a simple explanation of how far we have sunk in the last 2 years with the administration's budget policies. This was what they projected here, that we would not need to come back for an increase in the debt ceiling for at least 8 years. That is what Secretary O'Neill told us as recently as last year when he testified before the House Committee on the Budget. It would be 2008 before he needs another debt ceiling increase. Look at what has happened in 2 years. Look at the red line shooting up there. That is because of the budget that we have which is shown on this next chart. The numbers are too small, and it is too bad, but this chart shows graphically, literally and figuratively how far we have sunk. Look at this bottom line here, the remaining on-budget surplus. We have gone from the first surplus in 30 years, not including Social Security and Medicare, to an expected deficit by our calculation this year of an on-budget deficit of $314 billion, $314 billion. Look across this line and see what happens to the bottom line. It does not self-correct. It does not get any better. This year we expect $314 billion. Next year it will be $342 billion, without Social Security and without Medicare. The next year it will be $248 billion, $284 billion, and then $238 billion. Mr. Chairman, what we are avoiding, if we vote for this bill and approve a debt ceiling increase by the back door, is any confrontation with this dire fiscal situation we have on our hands that results from the Bush budget policies. That is the bottom line. That is what the debate is about. We went to the Committee on Rules and said quite simply and openly, give us an amendment to this bill which would basically provide that before the debt ceiling is increased by more than $250 billion, and we will let you have a $250 billion increase, but before we add the additional amount, let us have in place, let us pass and put in place a budget resolution that would restore us to balance in 5 years, that would put us back on an on-budget surplus in 5 years. Is that asking for too much? All that is asking for is what we all promised on the 7 occasions in the last 2 or 3 years when we brought to the floor bills we called lockbox bills. Remember those? Everybody got up here and forswore this practice of digging into the Social Security trust fund, digging into the Medicare trust fund and using those trust fund surpluses which are building up for now for ordinary operating purposes of the Federal Government. We all said that now we were in surplus and we are able to do it, we would not do it again. Well, here we are, Mr. Chairman, back at that practice again as a result of the budgets we have adopted for the last 2 years. What we have tried to say, the amendment we tried to offer and get made in order, simply provided that before we raise the debt ceiling $750 billion and preclude this issue from being considered again for at least 2 years, bypass this debate, let us put in place a budget that will put us back in balance. That is what this debate is all about.