Charlie Stenholm

Mr. STENHOLM

Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moore), the cochair of the Blue Dog Budget Task Force.

Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee.

Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I now yield to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor). A lot of talk tonight has already been made about surpluses, debt and deficits. I hope everyone will pay particular attention to the facts about to be presented by the gentleman from Mississippi.

Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, tonight we Blue Dogs are going to take a few minutes to discuss tomorrow's vote regarding the so-called Economic Growth and Tax Relief Act, and we are going to do our best to explain to all who are listening and to our colleagues and to others why we believe that it is a terrible mistake to bring a tax bill to the floor of the House before we first pass a budget. Last week, President Bush submitted a budget blueprint outlining how he proposes to fit his tax and spending priorities in an overall budget framework. We welcomed this proposal as the first step in the budget process. Unfortunately, this House tomorrow is being asked to short circuit the budget process by bringing legislation to the House floor implementing the tax cuts before Congress has had an opportunity to consider the entire budget. Now, a careful reading of the 1974 Budget Act will find that we cannot do that. It is against the rules of the House to bring a major spending bill or a major tax cutting bill to the floor of the House before we get a budget. Tomorrow my colleagues will hear that technically speaking this is not breaking the budget rules, because technically we are still operating in the year 2000 budget and, therefore, technically this is not against the House rules. We are going to enjoy hearing the explanation as to why technically we can break the House rules. Many of my colleagues felt like that with January the 20th coming that we had gotten passed the playing on words of definitions of what various words are, and that we thought we were ready for some straight talk, but we are going to hear from the leaders of this House tomorrow that technically we are going to be legal with the rule and the consideration of this bill. Mr. Speaker, some of us believe that that is not a positive action. In fact, we believe very strongly that even if it is technically correct, that we ought to live up to the spirit of the budget law, and that is when we will find the Blue Dogs standing shoulder to shoulder bipartisanly with the majority in this House in dealing with the budget process, which will include tax relief. We have no argument whatsoever that in the budget of this year and over the next 5 years that significant tax relief is in order, and will and are prepared to vote for it, but that is not what we are going to do tomorrow. Being in the minority when we are overrun, when decisions are made by the leadership that we are going to bring a tax bill onto the floor, we are not going to have bipartisan consideration, it is going to be the bill that the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas), the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, and the leadership have selected, and that is going to be the bill that we are going to vote on, there is nothing we can do about it, unless we have some of the same kind of bipartisan support that we were talking about with the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Ganske) a moment ago. When we find ourselves in substantial agreement and when we have that kind of action on the floor of the House, we truly will be bipartisan, but that is not what we are going to do tomorrow. Mr. Speaker, the President's plan is an important voice in this process, but it is not the only voice. There are a lot of questions that remain about his budget. We have an honest disagreement about some of his priorities and questions about how he will pay for all of his priorities as identified in his budget without borrowing from Social Security and Medicare. And how many times, Mr. Speaker, in the last several weeks and months, how many times, to those who were here last year, have we voted on lockboxes after lockboxes after lockboxes in which we have stood 400 strong saying we are not going to touch Social Security and Medicare? Let me issue a little bit of a warning to my colleagues who are going to vote for this tax cutting bill tomorrow, be careful when playing with fire because your fingers may be burned. Examine the budget. Examine the proposals. Examine the projected surplus. Take a good, hard look at where my colleagues are headed with the strategy that my colleagues are following. We in the Blue Dogs are going to be attempting tomorrow in the short period of time to make our point as strongly as we can possibly make it. We should not pass the tax cut bill tomorrow. We should first pass a budget. Ironically, ironically, the House Committee on the Budget has scheduled a hearing tomorrow afternoon during the time we are going to be debating the tax cut. The purpose of the hearing is to give Members an opportunity to testify about their interests regarding the fiscal year 2002 budget. At the very time that Members of this House are being given our first opportunity to offer our input into the priorities for our national budget on behalf of the people we represent, we are being asked to vote on a major portion of the President's budget. Now, we object to that very strongly, and I will conclude my remarks by saying I was here in 1981. I was one of the Democrats that helped pass the Reagan revolution. Knowing what I knew then, knowing what I know now, I would have voted the same way then based on what I knew then, but that is why I will be opposing this action tomorrow with every ounce of strength at my disposal, because I believe it to be wrong. Mr. Speaker, I believe that we are in danger of going down the same path we went down in the 1980s in which we increased our national debt by $4 trillion because we cut taxes first, but never got around to restraining our spending. We believe very strongly that we should put in place a budget that restrains spending; that caps discretionary spending; that makes all of the priority interests that a majority on both sides of the aisle can agree to, then we should proceed with a tax cut, and it is a part and a component thereof. No matter how my colleagues color it, we will hear tomorrow, we will hear, we heard today, people saying it was the Congress that spent the money. I got a fax today from a fine gentleman out in Nevada that says, it is great. We heard you. You ought to have a budget first. It makes sense to the American people, but the reason tax cuts must be passed hastily is because waiting for a budget to pass would give you and your cohorts the opportunity to spend enough money to reduce or remove the tax cut. Let me remind this gentleman, this body is now in the control of the Republican Party. The Senate is in the control of the Republican Party, and the White House is in control of the Republican Party. Therefore, anyone that fears that spending is going to get out of control means that the majority is going to get out of control, and I do not believe that for a moment, but seemingly you do. That is the message you are sending to the American people. I repeat, we are for significant tax cuts, but as my colleagues will hear tonight, this much ballyhooed $5.6 trillion surplus is not real. It is not real. My colleagues will hear some facts from the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor), and I hope my colleagues listen carefully. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner).

Mr. STENHOLM. I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sandlin).

Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on the topic of this special order.

Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, for our cleanup hitter for tonight, one of our newer Blue Dogs from California, fastly becoming one of the leaders for a fiscally conservative budget, the gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff).

Mr. STENHOLM. I thank the gentleman from Mississippi for those remarks. I will guarantee that that will not be the last time that this House will hear it this week, next week and the week after that. And I hope that the leadership of this Congress will pay attention to the gentleman from Mississippi, because he has in fact taken the real heart of the argument that we Blue Dogs are making tonight and that we will take to the floor tomorrow. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arkansas.

Mr. STENHOLM

Mr. STENHOLM. I thank the gentleman for that. We support the lock box concept. Our concern is that in the President's budget, he is going to be using some $500 billion of the Medicare lock box, Medicare tax set- asides for purposes of which we request, and we believe we agree with the gentleman on that. I just want to make sure that the gentleman did not intentionally misspeak. We are not down-playing lock boxes; we are saying we ought to set aside Medicare, Social Security, and the gentleman from Mississippi's comments regarding military retirement and civil service retirement, we ought not to be spending that for any purpose, including giving it back to people who have paid their taxes. It ought to go to the lock box.

Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker if the gentleman from Colorado would wait, we offered some additional of our time because you were generous to give some of your time. We would like to continue some discussion, I know that the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) would, and also I appreciate very much the tenor of their talk tonight and respect that they have paid to the Blue Dogs and some of the things we agree on, and I return the favor to the gentleman from Colorado. I found most of what he said I totally agree with, and I believe he will find that is the Blue Dog position, but I do not believe the gentleman intentionally misspoke regarding the President's budget and the utilization of Social Security and Medicare trust funds. I know he did not intentionally, and all I say is if the gentleman will carefully examine the President's budget, I believe he will find that there is a double counting of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds because I believe the gentleman and I will agree that those moneys that are now being paid in by the hard-working men and women today, everybody paying into the Social Security trust funds, those moneys are already obligated. When the baby boomers begin to retire in about 4 years, and it really hits in 2011, the Social Security trust fund has big problems in paying off. Therefore, it as has been proposed in the President's budget, we choose to reduce the debt by the Social Security trust fund moneys and that is all, then we truly are not making any progress towards fixing Social Security.

Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I was asking to make a comment regarding a statement that the gentleman just inferred that the Blue Dogs were talking about lock boxes, and I wanted to clarify the spending.

Mr. STENHOLM. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, we have the second 41 minutes and we will be glad to yield to the gentleman back on our time for any time that he needs.

Mr. STENHOLM

Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that in light of the misunderstanding that occurred regarding the number of one minutes, that any additional Members on either side that wish to deliver one minutes might be able to do so.

Mr. STENHOLM

Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. STENHOLM

Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Ganske) for yielding to me and I would like to say that I have enjoyed listening to the gentleman's dissertation regarding the Patients' Bill of Rights. And as a Texan, I would say as an Iowan the gentleman has gotten it exactly right. And I do not understand either how some groups can continue to be as opposed as they say they are when the facts of the matter regarding lawsuits are exactly like the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Ganske) has stated. I, for one, appreciate the gentleman's leadership on this issue, and we as cosponsors of the legislation will look forward to sooner, if not later, getting this legislation on the floor and passed and on the way to the Senate and on to the President. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's leadership on this issue.

Mr. STENHOLM

Mr. STENHOLM. If we all understand, both sides of the aisle, the procedures of the day in which it was announced there would be unlimited one minutes, under what procedure is this able to be changed?

Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. STENHOLM

Mr. STENHOLM. If the gentleman from Michigan will continue to yield briefly for the majority leader's response. Precisely why we are having this kind of discussion today in dealing with these kinds of numbers is why some of us feel very strongly that there is a tremendous mistake about to be made if we get into these kinds of decisions before we have had the kind of open and honest debate in the Committee on the Budget in a bipartisan way and on the floor of the House in a bipartisan way, before we have committed as yet undetermined projected surpluses. Some of us feel very strongly that we are making a mistake, and I hope my friend from Texas will have a good two or three nights sleep on this question and will come to a little different conclusion before we make that mistake next week.

Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I would advise the majority leader that that is precisely what bothers me about this particular decision this year. Because now we have a tremendous potential problem with dealing with projected surpluses of $5.6 trillion, 70 percent of which will not occur until the years 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010. Yet next week I believe the leadership decision has been made that we are going to discuss the utilization of that. I know the gentleman will say we are going to discuss giving back to the American people some of which they have already paid. I am for that. I know of no one as yet that is not for that. But it seems to me that we are getting the cart before the horse when we come with that bill first without first dealing with the budget so that we might in fact conservatively deal with the future economics of this country.

Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding to me, and I would like to ask a question of the distinguished leader, my friend from Texas. There has been a decision made, apparently by the leadership to which you refer, that we shall not follow the precedent and the history of the House regarding having a budget on the floor and discussed and debated before we get into significant parts of the budget, as the gentleman has indicated next week we will be voting on H.R. 3, which is a major, major tax bill with tremendous implications for Social Security, Medicare, defense, agriculture, and many other areas. My question to the gentleman is, Under what history and precedence of the House has the leadership decided to bring forward a major tax bill before we have had an opportunity to have a good bipartisan discussion of the budget?

Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman continue to yield?

Mr. STENHOLM

Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me, and I thank him for taking this time today. I hope that everyone will pay particular attention to some of the comments that many of our colleagues are going to be making. We will have the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor), who will be on the floor momentarily, and will talk very accurately about the fact that we really do not have a surplus. When we look at the Social Security trust fund, the Medicare trust fund, the Military Retirees trust fund, highways, airports, that really and truly, there is no $5 trillion, 600 billion surplus. We ask our colleagues, particularly our friends in the majority, to not just look at part of the CBO report, but take a look at the whole report. Notice where they make a very sound observation in that, first off, projecting the economy of the world for 10 years is almost impossible. No one pretends to be accurate. Yet, here we are now all of a sudden taking 10-year projections, and we hear $5.6 trillion of surpluses, and we have folks beginning to act like it is real, really beginning to say, ``We are going to spend that money like it is real.'' Here we ask Members to consider one major fact, that 70 percent of the projected surpluses that we are talking about do not occur until the years 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011. Who of us can project tomorrow, much less 2011? When we go past 2011 for this same CBO report, the $5,600,000,000,000 surplus, they show through another chart that we have serious problems. In fact, it is projected in the next 20 years after 2010 we will be consuming 200 percent of our gross domestic product every year. We all know if that were to happen, if it were to happen this year, that Congress would have a very difficult time dealing with that kind of an economic situation. What the Blue Dogs have suggested in the past, are suggesting today, and will be suggesting tomorrow, let us understand a few basics: The $5 trillion, 600 billion number we have here is a projected surplus. We think the conservative thing to do is to be conservative with those surpluses. As the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Boyd) observed a moment ago, the actual number of these projected surpluses that we have to deal with is 2.7, because we have already decided in an almost 100 percent bipartisan way that we are no longer going to spend the Social Security and Medicare surpluses in the unified budget. We are setting them aside in a lockbox. Now, I was not very happy with the cuteness of the vote yesterday, of the actual bill yesterday, because it left a loophole. I hope the American people will hold us accountable not to the loopholes of being able to potentially spend these trust funds twice, which was possible by that resolution yesterday, but to really and truly mean it when we say we are not going to spend, and let us put it more positively, we are going to take this short-term benefit that we have with Social Security in which we are taking in more than we are paying out to today's beneficiaries and we are going to take that money and pay down the debt held by the public. That is good. When I say that is good, that is being interpreted by the markets as being good. Everyone perhaps looking right now or listening to this right now should ask themselves, and answer a simple question, would they rather have 6\3/4\ percent home mortgages or 9\3/ 4\ percent home mortgages? When we are buying a new car, would we rather have a 6, 7, 8 percent loan, or an 18 percent loan? As a result of the economic policies that have been followed over the last 8 or 10 years and the budget actions taken by the Congress over the last 6 or 8 years, we now find ourselves in a position in which the markets are reacting. Yes, we are collecting more tax revenue because people are making more money. That is good. That is not bad. But the question we have to ask is, how long will it continue? We had a budget alternative, the Blue Dogs, last year which focused on reducing the national debt. This is our budget again this year. We had a budget that focused on saving Social Security first. My personal preference is, I wish we would have had the first serious discussion on this floor this year on saving Social Security and Medicare. I happen to represent a rural district, and my hospitals and now my nursing homes, my nursing home constituency has been pointing out over the last several months, we are hurting, too. The BBA of 1997 reduced the reimbursement rates of the nursing homes, as well as the hospitals, below what it cost them to stay in business. We have to address that, and that is going to cost some money. I want to make it very, very clear, the Blue Dog Democrats favor cutting taxes. We are very strongly in favor of dealing with the marriage tax penalty; a perfect day to discuss it, Valentine's Day. We are for it. We will vote for it. We encourage it to be in the final package. We are for dealing with the estate tax, the so-called death tax. We believe that it is not helpful to have a penalty assessed to a small businessman or woman that spent a lifetime building up their business, and it will be in our budget. We would like to see across-the-board tax cuts, if that is possible for us to do. Some of us, myself being in this category, I would like to see us take this opportunity now to do more than just complain about the energy problems of this country. A couple of years ago we had a depression in the oil patch. No one was worried about the domestic oil and gas producers, who were going broke in droves because no one can produce oil and gas at $7 a barrel, but no one was concerned about it then because we were all enjoying the cheapness of energy. Well, today everyone, including those of us living in the oil patch, are complaining about the price of energy. Why would this not be a good time to look at using the Tax Code to accomplish some much needed improvements in our energy policy in this country? A simple question I ask, and unfortunately it is not in the President's plan yet, but the President has said, I am amenable to change. I have submitted my plan to the Congress. We would like to hear Congress's opinion on where we go. I would like to see us deal with this. I would like to see us deal with some environmental incentives, some production incentives, doing some things we clearly need to do for the benefit of this country. Most everyone would agree to that. There are a lot of things going on on both sides of the aisle to prepare us for this national energy policy. I mention that because that is not in the current numbers we hear being kicked around. I know I have other colleagues that want to take a little bit of time now, so let me kind of summarize where we are as far as the Blue Dogs' input into the budget considerations this year. I can summarize it pretty quickly: Let us bring a budget to the floor of the House first. Let us not bring tax bills to the floor that everyone will feel inclined to vote for because they do not want to explain why they are opposed to it. Why not deal with the budget first, bring the budget out, and agree on what the budget should look like. Here it is pretty simple. In a $5.6 trillion projected surplus, Social Security is 2.5 of that, Medicare is .4 of that, that leaves $2.7 trillion. How much of that $2.7 trillion surplus can we afford to spend on a tax cut? That is a simple question. A lot of folks are saying, ``There he goes, he is talking about spending like it is their money. Taxes are our money.'' No, let us not continue to forget that the Social Security system has an unfunded liability of almost $9 trillion. Part of that money we are talking about I think needs to be devoted back to saving Social Security. That is not in the current discussions that we hear. Medicare, the same. For military retirement, we will hear from the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) in a moment, it is several hundred billions of dollars. Let us deal with that first. Then let us also agree how much additional spending we want to make in the area of defense. How much is it going to be required to make sure we maintain the strength of America that has allowed peace to become a prevalent word in this world today? How much? We are going to build a missile defense system. The cheapest version I have heard is $50 billion over the next 10 years, probably more than that. So we are saying, let us have a tax cut. Let us put at least half of that projected surplus, though, against the debt. Let us have an absolute tough decision on spending. Let us revise or bring back what worked so well for us over the last several years, at least prior to 1997. Let us put some caps on discretionary spending that we agree to, numbers, and then let the appropriators spend that money, but let us stay within that discretionary level. We can do it. It can be done. We can meet the needs of defense, of veterans, of education, of health care, of agriculture. We can do all of these things if we truly reach out in a bipartisan way. That term is getting overworked, but here today, we are on the floor. We would love to have a discussion with someone on the other side of the aisle regarding some of the points that I have made, that the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Boyd) has made, that our other colleagues will make here in a few moments. The basics are, we think we ought to have a budget first. Let us have that debate first, and then let us debate the makeup of the tax cut and how much money we are going to spend or save. But even more importantly, let us not forget that the first priority today should be saving Social Security first. If we do not do that, if we do not make a serious effort to do that this year, it will be postponed for another 4 years, because we will never be able to bring it up in the climate that will be present here.

Mr. STENHOLM. If the gentleman would yield again briefly, Mr. Speaker, the problem with the 1997 budget caps were that they were unrealistic. There was not anywhere close to a majority on the majority side of the aisle to live up to it. Therefore, it is extremely important that when we set the caps, be realistic. We have to increase money in the defense of this country, I will say that. As I say that to the gentleman, I am talking about spending the people's money, because Congress does not make money. The only way we get money to spend is we have to tax people to get it. I am prepared to say, we have to spend a little bit more of our taxpayer dollars on defense. So let us put that in the budget. Let us not be unrealistic, as we were in saying we are going to increase defense but we are going to cut health care, we are going to cut agriculture, we are going to cut highways, we are going to cut justice, knowing the votes are not there. This is where bipartisanship has to come forward. We will have a significant number of Democrats and a significant number of Republicans that can agree on a realistic set of caps.