Charlie Stenholm

Mr. STENHOLM

Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Chairman, I hope everyone caught the significance of the exchange between the chairman and me, because I am not disagreeing with anything that he offered in opposition to this amendment, because what he said is 100 percent true. I hope everyone in this body understands the significance of this side offering the hand of bipartisanship to pass an increase in the debt ceiling, which we must do. If we did not do that, our Nation would default on our good credit, and that is intolerable, unthinkable. The purpose of this amendment, though, is to try once again to get my friends on that side of the aisle to accept the responsibility for the economic policy that they have voted and revoted and voted and revoted and continue to do, and that is building the debt for our children and grandchildren at a rate unseen in our history of our country. It took us 204 years to borrow the first $1 trillion. We are about to borrow $19 trillion in a year-and-a-half, and my friends on that side do not seem to care. We are offering to put back pay-as-you-go for spending and tax cuts to be paid for. It does not mean we cannot cut taxes. In fact, I support repeal of the marriage tax penalty, I support doing the child tax credit. I would like to see it. But I want to see it paid for, not passed on to my three grandsons in debt because it is good politics right before an election. We are offering sincerely to offer some votes. Bring it up and vote on it. Do not force the Treasury to go through the mechanizations that they will go through just to avoid voting on this prior to November 2. Mr. Chairman, we are sending alerts, the Blue Dogs, in which we will put in writing our willingness to work with you on doing this, because it is the responsible thing for us to do. But we also think it is responsible for this body in a bipartisan way to begin to actually do something about the deficit, other than talk about it and increase it, as we will do later this week, by another $130 billion, unpaid for. Our grandchildren do not have a vote. That is why it is so easy for us to say here today we can fight two wars, we can fund homeland security, we can fight the war on terrorism, we can do all of these things, but we are going to send the bill to our grandchildren. We are not willing to pay for it, any of it, today. In fact, even worse, we are willing to decrease the amount of money available to do all of these things. Mr. Chairman, I ask for an aye vote on this, because it is the responsible thing for this body to do.

Mr. STENHOLM

Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I would like to share with my colleagues a story that appeared in the August 30, 2004 edition of the Lubbock Avalanche Journal, regarding Dr. Carl G. Anderson and his retirement, both as the Cotton Marketing Specialist for the Texas Cooperative Extension Service and as a professor with Texas A&M University's Department of Agricultural Economics. As a West Texas cotton farmer, I will sorely miss Dr. Anderson's expertise, especially the calm, rational manner with which he makes sense of the cotton market. I often had the task of following Dr. Anderson in speaking at many a lunch or dinner, so I can attest to the respect and admiration he has among cotton farmers. He was, and will remain, a tough act to follow. I know my fellow cotton farmers, as well as all others involved in the cotton industry in Texas feel the same way. I should note that Carl's love of agriculture was passed on to his daughter, Caroline Anderson Rydell, who worked for one of our former colleagues and was a staff member of the House Committee on Agriculture. Caroline remains in Washington and is working on behalf of American farmers and ranchers at the American Farm Bureau Federation. It is my understanding that Carl will continue to be play a role on a part-time basis for another year. Those of us involved in cotton production in Texas will have Carl's expertise for one more year before we have to get through a planting, harvesting, ginning and marketing season without him! I would like to take this opportunity to thank him for his 22 years of service as the Cotton Marketing Specialist for the Texas Cooperative Extension Service, and I wish him well as he begins to enjoy a well- deserved retirement with his wonderful wife, Shirley. Ag Expert Has Cotton in His Blood anderson retiring but staying in field (By Joe Gulick) Carl Anderson's involvement in the cotton industry began as a boy. He recalls picking cotton, dragging a heavy cotton sack behind him, and repeatedly hoeing the stubborn and prolific Johnson grass that sprouted in the black Texas soil of the family farm outside Taylor, near Austin. ``We had never even dreamed of Round-Up in those days,'' he said with a laugh, referring to the modern herbicide. The many hours of hard work in the hot sun established character and built within him the desire to work hard and do well, he said. They also encouraged him to approach agriculture from a different perspective--one in which he used his head and not his hands. ``It got me started on thinking,'' he said. ``Thinking is a lot easier than running a gooseneck hoe and picking cotton.'' The intellectual approach led to Anderson earning a doctorate from Texas A&M and becoming one of the top cotton marketing experts in the nation. His many awards and accolades attest to his success. He will retire on Tuesday as professor and extension economist with A&M's Department of Agricultural Economics. But fortunately for the Texas cotton industry, he will continue to work part-time. Roger Haldenby, vice president of operations of Plains Cotton Growers Inc., said Anderson is one of the leading cotton economists in the Cotton Belt--from California to the Carolinas--but is especially well known in Texas. ``Carl has been ahead of the curve on all of the market moves and has given sound and solid advice to cotton farmers on how they can market, hedge or keep their cotton from season to season,'' Haldenby said. Dale Swinburn, who farms south of Tulia, called Anderson a great asset to the Texas cotton industry. ``He is a real educator and helps farmers understand the futures market. He is a great guy and is very approachable.'' Anderson, who attended college on the GI Bill, worked as an economist for the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas for about eight years after receiving his doctorate. He worked with agricultural lenders in the fledgling cattle feeding industry, primarily in the Texas Panhandle and Amarillo area. In 1978, A&M created the position of cotton marketing specialist, and Anderson returned to his alma mater to take the job. He recalls that he was surrounded by challenges, not the least of which was the fact that West Texas cotton quality was lacking at that time. ``The producers were very good at producing, but they did not think beyond the gin,'' he said. ``At that point, the producer was pretty much at the mercy of the market--with the exception of a few co-ops.'' Improving the quality of local cotton was a gradual process that was helped greatly by the change from hand evaluation of strength and quality of cotton fibers to machine evaluation. Cotton grown in West Texas today has higher fiber strength, longer fibers and better yields, he said. Asked about the most rewarding part of his career, he replied, ``Seeing farmers that have adapted to change, whether it was new systems of farming, new varieties or learning to price cotton when prices were most favorable.'' He has seen tremendous changes in the cotton industry since his childhood, from machinery, herbicides and insect control to chemicals and developments in genetics. ``I remember my father plowing with mules,'' he said. ``The first tractors were two-row tractors with steel wheels. Now they have four-wheel drive machines that do at least 12 rows at a time.'' Anderson remembers spending the summer of 1949, after he graduated from high school, participating to a small degree in growing and harvesting the Texas cotton crop that still stands as a state record. As he retires, it appears the state will top that record this year. ``It is exciting to me that, with about half the acreage we had then, we can exceed the 6 million bales we had in 1949,'' he said. The future of cotton in Texas will probably be on even fewer acres, he said. Some of the marginal acreage for cotton now will probably be used to grow other things, but the acres that remain will be higher-yielding ones. And the United States will continue to be challenged by international competition, particularly from China, which Anderson said dominates the world in cotton production. One problem has been the shrinking of the U.S. textile industry and the strength of China's textiles, he said. ``The only way we can compete with them is to be the most efficient, from field to fabric,'' Anderson noted. He is honored by a graduate assistant scholarship fund that has been established in his name at A&M. While he is looking forward to slowing down a bit, his remaining on part-time status after his retirement will be welcomed by those who have come to depend on him. ``I have heard people introduce him as the dean of cotton,'' said Billy Tiller, who farms west of Littlefield. ``I take my hat off to him for serving us for all of these years. What would we do without him?''

Mr. STENHOLM

Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I am sorry my friend from Arizona has left the floor. But I sat here and listened carefully to his very eloquent speech that was totally irrelevant to the motion that is before the House. We are not talking about raising taxes. We are talking about being concerned about the rising deficit. And sooner or later these speeches that we make, and I think it was Yogi Berra who said this is deja vu all over again, sooner or later folks like the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth) are going to have to come to this floor and increase the debt ceiling for the United States of America, the credit card limit. Because they can talk about all of what these tax cuts are doing all they want to, but CBO today certified that we now have the largest deficit in the history of our country, $422 billion; and it is explained away, somehow, some way, this rhetoric that we hear over and over that unfortunately has got a few of the American people believing them, that these deficits do not matter. They do matter; and soon, I hope, the gentleman from Arizona will stand on this floor and move the motion to increase our debt ceiling to $8 trillion, which is what somebody is going to have to do because we will reach sometime in October or early November the credit card limit of what the United States of America can borrow. The gentleman from Indiana offers a simple motion to instruct, and just as he said, the Blue Dogs, we had a substitute that called for an extension of middle-class tax relief, the marriage tax penalty. All of these, we are not arguing. We want to extend them. But nobody listens on that side. They come up with a speech that is totally irrelevant to the argument. But we want to pay for them because if we do not pay for them, we are going to have to borrow the additional money to make room for them. That is not me talking. That is not the Blue Dogs talking. That is the overwhelming consensus of economists who are saying we have got to borrow it; $422 billion dollars, $574 billion when we once again take into consideration we are borrowing all of the Social Security trust fund dollars and we might add in all the military trust fund dollars and all of the civil service trust fund dollars. And the folks on this side who claim to be conservatives say that is irrelevant. It is going to take 40 percent of all the income taxes collected this year to pay the deficit tax, the interest on the national debt. And if interest rates start going up, guess what. The deficit tax is going to go up. This is money that is literally wasted as far as a productive value for the United States of America. But nobody mentions that. Everybody is going to talk about more tax cuts, more tax cuts. We say, great. Put them on the floor, paid for, and we will support you. But put them on the floor and borrow on our children's and grandchildren's future, and we say no. Let you do it. But you will have to make another speech like the gentleman from Arizona makes, and everybody thinks that is great stuff and that us Blue Dogs are all opposing him. We agreed with him. We agreed with him on everything, except you should not do what he is doing by borrowing on the future on some theory of economics that has been proven, proven in the 1980s, proven in the 1990s, and now we are about to prove it in this century, that it does not work, because if it did work, we would not have to be borrowing the money to pay for it. So listen very carefully to what Mr. Greenspan is saying. Listen to what people like Pete Peterson, people like the Concord Coalition are saying; begging this body, begging this body to get fiscally responsible and not keep turning a blind eye to the fact that of this debt held by the public now, $1.7 trillion of that debt is now owned by foreign interests, and $1 trillion of our debt is owned by foreign institutions. Now, the United States of America is no different than any family sitting down over dinner at this moment. When your banker tells you that you cannot borrow any more, you have to adjust your spending habits. We are heading for a precipice that is going to be one of the most serious problems this country has ever faced, because 2011 is not that far away. The baby-boom generation, all the promises, all of the legislation we refuse to consider on this floor dealing with the future is being swept under the rug. Support the gentleman from Indiana's motion to instruct. It is a fiscally responsible direction for this House to take.

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

Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. I asked the gentleman from Pennsylvania to yield a moment ago, and he refused to. And I understand, I did not mean to interrupt, but I did want to clarify one of the statements. The gentleman was mischaracterizing what we are standing up here doing tonight. We are suggesting that tax cuts be paid for, and we would love to see spending reductions proposed to accommodate that. That is what we would like to see on this floor, and that is what we constantly and consistently do. I would ask the gentleman, and I will yield to him for a brief answer to a question, will the gentleman bring from the Committee on Ways and Means a bill to the floor of the House before we adjourn for the elections to increase the debt ceiling for the United States of America to $8 trillion to accommodate the economic policy that the gentleman seems unwilling to make any changes in and believe is successful? Will the gentleman do that?

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

Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I want to ask another question then. I would just refer to the gentleman as an individual Member, 1/435th of this body, does the gentleman believe we should have a clean up-or-down vote on increasing the debt ceiling for this country prior to going home to run for reelection?

Mr. STENHOLM

Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time, and my friend from Pennsylvania asked for the specifics. The Blue Dog budget this year proposed to spend no more than President Bush recommended that the Congress spend, and we intend to stick with that. When my colleague talks about spending and he talks about revising history, in the 8 years prior to the last 3\1/2\, spending went up 3.4 percent per year on the average. In the last 3\1/ 2\ years, spending has gone up 10.4 percent. The gentleman keeps asking for specifics from the minority side. Last time I checked, the minority does not even get recognized for amendments so that we can do some of things that we talked about doing. We were denied having even a vote on some of our budgets over the last 3\1/2\ years. The gentleman keeps talking about specifics and rhetoric. His rhetoric does not match the specifics. We are going to prove unequivocally sometime in the next 2 or 3 months that the economic game plan we are under is not working because we are going to have to vote to increase the credit card limit of the United States of America for the third time in 3 years, this time through $8 trillion. Yes, the war is expensive and we must pay for the war, but this is the first war in the history of our country that is being fought at the same time we are asking to reduce the amount of money available to make sure the troops have the material that they need in order to fight the war. If my colleague wants to make that argument, be my guest. All we are suggesting with this simple motion is go back to what worked in 1994, pay-as-you-go. It worked when we were bipartisan working on it. It worked in 1997 when we worked together as Democrats and Republicans. What has happened in the last 3\1/2\ years to suggest that, in a bipartisan way, we do not want to follow that which has worked? That is the fundamental question for this body. I ask for a vote in favor of the gentleman from Indiana's motion. It is returning common sense, pay-as-you-go, making tough choices; does not raise taxes on anyone. It just says if we are going to increase spending for any worthwhile project, we have got to pay for it; if we are going to cut taxes and increase the deficit, we have got to cut the spending first, not rhetorically, after the next election. Do it now, and my colleagues will find there will be some Blue Dogs working with them.

Mr. STENHOLM

Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct.

Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This is a very simple motion. The motion calls on Congress to extend middle-class tax relief without increasing the deficit. There is a broad, bipartisan support for extending the middle-class tax provisions which expire at the end of this year. There is also bipartisan support for the concept of pay-as-you-go to avoid further increasing the record budget deficits facing our Nation. Our motion would put the House on record in support of a conference report that achieves both of these goals. I strongly support middle-class tax relief. I support extending marriage penalty relief. I support continuing the $1,000 per child tax credit and the expanded 10 percent tax bracket. What I oppose is passing those tax cuts with borrowed money and leaving our children and grandchildren to pay our bills. The Blue Dog budget and Spratt budget substitute called for extension of middle-class tax relief offset by suspending a portion of additional tax cuts for upper-income taxpayers. More recently, a bipartisan group of Senators has put forward a proposal to expand the three middle-class tax cuts for 1 year, offset by an extension of customs user fees and closing corporate tax loopholes. The question is not whether or not we should provide tax relief to middle-class families. The debate is whether we should do so with borrowed money, adding more debt on top of our $7.1 trillion national debt. We should not pay for tax cuts by borrowing money against our children's future. Congress should be required to sit down and figure out how to make things fit within a budget, just like families across the country do every day. If we do not pay for tax cuts by cutting spending or replacing the revenues, every dime of the tax cuts will be added to the debt we will leave for our children and grandchildren. At a time when our national debt is approaching $8 trillion and our Nation faces tremendous expenses for our troops overseas, it is irresponsible to continue passing legislation that would put our Nation even deeper in debt. As of the close of business last Friday, our total national debt stood at $7,273,792,456,490.62. It appears very likely the debt limit will be reached sometime in late September or October, with the most likely date being early October, and here let me pause for a moment and say instead of working in a bipartisan way, which we could achieve in a heartbeat to increase the debt ceiling, what we continue to face are more and more bills to increase spending and decrease revenue and increase the deficit. We offer the hand of bipartisan cooperation on this amendment tonight, and in my opinion, if this would suddenly become the leadership's position, we would pass the tax cuts that the folks on this side of the aisle are talking about unanimously tomorrow or the next day, and it would conference out of the Senate. But instead, it appears very likely the debt limit that will be reached sometime in late September or October will come and go, and we will have a crisis. Secretary Snow has publicly urged Congress to increase the debt limit as soon as possible, even before recessing in August, and we should do that. The most responsible thing for this Congress to do is do exactly what Secretary Snow is asking us to do. As of the end of April, $1.726 trillion of our debt was held by foreign investors, more than $1 trillion held by official institutions of foreign countries. Despite this, the leadership of this body is talking about bringing up legislation that would add another $75 to $180 billion to that debt. And some folks even have the nerve to say with a straight face they are taking a conservative position. Those who want to extend expiring tax cuts or make the tax cuts permanent should be willing to put forward the spending cuts or other offsets necessary to pay for them. Applying pay-as-you-go rules to tax cuts do not prevent Congress from passing more tax cuts. All it says is that if we are going to reduce our revenues, we need to reduce our spending by the same amount. If Republicans actually mean what they say about controlling spending, you should have no problem with applying pay-as-you-go to tax cuts, because it would force Congress to actually control spending when we pass tax cuts instead of just promising to do so in the future and having what apparently seems to be a good campaign issue. The problem is that actions of Republicans have not matched their rhetoric. They cut taxes without cutting spending, in fact, increasing spending at the most dramatic rate that we have seen in many, many years. They charge the difference to our children and grandchildren by increasing the deficit. We should provide tax relief to working men and women, but we must do so without increasing taxes on our children and grandchildren. That is what the Stenholm amendment to instruct conferees would provide. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I know the gentleman did not intend to mischaracterize my amendment.

Mr. STENHOLM. I guess I did not hear what I thought I heard you say.

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

Mr. STENHOLM. You are mischaracterizing my amendment. We are suggesting that the tax cuts be extended through next year. You are describing something that is not going to happen in my amendment, leaving a wrong impression with the people that might be listening to us right now.

Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I think it is a fascinating argument. We have heard it time and time and time again. My friend talks about the lack of controlling of spending. Let me remind, Mr. Speaker, you control this House. You control the Senate. You control the White House. All of the great speeches that are made about controlling spending are your responsibility. This amendment will not stop that from happening. In fact, I suggest just the opposite has been happening because we continue to pay tax cuts but spending goes up. Nothing in my amendment suggests that spending would not go down. If you want to have a tax cut, pass the spending cuts first. Do not just do it on the promise of a theory that so far has not worked. Did not work in the 1980s, has not worked in the 1990s. But yet we hear the same rhetoric; and with all due respect, my colleague mischaracterizes our amendment. I would be happy to yield at any time to my friend.

Mr. STENHOLM. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. STENHOLM. Reclaiming my time, I take back time because again you are totally misleading the body when you make that statement. If you go back to PAYGO as was originally passed in this body in 1990, repassed in 1993, repassed in 1997 with Republican votes for it and Democrats joining, like myself, in putting that in place, it worked. There is nothing in this amendment that suggests that you, the majority party, must cut entitlement spending in order to achieve a tax cut.

Mr. STENHOLM. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. STENHOLM. Yes.

Mr. STENHOLM. That is the problem. That is the problem. It is a lack of understanding. PAYGO means you have got to come up with the spending cuts to take care of the amount of tax cut.

Mr. STENHOLM. The gentleman has misstated the facts again. There is no budget. There is no budget until we get a House-Senate conference and we have a budget. If we had a budget, I would probably be standing up here agreeing with parts of what you are saying.

Mr. STENHOLM. Reclaiming my time, that is precisely why I am standing here tonight offering a solution for the House and the Senate. There is a bipartisan family tax relief proposal in the other body. It calls for a clean 1-year extension of the present law, $1,000 tax credit. It calls for the marriage tax penalty relief and the standard deduction, clean 1-year extension of present law so that married couples get twice the standard deductions of single filers. It calls for the 10 percent rate bracket clean 1-year extension. It calls for 1- year acceleration of the scheduled 2005 increase from 10 to 15 percent. It provides for the benefit of the child credit to military families by expanding the definition of earned income. There is not a bit of this that you are opposed to. We all agree on that. Now, what my proposal does is the offsets that they put in their bill. The Concord Coalition today has endorsed what this bipartisan group of Senators, let me read the names, Senator Snowe, Republican of Maine; Senator Baucus, Democrat of Montana; Senator McCain, Republican of Arizona; Senator Breaux, Democrat of Louisiana; Senator Chafee, Republican of Rhode Island; Senator Lincoln, Democrat of Arkansas. The other body is showing some signs of saying, look, it is time for us to deal with a very serious problem. If we do not act, these tax cuts are going to become tax increases on the middle-income folks. If we do not act. To act you are going to have to eventually get some kind of bipartisan agreement. You will never get bipartisan agreement by standing up in this body and saying, we passed a budget in this House. Whoopee. We passed one in this House. But you have got to have a Senate concurrence if you are going to, in fact, achieve something that we all agree needs to be done. That is my point. We can do this. It is not that difficult. Unless you just believe we can borrow unlimited amounts of money. There are some misconceptions flowing around. I have been in this body now for 13 terms. And when I look at spending as a percent of gross domestic product when I arrived here in 1979 and compare it with spending today, total spending as a percent of GDP, it is one half of 1 percent less today than it was in 1979. Revenue has dropped by 5 percent. The amount of revenue that we have available to fund the programs, including fighting three wars, has dropped by 5 percent; and in dropping the revenue by 5 percent, we are adding to the deficit at an alarming rate. It does not seem to bother you, Mr. Speaker. It does not seem to bother my friend. As long as we were out here arguing about tax cuts, it does not bother anyone. And why should it? The folks that this should bother are our children and grandchildren, and they have about as much knowledge of this as my friend arguing on the other side here today and they cannot vote. That is the problem. Our grandchildren cannot vote. Adding to the deficit under a political theory that has not worked, did not work in the 1980s, is not working today, is dangerous to the future health of this country. I believe that. My friends on the other side apparently do not believe that. And that is fine. As long as you stand up and say, honestly, I do not believe it is going to harm the United States of America that we borrow another 75 to $180 billion, because tonight I do not know what my friends are proposing in this mysterious conference. Very unusual procedure that we are talking about in doing what no one knows until the leadership deems that it is going to be on the floor, and deems the way it is going to be carried out, and deems the way that it is going to, in fact, effect the future economy of this country. Now, that is perfectly within the purview of the majority party, to continue to allow business as serious as the economic future of this country to be decided in a very small cadre of Members who happen to be in the leadership. And if you continue to do as you have been doing, you are going to be successful in this body. But then what happens if we cannot get an agreement with the other body? Why would we not come together tonight and say, okay, we can have a 1-year extension and we can pay for it, either with the way the Senate has proposed it or by finding some other spending cuts up front. Not doing it like we did it 2 weeks ago, and spending 7 hours in this body debating all these wonderful amendments and then having nothing. Some got 100 votes and some got 105. And that is perfectly within the purview of any Member to stand up and speak for what they are for. But, ultimately, when you are in the majority party you have to accept the responsibility, the responsibility of your actions. Just as I took the hand of your party in the 1980s when we were in the majority in this body and we worked together for some compromises regarding the economy of this country, we offer that hand tonight. This amendment, if you look at it honestly, again, is a very simple motion. It calls on Congress to extend middle-class tax relief without increasing the deficit. What is wrong with that? I ask my colleagues, what is wrong with extending middle-class tax relief without increasing the deficit? Why are my friends on the other side of the aisle so bound and determined that you want to continue to increase the deficit because you have a theory, a theory, that by cutting taxes without paying for them that it will do something other than increase the deficit?

Mr. STENHOLM. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I do. I respect the sincerity of the gentleman and his belief. I happen to believe that he is wrong and is being proven wrong every day by the facts. And let the facts speak for themselves. That is the whole question today, and this is something that we can continue to argue, but if we do not get some agreements fairly soon, middle-income folks will get a tax increase, and it will not be my fault. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.