John Sununu

Mr. SUNUNU

Mr. SUNUNU. I am the gentleman from New Hampshire.

Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Indiana very much for his remarks. In closing, I want to reemphasize the point that seems to have been missed by those who were opposed to this legislation and supportive of this gutting amendment; and that is that this legislation does nothing to limit the agency's ability to seek criminal penalties, to seek civil penalties and civil prosecution, to put an injunction in place and to pursue the bad actors or anyone that ought to be convicted of willful or negligent activity. We can prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. This is some relief for small businesses, relief only for first-time paperwork violations and provides full exemption when there is an imminent threat to public safety. The drinking water issues that were raised, lead poisoning, I think few would doubt that these are issues of public safety, a threat to public health; and that would certainly, in appropriate circumstances, be dealt with with the exemption of this legislation. Mr. Chairman, I would urge my colleagues to oppose the Kucinich amendment and support paperwork relief for small businesses.

Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, let me begin by repeating a point that was made here in response to the remarks that were made that did not receive any response, and that was simply that, under this underlying legislation, there is no restriction whatsoever on an agency's ability to pursue civil penalties. There is no restriction whatsoever on their ability to pursue criminal prosecution. There is no restriction whatsoever on an agency's ability to seek injunctive relief. The provisions are retained to pursue bad actors to the fullest extent of the law. The only attempt to provide relief here is for those small businesses that are first-time paperwork violators. Even so, there are exemptions in the legislation that provide to make sure that if there is a threat to public safety, if we are dealing with fraudulent issues related to the IRS or tax matters, or if we are reducing an ability to pursue criminal activity, there is full exemption from those restrictions. The goal here is to ensure that agencies can go after the bad actors, can go after those that are negligent, can go after those that pursue criminal activity. But for the small business that has a first-time paperwork violation, there is some relief. Also, the legislation ensures that those small businesses are at least made aware of what the small business regulations are, the paperwork regulations are, through the Internet. I think that that is an important step in the right direction. I think it provides the kind of relief that small businesses certainly deserve. A comment was made about the amendment, the Kucinich amendment, which I certainly oppose that somehow this amendment gives agencies the flexibility they need. The fact is this amendment gives agencies the flexibility they already have, because it essentially restates the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act that is already on the books. The amendment, the Kucinich amendment, is nothing more than a status quo amendment. It reflects no change. SBREFA, Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act, may be a good business regulation, but it does not bring us forward; it does not provide for additional relief. The fact is, if you support the status quo, that may be fine, but there are small businesses out there in New Hampshire, all across the country that are concerned about the burden of paperwork, that are concerned about the cost of regulation; and this provides them with some relief for that small business that is a first-time paperwork violator. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. McIntosh).

Mr. SUNUNU

Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay special tribute to an annual New Hampshire event and the man who hosts it--the Bobby Stephen St. Patrick's Day Celebration. Today marks the 20th anniversary of this Manchester, NH gathering hosted by Bobby, a former State Senator and current Deputy Executive Director of the New Hampshire Job Training Council. Over the past two decades, Bobby's generous spirit has turned this well-loved and well-attended annual event into an opportunity to give back to his community and his state. For the second consecutive year, he will be donating the entire proceeds from today's celebration to the Jobs for NH Graduates Program, a program for at-risk teens sponsored by the New Hampshire Job Training Council. This award-winning program is a school-to-career transition program which teaches young people how to look for, find, and keep a job. Currently in place at 30 New Hampshire high schools, the program has served more than 5,000 young people in its ten-year history. It offers students the opportunity to improve their grades, learn about different careers, and serve their communities. A modest list of the students' achievements includes volunteering to transport donated food from a local store to the Manchester Soup Kitchen, organizing a student job fair at Manchester Central High School, presenting an evening of entertainment to elderly residents at the Hunt Community Center in Nashua, serving as mentors for elementary school children in Newport, and volunteering time at a Red Cross blood drive in Concord. Mr. Speaker, I commend Bobby Stephen for his commitment and contributions to New Hampshire's youth. His goals and effort are an example for all of us that show how giving back to your community can make a difference for so many. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. SUNUNU

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

Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield, I thank him very much. Just to emphasize that point, this allocates $200,000 of the $5 million reserved for administrative cost at OMB to implement an important piece of the legislation, the Congressional Review Act, that was passed as part of the 104th Congress to try to ensure proper congressional oversight on new rules and regulations that have a tremendous effect on small business.

Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased that the gentleman will accept the amendment, and I will yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. SUNUNU

Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, this week Congress will finalize its proposal for tax relief for all Americans and begin discussions on that tax proposal with the President. During the past month Republicans have worked consistently to lower taxes for all Americans, with a $500-per- child tax credit, relief for families sending their children to college, providing death tax relief for small businesses and family farms. In fact, 75 percent of the tax relief in this proposal goes to those earning less than $75,000. I hope the President will avoid the class warfare rhetoric we have heard today, but I am not optimistic. This administration's record falls short. In 1993 they pushed through the largest tax increase in America's history. This administration has proposed higher taxes on health care, taxes on energy, even taxes on camping equipment. They have called the reduction in the capital gains tax as being unnecessary and suggested that relief from death taxes is selfish. The administration's record is one of higher and higher taxes. This is wrong. Americans deserve this tax relief. This bill is right, it is fair, and the time is now.

Mr. SUNUNU

Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to rise in support of this amendment and thank my colleague the gentleman from New Hampshire [Mr. Bass] and the gentleman from Vermont [Mr. Sanders] for the excellent work they have done with the amendment. I would just like to take a moment to underscore the important point the gentleman has made, that this is about inequity, it is about meeting our commitments, meeting the commitments that were made when Congress authorized the Payment In Lieu of Tax system. These are cities and towns that have national forests within their borders, and they are obligated at times for services, not just those of schools or municipal services that so many cities and towns have, but oftentimes services that take place in the boundaries of the national forest: rescue services, fire services. The burdens that we place on them is one that we need to recognize. We need to recognize that the PILT has failed to live up to the obligations that were originally made, and that by putting that forward, $19 million to make up some of this difference, we move with a system that is fairer, one that helps us meet our commitments, and one that provides a lot of these towns with property tax relief, because so many of them rely on their property base for the taxes that they use to pay for municipal services. So while I would like to commend the chairman for his work in putting together this bill, I would like to lend my support to the gentleman from New Hampshire and the gentleman from Vermont, and encourage my colleagues to support this amendment.

Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SUNUNU

Mr. SUNUNU. I thank the gentleman very much for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this resolution, not for any Washington Beltway reasons, not for reasons of scoring or even specific numbers or whether it does or it does not change a particular accounting measure, but for two very fundamental reasons. First, because it enables us to meet some broad commitments that many of us in this House made to our constituents during our election cycle. Second, because of the fundamental difference it is going to make in moving power away from Washington and back into the pocketbooks of American people in cities and towns all across this country. Like many who were elected to this Chamber, I campaigned on the themes of balancing our Federal budget by the year 2000, providing substantive and meaningful tax relief to working families, and preserving and protecting Medicare. Only 3 years ago, many people, our own President included, thought that balancing the budget in this way by the year 2002 was simply impossible. He said maybe we could do it in 10 years and then maybe 9 years. It was looked at as a radical concept. But the American people stood by us as we said time and again, we can do it, we do have the discipline and we do have the will to balance our budget by the year 2002 in a meaningful way. With this budget proposal, we have the opportunity to meet that commitment on balancing the budget, meet that commitment on tax relief, and on preserving and protecting Medicare. I see three fundamental areas where this is going to make a difference to the pocketbook and to the livelihood of working families that I want to take a moment to emphasize. First with the tax relief measure, a $500-per-child tax credit. That makes a difference to every working man and woman in this country that has a young dependent child. Certainly the educational tax support is going to put more money back in the pocketbook of a typical working family. The second area that this is going to make a big difference for American families is in the economic growth and the job opportunities that will be created as we reduce the tax burden on capital gains or on estate tax, create that working opportunity, create incentives for savings and investment, and the following economic growth. It is not a tax cut for any wealthy individual. When we cut the tax burden on a small business or a family business, we help everyone that works for that business across the board, and when 60 percent of American people work for a small business we are doing them a favor, not just today but for the rest of their lives, and for their children as well. Finally, by balancing the budget, we reduce interest cost, 1 to 2 percent, across the board. For everyone that has a home mortgage or a student loan or an automobile loan, we are talking about $100 or $500. In the case of a home mortgage, an average-price home, $20,000 to $30,000 over the life of that mortgage. That is money in their pocket, enabling them to invest it in a way that they see fit, to improve their standard of living, save for their children's education and make a difference for their families. Meeting our commitments and making a difference by taking power away from Washington, meeting our commitments that we have made as individuals, and by taking money and with it power away from Washington and putting it back in local cities and towns across America, we make Washington less important, we make the individual more important. That is where this country needs to go.

Mr. SUNUNU

Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening in commemoration of Tax Freedom Day, which this year falls on May 9. Tax Freedom Day is that day that Americans work to simply to pay their taxes and obligations to their State, Federal and local governments. Tax Freedom Day is a symbol of the burden that we put on American families all across this country. Over 35 percent of our country's national product, what we produce every year is absorbed in taxes by our State, Federal and local governments. This is more than the average family pays in food, shelter, and clothing combined. Those essentials that they need for their daily existence, they pay more in taxes every year. Mr. Speaker, this burden consumes more and more of our economy every year, and it makes it difficult for families to get by. Where they used to be able to exist and enjoy a good quality of life with a single wage earner, today the typical family is more often required to have two wage earners, and that is just not fair. It is the burden that our tax system places on that hard-working family. Second, taxes represent not just a burden but a price, a price that we pay on everything in our economy. It is a price that we pay on productive work, it is a price that we pay on savings and investment, it is a price that we pay on job creation. And as most people would agree, when we raise the price on anything we get less of it, but if we lower the price on those things we get more. If we lowered the price with lower taxes, we get more productivity, more savings, and more job creation, and similarly with the high tax burden that we face today, as one would expect, we get lower productivity, lower rates of savings and lower rates of job creation. Third, the high Federal tax burden that we put on our working families keeps control centralized here in Washington. Money, particularly in the form of taxes, is power, and if we put all the money and all the tax revenues here in Washington, control them from here in Washington, it becomes a place of power, as one would expect. But if we can take the money out of Washington and put it back in the pockets of working Americans, we make Washington less important, and we make the family, the individual in a city or town more important. And I think fundamentally that is the direction we should be headed in. This is, after all, your money that we are talking about. When we speak about government revenues or tax revenues, we are talking about the hard- earned dollars that we collect here in Washington, that we take from the individual or the working family or the business and then we distribute. We should never forget what the source of that income is. So when we talk of lowering taxes and when we talk of Tax Freedom Day and the need to move that day back so we work less time to pay our taxes, remember we are talking about reducing the burden on families, reducing the price that we pay for economic growth and reducing the concentration of power here in Washington and giving more freedom and more responsibility back to our city or town. This past week Congress and the President came to an agreement to try to do something about the tax burden Americans face, and our balanced budget plan balances our Nation's books for the first time in 30 years, provides tax relief that will make a difference for the average working family and begin to lift these burdens. A $500 per child tax credit that we hope to enact later in this year will put money back in the pockets of a typical working family. We certainly hope to enact the State tax reform and capital gains tax reform that will stop the burden on small and family-owned businesses. What can be more discouraging to someone thinking about starting a business than to know if they are successful, if they achieve their goals, then the capital gains tax rate they will have to pay will be as high as 28 or 30 percent, and even worse, if they want to leave that business in their family, they can pay a death tax as high as 55 percent. And this is not just a tax burden that effects business owners, or small or family business owner. It effects every employee that works for that business and even the customers that buy the product from a small business. It effects every facet of our economy, in small and family businesses, or where most of the job creation take place. By putting money back in the pockets of working Americans this budget plan that we have come to an agreement on this past week will give more power and control, more freedom and opportunity to the average American. Still we cannot lose sight of the long-term goal with regard to trying to move back that Tax Freedom Day, and that long-term goal is fundamental reform of our tax system, dramatic reform of the Tax Code to make it simple and fair. There is nothing more unfair than to have working Americans labor under the belief that someone with more money or, better, a tax accountant, than they can somehow avoid paying their fair share of taxes. By moving forward in the end of this session and next session with fundamental tax reform, we will continue the fight to put freedom and responsibility back in the hands of the average American.

Mr. SUNUNU

Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to salute an outstanding group of young women who have been honored with the Girl Scout Gold Award by the Swift Water Girl Scout Council in Manchester, NH. Tracie Young, Gayle Willis, Danielle Sylvain, Kerry Silva, Meghan Shuteran, Meredith Roman, Tracy Rockwell, Katrina Reneouf, Elizabeth Perry, Anne Perry, Emily Paquette, Syma Mirza, Theresa Lacroix, Aimee LeShane, Elizabeth Lenaghan, Michelle LaPlant, Patricia Haycock, Kierstn Harrow, Jaclyn Haley, Carrie Green, Aja Goldberg, Kerri Cobuccio, Jennifer Buonomano, Emily Bennison, and Lauren Williams-Barnard, are being honored on June 8, 1997, for earning the highest achievement award in U.S. Girl Scouting. The Girl Scout Gold Award symbolizes outstanding accomplishments in the areas of leadership, community service, career planning, and personal development. The award can be earned by girls aged 14-17, or in grades 9-12. Girl Scouts of the U.S.A., an organization serving over 2.5 million girls, has awarded more than 20,000 Girl Scout Gold Awards to senior Girl Scouts since the inception of the program in 1980. To receive the award, a Girl Scout must earn four interest project patches, the Career Exploration Pin, the Senior Girl Scout Leadership Award, and the Senior Girl Scout Challenge, as well as have designed and implemented a Girl Scout Gold Award project. A plan for fulfilling these requirements is created by the senior Girl Scout and is carried out through close cooperation between the candidate and an adult Girl Scout volunteer. As members of the Swift Water Girl Scout Council, these young women began working toward the Girl Scout Gold Award in 1995. They completed their projects in the area of community service and leadership and I believe that they should receive the public recognition due to them for this significant service to their community and to their country.

Mr. SUNUNU

Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Pitts].

Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the previous speaker for his generous qualification of his rhetoric as a relatively cheap shot, and I want to further commend him in all seriousness for the quality of the budget that the coalition has put forward. Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, may I have a quantification of the time left for each side?

Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. Shays].

Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to note that this resolution is precisely about working together. This resolution is about working to get a platform from the President from which we can conduct bipartisan budget negotiations. If we truly want to move in that direction, we need a substantive balanced budget, one that does not include triggers, one that does not include a $69 billion deficit in the year 2002, one that does not increase the deficit $24 billion in 1998. That is all we seek. We lay out criteria that will give us this platform, and we apply the exact same standards to this House that we ask the President to abide by. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Parker].

Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Ehrlich], a distinguished member of the Committee on the Budget.

Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, the coalition budget, as I have mentioned in remarks before, has met the four criteria placed out in this resolution, and this resolution further asks that Congress consider a budget that meets these criteria and that the President submit a budget that meets these criteria. It is in the essence of fairness and bipartisanship that we put this resolution forward. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California [Mr. Radanovich].

Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Kansas [Mr. Snowbarger]. (Mr. SNOWBARGER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Delaware [Mr. Castle].

Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Franks].