Billy Tauzin

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Massachusetts, and I commend him and all of the Members of the Republican Blue Dog Alliance and the Democratic Blue Dog Coalition for initiating this effort of a civility pledge in this House. As Mr. Blute pointed out, over 70 Members have now signed that pledge. It is a simple pledge. It simply pledges that we agree to respect the people who elected us, through proper conduct, including honoring and showing consideration of one's colleagues, regardless of idealogy or personal feeling. It says that we pledge to promote civility and comity and adherence to House rules over party loyalty, and to follow these guidelines as the presiding officer in making rulings, and as Members in adhering to those rulings. Now, we will be urging others Members of this body to sign up. We hope to get the entire membership to sign this pledge and to introduce it formally as a resolution of this House. It is so important that we begin that process here in this House. Now, Mr. Blute referred to the article in U.S. News and World Report in which U.S. News and World Report wrote about the American uncivil wars, ``How crude, rude and obnoxious behavior has replaced good manners and why that hurts our politics and culture.'' In the article, U.S. News reports that a poll that they conducted in February by Bozell Worldwide reveals a vast majority of Americans feel that the country has reached an ill-mannered watershed. Nine out of 10 Americans think that incivility is a serious problem. Nearly half think that it is extremely serious. Seventy-eight percent say the problem has worsened in the past 10 years, and their concern goes beyond annoyance at rudeness. Respondents see in incivility evidence of a profound social breakdown. More than 90 percent of those polled believe it contributes to an increase in violence in our country; 85 percent believe it divides the national community, and the same number see it eroding healthy values like respect for others. One of the contributors to the article, a Martin Marty, who is a philosopher of religions, wrote that civility should be the glue holding dialogue together. The alternative to civility is, first, incivility, and we have seen too much of that. And then, he says, the next alternative is war. It is the violence that this Chamber saw before the Civil War and after that Civil War when Members actually assaulted one another. And it is the violence we see on the streets as respect for one another has worsened in our country. I am ashamed to tell my colleagues that when Americans sized up civility of different groups in our country, politicians came out almost dead last. We came out behind police officers, who 86 percent thought to be civil; athletes, 74 percent thought to be civil; government workers scored a 71 percent civility rating; lawyers got 60; journalists got 56; and politicians received a 55 percent civility rating. Forty percent thought all politicians had reached a low of incivility. It is time we begin to change that, Mr. Speaker. The civility pledge we have introduced is just the beginning. Recently the CRS, the Congressional Research Service, issued a report for Congress entitled ``Decorum in House Debate.'' It tracked the history of incivility in our Chamber. It told us about the violence that had preceded this Congress and other Congresses. It told us about how speech had worsened from time to time, and how disrespect and nonharmonious relations had contributed to a worsening and a polarization of attitudes in this Chamber and in America. And then it issued a series of recommendations on how we could begin to change things. It literally listed a series, including the recommendation that the Chair should be more responsible in advising Members about breaches of decorum. The Chair should be a teacher, advising Members in the middle of a debate: You are about to step over the line, calm yourself down; you are about to breach the rules of this House; you are about to insult this institution that you fought so hard to be a Member of; you are about to bring it down in the eyes of the American public and destroy its credibility with our Nation; you are about to treat this institution as some kind of second class organization, when it is bigger than you, more important than you, and you should leave it a better place than you took it. The Chair ought to be more responsible in doing that. The CRS report says that after the Chair, the Members ought to take more responsibility for one another. We ought to be more calming of one another's tempers and emotions. We should be advising Members when we think they have gone beyond the pale, when they have gotten out of hand. And then our leadership ought to take a role in that regard. The leadership, for example, should restructure the 1-minutes in the morning, which have become theme-team efforts just to excite and aggravate, to get sound bites for television, rather than a healthy discourse on the issues. The leadership ought to take responsibility by issuing Dear Colleagues to Members, advising them on what the rules require of all of us to respect this institution and one another. The Committee on Standards of Official Conduct has established a separate Office of Advice and Education. That office ought to hold briefings for Members on what our rules require, particularly the new Members as they come in and the older Members who constantly violate those rules and have to have their words taken down. There ought to be joint hearings of the House Committee on Rules and the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct in which we can examine the lack of decorum in our Chamber. The joint leadership could appoint Members from both aisles to informally serve as a task force on decorum to assist in maintaining respect in this Chamber. The majority leader ought to make sure that he appoints Members to the Chair during House proceedings who really know the rules and will helpfully advise Members when they are about to violate those rules. Perhaps we could have a bipartisan summit, if it gets intolerable during this election season, and maybe we could consider stronger sanctions. A former Member, Representative Larry Wynn of Kentucky, upon his retirement, wrote: ``The growing rancor between Republicans and Democrats in the House of Representatives is deeply worrisome.'' Many House Members, including me, fear that this may be an ongoing trend rather than a temporary phenomenon. It is important now for both Republicans and Democrats to recognize that a continuation of this rancor will undercut the legislative process. It is my firm belief that the majority of Members of both sides of the aisle would like to reduce the level of tension and the partisan clashes and get on with the business of this country. It is up to us all to cool off, to sit down, to talk and come up with some suggestions for restoring greater civility, tolerance, and pragmatism in our procedures. If not, not only Members of this House, but the country will suffer. And so, Mr. Speaker, our little group, the alliance, the Blue Dog Republicans, and the small group on the other side, the Blue Dog Coalition, are nowhere near a majority of this Chamber, but we have begun what we hope is a groundswell. We hope other Members will sign up to our civility pledge. We hope tonight is just the beginning of this discussion. We hope to have future discussions about civility and incivility in this Chamber. We hope as a result of what we begin tonight this House will be a place where people come to honor and respect this institution and the people who sent us up here by being more respectful of one another, by being more tolerant of the different views in this House, and by debating the issues instead of insulting and questioning the motives of one another as we enter serious debate for the sake of our country. Our two little groups are dedicated to that, to put our party hats aside and to act like Americans in this Chamber, and to act like respectful Americans who came to this Chamber with an incredible amount of honor and respect for the folks who sent us here. If we can behave in that regard after we get here, we will not only honor this institution, we will honor this country and the people who made it so great, and who have made this institution the most and I think the greatest democratic institution in the world. We owe that to the American public and we owe that to this House. Tonight we begin that process, but we will not stop here. We will rise occasionally when the debate gets too heated and try to calm things down. We will try to get some of these recommendations adopted into our procedures in the House. We will talk to our leadership and see if we cannot get some of these improvements made. Most importantly, we will continue to counsel with one another across this aisle about the importance of being good Members of this House and good Americans when we come here, simply that and nothing more, to honor the folks who sent us here as we honor this institution. Thank you very much, Mr. Blute.

Mr. TAUZIN. And how we return here in reelection campaigns with the art of governing. There is a huge difference between those two activities, yet we confuse them. Our politics have gotten meaner. Negative campaigning is the way in which candidates are now elected. Citizens are left with choosing the lesser of two evils, because they learn so many horrible things about all the candidates that they cannot really believe in any of them anymore. Time magazine wrote an article once that said that if Burger King and, say, McDonald's----

Mr. TAUZIN. You know, Peter, if you yield, I think you are right. Some of the most stirring moments have been when Members have done that, have risen to congratulate Members on the other side of the aisle, and not only a good collegial way, but in a way that I think Americans said, hey, maybe these people are not just a bunch of kids. They are Americans first. Maybe they are not just Republicans and Democrats. Maybe they do care about something other than their reelection. Maybe they care about this country, and maybe they respect one another enough once in a while to say something nice about one another. And maybe, just maybe, just thinking aloud with you, Peter, maybe that is one thing we in our two groups ought to try to encourage more, that we do more of those kinds of speeches on the floor when another Member, particularly from the other side who has had a success, who has had a tragedy, who has had something happen that is to them and to the folks that sent him here, that we rise on the floor and show our admiration, our feelings of sympathy, whatever it may be, to literally demonstrate that we do, to the American public, that we do respect one another more than our words sometimes indicate.

Mr. TAUZIN. You are bigger than me.

Mr. TAUZIN. If the gentleman will yield, you know, Americans like a good fight. We are not talking about not having some good healthy fights over issues. We are not talking about, you know, some little- pinkie gentility in this Chamber. We are not talking about being less than healthy, hearty debaters on the issues that face America. There are some enormous divisions in this body and in America on many of these issues. There is an extreme need for us to debate those things in a healthy fashion so that we either come to closure or realize we cannot, one or the other, and then we let the American people settle it in the next election. That is all healthy. We ought to have those vigorous, hearty, healthy debates. Americans ought to see a good battle on this floor of ideas, not of personalities. You ought to see a healthy fight when it comes to what is right and what is wrong in terms of legislation, but they ought to never see, they ought never see us behaving like Boy Scouts without a troop leader.

Mr. TAUZIN. If the gentleman would yield, I think he has touched on a good point. The point is that we have separated one another by party in this place. We are led by party leaders who serve a dual function. One of their functions is to represent their party on this floor, and party positions. The other function is to be the leadership of the House. They are two different functions. I think sometimes that gets confused. As leaders of different parties, I think they probably would like to keep us separate in that role. But there is a bigger role they play, the leadership of the House, and perhaps we could appeal to them every once in a while to literally look for ways that would bring us a little closer; maybe, as this report indicates, to hold summit conferences, where we could talk about this obligation to this House, to one another, and to the folks who elected us; where we could literally get to know one another a little better. I am always amazed when we do have these kinds of meetings, whether it is a prayer breakfast or whether it is a joint meeting, a gathering, a coalition of mainstream Republican members, how once we learned a little bit more about one another, not only does our respect deepen, because everybody comes over here with so much experience and talent, and when you learn about it, you say, ``Wow, I did not know that about you. I did not realize you had that much to offer.'' We are surprised sometimes about what quality people you find here. It does get harder then to debate with them and be ugly to them.

Mr. TAUZIN. There is another thing we ought to mention before we conclude this special order tonight. That is that we all share some responsibility for the decline of civility in this place, for the decline of civility in politics in general. A recent study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs, a nonpartisan foundation group, did a study of the 1996 Presidential race coverage. They found that it was so negative. They found that it was highly negative coverage, heavy but misleading coverage of the horserace, and much less attention on the meat, the debate that was going on between the candidates. We are in an election year right now. We see too much of that, I think, in the coverage of this Chamber. C-SPAN now brings this debate to so many people's homes, and I think when we look at television coverage of our campaigns and we see that negativism, we think maybe they ought to see it on C-SPAN, too, and we emulate it here. I think all of that contributes generally to the decline of civility, not only in our politics, not only in this Chamber, but in the society at large. I think Zach probably said it best: We should be a better example for America. If we expect our children and our citizens to lead a more civil life, to not run each other on the road, and to insult one another and eventually drive-by shoot one another, we ought to start by being a little more civil in this Chamber, where they watch us every day on C-SPAN.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, there is nothing like peer pressure. If we all work to get each other to sign this pledge, and having signed it, to feel embarrassed when we violate it, we will have done one major step towards restoring civility in this Chamber. That is our first goal. Our second goal is to see some of these recommendations of CRS enacted: The leadership reforms, the role of the Chair in educating the Members, the role of Members to help one another stay within the lines of decorum and, eventually, maybe some of the ideas you expressed tonight; maybe getting us together in a bipartisan way once in a while, just to know one another a little better and to learn to respect each other a little more.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mixed with good humor, if you remember.

Mr. TAUZIN. Of course, I can tell you countless stories, particularly from my Louisiana experience in the Louisiana legislature, about how Members who have spent time with another and have come to know and love, and respect one another in the same way that Peter has talked so admirably about some of my Democratic colleagues who have such a history of contribution to our country, who in the heat of debate gently, with humor, brought each other back to a point of civility when things were getting out of hand. Mr. Speaker, I recall once we were debating the institution of a board of contractors so that the Government would not appoint all the contractors. The board will end up doing it. One of the oldest gentlemen in the House stood up and said, ``Now, Billy, you know you can't take politics out of politics any more than you can take kissing out of loving.'' And I said, I know you cannot take politics out of politics, and I certainly would not want to take kissing out of loving. We just are trying to take a little kissing out of politics. The humor of that moment of course made a point, but it also kept what otherwise was sometimes heated debate in line, and it is a useful tool. But I think the most important tool of all the tools that are available to us is a recognition that you came here the same way I did. I ought to respect you, and I ought to respect your ideas because you speak with not your own voice. You speak with the voice of 500,000 or 600,000 people who sent you up here to be their voice. And if I cannot respect you and your voice, I am disrespecting them in their homes. If I have that attitude, that is the most important tool in my arsenal to make me a little more civil in this body.

Mr. TAUZIN. And questioning my motives or my intent, it has gone beyond the pale. It has gotten out of the debate and gotten into the negative politics, is my point. If we could all, I hope every day, listen to the speeches on the floor of the House and all of us start thinking, is that really a debate over the idea? Or is that a debate challenging the motives or the intentions of the individual? And every time you find that difference, kind of go up to that individual and say as a friend, as a colleague, ``Maybe you stepped over the line. You went too far. Go back to debate the idea, please. That person over there got elected just like you, by people just like your people back home, who love this country and sent you over here to do a good, honest day's work in debating ideas, not challenging people's intentions and motives.''

Mr. TAUZIN. And I do not think there is anything wrong with your characterizing my idea. You can characterize my idea as you see it. When you go from characterizing my idea to attacking me personally----

Mr. TAUZIN. If the gentleman will yield, let me draw a distinction. I think the American public expects us to vigorously debate ideas.

Mr. TAUZIN

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

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman, my fellow colleague from Louisiana [Mr. Fields] and I go back a long way to his first days in politics. I want to say something publicly, Cleo, that needs to get said, I think. You have made an incredible and enormous contribution to politics in Louisiana, and to government, and to this body, and I want to thank you for joining and signing this pledge. You and all of us, I think, signing it and being a part of it can help make it real and help make this place a better governmental institution. I know that was one of your goals when you came here. Thank you for that, Cleo.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to correct the record. First of all, Mr. Speaker, Louisiana has a law on its books, has had a law on its books since well into the 1970's, that Medicaid receipts and Medicare moneys cannot be spent on anything but health care in that State. It was not spent on roads and bridges, as the gentleman in the well previously alluded to. I am sure that gentleman in the well previously alluded to. I am sure that gentleman voted against the earthquake relief to California when that State needed help from this Federal Government. However, the provisions in this bill do not add a dime to the Federal deficit, do not increase spending in Louisiana one dime. It simply allows Louisiana to do something it has to do, and that is to correct the formula by which the State applied for and received its Federal funding all these years. The State used a system whereby Federal and State dollars were accumulated in its Medicaid accounts and then matched to make its Medicaid formula. That is no longer allowed. That was a system the Federal Government allowed to happen over these years, and now we are going to face a $1.5 billion shortfall for the most needy people in our State if this provision is not adopted. If any other State wants to freeze its accounts the way Louisiana is freezing them, come forward. That is what the bill provides.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, every spring I plant natural resource trees, over the past 2 months, nearly 600: crab apples, redbuds, oaks, cherries, dogwoods, cypress, and cedar, just to name a few. I also cut down trees, mostly stunted or overgrown pine, to make room for others to grow. I was raised to appreciate that kind of balance. This spring I will join other volunteers in Habitat for Humanity, hammering and sawing lumber to build suitable housing for poor families in Louisiana. I was raised to understand that kind of balance, too. Unfortunately, many of our bureaucrats do not. Every week nearly 1 square mile of Louisiana washes away in coastal marsh and barrier island erosion. Private landowners are prepared to spend their own money to save those marshes and wetlands, but our wetlands permit system says no. Hundreds of such applications have been abandoned. The Corps of Engineers in Louisiana still refuses as yet to authorize a private mitigation bank. So 30 to 50 square miles in my State washes away while bureaucrats squabble over so-called wetlands that no self- respecting duck would land on. We need to spend less money on lawyers and bureaucrats and more money really saving wetlands in America.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Guess what, too, after they have invested 12 years in that drug and $350 million, where do you think they get that money from? It goes into a much higher costing drug that Americans may need to save their lives or prolong their lives. If we can simply have a better process that does not take 12 years, that does not cost $350 million, we will also be providing life-saving and life-prolonging drugs and treatments to Americans at more decent prices, which is a critical component of our health care reforms. We hope to accomplish again some of that this year.

Mr. TAUZIN. I just want to reecho that thought, that this is the people's House, and in this House the people rule. That is an awfully statesmanlike approach to take, and it is surprising, indeed, that more folks do not realize that in this Chamber. In the end, when we go back to the town hall meetings back home, we are asked a simple question: Have you advanced an American agenda? Not a Democrat or Republican agenda. Have you advanced the cause of this country? Have you made it a place where there is more liberty, instead of less liberty? Have you made it a place where we can advance our family's future more easy instead of more difficult. Have you made this a place where indeed our children can have a brighter future than we ourselves have? If we can say yes to all of those questions, then we can go home proud and pleased with the work we have done here. I think we are well on the way. We have accomplished a lot. We have a lot left to do. But I think this ``do something'' Congress will be heard from much more in the days ahead.

Mr. TAUZIN. You know, the freshmen, Jon, all of you guys, have taken a lot of heat in the press, being too hardnosed, too rigid, inflexible. The truth is, the freshmen came to this House with a very refreshing concept. It was a concept that the Government ought to be our servant, not our master. And you came with a simple notion that we needed to make Government user friendly again. It needed to be responsive to people and helpful to people, instead of control and mandating and, indeed, inaccessible to people because its formularies and regulations were too difficult for people to understand. It is a very refreshing attitude. I often comment to folks back home, thank God we have a huge crop of freshmen that have that attitude. I think it is great that we have the infusion of new ideas and new thought. We have seen it in the form of a willingness to tackle issues that sometimes no one wanted to tackle before; to face head on the crush and calamity of Medicare collapsing into bankruptcy and to try to deal with it, to face head on the fact we have got a welfare system that is condemning people to dependency, instead of rescuing them from dependency; to face head on the fact that Medicaid in our country is about to cripple the ability of our States to take care of people who are uninsured and need the assistance of others for their health care; and to face head on complex issues like immigration policy, and issues like, indeed, environmental reform, which are very contentious and very difficult to debate sometimes. Freshmen, in my view, have added a great deal to this Congress, and I am glad you are here.

Mr. TAUZIN. Indeed, to go back to taxes, the Kemp Commission reported that the average small business in America spends $4 complying with the Tax Codes for every $1 they send the Federal Government. Think about that, when our forms and our regulations are so complex that you have got to hire so many accountants and go through so much paperwork to send the Government $1 you have got to spend $4 in your business. And guess who pays all of that? The consumer does in the end. When our systems are so complex that people cannot bid to do Government work because they cannot get through the bureaucracy and the paperwork, when businesses cannot even pay their taxes without spending four times as much as the tax liability, spending it on paperwork and accountants and auditors, then something is wrong in America. We have got an inefficient system. If it does say to people ``Do not come do business with this government,'' we are locking out people that could be doing business for us, perhaps in a much more efficient way than our current vendors, our current suppliers. That ought to get changed.

Mr. TAUZIN. The Committee on Ways and Means is the committee doing it. I do not actually serve on it. Bill Archer is the Chair, and we are working closely with Bill. Mr. Archer actually supports this consumption tax concept. But he is not making that decision right now. What he is doing is the right thing. He is going to hold hearings on this proposal for a national sales tax. He is going to hold hearings on the Armey flat tax proposal. He will hold hearings on alternative proposals, such as the value added tax or anything anybody wants to come up with. By October, the Committee on Ways and Means will report to the American public. Hopefully the candidates for President will join in that debate, and by next Congress, maybe we can have an American tea party, and Americans can express themselves and dump this whole system into the Boston Harbor and rewrite something that makes sense for Americans again. What we recommend is to pull the IRS and the income tax out by its roots, to get rid of the whole mess, to throw away the inheritance and gift taxes along with it, and substitute a simple national retail sales tax at the end of every purchase, providing a complete rebate to incomes under the poverty level, so that no one is hurt under poverty, and providing the same treatment for home ownership the current code does to encourage families to own their homes and build their families here in America. It is an awfully interesting concept, but it is only one of many. The Committee on Ways and Means is going to look at them all and hopefully report to the American people by October which one they think makes the best sense, and we will have this debate next Congress.

Mr. TAUZIN. Think about it, there is no other place in America, not even our Federal courts, where you go and you are presumed guilty. Even in Federal criminal court you are presumed innocent, and until the State proves you guilty you walk out a free person. With the IRS, you are presumed guilty until you prove yourself innocent. What an awful type of situation Americans find themselves in. Worse than that, as you know Jon, the IRS is a double taxation system. Not only does it tax your income, but every time you buy anything made in America, you are paying the tax of every business that contributed to the manufacture of that product. Economists tell us that could be a hidden tax of between 10 and 14 percent on the price of everything made in America. Unfortunately, we do not charge that tax to products imported. So, guess what? We import more products. It is a system that tells us do not earn money, do not save money, do not invest because we are going to penalize you, do not try to leave anything for your kids because we got inheritance and gift taxes that will catch you then. Even when you spend money, you better buy foreign products, because if you buy anything made in America, we are going to double tax you. It is a horrible system, and it is time we think about changing it for the good of every taxpayer; but, more importantly, for every wage earner and every business in America that would like to manufacture things here instead of manufacturing them all over the world. If we have that debate, honestly and forthrightly and in a bipartisan fashion, to make sure whatever we substitute for this system is indeed a fair system, it is simpler, makes better sense, does not double tax us, does not tax American products only, but taxes fairly all products in our society, so we can encourage manufacturing again, if we have that debate as part of this agenda to do something in this Congress, move these reforms forward, I will feel a lot better than I do already about a Congress that has made some great progress to this date.

Mr. TAUZIN. That was passed yesterday with a huge bipartisan majority.