Billy Tauzin

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, I traveled to Paris, France, once in my life--on my own ticket, by the way--and, as a Cajun in Paris, Mr. Chairman, I discovered something that I have had to remind myself about frequently in the course of my life. We Cajuns call a truck a trook. The Parisians call it a camionner. When a Cajun wants to agree with someone or indicate that someone has said something he agrees with, he says, ``tu kar ray.'' It is just sort of a Cajun French-ized expression of ``You're right.'' In French they say, ``Vous avez raison.'' I came to understand, as I struggled to communicate with my fellow Frenchmen in ancestry that, while we spoke the same language, we had a little trouble understanding each other in that same language, and so it is with the English language. Many of us rise today to support the concept of a line-item veto. We believe, as our Constitution provides, that a supermajority of the Members of this body ought to be had to override a President when he vetoes an act of Congress. That is in our Constitution right now, and we believe that that extraordinary authority ought to be extended when this Congress is irresponsible enough to overspend its budget. So, Mr. Chairman, this amendment comes before us today, this bill comes before us today, in its present form that says the President can use the line-item veto now in extension of the veto authority given to him by the Constitution. ``The line-item veto to reduce the deficit''; that is the language in the bill. In short it says, ``If the Congress is irresponsible and does not balance the budget, the congressional grant of authority to the President is to use the line-item veto to enforce responsibility to bring that deficit down.'' The bill does not say, as do a few States of our Nation, that that authority belongs to the Governor or this President even when the Congress is responsible. That is a serious change of law, a serious change of the balance of power between the Executive and the legislative branch. I say to my colleagues, ``We have checks and balances in our Constitution. If you extend the power of the President to line-item veto anything, even when the Congress has been responsible and balanced the budget, you no longer have checks and balances. You got checkmate and imbalance.'' So, Mr. Chairman, I suggest to my colleagues that the question of whether they want the President to override the--I mean the Congress to override the line-item veto by a two-thirds majority or by a simple majority, as in the amendment before us, depends mightily upon whether or not the bill, in its final form, will remain a bill that gives the power to the President to line-item-veto items that constitute deficit spending, or whether my colleagues want to go further and give the President that power even when the Congress is responsible enough to balance the budget. Later on in this debate I am going to suggest to the Congress an amendment to this bill that would further enforce that notion. I must apologize. I confused a couple of analogies in this graph. Bear with me. It is called the glidepath amendment to this bill. It is called the glidepath amendment because like an airplane coming in for a landing it follows a glidepath, and that is what we are obliged to do to get to a balanced budget by the year 2002. If we stay on the glidepath, on the CBO-projected numbers each year of how much deficit we are allowed to incur, as we reach the balanced budget amendment date of the year 2002, Mr. Chairman, we will land safely. As to this football field, we score the touchdown. Hence my two analogies. What I am going to suggest to my colleagues, and I hope that all of us really think about this, is that, if this bill is truly a bill to enforce responsibility on the Congress, if it is truly a bill as are the bills that were passed in 33 of the 43 States that give line-item authority to their Governors, then this amendment is vitally necessary. Why? Because in the 43 States which give line-item veto authority to their Governor, three out of four of those States say that authority is limited to the line-item vetoing of items that constitute deficit spending. In our case, unlike those 43 States, we cannot, and my colleagues know it, I know it, produce a balanced budget this year. We cannot do it without enormously destroying entitlement programs, hurt. So it will take us time. We all know it. That is why we passed the balanced budget amendment that gives us this glidepath to the touchdown at the year 2002. If we know that and are honest and realistic about it, what is the responsibility of the Congress during the years in which we work toward that touchdown of a balanced budget? The responsibility is to stay under those CBO numbers. If we do not, we will not reach this goal. If we do, we have been responsible according to the balanced budget amendment we passed.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I continue to yield to my friend, the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. TAUZIN. You and I know something that the American public knows and that has been admitted in the balanced budget debate and admitted by Presidents who have served us now and have preceded us. That is, if we tried today to produce a balanced budget in this fiscal year, it would be practically impossible to do because we have committed ourselves to so much entitlement funding. Without massive changes in the way we fund entitlements in America, we cannot deliver a balanced budget to the President this year. That makes passing a line-item veto difficult, because it means for the years we cannot balanced the budget, the President is going to enjoy that extraordinary authority. I am going to suggest a change in the bill that is before us. I am going to suggest a change called the glide path amendment a little later on. The glide path amendment says that if we are smart enough, wise enough, and responsible to stay on the glide path that the CBO predicts we need to stay on to reach the balanced budget by the year 2002, the line-item veto authority would be limited to expenditures in excess of those numbers so that we can legitimately stay within the numbers that take us to a balanced budget by the year 2002 and not give the President this extraordinary authority because we cannot balance the budget this year. It would mean that the authority we give the President in line-item authority would be used to enforce the will power of this body to stay on schedule, to balance the budget as we have agreed to do in the balanced budget amendment, and to give the President the authority to strike any item that we appropriate in excess of those numbers until we reach the year 2002. When we have reached that touchdown goal of 2002 and we have balanced the budget, therefore we would be under an obligation to keep the budget in balanced or else the executive would have the authority, as he has in every 50 States, to strike out any appropriation in excess of that balanced budget. I believe that change will be very important. I would ask you to think about it now. I will be offering it later on to make this thing work in the interim, while we are trying to get the power to make it work in the year 2002.

Mr. TAUZIN. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, while we have a break in the offering of amendments, I wanted to rise in support of the idea, first of all, and the bill providing for a line-item veto for the President of the United States to reduce the deficits that are produced by the Congress of the United States now and into the future. Mr. Chairman, my good friend, the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Dingell], and I have a disagreement on this point, as Members can readily understand from the speech he just gave and what I am about to say. I deeply respect him and the incredible service he has rendered this country in all the years that he has served in this Congress and led the Committee on Energy and Commerce, on which I serve. Our disagreement stems from the fact that while I believe, too, that there have been mighty struggles between sovereigns and those with whom they have contested over the years over the issues of who, indeed, has the power to make the laws and the mandates that affect the common welfare, but I believe that a revolution was fought in this country over a very simple proposition called taxation without representation. If there is a form of taxation without representation that is insidious in this land today, it is the kind of taxation without representation that we now permit for the future generations of children who will be born in this country. When we decide to spend their money and therefore raise their taxes in the future, for whatever purposes we deem important, because we do not have the money to spend ourselves in our time, we are taxing them and they are not represented in this Chamber today, except among those who are willing to speak for the unborn yet. That taxation without representation is indeed institutionalized in the concept of a deficit. Every time this body, every time a President signs a budget, signs appropriation bills, rather, that appropriate more money than we have to spend each year, we are in fact taxing future generations who are not represented in this body today, and who deserve better treatment than to be born into this country with a huge debt on their shoulders for taxes that we have imposed upon them without their consent and without their representation. What does a line-item veto have to do with that concept? The line- item veto as it is employed in all of the States where it is employed, and my State is one which has a line-item veto, is used to enforce the principle of a balanced budget. The line-item veto is exercised by Governors across this land to strike from the budget appropriations that exceed the revenue of that particular State. States like mine with a requirement to balance the budget and a line- item veto have a pretty good enforcement mechanism in place, because the legislature is admonished if the legislature dares to appropriate more money than the people have presented to it that year for expenditures, then the legislature is subject to having the Governor of that State strike from that budget whatsoever he or she may choose to strike in order to bring that deficit down and balance the budget. The line-item veto becomes an enforcing mechanism to enforce the balanced budget. In short, if the legislature of Louisiana and the legislature of the some 43 States which have a line-item veto authority, if they are smart enough and wise enough and prudent and responsible enough not to tax future generations without representation, not to create a deficit in their accounts each year, not to build the mountains of debt we have built here in America through this congressional appropriation process, then the Governor of that State does not line item anything. The legislature protects itself against the line-item veto by balancing its budget each year. And if ever this Congress in the history of our country needed something to enforce the will power of this body to keep its books in balance, it is now and the line-item veto is just that tool. If the line-item veto is passed in this Congress and the President of the United States, be he Democrat or Republican, has the capacity to line item out of the budget expenditures we create in deficit accounts, we are going to be much more careful about not sending him a deficit budget. We are going to do our level best to balance that budget. We are going to do our best to reach the goal of the balance budget amendment we just passed, Mr. Stenholm, and sent over to the Senate that will require us to reach a balanced budget by the year 2002. A little later on in this debate, I hope to offer an amendment to even perfect this theory a little further.

Mr. TAUZIN. Reclaiming my time, I am not sure what the balanced budget of Texas requires nor what the line-item veto allows, but let me tell you what it does in Louisiana, as I think it does in this bill. The authority to the executive is only to strike out measures that end up reducing the deficit. If there is no deficit, then the governor does not have the line-item veto authority. He cannot use it to punish or get anybody's attention. The only thing he can use it for is to get the budget back in balance. So if the legislature does not want to get punished, does not want to get yanked by the ears, the legislature sends him a balanced budget each year. We badly need that kind of will power here.

Mr. TAUZIN. Again reclaiming my time, my understanding is the bill we have before us gives the President the authority to line-item any item to reduce a deficit which, if my reading is correct, that means in effect if we send him a balanced budget, he would not have the authority to line-item anything. It is the same kind of procedure we have in Louisiana. So to the arguments of those who are concerned that this bill would give the President some authority to punish Members, to extort a vote from them on occasion, to yank them by the ears or the nose or whatever it might be to do his will, let me assure you, if you adopt the amendment I am going to suggest, and if we stay within the contours of the path that takes us to a balanced budget, the glide path that gets us there by the year 2002, the President would not have that authority, and the legislature would be protected from that abuse. amendment offered by mr. skelton

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

Mr. TAUZIN. As the gentleman knows, we plan later on to offer an amendment that I think cures this problem, and that is if the legislature, this Congress, stays within the glideslope projections that take us to a balance budget, we are not going to have this problem at all. It is only when we spend in excess that then the President would have to exercise the line-item veto to keep us on line, in which case every program ought to be examined to see if there is pork in it, every single one. I think the gentleman is correct in that view. I would urge that that view prevail on this floor.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Virginia.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, unfortunately, the issue of public and private sector competition under Government mandates has gotten awfully confused here. Let us look at the facts as they exist today. Today government at the local level and the Federal level does compete against private industry and vice versa in many areas. When the Federal Government issues a mandate to local government to do something, the local government today is in competition in many cases with private sector companies who are under the same mandate to do the same thing. The local government funds that operation today. It funds it out of tax dollars raised locally. The only change this unfunded mandate bill makes in that equation is it changes as to who raised the money to pay for the public sector operation. That is the only change. It does not change the equation of private sector or public sector competition at all. It simply says that in that equation when it comes time to raise the money to carry out the mandate, instead of raising the money locally with taxes raised at the local level, the money has to be raised on the Federal level, or else a point of order is raised against the mandate to being with. Now, if you really do not believe in the unfunded mandates concept of this bill, the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Moran] has offered you the perfect amendment to defeat it. This amendment would simply say that where you have a Federal mandate that does apply to both local government and to private sector businesses, which most of these mandates do, that the point of order does not lie against it. But you cannot in fact enforce the unfunded mandate provision of this bill against such a mandate. If you ever wanted an exemption that exempted most Federal mandates out of this bill, we have just been offered it today. Let me say again, the equation of competition private to public is not affected by this bill. If you believe that, you need to think just a second what is happening in the world today. The private sector competing against local government, local government having to carry out Federal mandates, raising the money locally because we force them to, and the change this bill will make, the only change is that instead of telling local government you have to do it this way and you have to raise the money locally to do it, under this bill a point of order would lie against such a rule. Unless we exempted ourselves from that point of order or waived it, a point of order would lie against it so that we would have to come up with the money here in Washington to fund that public mandate on the public institution locally at home. That is the only difference. I understand if you do not believe in that proposition. If you believe that Government ought to be able to mandate things on local governments and we ought not to have to come up with the money to fund them, if you believe that we ought to be able to tell a State and county and parish and city governments across America that you have got to do it our way and you have to raise the taxes to pay for it, if you really believe that, this is the perfect out amendment. This amendment says a point of order will not lie against those kind of unfunded mandate provision will not be enforceable against any mandate that affects both the local government and a private business in your district. So if my colleagues really do not like this bill, if they do not believe in it, if they want to believe in mandates from Washington without the necessity of funding them, then vote for this amendment. If my colleagues believe in a strong unfunded mandates bill, they have got to defeat this amendment. It is the amendment that exempts most mandates from the bill. It is the one that destroys the whole idea of an unfunded mandates bill. So, I urge Members, defeat this amendment and let us go on to pass a strong unfunded mandates bill. When we get through, every time we have a mandate that affects public and private businesses from now on we will now consider do we in fact fund it from Washington or do we tell our comrades in arms, the local city councilmen, the Members who represent a district back home, a county or a parrish or a State government it is up to you to come up with the money, you just have got to do it our way? If Members want to keep doing business that way, vote for this amendment. If they want to change business and make sure from now on when we mandate things on local governments back home we either provide the money or we do not mandate it, vote against this amendment. It is that simple.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I want to correct the Record. I did not say that the provision to have a point of order against the mandate is not in this bill; it is. What is not in this bill is the opt-out for local governments, which was contained in the Condit bill last year, which the League of Cities wrote to the gentleman and all of us about, and which the gentleman from Virginia quoted on the floor tonight. That provision is not in H.R. 5. It was in the Condit bill last year.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, would the gentleman yield for a second?

Mr. TAUZIN. Reclaiming my time, let me assure the gentleman the League of Cities campaigned that the opt-out provision applied to the former bill introduced in the last Congress by my good friend, the gentleman from California [Mr. Condit], who led this effort. It does not apply to H.R. 5; that provision is not in the bill.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend for yielding me this time. I too have read the Contract With America. I want to tell my friend on the other side, while it did talk about doing all of this in 100 days, it did not mention 100 nights; and this may take more than 100 nights if we continually debate the same issue over and over again and again. The issue is not the merits of a particular Federal program. You can bring to this floor an amendment that tries to exempt the most meritorious of Federal mandates. That is not the issue. That is not the issue at all. The issue is whether or not in the future this Congress decides to continue mandating programs upon local governments and State governments, whether we believe in those mandates or not enough to fund them. And if we do not believe in them enough to fund them, this legislation asked us to think seriously about whether we ought to mandate them in the first place. That is what this is all about. The reason why my good friend Gary Condit rose to the floor tonight is, this has been his issue for some many years. And the reason why so many Democrats are rising in opposition to all of these amendments that address indeed good and meritorious programs is because to exempt these programs with the coverage of this act is to say in the future it is OK to continue mandating whatever program they think is important and necessary on State and local government and worry about somebody else raising the money to pay for them. Let me tell you the taxpayers of America have had enough of this business of one government telling another government what to do and also instructing another government to raise their taxes to pay for it. That is wrong, it ought to end. That is what this unfunded mandate bill will end and we ought to adopt it right tonight.

Mr. TAUZIN. My time has expired, but I will agree with the gentleman.

Mr. TAUZIN. If I have additional time, I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, for much of the 103d Congress we were occupied with concerns over the Federal budget deficit; we debated numerous and varied ideas to limit spending or raise revenue or accept some combinations of the two. The common goal has been to reduce the deficit--a deficit that both liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats, see as a threat to our national economic health and long-term stability. We grappled with constitutional amendments to gain a mandatory balanced budget and each appropriation bill seems to bring new attempts to impose generic limits. We saw bills to cut spending across the board, to target programs ranging from the tea tasters to the B1 bomber, all in an effort to get the deficit under control. Through all this, Mr. Speaker, we have not utilized the most effective resource this Nation has to accomplish this critical task. We have not given the American voter a tangible stake in this Country's financial progress. The National Dividend Plan [NDP], an idea born in the fifties in the mind and heart of John J. Perry, Jr., and which I have introduced as H.R. 430, does just that. The NDP doesn't just encourage citizen involvement--involvement is guaranteed through the sharing of the Federal profits of corporate enterprise. This profit sharing is achieved by redirecting revenue collected from the corporate income tax from Federal coffers directly back to those who generated it: The American labor force. This would be done only in years when the budget is balanced or in surplus, giving all voting citizens a direct stake in the outcome of the Federal budgeting process. John Perry is a successful businessman and philanthropist. He recently wrote of the NDP and I want to share his thoughts with my colleagues. I hope it will help persuade each of you to join me in this effort. The National Dividend Plan: It's Time (By John H. Perry, Jr.) ``It's spending, stupid!'' For Fiscal Year 1996, the President's budget proposes spending of $1.518 trillion--that's $2,880,000 every minute of every day. And we will pile up an additional $176 billion of debt even while we are paying net interest of $198.8 billion on our existing national debt of $4.6 trillion. Think of it, how would you spend $48,000 a second next year? More importantly, how could you do that knowing that it adds $335,000 a minute to your debt even while you pay $378,000 a minute in interest on existing debt. If, resorting to the sport metaphor which dominates much political discussion these days, it's ``Three strikes and you're out!'' why is the hottest debate topic on Capitol Hill these days the Balanced Budget Constitutional Amendment? We're already out of the box. Congress swung--and missed--with the Budget Impoundment and Control Act, it swung and missed again with Gramm-Rudman- Hollings, and then, called strike three--the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, not only did spending continue, but taxes were increased. Members of the Congress, House and Senate, are again earnestly discussing the need for discipline in spending, but build accounting devices into a proposed Constitutional Amendment which will also provide loopholes for minorities who would on the one hand expand revenue and on the other limit spending. Instead of recognizing the futility of 535 Members of Congress trying to restrain themselves from doing what 260 million Americans want them to do, it's time that we create an environment in which 260 million people demand that the 535 do what needs to be done. The National Dividend Plan provides not only the opportunity, but also the demand. After forty years ``in the wilderness,'' it is an idea whose time has surely come. In 1952, having found some success for myself as I pursued the American dream, I proposed a program by which the public revenue from the profits of the industrial might of America-- Federal corporate income tax revenues--be returned directly to the people of America, the source of that might. It was, for its day, a radical national ``employee stock ownership plan.'' In a simpler time, a time of only marginal deficits, and occasional surpluses , it was just a way to ``invest'' each voting citizen with a stake in increasing the economic might of the nation--emphasizing American industry--and by participating in the political process--registered voters would become actors in ``growing'' America. The National Dividend Plan is majestic in its simplicity: 1. Create a National Dividend Trust Fund, financed primarily by Federal income taxes on corporate profits and capital gains taxes; distribute the revenues from the Fund, quarterly, equally to all registered voters, tax-free 2. Impose a five-year spending freeze on the Federal government as the Fund is established and adjustments are made in Federal budgeting. 3. To eliminate, and restrain, Federal deficits, provide that no distributions from the Trust Fund be made to individuals until the Federal budget is in surplus--because each registered citizen-voter is equally entitled to Fund distributions, each citizen, rich or poor, becomes equally vested with an interest in critically weighing Federal programming. 4. Eliminate the double taxation of corporate dividends for stockholders. 5. Freeze the corporate tax at current rates to provide economic stability. Polls have consistently shown results which indicate that the American public recognizes the need to limit spending and to balance our national budget. Individuals know that they must balance their checkbooks or face declining living standards and limited options for future activity. At the same time. political realities have encouraged legislators to respond to special interest constituencies rather than to make the tough choices necessary to live within our means. The National Dividend Plan, by giving every registered voter a stake in controlling Federal spending, will enforce discipline where it belongs: in the relationship between voters and their voices in Washington. Without a meaningful incentive for voters to demand discipline in Federal spending on the part of legislators, legislators have no incentive to practice meaningful discipline. More to the point, since a properly established National Dividend Plan would eliminate deficit spending within a few years, a five year period is built into the legislation, the American voter becomes a stakeholder in the economic success of America's business enterprise. Buying American becomes not only a statement of faith in America's businesses and industry, it also gives each voter a return on his or her investment of time and energy to the success of our nation's productive enterprise. And, because America will become more productive it will continue to be the most successful exporter of national goods and services in the world. Finally, of course, it is important to understand that, while the proceeds of the National Dividend are not taxable, the earned income of citizens is. A vibrant economy will continue to generate Federal funds to meet truly national needs--and the growth of business and industry generated by increases in productivity and the competitiveness of American goods and services will mean that America's Federal enterprise can grow as the nation grows, and even meet important new needs. But the practice of responding to special interests, ``oiling'' the hundreds of squeaky wheels that now make up not only our Federal programs but the way that we legislate, will have to pass the ``means'' test: Is it worth it if it means that my dividend is reduced? Some demands will meet that test: certainly challenges to our national sovereignty or national interests around the world which may demand defense expenditures, unusual events such as the disasters which have occasionally resulted in our people demonstrating that we are the most compassionate nation on earth, and other events which may call on our enlightened self-interest to meet out national interest. America is a nation built on a free economy, but its economy is no longer free--it is captive to the 35 years of deficits since the last balanced budget. Only the people of America, whose self-interest and generosity generated the budgetary nightmare we now face wake up and bring a bright new day. The National Dividend Plan gives America's voters not only the opportunity to continue to generously meet national needs, but the self-interest to demand that those needs meet the test of being measured by the light of day. And legislators, who now seek shelter in the ``discipline'' of a hazy Constitutional Amendment will find the glow of a new day of enlightened voter participation in the budget process. H.R. 430, legislation implementing a National Dividend Plan, is before the 104th Congress. It's time that we as voters demand of our legislators that they not only return to the citizenry a means by which to measure their economic management of America, but also a share of the means which measures the economic strength of America.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, yesterday as we began this debate on the balanced budget amendment, we heard a lot of discussion about alternatives, including the possibility of a capital budget amendment, the idea being that, ``Well, American families borrow money, don't they? And they get to sign mortgages, don't they? Why couldn't we here in Washington continue to borrow money and sign mortgages like American families do, and then have a balanced budget built around that concept?'' There is only one problem with that theory. That theory is based upon the notion that American families do that, so why not have the Government do that? The difference is that when American families sign a mortgage, when they buy a home or when they buy a car and sign on the dotted line on that mortgage agreement, they agree to pay the debt back. Here in Washington, when we mortgage the future, when we accumulate debt year after year after year and pile it on, there is no agreement ever to pay it back. All we ever do is pay the interest on the loan. I ask you, ``Wouldn't you love to be a family that could borrow at will from the bank and never be required to do anything more than pay the interest?'' Who in America gets that right except the Federal Government? Who in America gets away with that kind of financing except the Federal Government? It just does not work that way. We cannot continue to pile up debt and think we can only pay the interest when the interest is eating up the money we need to spend on decent and good American policies for our own people and expect that this debt is not one day going to cripple us. No American family can do it, not under any capital budget plan that anybody has suggested to this Congress in this debate. It is for that reason that I hope Members will join with us and support the Barton-Hyde-Geren-Tauzin constitutional amendment that does three very important things: It says, first, ``That we have to balance the budget, and we have to get about it now and do it soon''; second, it says, ``Do it without taxing us anymore unless you do it with a supermajority. Don't tax us anymore, please, because we can't take it''; and, finally it says, ``Quit borrowing. Quit borrowing money on the backs of our children, end this deficit financing, and get us back into a position where we are doing the honest thing, spending only the money we were sent up here to spend.''

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Let me first thank my friend, the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hyde], for assuming my position as the second sponsor of the Barton-Tauzin amendment which has been an amendment before this body for many years. I can think of no finer gentleman to assume this role in this new majority than my friend, Mr. Hyde. I also want to congratulate my friend, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Pete Geren], for the role he is playing in the effort to pass the Barton-Hyde-Geren- Tauzin--many Members--bipartisan amendment to the U.S. Constitution, a required balanced budget and to require it in the right way. I want to make just three points tonight: In this age of cyberspace and high-speed technology in communications there is a word that is very current and very popular right now called a new way of seeing things. It is a paradigm, it is called, a new way of looking at things, a new way of seeing things, a new order of things. The old paradigm here in the U.S. Congress and in America has been very simple. People elected Members to go to Congress to get back as much of their tax dollars as they could, and bring them back home and spend them at home, and let me tell my colleagues that paradigm has worked wonderfully. We have all done a marvelous job of that. Every one of us has been extraordinarily good at coming to Washington, bringing back our taxpayers' dollars back to home and spending them at home. In fact we have done such a wonderful job of it that we spend a great deal of money more back home, more than our taxpayers sent to Washington, DC. It is called a deficit. It is called a debt. We have operated under this old paradigm for many, many years now, and we have riddled our country with debt as a result while we have brought the bacon home. I think the message of the last few elections has been very simple. The message of the last few elections has been to cut it out. It is time for a new paradigm. It is time for us to elect Representatives to Washington who will stop spending money we do not have. The new paradigm is to come up here and balance the budget. I ask, ``How do you do it? Do you do it by borrowing in a capital account, as some have recommended?'' Well, this Government borrows. Unlike most families in America, Mr. Chairman, we borrow and never pay the debt. The debt just piles up. We never pay the mortgage. It piles up on us and our children. Second, do we balance the budget by raising taxes on Americans again, and again, and again? That is the easy way, but they are telling us to cut spending first, and I say to my colleagues, ``If you want to cut spending first to balance the budget instead of taxing the dickens out of the people at home, you need to vote for the Barton-Hyde-Geran- Tauzin amendment to the Constitution.''

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. If I can reclaim my time, the gentleman is not going to get away with characterizing my words or my philosophy. I do not and have not said that polluters should not be responsible.

Mr. TAUZIN. What I have said, Mr. Chairman, is when we make a standard that is good for all of the people of country and that requires us to pass a law affecting all of the States, we ought to have the courage to put up the money to carry it out, as we do in Louisiana. When we set a policy protecting something in Louisiana, we very carefully make sure the persons responsible for polluting actually pay for it. I do not consider taking my land away to protect a wetland, by the way, an instance of pollution. I consider that an instance of good public policy that ought to be compensated for.

Mr. TAUZIN. If the gentleman will let me complete the answer. If on the other hand something is occurring in Louisiana that does not go across State lines and Louisiana wants to regulate----

Mr. TAUZIN. If you really want to use my property, if you really need my property to accomplish this national goal of wetlands protection or endangered species protection, my position is you as a people, all of us as a people ought to be willing to compensate me for that property taken from me. I ought not to have to bear that cost as a little landowner in my own State. So when a national policy is designed to protect something we all need protected cross State lines, this law, as it is now proposed, and as we should pass it, should simply say if we want to do that, we can and we should. We simply ought to put the money up to accomplish those purposes.

Mr. TAUZIN. If this gentleman had written the law, I promise I would have applied it to private mandates as well as public mandates. I think we should. I like the part of the law that says we are going to evaluate the effects on private individuals and businesses. I think we probably ought to someday decide here in Washington that we are not going to create mandates out there for the good of the public at large that we make anyone individually pay for by themselves. For example, I am fighting, as Members know, a battle to make sure private property owners do not have to bear the burden of wetland protection or endangered species protection.