Bill Thomas

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I will tell my colleagues I will not take 5 minutes. We have heard a lot of numbers thrown around. Let me provide my colleagues an accurate picture of exactly what is going on. As of September of last year, granted it was September of 2001, there was $7.4 billion of TANF money under my committee's jurisdiction that had not been spent. In this legislation we said, you can use whatever is left for child care. As a matter of fact, if you examine this legislation and you utilize TANF money and if the comments of the gentleman from Connecticut and the gentlewoman from California are accurate and the States wish to use the TANF money for child care, they have available $170 billion for child care if they choose to make that decision. Now, what my colleagues are saying is that they want to put $11 billion additionally in the bill. What my colleagues need to know is that there is $24 billion in this bill already. What we have advocated is taking it to $27.4 billion. They are advocating taking it to $35 billion. The difference between our position and their position? Ours is paid for and theirs is not. If my colleagues want to fund a program that is not paid for, vote for their motion to recommit. If my colleagues want to have a responsible and appropriate program that is paid for, vote ``no'' on the motion to recommit and vote for the passage of the bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Clerk have the authority to make technical and conforming changes in the engrossment of H.R. 4737, the bill just passed.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield the remainder of the time to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte), a member of the Committee on Agriculture, who with their contributions in terms of the food stamp component of this bill have made a significant contribution to make sure that Americans in need have those needs met. (Mr. GOODLATTE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would note that the gentleman from New York voted ``no'' in 1996; and as a matter of fact, quoted in the People's Weekly World, he said that if Clinton signs the bill, he would be, quote, ``throwing 1 million children into poverty.'' I have here the most recent edition of the Governor of New York's statement on welfare in New York. It says on page 33: ``Teen pregnancy rates and teen births have declined. Child support has increased and fewer children are living in poverty today than in 1994.'' What we did was right in 1996, and what we are doing is right today, notwithstanding the gentleman from New York's (Mr. Rangel) vote against us apparently both times. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I guess one of the things we could do is run an auction on bills like this in which each provision goes to the highest bidder. If that is the case, our friends on the other side of the aisle would win every time, that is, as long as we were using Monopoly money. But if we were using real money in terms of having to pay for what it is that we say we are offering to the American people, then the proposal that came out of our committees that we have just finished discussing fits within the budget that this House passed. The program that was partially outlined by the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin) adds up to about $70 billion over 10 years. There is no money provided for it. The gentleman got up after virtually every speaker and talked about an unfunded mandate. What the gentleman will not talk about is the fact that they have over a billion dollars imposed upon States in their proposal requiring States to meet an inflation number in the States. That produces a mandate on the States of more than a billion dollars. So what we really want to do as we discuss this is not who is able to stack up the most Monopoly money in front of someone as to show how much they care about this issue, how much of this is real, how much does it have a chance to become law, and how much does it fit within the other spending patterns that we have already committed ourselves to. Mr. Speaker, that is the real question, and there this substitute is fatally flawed. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), the chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Mr. THOMAS. There are, I can assure you, and I represent the poorest. And agricultural counties by nature of the cyclical work tend to be the poorest and have the highest unemployment and low literacy. Child care needs are very high. That is why we put the provisions in the bill. But we will emphasize that the States should respond with a rural program as well as an urban one. Rather than assuming that they will do that, that language will be in the bill.

Mr. THOMAS. Reclaiming my time, in response to the gentlewoman I agree with her. Although we often talk about it, there is no reference in the legislation. Notwithstanding the fact the substitute will not pass, the underlying bill, I will pledge to the gentlewoman when we go to conference, representing one of the poorest rural counties in California.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, just to make sure that everybody understands what this vote is, a way of looking at it would be to vote yes or no as a referendum on the motion for the committee to rise and those who sponsored it. If Members like the motion to rise, vote yes; if they did not like what happened, vote no.

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

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. I think all of us need to thank the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Stump), the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services, because as is his usual custom, he would never say that he put in more hours than anyone, worked harder, and has delivered an excellent and quality product.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize the fact that today is the 87th anniversary of the beginning of the Armenian genocide that began under the direction of the Ottoman Empire. From 1915 until 1923, 1.5 million Armenians were murdered and another 500,000 were forced into exile in Russia, ending a period of 2,500 years of an Armenian presence in their historic homeland. In addition, Armenian religious, political, and intellectual leaders from Istanbul were arrested and exiled--silencing the leading representatives of the Armenian community in the Ottoman Empire. Today, we pause to remember and honor the victims of this terrible period in human history. Like the Jewish and Cambodian holocausts, and more recently, the Serbian ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, the Armenian genocide was terrible and morally reprehensible. Thus, today I honor those Armenians who were killed, arrested, exiled, and otherwise mistreated, and I remind my colleagues and the world that we must never forget what happened during that terrible period in history. Furthermore, we must reaffirm our resolve to ensure that no people will ever again be the victims of such a mass genocide.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. THOMAS. Was the minority leader's statement accurate? Is there a vote on the motion to recommit?

Mr. THOMAS. There will be no motion to recommit. The minority leader's statement was inaccurate.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 390, I call up from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 586) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide that the exclusion from gross income for foster care payments shall also apply to payments by qualified placement agencies, and for other purposes, with a Senate amendment thereto, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, just so we stay on this planet in terms of our rhetoric, six times between March and May, this House passed tax reduction bills. Every one of them was permanent, including on April 4, H.R. 8, which repealed the death or estate tax. That was permanent. It was the United States Senate, and please stop me when I have violated any rule in talking about the other body, that produced this document which was the only time the House voted not to make the tax cuts permanent, and that was a bill generated through a conference. This House voted to make it permanent, and we are trying to do it again.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. McCrery). (Mr. McCRERY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks, and include extraneous material.)

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I repeat my statement: There will be no trust fund monies spent from Social Security. To underscore that, it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Social Security. Prior to that, I ask unanimous consent to yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Hulshof), and that he be allowed to control said time.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. I would like to place in front of the House the bill that the gentleman just placed his information on the Record. I did that for the purpose of making sure that notwithstanding the Speaker's response, guided by the Parliamentarian, this individual from California believes the bill has to be in front of us if you are going to place unanimous consent remarks on the bill that is in front of us.

Mr. THOMAS. As long as it is yet to be considered. The gentleman said ``the bill before us.''

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. THOMAS. How can the gentleman from Washington revise and extend his remarks on the bill before us when the bill has not been laid before us?

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, perhaps there is someone who is wondering how such extreme opposite statements could be made and both be true. I invite them to take a look at a section of the Constitution which is called the ``speech and debate clause.'' There, any Member of Congress is protected from any of the normal libel, slander, or other penalties for not speaking the truth. That is why, in the context of debate on the floor, we can have such wild and exaggerated statements which have no basis in fact and are not true, not only spoken but repeated by Member after Member. What we just heard from the gentleman from Washington and what we might like to know is that in this legislation it says, ``The Social Security and Medicare trust fund shall be held harmless.'' Not one penny will come out of the trust fund. In addition to that, if Members are looking for fundamental debate between the parties, I think they have seen it. What they are using are scare tactics about Social Security and Medicare to make sure that the people do not get some of their hard-earned dollars back. What they are saying is they know better than the people, and what they say is when the time is right, they may let people have it back. It is kind of like when we go to a bank, and if we do not need the loan, we get one. How are we going to grow the economy, have these people make the decisions about economic and industrial questions, or Americans? Republicans believe the way we grow the pie, the way we provide more over this decade and the next, is to get more of Americans' money in their hands and let them make the decisions. It has worked for 200 years. They are concerned that it will work and that more people will understand the concepts and ideas of opportunity and power. Allow us to continue to grow as a country. About the fact that we need opposite debate or bills or amendments, this is pretty simple: The tax cut is either going to be permanent or it is not. We are going to hear a lot of rhetoric. That is the basic question: Do we want it to be permanent, or not? It is pretty simple. We have a board behind us. We have voting boxes. They vote yes or they vote no. This is not a complicated issue. Either people get their money back guaranteed over time so the country can grow, or they listen to them.