Bill Thomas

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the chairman of the Subcommittee on Social Security for the colloquy, and I want to praise him for his continued vigilance in not allowing people to play with the trust fund as was proposed by a prominent Senator just today.

Mr. THOMAS. Especially when they are arguing that we need to do this very risky scheme, jeopardizing the ability to be accurate, and committing enormous general funds to the trust fund to replace the hole in the trust fund that would bring insolvency from 2017 to 2006, and argue that they feel they need to do it for stimulus purposes. There are a whole lot better ways to stimulate the economy. The legislation passed by the House, the discussion between, just as recently today, a moderate group of Senators, both Democrats and Republicans and the President, none of those discussions involved risky schemes like this exposure of the payroll tax.

Mr. THOMAS. In addition, of course, not everybody has the luxury of a large staff being paid to manage payroll and computers to deal with it. So we do not know the uneven burden that is going to be placed on employers who would now have to add a temporary change to the difficult, ongoing structure that is necessary. Of course, that does not even address the precedent of taking an enormous amount of general fund money and then moving it over to cover the losses out of the trust fund in the first place.

Mr. THOMAS. Of course, it does not even address the game playing that would go on if we were able to set up a system and we were losing $40 billion out of the trust fund. We would have employees negotiating with employers where particular benefits or amounts were going to be given so that they would just happen to fall within this holiday period, further complicating an attempt to make this system work.

Mr. THOMAS. Apart from the obvious in immediate lost to the trust funds, there has been some concern about the ability to execute the proposal. The loss of funds is bad enough, but when we strip it to the essentials of the proposal, those organizations which are charged with the responsibility of dealing with the way in which payroll taxes are paid and accounting procedures are dealt with, the American Payroll Association, the American Society for Payroll Management, the National Payroll Reporting Consortium and the Society for Human Resource Management, all agree that it would take 6 months or more to try to get it correct in making this scheme work, but they had no guarantee that it would, in fact, be sound.

Mr. THOMAS. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to thank the chairman of the Subcommittee on Social Security for bringing this particular resolution to the floor. My concern goes beyond the particulars of this resolution, but clearly underscored in all of the discussion that we have about Social Security is the sensitivity in terms of the money that people pay into the payroll tax. That is why I was stunned today to hear a prominent Member of the other body announce on the floor that he was willing to accept an idea that would mean an immediate $40 billion loss in payroll taxes to the trust funds that we have all showed we have great concern about.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, most others would oppose this if they had told us what was in it during their 5 minutes; but that usually is my job, to tell people what is in the motion to recommit. First of all, that is the motion to recommit, and I do have to compliment the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) in which he utilized patriotism by condemning others using patriotism to urge that my colleagues support his motion to recommit. Nicely done. What the minority leader said was that this position contains all the right issues. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin), who is the author of this, says that it moves in the right direction; and in fact, the key phrase from the gentleman from Michigan is it says it is how we should shape our world. I want my colleagues to think about a document which the minority asks us to vote for, which more than 75 pages consists of mandates, of requirements that others must meet. To give my colleagues the flavor of the 75 pages of mandates, we only have to get to page 6 when it says any agreement that comes back must maintain bona fide food aid programs. Now, what is a bona fide food aid program? Whatever it is, the agreement between whoever country works with us must maintain a bona fide food aid program. My colleagues can imagine 75 pages of maintaining, to preserve, to promote, to eliminate, to achieve, to explore, to develop, to identify, to clarify and on and on, that an agreement has to meet these because they are mandates, and if they do not meet them, guess what? There is a structure that will judge whether or not those mandates have been met. First of all, to get an agreement through Congress in this package, requires that my colleagues vote not once, remember, normally, this is called Fast Track, that we do not vote once, that we do not have to vote twice, but we have to vote three times; and every time we have to achieve a majority. On those 75 pages of mandates, this is the structure to determine whether or not the agreement has met the particular mandate. It takes nine Members of the House and nine Members of the Senate, and it constructs them so that the nine and the nine just happen to be nine Democrats and nine Republicans, and if they hold their party line, if the AFL-CIO is able to hold the party line, any agreement goes down because to get an agreement not only requires us to go through those three separate votes, but we then have to on any one of these 75 pages of mandates, have to get a majority of that structure to go forward. I know that sometimes bringing countries together over the negotiating table is difficult to do; and that is why, in committee, when this was offered as a substitute, with 17 Democrats on the committee, the leadership of the Committee on Ways and Means, laying this in front of their Democratic colleagues, did not get 17 vote, did not get 16 votes, did not get 14 vote, did not get 13 votes. They were able to muster 12 of the 17 in support of this; and once my colleagues know what is inside of it, we begin to wonder about the 12 that voted for it. That is why they would not spend one minute of their time telling us what is in this document; but if my colleagues examine it, what it is is a guarantee that unless and until one or two people's vision over there of how we shape our world is in each and every document, we will not have a trade agreement. That is not the way a trade agreement arrangement should work. I want to compliment the Democrats that voted against it in Ways and Means. I want to compliment the Democrats who will vote down the motion to recommit, and I want to compliment all of those who will support Trade Promotion Authority for the President.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), the chairman of the Committee on Rules, which shares jurisdiction over trade packages, including this one. (Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Combest), the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture.

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

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe), someone who has been a stalwart on trade. (Mr. KOLBE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield such time as she may consume to gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson), a member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Watts), the chairman of the Republican Conference and someone who understands that this bill is about jobs, about helping the unemployed and, for the first time in the history of a trade agreement, includes labor and the environment.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Jefferson).

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Any bill of this magnitude that comes to the floor will always have a history of would have, could have, should have; but what is more difficult about this bill than most is that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have been forced to diminish the contribution from my colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. Dooley), the very brave and knowledgeable members of the Committee on Ways and Means, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner), and the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Jefferson). Both the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner) and the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Jefferson) are members of the Subcommittee on Trade of the Committee on Ways and Means, that subcommittee that deals on an ongoing, everyday basis with this issue. They are among the most knowledgeable in the House. But because some of my friends on the other side are so driven to deny the President the use of this legislative tool, that somehow the fact that the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin), working with the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter), someone who is not on the Committee on Ways and Means, is to be held up as an example of the way we should operate, but when members of the Committee on Ways and Means get together to work on this problem, that is a model to blast, to argue it is not bipartisan, to argue the product is not any good and whether they mean to or not. I took this time at the beginning, regardless of what the vote is at the end, to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Dooley), to thank the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Jefferson), to thank the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tanner), and to thank their staffs. For almost 5 months we have worked on what was said to be an impossible project, to resolve the differences that drove us not to provide this power to the President previously. I voted for that. I will vote it for any President, but to trash my colleagues who are powerful enough in terms of their belief that something needed to be done, for my colleagues to carry the day by defeating this is unworthy of any Member. Attack me, I understand it. I am one of the targets and the symbols; but do not, do not, do not derogate the contribution of those Democrats who were strong enough and who believed enough in this to work together in an intellectually honest way, to produce a product that ironically is better than any product that has ever been brought to this floor in a number of ways, which we will talk about. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 306, I call up the bill (H.R. 3005) to extend trade authorities procedures with respect to reciprocal trade agreements, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ramstad), a member of the committee. (Mr. RAMSTAD asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve my time.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time, the assumption being we have no further speakers.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson).

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson).

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 3008 and that, as a matter of notice, H.R. 3129 will reappear on the floor under a rule.

Mr. THOMAS

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. The name of this legislation is trade adjustment assistance. It is not undifferentiated unemployment compensation. There is another whole set of statutes, procedures, and funding to deal with unemployment in general. This measure's title is Trade Adjustment Assistance. What we have done is to expand this bill to cover those individuals who, through no fault of their own, in a way in which they can show a nexus, and the gentleman from Michigan is entirely correct, that the loss of their job was a result of a contribution importantly tied to the September 11 event. The gentleman then went on to complain about a number of other factors in which people are not eligible for unemployment in general. Not that it is tied to trade or the September 11 event, but that he is concerned about, in general, the failure of the unemployment insurance program to reach out to more people. We are going to have ample opportunity to deal with that in a larger context. The President has spoken to that issue. We have voted on that issue in this body in the stimulus package, and we have said we are willing to go far beyond what had been offered previously. That is not what is in front of us. And I will repeat my understanding of the question of the gentleman from Washington. Because of the way in which the tragedy on September 11 occurred, the government ordered all planes grounded. The airlines suffered significant financial losses that resulted in the release of employees that otherwise would not have been released, and it resulted in the cancellation of airplane purchase contracts that otherwise would not have occurred. What we are expected to believe is that the Secretary of Labor would have great difficulty in associating those two events, the two events that the gentleman from Washington is concerned would not be covered by this legislation; that the Secretary of Labor would say neither of those qualify under this legislation. I will tell the gentleman from Washington, I believe they do, and I will do everything in my power to make sure that the Secretary of labor says that those who lost their jobs because airplane contracts were canceled by airlines who had a shrinking in revenue because the government said they could not fly, and they released employees because of that same circumstance, certainly would be able to say that the loss of their jobs and the events associated with September 11 contributed importantly to the loss of those jobs. Those hurdles are not difficult ones to overcome. Beyond that, we need to continue to work together, quit haranguing, and make sure that people who are currently unemployed, and who will become unemployed because the House has acted and the Senate has not on the larger questions, need to be preserved for another day. On this measure, I urge my colleagues to vote ``aye.'' It is better than it has ever been before.