Mel Watt

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I have yielded time to several people, and I want to thank them for debating this issue. I wanted to accommodate their schedules, but now I want to kind of set the framework for this debate a little bit. I want to thank my colleagues, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Canady) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham), for already during the debate on the rule and the debate on the bill making it clear that this is not about one side being patriotic and the other side being unpatriotic. I do not think there is a single Member of the Congress of the United States that I would dare call unpatriotic. We all are patriots. We all believe in our country. This is an honest dispute about how we reflect that patriotism. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Canady) has gone out of his way, particularly this year, to set a framework for us to have this debate in a way that we can honor each other and honor our differences on this issue. And I was never more proud of the process than I was at the hearing that we had on this proposed constitutional amendment when I saw my colleagues, the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham), a decorated hero, and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Gilchrest), a Republican also and a decorated hero, on opposite sides of this important issue. This is not about one side being patriotic and the other side being unpatriotic. And I hope that throughout the course of this debate today and tomorrow my colleagues will keep that fact in mind and not stoop to calling one side unpatriotic or not make this about who is patriotic. This is not about that. I want to correct my good friend, the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham), who earlier in the debate suggested that this was about liberals versus conservatives. It is not about that either, Madam Speaker. If we look at the lineup of the members of the Supreme Court who decided this issue we will not find the liberals lined up on one side of the issue and the conservatives lined up on the other side of the issue. The members who joined in the opinion to declare the burning of the flag a protected expression under the first amendment were Justices Brennan, Marshal, Blackmun, Scalia and Kennedy. Three of those five justices were Republican justices, Republican appointees, to the court. And I do not think there is anybody who is running around these days saying that Justice Scalia is a liberal. So this is not about liberals versus conservatives. It is about how we believe the First Amendment protects us, and what expressions we believe ought to be protected, and how we play out our own patriotism. Now, I want to acknowledge that the very first time I came to the Congress of the United States and debated this amendment I did not believe what I just said. I was one of those people who came to the Congress saying I do not know how anybody who supports the Constitution of the United States could not believe that the First Amendment to the Constitution is protective of somebody who expresses themselves by burning the flag. But over the last four sessions of Congress, and this is the fourth time we will have debated this issue in the four terms that I have been in the Congress of the United States, what I have started to do is I have started to listen to my colleagues, like the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Canady), who are on the opposite side of this issue. What I have seen is that people on our side of this issue have started to listen to the other side, and I have heard them start to listen to us. And where we are today is a product of listening to each other, because we now understand that a patriot like the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham) can disagree with a patriot like the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Gilchrest) on this important issue. This is not about who is patriotic. We are going to recognize today that anybody who comes to this well, Republican or Democrat, regardless of which side of this issue they are on, is going to be recognized to engage in the debate. We are not censoring anybody. If somebody wants some time, I welcome them to come and state their position on this proposed constitutional amendment. So this is not about patriotism, it is not about liberal versus conservative, it is not about Republican versus Democrat. It is about how we learned what the first amendment was about, and how we learned what patriotism was about, and what we think the Constitution protects, and what we think ought to be unprotected by the Constitution. That is what this debate will be about. So I want to right here welcome and encourage my colleagues to come to the floor, debate this important proposal, tell us what their experiences have been with the first amendment and how it gets applied to them. I invite my colleagues to tell us what their experiences have been regarding patriotism, and tell us what their experiences have been regarding liberty and honoring the liberties that we have in this country. And if my colleagues come to the floor and engage in the debate with that attitude, this will be one of the most powerful debates ever conducted on the floor of the House. I want people to come and debate this important issue, and I want them to bring their stories. I want to start by telling my colleagues my story. I went to law school, and some people say it is the best law school in the country, although I am sure we could generate a serious amount of debate on that.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul). (Mr. PAUL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), the ranking member of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, I yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Ackerman).

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thought the gentleman was going to spring up, because we went to the same law school. So it is even about people from the same law school disagreeing on this, as my colleagues will see. I thought I knew the Constitution. I had studied it. By the time I got to the third year of law school, I thought nobody could teach me anything else. And then I went into the practice of law in a small law firm that was known for its civil rights reputation. One day I got a call from my senior law partner and he asked me to go down to another county and represent some people who had been charged with disturbing the peace and resisting arrest and various and sundry other offenses that people get charged with when they engage in demonstrations, and I said, fine. So I went traipsing off to the next county, and what I found when I started to investigate was that a group of Native Americans, with tomahawks and other such kinds of instruments, had gathered in front of a school to demonstrate and to express their position on an issue. And I kept inquiring about what the issue was, and I found that those Native Americans were there demonstrating because they did not want to go to school with black students. They did not want their children to go to school with black students. Well, I was black then, I am still black, and I said to myself, now, I do not know if I want to be here representing these people who are demonstrating against going to school with black kids. And I called up my senior law partner and I said, ``Julius, why did you send me down here to represent these people knowing what they were demonstrating about?'' And he asked me one simple question. He said, ``Do you not believe in the first amendment to the Constitution?'' It stopped me dead in my tracks. I will never ever forget that question that my senior law partner asked me on that occasion. It brought home to me, after all the education I had gotten about what the first amendment meant, the book learning, what the first amendment was really about. It is about tolerating the views and defending the rights of people to express those views even if they disagree with the views we hold. That is what our First Amendment is all about. It did not come as any surprise to me later in my legal practice to find that my law firm went to represent the Ku Klux Klan. There was not a single person in my law firm who believed in anything that the Ku Klux Klan stood for. But when it came time to defend their right to demonstrate and express themselves, we were right in court there saying we may not agree with the ideas they express, but we will defend until the end their right to express them. I am not here today, my colleagues, to defend people who burn the flag. I abhor flag burners. But I am here to defend the Constitution of the United States. I am here to defend the First Amendment. I am here to defend the freedom of expression. I am here to defend the right of people who have views that are contrary to mine to express those views and to be heard in a democracy that we call America. I believe that is what the First Amendment and our Bill of Rights is about. The Bill of Rights was not put in place by the majority to protect the majority. It was put in place to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority. And when we diminish that, we diminish our constitutional government. Now, my colleagues are going to be put in this debate to a clear choice. I want to applaud the Committee on Rules, I do not get to do that very often, for giving us the opportunity to exercise that clear choice. Because the underlying proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States that my friend and colleague from Yale University also supports reads like this. It says, ``The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.'' My colleague says he does not object to the First Amendment, he objects to the Supreme Court's interpretation of the First Amendment. That is one choice that we all have to vote on the amendment that has been proposed by my colleague the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Canady). We are going to have an opportunity tomorrow to vote on an alternative. It is an alternative that I will offer to this House to be voted on, and it reads like this. It says, ``Not inconsistent with the First Article of Amendment to this Constitution, the Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.'' So if they believe that the First Amendment is sacred, if they are honoring the First Amendment, if they believe that this new guy on the block, the new proposed amendment, is important but they want it to be interpreted subordinate and in conformity with the First Amendment to the Constitution that is currently on the books, I am going to ask my colleagues to vote for the substitute, then, because I believe in the First Amendment. Now, I am not going to say that those who believe that the First Amendment is different than my interpretation of it are not patriots. I would not dare call my good colleague the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham) unpatriotic. I have seen him. He is a wonderful patriot. But I submit to this body that we must not put in the Constitution an amendment that we believe to be at odds with the First Amendment. And if we do, we must make it clear that the First Amendment is to be the ruling amendment in our Constitution. It has served us for over 200 years, and it will continue to serve us. But it will do so only if we allow it. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood) for yielding the time, and I apologize for being late to get into the debate. Mr. Chairman, this amendment I am sure is going to pass almost unanimously, and I intend to vote for it. I think it is a good idea, but I did want to point out that this approach is just absolutely inconsistent with what we did yesterday under the McCollum amendment, when we federalized juvenile crime on the punishment side, and I rose on the floor yesterday to say, look, these are issues that are better dealt with at the local level. We should not be federalizing juvenile justice. We ought to be localizing juvenile justice. It is ironic that a number of the same people who will be voting for this amendment, which is a good amendment, and recognizing the fact that juvenile justice and prevention is best done at the local level, many of those same people were the folks who voted for the McCollum amendment yesterday, which essentially substantially federalized juvenile justice on the penalty side. I think that amendment was shortsighted and counterproductive and I think this amendment is a good amendment and is worthy of support. I just wish that more of my colleagues had had this same kind of States' rights spirit and local initiative spirit yesterday when we were debating the McCollum amendment, which should have failed and should have failed by the same margin that this amendment deserves to pass by.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, as difficult as we try to make this, it is not rocket science. We know what works and what does not work. Every single study that has ever been done indicates that juveniles as adults and locking them up as adults increases crime, does not decrease crime, and I thought we were here today to talk about what decreases crime and what was effective. Here is the thing. Lock up a 13-year-old with a murderer, a rapist and a robber, and guess what he will want to be when he grows up? We know what he will want to be when he grows up. He will want to be a murderer, he will want to be a rapist, and he will want to be a robber, and that is what this amendment proposes to do. It wants to treat young 13-year-old kids as adults. Every single study in America that has ever been done says it is counterproductive. This is politics and we got to quit playing politics with the futures of our children.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman yielding. Just because 400 and some people vote for something is the very reason that I am saying we are in a political position here, and sometimes we cannot afford not to vote for something, and that is why we took this sentencing process out of politics, so that we would have a reasonable and rational sentencing policy in this country. It is not that I am not emotional about it, I am emotional about it.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, would the gentleman tell me, is he proposing that we apply the same juvenile justice system at the Federal level that we are applying on Indian reservations? Is that what the gentleman is proposing, instead of allowing local communities to handle their own juvenile justice system?

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman yielding this time to me, and I rise in opposition to this amendment not because it may not be a worthwhile thing to do, to increase the offense level for such a heinous crime by five levels over what it currently is for somebody who is 13 years or younger, but for the very reason that my good friend, the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham) just alluded to or made obvious. If every time we get emotional in response to some criminal offense, we come onto the floor of the United States House of Representatives and we beat our chests and try to show America how hard we are on crime by directing that sentences be increased, what we are doing is undermining the whole integrity of our sentencing system in this country, and we end up with a hodgepodge of sentences that make absolutely no sense and make a mockery of our whole sentencing structure in this country. That is the very reason that we put in place a U.S. Sentencing Commission so that every time somebody gets murdered and we get emotional, we do not come in and make an emotional political response which undermines the orderly administration of justice in this country, and colleagues are going to see throughout this debate a number of different times where for various reasons people are going to come in and try to undermine the system that we have put in place through the United States Sentencing Commission. The reason that we have a U.S. Sentencing Commission is so that we do not have haphazard sentencing in this country, we do not end up with a hodgepodge of inconsistent, not well-thought-out sentencing for criminal offenses in this country. So it is the very reason that the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham) just articulated that impels me to rise in opposition to this amendment. We do not need to beat ourselves on the chest and show how difficult and harsh we are on crime. We have a Sentencing Commission that sets a uniform standard.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I hope my colleagues were listening carefully to the comments that were made by the gentleman from Florida (Mr. McCollum) in support of his proposed amendment. What he said is that his proposed amendment would strengthen the Federal juvenile justice system. It is that point that I want to spend my time talking about, because my question to my colleagues is: What Federal juvenile justice system is he talking about? We do not have one juvenile counselor at the Federal level. We do not have one juvenile judge at the Federal level. We do not have one juvenile facility in the Federal system. What juvenile justice system is the gentleman from Florida (Mr. McCollum) talking about? What he is talking about is federalizing juvenile justice for the first time in this country. Now, why is there no Federal juvenile justice system? For the same reason we do not have any Federal school system in this country. We do not have a Federal juvenile justice system, because, historically, throughout the whole history of this country, juvenile justice has been handled as a State and local issue. They have juvenile courts. They have juvenile judges. They have juvenile facilities. They have counselors. They deal with local juvenile issues as a local issue, which it is and should be. Local communities are closer to our juveniles and the children, just like the local school systems, are closer to juveniles and the system. So is not it ironic that my colleagues who profess to believe in States rights would come and say we are here to strengthen and take over the juvenile justice system? Let me tell my colleagues one final reason that we do not have a juvenile justice system at the Federal level, and that is that we have not done an especially good job of handling the Federal adult justice system. Here we go, saying, those of us who say that we believe in States rights, my Republican colleagues in particular, would have us now come and say we know more about juvenile justice than local communities know about it. This is a bad idea. It is a revolutionary idea. We should not march into this territory without knowing exactly what we are doing. We should reject this amendment.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I have been in this House for 7 years now, and this is the most outrageous process I have seen in the 7 years I have been here. Just before the Memorial Day break, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) and I, in the Judiciary Committee, sided with the Republicans to go through a deliberative process for this bill. Two weeks later, the same people who sat in the committee and argued that the bill should go through the deliberative judiciary process pulled the rug from under us, took it to the Committee on Rules, and are bringing the bill directly to the floor. My colleagues heard the gentleman: 178 amendments offered in the Committee on Rules, amendments that should have been debated in the deliberative process in the Committee on the Judiciary. And of the 178 amendments offered in the committee, 14 Democratic amendments made in order to be debated on the floor of the House. How can we have a deliberative process about such an important issue without deliberation? We should reject this rule and reject these bills.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to commend H. Beecher Hicks, III of Charlotte, North Carolina for serving as a distinguished White House Fellow this year. Mr. Hicks earned his BA in marketing from Morehouse College and MBA from the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flager Business School. He is an investment banker with Bank of America Corporation (formerly NationsBank Corporation) where be serves as Vice President and provides mergers and acquisitions advice to middle-market companies. While serving as assistant to the chairman of NationsBank, Mr. Hicks led the formation of the bank's vendor development program and proposed a $30 million equity-investment company focusing on urban communities. He also helped start The Investment Group of Charlotte, which invests in local firms and real estate projects and provides technical aid to entrepreneurs. Beyond his success in the private sector, Mr. Hicks serves on the Board of Directors of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Development Corporation and works with students at Johnson C. Smith University. Mr. Hicks was selected as one of 17 individuals nationwide to receive the White House Fellowship for 1998-1999. The fellowship allows outstanding citizens to participate in a once-in-a-lifetime experience by working hand-in-hand with leaders in government. Applications are chosen based on demonstration of excellence in community service, academic achievement, leadership and professional experience. It is the nation's most prestigious fellowship for public service and leadership development. As a White House fellow, Mr. Hicks has been assigned to the Corporation for National Service. In that capacity, he serves as Director of the AmeriCorps Promise Fellows Program, where he is responsible for implementing a partnership program between the AmeriCorps and America's Promise, which was founded by former White House Fellow General Colin Powell. Mr. Hicks also evaluates the effectiveness of the investment strategies for the $400 million National Community Service Trust. His other responsibilities include developing an effort to better link the Corporation with AmeriCorps members, developing a clearer national identify for the program and working with senior management on organizational, management accountability and cultural issues. Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me today in paying tribute to Mr. H. Beecher Hicks III for his service to the White House Fellows Program--a rare honor. I applaud his selection and wish him much continued success.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I want to rise very quickly in support of the Upton motion to instruct. Regardless of whether we are fighting for deficit reduction or to reduce the debt or to save Social Security or just trying to save dollars for other worthy purposes, this motion makes a lot of sense. We should not stack nonemergency items onto an emergency bill and try to boggard them through the process without giving them all of the consideration that the committee process requires. I want to congratulate the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton) on his motion. I strongly urge my colleagues to support the motion.

Mr. WATT

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, let me just advise my colleagues that these bankruptcy mills that the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran) is talking about are attorneys who provide bankruptcy services, consumer credit counseling services, many of whom are sanctioned by local governments because they provide a very valuable service in local communities. I have one in my own community of Charlotte. I was on the board of directors of this nonprofit agency which receives substantial government funds and provides a major service when people get into debt. We can characterize every single one of these people as bankruptcy mills if we want, but they are not. To try to inflame the opinions of the colleagues in this body by referring to every lawyer who practices bankruptcy law or every consumer credit counselor as a bankruptcy mill is just inaccurate and unfair and it should not be done. There are some bad apples in the barrel. For those we need to understand, Mr. Chairman, that there is a specific provision which remains in this bill, this section 526, which says that a debt relief agency shall not do a whole list of things that are listed in this bill. One of those things it shall not do is misrepresent to any assisted person or prospective assisted person, directly or indirectly, affirmatively or by material omission, what services the debt relief agency can reasonably expect to provide that person or the benefits, and it goes on and on and on. There is a prohibition in this bill against the kind of activity that the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran) is trying to outlaw. I think it ought to be outlawed, but we ought not impose the burdens of all of these disclosures on the reputable people who are in the business. He says that we have got to stop this faulty advertising, but what does his amendment do? I am reading directly from page 8 of his amendment. If you do an advertisement, under the Moran amendment, this is what you have got to say, in quotes: ``We are a debt relief agency. We help people file bankruptcy petitions to obtain relief under the Bankruptcy Code.'' I do not want people to be disclosing that or saying that to the public. I want to stop people from advertising. And yet the same people he is saying we want to stop from faulty advertising, he is telling them how to go out and advertise in a misleading way. That is not what we need to be doing, is undermining the policy of the bill. Mr. Chairman, I understand his motivations for this amendment. I understand that there may be some lawyers he does not like, there may be some consumer credit counselors that he does not like. There are some that I do not like. That is why we have prohibited them in the bill from engaging in any kind of sinister activities. But that is different than requiring every reputable lawyer and every reputable consumer credit counseling service to give page after page after page of worthless disclosures. I encourage my colleagues to vote against this amendment. It just adds paperwork and adds burdens to small businesses. That is what it does.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I am not rising in opposition to the amendment, I am rising to express my disappointment that the Committee on Rules failed to make an even better amendment in order. This amendment certainly improves the bill from its current position, and I intend to vote for it, but it still is nowhere as good as the amendment should have been. Because instead of providing borrowers the kind of information they need to really evaluate how much money they will make in payments on their credit cards, we continue to provide hypothetical information to them under this amendment. It would not have been any more costly or any more burdensome to lenders to provide actual information about the amount of time it takes to pay off a loan if one pays the minimum amount. And, unfortunately, we had an amendment that would have done that, but the Committee on Rules did not see fit to make it in order. So I will support this amendment because it is better than what is in the bill, but it is still not anywhere close to being as good as it could be and should be for the consumers of America.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers).

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, how much time remains?

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this is a simple amendment, and hopefully it will not take the entire allotted time. This is an amendment that was offered in the Committee on the Judiciary, and the Committee on the Judiciary split evenly, so I am sure the chairman of the subcommittee has a position on it, but the Committee on the Judiciary itself has failed to express an opinion one way or another because it failed on a split vote. I believe the vote was 13 to 13. Mr. Chairman, this bill currently requires that every bankruptcy filer, no matter whether his filing is or is not contested, file at least 3 years' worth of tax returns with the court. In our subcommittee we had hearings, and the bankruptcy judges, bankruptcy trustees, every single witness who came agreed that requiring all of these tax returns to be filed simply creates a massive paperwork burden and expense to the bankruptcy system, and that this was not a good idea. These burdens are unnecessary. Credit industry finance studies, consumer advocacy group finance studies, all indicate that the number of abusive Chapter 7 bankruptcy filings are approximately 10 percent, at most, of the bankruptcy filings. They also indicate that the vast majority of bankruptcy filings are what they categorize as uncontested filings. So why are we requiring tax returns for 3 years to be filed with the bankruptcy court, when in the great majority of these cases there will not be any contest about it, there will not be any need for the tax returns? They will simply sit there in a corner in the bankruptcy court, clutter up space, take up needed time and energy to move around from place to place. They are simply unneeded. So my amendment simply says, look, you do not have to file these returns unless some party in interest says, I want you to file the returns. If some party in interest, any party in interest in the bankruptcy wants the tax returns, all they have to do is file one sentence which says, I want the tax returns filed. They do not have to give a reason, there has to be no hearing, there does not have to be anything but one sentence saying, I want the tax returns of this filer filed, and that person would have to file them. And for some reason the author of this bill thinks that is terrible. Mr. Chairman, I think he is overreacting. What he has decided is that every person who files a bankruptcy petition is a bad person, and we are going to impose all these burdens on him. But Mr. Chairman, listen to what the Congressional Budget Office says about this provision. I quote: ``This section would require the Administrative Office of the U.S. courts to receive and retain the tax returns for the three most recent years preceding the commencement of the bankruptcy case for all Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 debtors, about 8 million debtors over the 2000 to 2004 period. CBO estimates that appropriations of $34 million over the next 5 years would be required to store and provide access to over 20 million tax returns.'' That is the Congressional Budget Office, who is telling the sponsor of this bill that because he thinks every filer in America of a bankruptcy petition is a bad person and ought to be subjected to this, even though nobody is ever going to look at most of these tax returns, he is willing to cost the taxpayers of America $34 million because he has this personal agenda that, I do not know, even Republican Members on the committee said, this is a bad idea. Even members of the Committee on Rules said, this is a bad idea. We support your amendment. That is how this amendment got made in order. Yet, we are taking up valuable legislative time arguing about something that is completely inconsistent with what the professed philosophy is, to save taxpayers' money and to do something that is valuable to the system of bankruptcy. This is a provision in the bill which is not needed. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, let me just very quietly and calmly explain to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Gekas) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Foley) that I agree with them. There are a number of cases where tax returns are necessary in the bankruptcy court. But there are just as many cases where tax returns are unnecessary in the bankruptcy court; where no issue exists in the case, no argument about whether the person is bankrupt, nothing to be gained by having somebody bring in a stack of papers of 3 years' worth of tax returns other than that they will stack up in the corner and sit there and the taxpayers of America will have to pay the storage cost on that. This whole notion that the gentleman has put together, that every single person ought to come in with a tax return, is just the gentleman boxing with a shadow. This is not evidence unless somebody wants it to be evidence; unless it is relevant to a determination of the outcome of the case. And all that is required under my amendment to get that tax return is a one-sentence statement saying I need the tax return. No reasons, nothing. Please save the taxpayers $34 million and vote for this amendment.

Mr. WATT of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman is aware, of course, that that possibility that he just mentioned exists under the underlying bill. If somebody does not have the tax returns, they can still come in, in an emergency situation, and have the same kind of argument. And there is no hearing required under my amendment. I do not know which amendment the gentleman is debating. All someone has to do is file one sentence saying, I would like to have the tax returns. This is not about not filing the tax returns. I agree with the gentleman. There are a lot of cases where the tax returns are needed, and I am not trying to impede that. I am just trying to keep mountains and mountains of paper from stacking up in the bankruptcy court.