Providing for Consideration of H.R. 681, American Jobs Creation Act of 2004

PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 681, AMERICAN JOBS CREATION ACT OF 2004 -- (House of Representatives - June 17, 2004)

Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 681 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. RANGEL. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding. Let me respond by saying that the gentleman is absolutely correct, that one of the things that we try to do is we try to ensure that the minority, Democrats in this instance, have an opportunity to have their proposals considered.

In 1994 we changed the rules to ensure that an opportunity for a recommital motion would be guaranteed. We also try to add, when we can, an opportunity for a substitute to be offered.

Now, yesterday, as the gentleman is correct, when I approached him, I said, we want to work and see if we can put together a substitute proposal. And I know from the discussions that I had that there was a lot of disagreement on the minority side about exactly what kind of shape it would take.

The proposal that was submitted by my friend was in fact not a substitute. It was simply an amendment. And so we made very clear that a substitute would be what we would consider. Yes, late last night I said I was concerned and was not sure.

I said I was not sure that the Committee on Rules----

Mr. RANGEL. The last thing you said to me was that we would not get a substitute.

Mr. DREIER. No, I did not say that. I did not say that.

Mr. RANGEL. Well, we did not get it; that is the bottom line.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would further yield, what I said was----

Mr. RANGEL. I take back the balance of my time.

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaTourette). Both gentlemen will suspend.

Mr. DREIER. I thank my friend for yielding.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The distinguished Committee on Rules Chairman will suspend. The time is controlled by the gentleman from New York, and if the gentleman from New York chooses to yield to the gentleman from California he may do so.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, we do not have a substitute, and that is the bottom line. I would think that we should not have to beg and scrape and ask them to give us a chance.

Are we asking for a chance to win? No. Do we believe that we have enough sugar and incentives that we can buy votes? No. We do not have that in our bill. We do not turn over the collection of taxes to private sector people. We do not have the ornaments that the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) will tell my colleagues about. All we have got is a fair bill to create jobs in the United States of America. That is all we have got. We do not buy votes. We just try to sell without their profits.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield on that point?

Mr. RANGEL. Only if the gentleman promises to tell me through his remarks in response why the Democrats cannot have a substitute to be able to say that we got a better idea.

Mr. DREIER. If the gentleman would yield, I am happy to respond.

Mr. RANGEL. I thank the chairman.

Mr. DREIER. The gentleman did not come and testify before the Committee on Rules this morning and was not there when we had the markup.

The proposal that was offered by the gentleman in the Committee on Rules was, in fact, an amendment, not a substitute, which is what we stated was necessary for us to even consider it. Okay. That was not offered, and so when there was no substitute offered, of course we did not make a substitute in order because it was not even an option for the Committee on Rules.

I thank my friend for yielding.

Mr. RANGEL. You are telling me that the gentleman from California did not tell me close to midnight that we would not get a substitute, that you had tried and you were unsuccessful? Is that what the gentleman is saying?

Mr. DREIER. If gentleman will yield, what I said was I was concerned about the possibility, and I will say that there were other members of your leadership team who indicated to me at that point when we stood right here that, in fact, there was not a substitute that had been put together.

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

Mr. STENHOLM. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, let me just say that there was no substitute submitted to the Committee on Rules. I think it is important for us to note that we would have had an opportunity to consider that if we had had a substitute put together. We had a cut-and-bite amendment, a perfecting amendment provided from the ranking minority member. I thank my friend for yielding.

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Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, let me at the outset talk briefly about this issue of minority rights. I feel very strongly about the rights of the minority, doing everything that we possibly can to ensure that in the Madisonian spirit of minority rights, their ideas are considered. That is why when we went from minority to majority status exactly 10 years ago, we guaranteed something that was often denied to us, and I served for 14 years in the minority, it was often denied to us as members of the minority, and that was an opportunity to offer a motion to recommit the bill, a bite at the apple. It was often denied to us, and we have guaranteed that. I will say that we try whenever we possibly can to make in order a substitute, a substitute measure when it is brought to us in the Committee on Rules.

Mr. Speaker, I have to say that working back and forth with Members of the minority, I tried to last night see if we could, in fact, have a substitute and make it in order. I will admit I said to them that I was not sure that we would be able to, but the opportunity was still there for Members of the minority to give us a chance to consider a substitute measure in the Committee on Rules, and it did not happen.

Having said that, Mr. Speaker, let me say that I believe that we should be here celebrating, celebrating the fact that we are on the verge of passing very important legislation that is going to build on the fact that the measures that we have passed in a bipartisan way dealing with our Tax Code under the leadership of the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas), the proposal that initially was submitted to us by the President of the United States, has created in excess of 1
million jobs over the past 3 months.

We are going to be able to have a chance today with this legislation to build on that. That is why I want to say something that has not been raised here at all. I want to thank the European Union and the World Trade Organization for getting us to this point. In 1947 when the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was established, the goal was a very clear and simple one. It was to eliminate tariff barriers so that we could have the free flow of goods and services and capital.

What is it that has happened? We have seen the WTO build on that and one of the goals, of course, is the elimination of subsidization. The WTO was right. The FSC/ETI provisions have been subsidies; and what we are doing is we are, in fact, phasing those out. We are phasing those out because they have chosen to, at a rate of 1 percent a month, increase the burden on U.S. products trying to get into their markets.

So what is happening? Rather than simply pointing outside, we are looking at ourselves, realizing that one of the challenges that we face as we try to compete globally is the tax and regulatory burden that exists in the United States of America, impinging on our workers, our manufacturers, our producers the chance to get into new markets worldwide.
That is why what we are doing with this policy in bringing about a reduction in that tax burden, it is the right thing to do. It is going to create more jobs right here at home.

How the other side of the aisle can constantly complain that this is going to do nothing but create jobs overseas is beyond me. What we are doing here is we are reducing the burden that exists on job creators, meaning that there will be a greater chance to create even more jobs here in the United States.

Mr. Speaker, it has been a long time in coming. The gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) and members of the Committee on Ways and Means and many of the rest of us have been involved working for 2 years on this measure. It has been discussed, it has been debated, there have been hearings; and we now have had an hour of debate on this, and we will now have another hour of debate and an up-or-down vote. It is not perfect legislation. We all know that there is no such thing as perfection emerging from this place; but as we deal with this challenge, it does create a wonderful new opportunity for the workers of the United States of America.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this rule and support the underlying measure which we are going to be voting on.