Doris Matsui

Mr. Speaker, since the gentleman from the State of Illinois (Mr. Weller) was kind enough to advise me of the amount of marriage penalty relief in the year 2010 and beyond that Californians will receive, I thought it would be important just…

I do not think it makes him feel any better if I tell him that we just passed a resolution to instruct the Senate to take action on a bill that will not take effect until 2011. I do not think that makes him feel he is anymore richer or…

Mr. Speaker, it is kind of interesting, because I do not have anybody that wants to speak. This bill is so meaningless, so irrelevant, so worthless, that not one of my colleagues on our side of the aisle wants to speak. I think the other…

What this resolution does is just say that the Senate should pass the Boehner-Thomas bill that was passed earlier this year. That is all it does. It is a meaningless piece of legislation. It has no effect of law. It is just gamesmanship. I…

Mr. Speaker, what we are really doing here today is passing three resolutions that the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost) said were absolutely meaningless, and I would have to say that they are probably less than absolutely meaningless. The…

First of all, this will cost $5 billion over the next 3 years. The reason it is only for the next 3 years is because it expires at the end of 3 years. As we know, we have not got any of the appropriations bills to the President's desk…

If, in fact, the bill that came out of the Senate was part of the conference report, I would say, well, okay, if you want trade adjustment assistance, that is fine. But the bill that came out of the conference report is not the bill that…

I would like to clarify some misunderstanding because I heard at the time as I was sitting in my office that the documents were delivered at three o'clock or it was posted on the Web site at four o'clock and that would have undoubtedly…

I rise in support of H.R. 4070, the Social Security Program Protection Act of 2002. Basically, there are three components of this legislation...if a Social Security recipient has a mental disability, is young or perhaps is of extreme old…

I just have to say that many of my colleagues have said, well, many of the Members, 400 Members, voted for this when it was up 2 years ago. One of the problems with pension legislation is it is extremely complex. I think we all know that…

I am frankly kind of perplexed today. We came into session on Friday, now, and we are taking up one bill, and that bill is to extend the Portman-Cardin pension legislation. Here we had Secretary Paul O'Neill, just 2 days ago, say that on…

I am glad to hear that they have an answer, although it seems inadequate to me that we ought to have more hearings on the poor folks, but we do not need any more hearings on the people on the top. No, that is perfect. The gentleman…

Mr. Speaker, I might just say at a time when we have a crisis in corporate America, one of the reasons the stock market is not doing too well, very sluggish, is because basically investors are not sure what companies are doing well and…

Mr. Speaker, I just have to say that it is almost like Alice in Wonderland on the floor of the House, or perhaps it is like the Ringling Brothers Circus where we are in the well here, and the audience is all watching us and the animals and…

At this time, we have tapped into the Social Security trust fund, in other words, money that is payroll tax, money that people think is going into a trust account to pay for their retirement benefits, by $1.7 trillion. That includes debt…

Mr. Speaker, I might just point out that when Ronald Reagan was President from 1981 to 1988, and George Bush, the first George Bush, was President from 1988 to 1992, they dipped into the Social Security trust fund; but it was not anywhere…

I am glad to see my amendment from 1995 suddenly appeared out here. When Newt Gingrich took over this place, there was a Contract on America. This was in it then, 1995. I proposed it in the Committee on Ways and Means, and every single…

I have to say the reason we asked that the meeting be adjourned... was because the drafter of the legislation that would have dealt with the problem of Stanley Works in Connecticut was the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Maloney). He was…

Mr. Speaker, I have to say I really do not understand why we are here today debating this issue. We should be taking up prescription drugs. We should perhaps even take up the President's three proposals that his Social Security Commission…

I have frankly never, in my entire 23 years in this institution, seen a larger transfer of wealth than on the floor of the House of Representatives today. The reason for this is we have no surplus. The $5.6 trillion surplus is zero. It is…

Well, actually, we got here by people in this country who led it who said this is the proper policy that we have, to have an estate tax. Thomas Jefferson outlawed primogenitor and he did it in saying we are taking an axe to the foot of…

Mr. Speaker, the bill the gentleman has is a privatization bill. The gentleman can call it anything he wishes, but it is a privatization bill. Dr. Peter Orszag, a professor at the University of California Berkeley, currently at the…

I see the gentleman from Florida has a pay-for in his legislation. His bill will cost $4 billion over the next 10 years. The interesting thing about the pay-for, however, is that it comes directly out of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights…

Mr. Speaker, this bill will not give anybody a diaper rash. It has nothing to do with diaper rashes and things of that nature. What we saw was that in January of 2001, we were projecting a $5.6 trillion surplus. That surplus is almost all…

they have raided the Social Security trust account. They are going to take $5.5 trillion out if this tax cut goes through, and it is going to have a 30 percent reduction in benefits for the average Social Security recipient.