Joe Barton

What would happen tomorrow on the House floor if three-fourths of the Republicans present and voting voted for tax limitation and 63 percent of the Democrats present and voting voted for tax limitation? Would that be enough to pass this…

Well, I have engaged in a number of debates, and most of the opponents are opposed to this for the very reason that it would work. They say quite emphatically that it would make it very difficult to raise taxes, therefore they are opposed…

We should require a national consensus to raise taxes, and we should require a two-thirds vote. Hopefully, the people that were polled in the poll that the gentleman alluded to will call their Congressmen and Congresswomen, and tomorrow we…

As the gentleman from Arizona has pointed out, when the Constitution was ratified by three-fourths of States in 1787 through 1789, it was unconstitutional to have any kind of a head tax or income tax. That situation changed in the early…

I actually have a young son and young daughter who are about to enter the job market. My daughter Allison wants to be a teacher. She graduated in December from Texas A&M. My son Brad is graduating from Stanford School of Business in June…

I can actually put a face to that anonymous person. Two weeks ago I went to Waco, Texas where my mother lives. She is a retired widow on Social Security, and she has some teacher retirement, and because her only income comes from three…

To honor that goal, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Solomon) and I have been attempting for the last year to institute random drug testing for Members of Congress and their staffs, and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Solomon) and myself…

Mr. Speaker, I am the chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the Committee on Commerce. We have not issued a subpoena in the 3 years that we have been in the majority on that subcommittee. I would like to just make…

If we accept this and vote on it right now, and it never comes to the floor, Bob Dornan can never come to the floor again because it will never be resolved. Let me also point out, there have been between 20,000 and 30,000 Members of this…

reclaiming my time, if it is never resolved, we have barred one former Member in the history of the Nation from ever coming back on the floor of the House, and that is wrong.

Mr. Speaker, I think we need to address directly what the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Bunning] has just talked about. First of all, he is absolutely correct that Social Security is a very important program and a very special program. I…

last Saturday I took my daughter Kristin and my wife Janet to Philadelphia, the birthplace of freedom in this Nation. I stood in the room where Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. In the beginning of that declaration it…

I strongly appreciate the support that the Barton-Minge amendment has on both sides of the House, and I want to point out that under the colloquy agreement, we will get that vote on enforcement no later than July 24. If we win on the…

I think the chairman understands that a number of us, on a bipartisan basis for several years, have been trying to do something to put some enforcement mechanism into the existing Budget Acts that govern our Nation. We have a piece of…

we are here this evening not on an historic occasion, but on an important occasion. I had hoped that I would be a part of the affirmative process to try to improve the agreement that was reached with the President and the leadership of the…

I hold in my right hand a copy of the Constitution of the United States of America. When this document was ratified by the Original Thirteen Colonies in 1787, in article I, section 9, I want to read the following sentence: No capitation…

In plain common language, what we are trying to do with this constitutional amendment is to make it more difficult to raise taxes. I have listened to the opponents very carefully this afternoon. I have yet to have any of the opponents say…

we followed absolute regular order this year. We did not bypass the subcommittee, we did not bypass the full committee, we did not bypass the Committee on Rules. We allowed any Member who wanted to to testify, and when it was before the…

I will say, if we are going to engage in an idea and a robust debate, that we should do so on the merits of the issue, and the issue at hand is whether we should amend the Constitution of the United States to require a two-thirds vote to…

I did not go to Hershey, PA, at the bipartisan retreat, but if I had and would have come on the floor for this debate this evening, I do not believe I would have used words like ``absurd,'' ``mush,'' things of that sort. I do not think…

the CPI is not part of the Internal Revenue Code so it would not take a two-thirds vote. In fact, it would not even take a vote. We could do that by executive order or by regulation of the Department of Labor.

In the 4 years of the Clinton administration, including this fiscal year 1997, Federal revenues have gone up an average of $88 billion a year, $88 billion. The high year was $104 billion; the low year, the year that we are currently in, it…

revenue increases subject to the supermajority requirement include: Income taxes, and I think we all know what a direct income tax is; estate and gift taxes; employment taxes, including Social Security and Medicare; and excise taxes, such…

this is the body constitutionally that is closest to the people. We are the only Federal officials that have to be elected by the people. Therefore, we have the responsibility to conduct the oversight for the people more than any other…

we are here today engaged in a debate about whether the government of Mexico has fully complied in their efforts to cooperate with the United States of America in the war against drugs. We seem to be putting a lot of emphasis on the word…