Rob Andrews

Mr. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from South Carolina for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, the choice before us today is whether we choose the future or the present. In the present, the smart political thing to do is go home and tell everyone you cut their taxes. People like to hear that. It makes for good political patter. But the future demands that we do something very different. It demands that we relieve our children of the $5 trillion debt that we have placed upon them. A family would never make the choice the majority is about to make. When a family has some excess income and a huge debt, they would pay off that debt, not pass it on to their children. So should we. The appropriate vote for the future is to vote no on the budget resolution before us because unlike the Democratic plan, it does not pay down the debt.

Mr. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from New York for yielding me this time. This budget should be sent back to the conference, and it should be fixed. The way it ought to be fixed is that the budget plan put forth by the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) last month ought to be substituted for what will be before us tomorrow. In the years from the inception of the Republic to 1980, we ran up a public debt of about $1 trillion to fight and win World War I, World War II, dig our way out of the Great Depression, build the interstate highway system, do all the things America did in those years. In the years between 1980 and 1992, we more than quadrupled that debt. By the time 1993 rolled around, we were in excess of $5 trillion in debt. The major difference between the plan that will be before us tomorrow and the plan that should be before us tomorrow is this: at the end of the 10-year period, giving the most charitable interpretation to the majority's plan, when we compare it to the 10-year period under the gentleman from South Carolina's plan, our children will be approximately one-half trillion dollars greater in debt under the majority's plan than if we adopted the gentleman from South Carolina's plan. That is one-half trillion dollars, I think it is really closer to a trillion if we use honest accounting, that we are choosing to saddle our children with. When I came here in 1990, fiscal conservatives wanted to eliminate the deficit and pay down the debt. Well, the worm has turned and it appears to me that those who call themselves fiscal conservatives now stand up for fiscal irresponsibility. Send this budget back to the conference and fix it and relieve our children of the debt that we are imposing upon them.

Mr. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commend and congratulate the hard work and effort of the Pennsauken High School Jazz Band. The Band has performed at the Inauguration of Christine Whiteman, Penns Landing in Philadelphia, Lincoln Center in New York City and various colleges and universities. They have won the Dixie Classics Championship and several other distinguished honors such as Best Rhythm Section, Best Trumpet Section, Best Trombone Section, outstanding soloist awards and many overall outstanding band awards. The Pennsauken Jazz Band secured 2nd place in the New Jersey State Finals, along with awards for the best trumpet section and rhythm section in the State. Additionally, the band has received a Superior Rating at every festival they have performed in. The members of the Spring 2000 Jazz Band are: Zachary Andrews; Frank Cuccio; Kristin Cuccio; Julia DePasquale; Anthony DiDomenico; Steven Engel; Eli Ferrer; Steven Forrest; Tim Gerard; Rob Hill; Christine Hinton; Rich Johnson; Ken Juray; Brian Kilpatrick; Nathan Kranefeld; Joe Lucidi; Jim MacKenzie; Ben Markowitz; Corey Mossop; Louis Muzyczek; Dominic Natale; Jeff Rivera, Rich Slack; Ernest Stuart; Perry Sutton; Vincent Williams. I wish you all the best and continued success in your endeavors.

Mr. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this amendment of which I am pleased to be a cosponsor. I am a strong supporter of the underlying bill, but I believe this amendment complements the underlying bill in a very positive way. Seventy-nine percent of working Americans who work for an employer with 25 or fewer employees do not have a pension. I think that some of those Americans will be helped by the underlying bill, but I think those who work in narrow-margin industries, that is, companies with small profit margins and particularly those people who work at the entry level, will not be largely helped by the underlying bill. They will be helped by the substitute by the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Neal). This amendment is about the people who wait on tables and work in the child care centers and work in the retail stores. They are at the bottom of the pay grade. They are in industries where margins are very thin, and I believe we can put any amount of tax incentives for an employer in the bill, and those employees cannot because they cannot afford to reach pension coverage. A plan that says the government will match part of the contributions for these employees is one that will work. I agree with the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy). We are either going to pay now or pay later. People are going to live longer, their resources are going to be stretched further. If they do not have private pension coverage, the Treasury will be called upon to meet those needs in future years. This is a wise amendment that complements the underlying bill. I urge its adoption.

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. McCarthy), one of the strongest voices for fixing the 415 problem that I spoke to earlier.

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind), who has spoken very strongly for small business throughout his tenure. (Mr. KIND asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time and will simply close out for our side reiterating again my appreciation of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin) for their outstanding work on this legislation. I think we can see from the breadth of speakers that there is strong support across the spectrum for this bill. One of the blessings of this life is that we can reasonably anticipate our children, perhaps some of us, will live to be 100 years old. One of the problems is that we have an income retirement system set up for 75 years' worth of life. I believe that the very wise steps that we are about to take today, and I hope through conference and final passage, will help alleviate that problem. We are very pleased to support this legislation. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney), one of the Members who represents the heart of the financial center of the world. (Mrs. MALONEY of New York asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to our friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney), a strong supporter of retiree rights, particularly those in the telecommunications industry, and the author of important legislation in that area.

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the legislation. I congratulate our friends, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman), the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin), and on behalf of our ranking member, the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), we extend our appreciation to the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Boehner), and the subcommittee chairman, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sam Johnson), for their courtesy and cooperation in this bipartisan effort. I concur with the remarks the chairman just made that this bill will make a positive difference in a lot of people's lives. It will make a difference when people are determining how much they can afford to put into their 401(k) or IRA. It will positively affect that decision, because they will be able to put more in. It will positively affect people's lives when a small business person sits down at the end of the year and decides what to do with the excess earnings that he or she has generated during the year. Because of so- called overfunding provisions in the present law, we actually have a law that makes it illegal for small business owners to put substantial amounts of money into a pension fund. We agree that the opposite ought to be the case, that we should encourage people to put as much as possible for as many people as possible into their funds, and that is an achievement of this legislation. It will make a difference when many Americans who have left the workforce for a while want to catch up for the years that they have missed. Whether it was for raising children or for pursuing an education, for various reasons, people leave the workforce. Their income either declines or disappears altogether. They are unable to put money away during those years. When they return to the workforce and wish to catch up for those lost years, there are artificial limitations on what Americans can save. This legislation removes those artificial limitations and will help many people, especially women, catch up for those missed years in the workforce. We are particularly pleased that this legislation corrects an unfair and anomalous situation referred to as the section 415 problem. There are many Americans across the country who for years have driven a truck or worked on construction sites or worked for a public employer who have earned substantial pensions, but when they go to collect those pensions when they retire, they find that they cannot collect all that they are entitled to because of an anomaly that exists under section 415 of the Internal Revenue Code. This bill corrects that problem. It says to those individuals that they will be able to draw down the income that their plan promised them and that they thought they had earned during those years. This is by no means an attribute or asset for people at the very top of the income scale, it is for people that have driven trucks and built buildings and worked in public hospitals and for governments and schools. It is one of the reasons why this legislation enjoys the support of AFCSME, the National Education Association, and many, many other labor organizations across the country. We understand, and later there will be an amendment offered that speaks to this point, that there are many Americans left out of the private pension system altogether, about 70 million of them. We believe that our amendment, offered by the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Neal), cosponsored by myself and others, will help address that problem. But it is clear that the underlying bill achieves a number of positive things for people across the spectrum. For this reason, I am pleased to join both Republican and Democratic colleagues in support. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, the choice before us today is not a choice between economic theories. It is a choice between moral positions. There is a major difference between the Democratic plan that I support put forth by the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) and the majority plan, and that major difference is this: Our plan pays off about $1 trillion more of debt over the next 10 years than does the Republican plan. This is a choice between instant gratification in 2001 or responsible treatment for our children for the next 10 years. The Republican budget does reflect one thing about American life. It reflects an unfortunate cultural tendency toward instant gratification; have a party now; spend all the money now and pass the bills off to the next generation. A vote for the Spratt budget means that our children are $1 trillion less in debt than they would be under the majority budget. Forsake instant gratification. Do what is responsible for the future. Reject the Republican budget and adopt the Spratt substitute instead.

Mr. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, we should oppose this resolution. When a woman stands at a supermarket checkout counter and when many women who stand with her get hurt, when there is a pattern of people getting hurt because the cash register is at waist level instead of higher up, and the evidence shows that one could spend a few hundred dollars per cash register and lift them up to chest level and people will not get hurt; and the evidence shows that by spending a few hundred dollars per cash register, we could avoid tens of thousands of dollars of health care and workers' comp claims, we think the law ought to say that the employer should have to do it. That is what this is about. This is a compilation of 10 years of research; it is an understanding that one-third of the workers' comp expenditures by insurers in this country pay for ergonomics injuries, and it is a cry for simple justice and common sense. Do not be fooled by those who say they want a better ergonomics rule, because if this resolution passes, there will be no ergonomics rule. This sends ergonomics to the death penalty, and it is wrong. Mr. Speaker, there are 6 million injured Americans who cannot speak for themselves tonight, but we, I say to my colleagues, can. The way we should speak for them is to rise up and vote ``no.'' Defeat this resolution in the sense of fairness and justice.

Mr. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I rise to salute the cherished American tradition of motherhood. That tradition is exemplified in an extraordinary mother by the name of Mrs. Lena Roberta Murrell White. Daughter, Sister, Wife, Mother and Friend. Mrs. Lena White has been and is all of these and more. She was daughter Lena growing up in the farming country of North Carolina. Younger sister in a large brood she was a shining light in that big family. She was wife to James E. Murrell and bore him nine children, raising them all in love and happiness while working harder than any three people. After his passing she was wife to James White and took his children as her own, loving and protecting them. And everywhere she has gone there are a host of friends eager for her return. From the streets, hedges and rows of Greenville, North Carolina through the well kept manicured lawns of Wilmington, Delaware to the hustle and bustle of Camden, New Jersey, her friends are legion. Now in her eightieth year she can reach out to a large family of adoring children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. She continues as an example to us all of living a life in harmony with God. We love her and always shall, and today we honor her in this place through this body for length of days.

Mr. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the motion of the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Wu). I congratulate and thank him for his tireless efforts in his first term on behalf of the principle of reducing class sizes. I think his motion correctly understands a problem that we do have and a tradition that we should have. I certainly respect the judgment of local school districts. I admire those who serve on school boards and who work in the school districts. I also understand, though, that there is an unfortunate tradition of growing redundant administrative staffs in local school districts. There is an unfortunate tradition of diverting resources away from direct instruction to the education bureaucracy at the local level. That is why I am very reluctant to change this administration's emphasis from targeted dollars for class size reduction to a more flexible discretionary block grant that I believe would not serve the purposes that I believe we all seek to serve. The tradition that we ought to keep is a tradition of some decisions at the national level for national purposes. We should make a national decision at the national level to favor smaller class sizes, particularly in the primary grades, in order to enhance reading skills and other skills for students. Mr. Speaker, when we passed the 100,000 police, we did not give every mayor in the country a block grant and say, ``Go out and try to reduce crime.'' We instructed the local governments to hire more police officers, and it worked. When we passed a water resources bill in this House, we did not go to the local elected officials and say, ``Which flooding problems or drainage problems do you have? Figure out how to solve them, and here is some money.'' We say, ``build this dam'' or ``dredge this river'' or ``solve a certain problem.'' We should not substitute our judgment for those of local elected people, but we should not abdicate our right and responsibility to make certain crucial judgments for the commonwealth of a nation. I think the motion of the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Wu) reflects one of those judgments. I urge its adoption.

Mr. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, today I introduce the Retirement Enhancement Act of 2000. The Retirement Enhancement Act of 2000 consist of two bills one amending the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and the other amending the Internal Revenue Code (IRC). These bills are the product of my work as the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Employer-Employee Relations, which earlier this year held a number of bipartisan hearings to consider updating ERISA. Throughout the hearings, the Subcommittee Chairman, Representative John Boehner, and I, maintained a common agenda of seeking to strengthen a private pension system that is already very strong as a result of ERISA. We both recognized ERISA's achievement in moving from a system where insecure pensions were somewhat common, to a situation where insecure pensions are exceedingly rare. Witnesses were selected to testify at the hearing that could assist us in looking for ways the Congress could make the pension holdings of Americans expand and grow even more secure. The subcommittee heard from representatives of pension participants, employers, and financial advisors. They presented us with a variety of proposals to improve the retirement security of American workers. Taking the best of these contributions, and coupling them with other pension provisions that I have either advocated or supported in the past, I drafted this comprehensive pension reform legislation. Joining with me as cosponsors of the Retirement Enhancement Act of 2000 are numerous members of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, including Representatives Clay, Kildee, Owens, Payne, Mink, Woolsey, Romero-Barcelo, Fattah, Tierney, Kind, Sanchez, Ford, Kucinich and Holt. They share my belief that enactment of these bills will ensure that all workers and retirees receive their promised benefits. Since the enactment of ERISA, the number of Americans who participate in a pension plan has grown from 38.4 million in 1975 to almost double that today. While this growth is considerable, it still leaves about half the workforce without access to a pension plan through their employer. Both the General Accounting Office and Congressional Research Service have recently completed studies analyzing pension coverage in the United States. The studies found that about These bills seek to eliminate the remaining weaknesses in ERISA and lay the groundwork to help those not covered by an employer pension. These bills seek to improve pension coverage and adequacy. Pension coverage for all workers is very important and we should all support the effort to achieve this goal. Under these bills, employers that sponsor plans would be required to offer pension coverage to all employees who meet current minimum eligibility requirements such as completion of one year of employment. These bills also improve coverage for part-time workers who represent one of the largest groups without pension coverage. As the workforce changes to include many temporary and contract workers, Congress must also help to improve pension coverage for this part of America's workforce. With the ever-changing workforce it is also important that we decrease the vesting period for workers in defined contribution plans. For workers who will have many employers during their working lives, we need to ensure that they will earn pension benefits that will benefit them in retirement. The Retirement Enhancement Act seeks to expand pension availability to those workers without it. One of the innovative ways in which it would do so is to create a model small employer group pension plan into which small employers could buy in with minimal administrative responsibilities. The Departments of Labor and Treasury would work with associations or financial institutions to advertise these model plans so that employers would know that easy and accessible pension options exist. The Retirement Enhancement Act of 2000 includes important pension protections for women. These bills establish a 75 percent joint and survivor annuity option that would provide surviving spouses greater benefits in retirement. It protects divorced spouses' pension rights and improves spousal information rights. These bills would also allow for time taken off from work under the Family and Medical Leave Act to count toward pension participation and vesting requirements. The act improves ERISA's safeguards for the investment of pension plan monies. It creates an expedited prohibited transaction exemption approval process under which plans would be able to more easily and quickly provide participants with new investment products. It does so, however, without weakening participant protections. These bills also make clear that employers may offer access to investment advice to participants with limited liability provided such advice is by qualified advisors and they are subject to the fiduciary responsibility requirements. This will be extremely helpful to those workers in defined contribution pension plans who bear the primary responsibility for their pension plan investment decisions. The Retirement Enhancement Act of 2000 improves access to pension information and strengthens enforcement mechanisms. It would require that plan participants regularly receive statements apprising them of the status of their earned pension benefits. Pension plans would also have to provide more detailed financial information about their earnings and investments. The bills create an alternate dispute resolution system to resolve benefit disputes. The Department of Labor, along with dispute resolution organizations, would develop an early neutral evaluation program. This would allow for participants to receive benefits in a timely manner instead of after years of litigation. The bills also strengthen ERISA's remedies to ensure that participants have meaningful access to court, and that the courts can remedy violations of the law. Finally, the Retirement Enhancement Act of 2000 requires the timely distribution of defined contribution cash-out amounts, which would have to be made within 60 days of an employee's termination. It permits employees to work longer without being required to start pension receipt by delaying the minimum distribution of benefits from age 70\1/ 2\ to 75. Furthermore, for workers who are involuntarily terminated, it permits them to borrow against their pension earnings in order pay for health or job training expenses. Mr. Speaker, it is now time for the Congress to build on what was started with the enactment of ERISA in 1974, and take additional steps to ensure retirement security for our workforce. Advances in medical technology, environmental protection, nutrition, and improved living standards give us reason to believe that Americans are going to live longer lives. Whether the quality of these lives, after retirement, is good or not, will depend upon the existence, nature, and security of each person's pension plan. Because employers are rapidly shifting to the use of employee-directed pension accounts, more and more workers will be making decisions that are critical to their future financial health. I believe that the Retirement Enhancement Act of 2000 will help make those decisions easier, and make the benefits of those decisions more secure. I look forward to working with my colleagues and the pension community to continue to improve these bills and advance their consideration during the next Congress. Mr. Speaker, I submit the following summary and letters of support from AARP, AFL-CIO, the Pension Rights Center, and the Women's Institute for A Secure Retirement to be included in the Record.

Mr. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts, for yielding time to me. Mr. Speaker, we are having an argument that is worth having. The argument is predicated on this, as the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) just said. In the springtime, the majority passed a budget that was predicated on the proposition that we should pass sweeping tax cuts in this year's budget. We disagree with that. That is an argument worth having. We believe that the principal fiscal focus of this country should be on reducing the national debt. Beyond that, we are having another argument that is worth having about whether we should invest in education more or less, yes or no. We believe, and I think a majority of this House believes, Mr. Speaker, that investment in education should happen. The reason we are having this argument, the reason we have overshot our deadline by 2 weeks, is that we will stand on principle. We believe that assistance for school districts around this country in modernizing their schools and building new ones is worth fighting for. We believe that putting a qualified teacher in every classroom in America, so that particularly in the primary grades children get more one-on-one attention, is worth staying and fighting for. And we believe that programs like after-school programs, drug and alcohol education, are worth funding to their highest and most practical level. It is an argument worth having. I commend the Committee on Appropriations for their diligence in moving the process forward, but we will stick to our principles and invest in debt reduction and education improvement for the benefit of the people of this country.

Mr. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and let me extend my profound and personal sense of grief and appreciation to the families of those brave Americans who served on the Cole. Let me say this. I know these words will be of little comfort to those who have suffered such a great loss, but to those who question the character of the young people in America today, I would say that we have a resounding answer. We had young people who were willing to enlist voluntarily in the service of their country and give their lives. They have done so with great honor. We are very proud of them, and their families should know they have given their lives nobly and will not be forgotten.

Mr. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the legislation, and I commend and thank the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spence) for legislation that bears his name and the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton). It is an honor to serve with each of these gentlemen and the other subcommittee chairs and ranking members as well. I am particularly gratified that this bill which reflects the finest bipartisan tradition of this House graciously includes three items in which I have expressed an interest and devoted energy. The first is legislation I authored with respect to preventing cyberterrorists. I believe that one of the most lethal threats to this country's security is one of the most silent. It is the work of those with laptops instead of missiles who would threaten our air traffic control system, our banking system, our other critical infrastructure. Because of the bipartisan cooperation, we were able to include legislation that I wrote that creates for the first time a loan guaranteed program that will help those in the private sector that maintain that critical infrastructure to upgrade it so that we are less vulnerable to attack. Second, the legislation very graciously includes legislation I worked on to create a center for the conversion of domestic and civilian networking and telecommunications technology for the use of the military. That center will be located in my district in Camden, New Jersey, and I believe it will benefit our country for generations to come as a result of the leaps forward that will occur. Finally, I am pleased to join with the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon), our long-time mentor on this subject; the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer); the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell); and others in achieving a first step toward a sufficient level of funding for America's first responders in the fire and emergency services community. The work that we have done on this bill is very gratifying, and I am pleased to see it also has gone forward in a bipartisan way. I want to especially thank Terry Gillum in my office for his work on this legislation. I urge its adoption.

Mr. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens), for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this legislation. I want to congratulate the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Ballenger) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens), my friend, for their intelligence in bringing this to the floor. There are a lot of competing interests in this legislation, union and management, health care providers and product providers, and it was a substantial task to bring all of those parties together. The gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Ballenger) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens) took the lead in doing that, and I thank them and commend them for it. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens) said in his remarks that it is not an overstatement to say that this legislation will save peoples' lives; he is right. There are instances where people are injured and sometimes fatally injured as a result of injuries on the job that will be prevented as a result of passing this legislation. This is what we are here to do, to bring the two parties together and both sides of the bargaining table to make this happen. I know the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens) in particular has been tenacious in pursuing this legislation for many numbers of years, and on behalf of my constituents, I thank him for it. I also thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling) and the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Clay) for their leadership of the full committee in bringing us here. I first heard about this legislation when members of the health care team, nurses, mainly, at the Camden County Health Services Center in my district visited me in my office here, they are members of the AFSCME union, and they had called it to the attention of their employer to voluntarily adopt a standard like this, which the employer, to its credit, did. That was then followed up here at the national level by any number of groups and interests to make sure that we could codify this effort by OSHA to balance the concerns of union and management, to balance all concerns and to write a good bill. I believe that we have done that. I also appreciate the way that this bill incorporates technological changes and does not wed itself to any particular technology. I applaud that, because I believe that it will permit the development and evolution of even greater technologies as time goes by. Mr. Speaker, I also applaud the fact that the bill reflects my own understanding that a device that does not use needles for the securement of devices for administration of medication or fluids and thereby diminishes or eliminates exposure to bloodborne pathogens clearly falls within the definition of a device that does not use needles for any other procedure involving the potential for occupational exposure to bloodborne pathogens due to the injuries from contaminated sharps. I think I followed that, not being a medical professional. In other words, that OSHA can find the very best technology available in any given time in the future to protect workers, that is what we are here to do. Mr. Speaker, I again thank the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Ballenger) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens). I rise in enthusiastic support of the legislation and urge its unanimous approval.

Mr. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, first of all, I want to congratulate the gentleman from California (Mr. Radanovich) for his attention to this issue. Members of Congress very often self-limit themselves according to what committees they serve on. The gentleman from California (Mr. Radanovich) is not a member of our committee, but he took an interest in this issue and is addressing a series of problems that I think need to be addressed, and we thank him for that. We thank the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon) for his interest in bringing the legislation to this point, and we obviously thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Chairman Goodling) and the ranking member, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Clay) on our side. We are concerned about dealing with the problems of a couple of people that would be relevant to this legislation. Then, frankly, we have some concerns about what is in the legislation. I want to note each of those three points for the Record. First of all, we commend the fact that this legislation will help the young person who is in school, who wants to get job training while he or she is in school so they can take the first step up that career ladder. Right now the process of qualifying for that job training requires that the individual prove his or her income. That can be a burdensome, time-consuming, bureaucratic process. What this bill says is that, if the young person in question is eligible for a free school lunch, they should automatically be eligible for the job training. That makes sense, because it says that, once one filled out one set of forms with one's income tax return or one's parents' income tax return, and once one has gone through one bureaucratic thicket to qualify for a school lunch, since the criteria are substantially identical to qualify for the job training, one ought to be able to do it anyway. That makes perfect sense. The Department of Labor supports that, and so do we. We are glad that it is in the legislation. The second issue is to understand the person who has been caught in the switches of this changing economy. It is indisputably true that, if one is a network analyst or a software engineer, these are great times to be coming out in the job market. People are getting signing bonuses and getting recruited by firms, and they are doing very, very well. It is not such a great time if one is working at a steel mill or manufacturing plant or a coal mine or in other manufacturing segments of our economy. In many areas of the country, in many industries, those industries have been shrinking. Many people find themselves in the middle of their lives, in the middle of their careers, in the middle of their mortgages, in the middle of raising their children without a secure source of income, without a job. These are people who most need the skills to make the jump from the old economy to the new one, who most need the skills to upgrade themselves within the old economy so they can be part of that shrunken workforce at a higher level of productivity and higher wages. Very often that person's plan is to be on unemployment benefits for a while and then go to school at the same time, go to some kind of job training program at the same time, stretch their bills during the period of time they are on unemployment, get their training, and then get a new job that pays higher with health benefits, and get their family back on their feet. That is the way people do it. An anomaly in the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 has made it difficult for people to do that because there is a question that gets raised as to whether or not that person can still receive his or her unemployment benefits while they are getting their job training. We think the answer ought to be yes; that if someone has a little bit of a supplemental income from their unemployment compensation and they are going to school and working very hard to upgrade their skills so they can move back into the workforce at a higher wage, that is what they are supposed to be doing. Those are the rules of the game. It is very important that what this bill does is to clarify that that answer should, in most cases, be yes; that, in most cases, the participation of a worker in a Workforce Investment Act training program does not automatically disqualify him or her from receiving unemployment benefits from the State. There may be other factors that do, but the mere participation in this program does not disqualify someone for unemployment benefits. What this really does is provide a lifeline of relief to someone at a very difficult time in his or her life and career. It is a very good idea. The Department of Labor supports it. We are glad it is in the bill, and we support it as well. Let me raise one area of concern that we do carry forward as this bill is negotiated between the two Chambers and as it reaches the executive branch, and that is the question of the employer's responsibility to match or contribute to funds for job training that are provided by the Federal Government. We certainly understand that there should be flexibility for employers, that employers that are modest in size and have very little cash in the bank ought not to be excluded from custom training because of that situation. Very often those are the employers that are producing most of the new jobs in the economy. It is important to us, however, that we spread these job training dollars to as many people as possible. In other words, we believe that, if there is a choice between using 100 percent of the money to train three people or 100 percent of the money to train one person, we should always err on the side of training three people rather than one. We do have some concerns about the way the bill is drafted at this point that we believe might permit an undue concentration of job training funds on one person and not require the level of employer contribution that ought to be contributed. The AFL/CIO, for example, has expressed this concern, and I would echo it, and I would urge the majority to work with us and with the Department of Labor and those in the other body who are interested to try to reconcile this difference as we go forward. But we shall, indeed, go forward. I would commend both of my gentlemen from California, Mr. McKeon and Mr. Radanovich. I guess the author of this bill is proving that we are putting new wine in new bottles, given his background as a vintner. I must say I speak as the brother-in-law of a fellow vintner, so I immediately appreciated the work of the gentleman from California (Mr. Radanovich). I salute the efforts of the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon). So having duly noted the concerns of the overconcentration of resources on a few people, I would commend the positive aspects of this bill. I thank the Department of Labor for its input. Madam Speaker, since I have no further speakers, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask my colleagues to co- sponsor an important bill related to the Medicare Home Health benefit. I recently introduced H.R. 4874, the Medicare Occupational Therapy Coverage Eligibility Act of 2000. This bill would amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide for eligibility for coverage of home health services under the Medicare Program on the basis of a need for occupational therapy. Occupational therapy is regarded as a full rehabilitation benefit under Medicare in every post-acute benefit except home health. This is a historical problem that should have been corrected when occupational therapy was included as a free-standing benefit in 1987. This correction is long overdue. It will provide beneficiaries immediate access to occupational therapy--a service targeted toward increasing self-sufficiency and function in the home--if they need it as part of their home health care plan. Physicians will be able to prescribe occupational therapy immediately without the requirement that nursing or another service be provided first. Additionally, home health agencies will have more flexibility in designing care plans based on clinical appropriateness and not on an outmoded Medicare requirement. Occupational therapy is focused on helping individuals become more independent. That is why I believe that the inclusion of occupational therapy coverage by Medicare in the home health benefit will actually decrease the dependence of individuals on home health services. This bill will help seniors to lead better, more independent lives. I urge my colleagues to support putting occupational therapy on an equal footing as a rehabilitation benefit in home health, just as it is in rehabilitation hospitals and skilled nursing facilities.

Mr. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Obey amendment and in opposition to what appears to be the Republican education plan that is going to be put before us because the Republican plan fails the test of some common sense conservative ideas. If you want to reduce crime in this country, you ought to know that a lot of juvenile crime is committed after school. But the Republican plan would deprive 1.6 million children of after-school programs. If you want economic growth in this country, you understand that a good labor force is the key to economic growth. Many of our citizens do not speak English as their primary language. But the Republican plan cuts 15 percent from bilingual education. If you want money for school construction, and it is true that the Republican plan apparently would put $1.3 billion in, but it says to the local districts, spend the $1.3 billion as you see fit. We believe that money should be spent for the purposes for which it was intended. And when we put $1.75 billion forward to hire new quality teachers to reduce class sizes, we believe the money should be spent for the purposes for which it was intended, a common sense conservative principle. The watchword of the day is compassionate conservatism. The Republican plan is neither compassionate nor conservative.

Mr. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding me the time. I rise in strong support of the bill. Mr. Speaker, one of the hallmarks of this Congress will be the bipartisan cooperation and achievements of the Committee on Banking and Financial Services. I want to thank the gentleman from Iowa (Chairman Leach), the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter), the subcommittee chairman, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Lazio), and the ranking member, the gentleman from New York (Mr. LaFalce). They have left their mark on this Congress in some significant and bipartisan ways; and it is a pleasure to serve with each of them. I thank them for their cooperation and the cooperation of the staff in bringing this bill to the floor in the spirit in which the committee has proceeded throughout this Congress. To understand the importance of this bill, we need to understand what it would be like to be a family with an income of $26,000 or $27,000 a year living in a modest home in a rural area of the United States struggling to pay the bills, struggling to keep up, and confronting a mortgage payment each month that reflects a mortgage of 11 or 12 percent. Many people in those circumstances would take advantage of recent changes in financial conditions and refinance their mortgage. They would go out and get a loan and pay off their existing mortgage, and they would replace it with one that requires lower monthly payments. There are a lot of significant reasons why the citizens that I talk about cannot do that. First of all, they probably have a very low income, as I said; and secondly, they build up very little equity in their home, because the way they build up equity is to either live in a house that is appreciating regularly in value or by making early payments against their mortgage that would pay down the principle more quickly than they would interest. Neither of those happy developments is happening for many of the people who we are talking about affected by this bill. Presently, the law does not permit the United States Department of Agriculture to issue a loan guarantee or a direct loan in order to facilitate the refinancing of that mortgage loan. This bill changes that. It says that the United States Department of Agriculture can step in and, subject to its guidelines and to the other conditions set forth by the ranking member, can issue a loan guarantee or, where appropriate, a direct loan. What does that mean to the family that I talked about at the outset of my remarks? Well, it may mean up to about $100 a month in lower mortgage payments, $100 a month more for health care or for education or to meet the other demands of the household. This is a sensible, bipartisan approach to a problem that is affecting a lot of people. As we heard previously, there are 65,000 borrowers across the country who are paying interest rates in excess of 9\1/2\ percent, and there are 9,100 of those borrowers paying interest rates in excess of 13 percent. This is a modest measure that will help those families in a significant way. I would like to express my appreciation to the staff on both the majority and minority side for their cooperation, to the United States Department of Agriculture for their steadfast support of this, to Geoff Plague of my office for his outstanding work. Let me again say to the gentleman from Iowa (Chairman Leach) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. LaFalce) and the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter), and, in his absence, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Lazio), and also the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) that I appreciate their cooperation. I urge the adoption of the bill.

Mr. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy), for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the underlying bill and in support of the Democratic substitute. The underlying bill violates a hard-won national consensus on fiscal policy. I thought we had learned and agreed in two ugly decades of moral and economic bankruptcy in this country that we should base our governance not upon what we desire and wish to do but on what we can afford. I thought we had agreed that we should base our decisions not on the money that we hoped will be there but on the funds that we know that are there. The underlying bill, I believe, violates this consensus because it contributes to a proposition in which the majority says that for every extra dollar that we think we are going to have, we are prepared to spend a $1.05. That consensus in this country would say that, first of all, we should not spend $1.05 for every dollar that is brought in and we should not assume that we are really going to have that dollar because it is based upon guesswork, economic sorcery and a desire for funds that may or may not be there. I thought we had learned that we cannot have everything. I do not like this tax on Social Security benefits. I do not like the tax on gasoline. I do not like the tax on capital gains. I do not like a lot of things that we levy taxes on. But the one thing I really do not like is telling people they can have everything, higher defense spending, debt reduction, save Social Security, a prescription drug benefit, more spending on education, more spending on health care, and an immense tax cut as well. The real deficit in this country for 20 years was not in dollars and cents. It was in credibility. Let us not renew that deficit. Let us oppose this bill.

Mr. ANDREWS

Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall no. 255, I was unable to vote because of a family commitment. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye''; on rollcall no. 256, I was unable to vote because of a family commitment. Had I been present, I would have voted `aye'; and on rollcall no. 298, I was unable to vote because of a scheduling conflict. Had I been present, I would have voted `aye.'