Tom Allen

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. I had a couple of thoughts that were triggered by the gentleman's comments. First of all, the gentleman from Wisconsin is correct. It was the Republicans insisting on using CBO numbers and not OMB numbers because they said then the CBO numbers were more accurate than the OMB numbers. The same holds true today.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentlewoman's comments. They help shed light on what the gentlewoman's constituents and many others are facing. Mr. Speaker, the President's tax cut is the primary reason for the elimination of the surplus within just a few months of his administration. Now that we are in this predicament, it is up to him to come forward and say, how do we deal with this. During the campaign, the President said I will not touch $1 of the Social Security revenue. A few weeks ago, on August 24, 2001, he conceded that he might have to invade the Social Security surplus in time of war or recession. We are certainly not in a recession now. Yesterday he said that he would not do anything that would invade the Social Security surpluses, but the Congressional Budget Office numbers say we are and we are doing it now. We are doing it this year, and there needs to be some leadership from the White House to explain how we possibly get out of this predicament. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind) is here today, and I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to discuss the topic that is foremost on the minds of many Americans, which is the state of our budget, the question of what happened to the surplus that existed in this country in the Federal budget only a few short months ago, and the consequences of the change and the dilemmas that we face over the next few years. What has happened recently, of course, by now is well known. Both the Office of Management and Budget and the Congressional Budget Office have come up with revised projections of the surplus for this year and for the next 10 years. Those surplus projections are, of course, dramatically different from what the President was saying and what my friends on the Republican side of the aisle were saying just a few short months ago. As an example of the kind of statement that the President was making when he was traveling across the country pitching his tax cut, I thought I would give this example of what he said in Portland, Maine, in my district on March 23 of this year. This was his basic argument. He said, ``Now I know these numbers sound like a lot, but this is reality I'm talking about. We have increased discretionary spending by 4 percent, we pay down $2 trillion worth of debt, we set aside $1 trillion in the budget over a 10-year period for contingencies, and guess what, there's still money left over, and that's the debate. The fundamental question is, what to do with it.'' Today we know there is no money left over. Apart from some small surplus over the next 5 or 6 years in the Medicare and Social Security accounts, a very small surplus, there is no surplus over the next 5 years. In fact, almost all of what remains of the surplus is in fact a Social Security surplus that is primarily in the second 5 years of the next decade and not in the next 5 years. What I want to do tonight is to begin by focusing on some of these statements. The first one worth calling attention to is the statement of the President that ``We have increased discretionary spending by 4 percent.'' Let us look at the reality. At the time, March 23, when he made this statement, the President had not submitted a budget for defense. As we all know now, he asked for a major increase in defense spending, over $30 billion. Let us take a look for a moment at a chart which shows or which compares this Administration's budget request to the last year of the Clinton administration's budget request. The Clinton administration asked for $38 billion in fiscal year 2001, the year in which we are in, above budget outlays in fiscal year 2000; $38 billion more last year. Of course, our current President has roundly criticized President Clinton and the previous administration for being big spenders, for spending out of control. Members will note that that budget request is about a 6.7 percent increase in budget authority over the previous year. That is what President Clinton was asking for in his last year. Who is the big spender here? President Bush's request is $44 billion, $6 billion more than President Clinton requested in his last year in office. This $44 billion represents the extent to which that is the increase in budget outlays requested by this administration for fiscal year 2002 above the fiscal 2001 budget: a $44 billion increase. That works out to almost around a 7.2 percent increase in budget authority. When he was back in Portland in May, and in fact in speeches all around the country, the President said over and over again, ``We are only asking for a 4 percent increase in discretionary spending, only 4 percent, and that is a reasonable. That is far less than the Clinton administration was asking.'' But when the defense request rolls in and is considered, the President, this President, is actually asking for a bigger increase in spending than the previous administration did in its last year in office. That is part, but only part, of the problem. Let us go back to another part of the statement that President Bush made in Portland, Maine, on March 23. He said, ``We set aside $1 trillion in the budget over a 10-year period for contingencies, and guess what? There is money left over.'' I have been reading the newspapers, as any other American in the last month and a half, and I have not heard one word, not one word, either in the press or from this administration, about the $1 trillion in contingencies. Whatever happened to the $1 trillion contingency fund? Surely a slight decline in economic productivity, a decline in economic growth in this year, which should have been able to be handled by $1 trillion in contingencies. Well, as the ad says, not exactly. There was not exactly a $1 trillion fund for contingencies; and in fact, it was not there at all. Those contingencies were, in fact, obligations, and not all of them that we will have to meet in this Congress and with the administration over the next 10 years. There was no trillion dollar fund, a true contingency fund. It did not exist in March, and it clearly does not exist today. Let us talk about what the situation is today. The truth is that this year, the fiscal year that ends on September 30, is very different from what it was projected earlier in this year. This year, the Government will tap $29 billion from Medicare surplus taxes and $9 billion from Social Security revenues simply to fund government operations for fiscal year 2002, for the coming fiscal year. Over the next 5 years the President's tax cut and the decline in economic growth together will force a $30 billion diversion from the Social Security Trust Fund and a $170 billion diversion from the Medicare Trust Fund. These are uses of Medicare revenues and of Social Security revenues that virtually every Member of this House pledged not to do. Virtually every Member of this House stood up and said we are going to protect Social Security revenues, excess revenues, Social Security surplus, and we are going to protect the Medicare surplus; but today, it is very different. These are, of course, CBO projections, the recent CBO projections; and, in fact, they are too conservative themselves to actually be realistic. Why? Because the way CBO does its projections, it assumes that there will be no change in existing law, and we know there will be changes in existing law. Let me give a few examples. These baseline estimates do not assume any of the additional spending included either in the budget that President Bush has presented or the congressional budget resolution for defense, for education, or for a prescription drug benefit under Medicare. Those increases are simply not included in the CBO projections. In fact, some of that funding will occur; and so the problem we have is one that was created by the fact that, as many of us said back in March and April, the President's tax cut was too big to be responsible budgeting. We also argued it was too weighted to the wealthiest Americans, which it was and which it is. Fundamentally, we argued at the time, we said over and over again, this will use up all of the available on-budget, non-Social Security, non-Medicare surplus; and as we said repeatedly, we have agreed not to use surplus funds for Medicare and Social Security. Today, we know that the President's tax cut has threatened that possibility. I am not talking about the $300 or the $600 tax rebates that about 60 percent of American taxpayers have received or will receive. That is a relatively small factor in the problem that we face. What I am talking about is what happens over the next few years. Over the next few years, compared to the last eight, during the greatest period of economic expansion in our Nation's history, what is happening over the next few years is we will divert billions and billions and billions of dollars to people in this country, the wealthiest 1 percent who earn over $300,000 every single year. Though we have enormous problems in this country, problems with finding qualified teachers to teach our young people, problems with ensuring that people who graduate from high school and want to go to college can actually get there and get the education they need to be productive citizens in this world, problems with those seniors in my district and all around the country who look at people who are employed who have health care, who get prescription drug coverage through their health care plan, they say to me, why do we not have prescription drug coverage through our health care plan, which is Medicare. Those people need some help. They deserve some help. It is outrageous that the wealthiest country in the world at the time, until just recently, of its greatest prosperity, cannot somehow find the resources to provide our seniors with a prescription drug benefit that is comparable to the benefit that those Americans who are employed, who are working, have for a prescription drug benefit through their own insurance. What is fair for our working people ought to be fair for our seniors. But back for a moment to the CBO projections. As I said, the CBO estimates do not assume any additional spending included in the Bush budget or the congressional budget resolution for defense, for education or for Medicare prescription drugs. The figures also omit the cost of extending expiring tax credits, funding anticipated emergencies for natural disasters, or paying for the $73.5 billion farm reauthorization bill for which the budget resolution provided. Let us look at what this means over the next few years. The President's budget alone plus his tax policies and spending requests invades the Social Security surplus for the next 6 years for a total of $128 billion. It invades the Medicare surplus for the next 8 years for a total of $304 billion. This year, fiscal year 2001 ending on September 30, the Government must tap $29 billion from Medicare and $9 billion from Social Security to fund routine government operations. Now, one of the reasons that that is true in fiscal year 2001 is this administration, knowing that it faced a shortfall in next year, fiscal year 2002, they delayed the date on which certain corporate income taxes would have to be paid from September 30 to October 15. That is a gimmick. We can only do this once. The effect of that was to move $33 billion in current revenues to the next fiscal year in revenues. When we move that $33 billion, we are very close to creating the deficit that we have created in the current fiscal year. That kind of gimmick which now it appears this administration has adopted in a number of areas is irresponsible budgeting. Let us go for a moment to a different chart. Let us go to a chart which talks about the impact of the surplus over the next several years. As this chart shows, the Bush budget wipes out the surplus. There is going to be a lot of debate in these Chambers about what happened to the surplus, not just what happened to that supposed $1 trillion contingency fund, but what happened to the surplus. It was not so long ago that people were saying we can see surpluses as far as the eye can see. Now they are gone. They are all gone. Here is basically what happened: the CBO in May 2001 baseline showed a surplus of $2.745 trillion. Now, what has happened to that? Well, $1.66 trillion of that is the total cost of the Bush tax cut. Then we have had an economic slowdown. That is also a factor. The economic slowdown and certain technical factors have caused us to lose another $639 billion or .639 trillion dollars. Now you have additional funding requests from the President of .767 trillion or $767 billion, and it is the combination of these three factors that drive us into deficit over a 10-year period. Let me say a little bit about that surplus. This deficit and the surpluses are not distributed evenly over the next 10 years. In fact, if you look at a chart that shows year by year what happens to the surplus, in fact, there is either a deficit or a minuscule surplus for the next 5 years, and then you have a projected surplus over the second 5 years of the decade with the largest surplus of all, over $200 billion in the final year. Well, why is the largest piece of surplus the tenth year out? Well, another gimmick because basically what happened when the tax cut was passed, the House passed a $1.6 trillion tax cut. The other body passed a $1.35 trillion tax cut, both of them calculated over 10 years. But when the conferees got together, they liked tax cuts so much, not just the $300 and $600 rebate this year, but tax cuts for the wealthy extending out over the 10-year period that really drained enormous amounts of revenue from the Federal budget, making it extraordinarily difficult to meet the educational, the health care, the environmental, and the job-training needs of our population. When you look at that last year, you will find that the tax cut sunsets on December 31, 2010. So that the last year of this coming decade is one where the estate tax is back just as it is today, where the tax rates are back just as they are today. All of the tax code changes that are passed in the President's tax cut bill are eliminated and the tax code reverts to what it is today. Why was that done? Well, it was done to keep all the tax breaks and yet to stay within a $1.35 trillion number. That gimmick makes all of these budget numbers look actually better than they are in the real world. In the real world this country faces some enormous challenges. This is going to be a difficult fall. I think Members on both sides of the aisle agree because we have gone from surpluses from the non-Social Security, non-Medicare accounts to deficits; and we have done it within just a few months of this administration's election to office. We have done it primarily, not exclusively, but primarily because the size of the Bush tax cut was so large as to be completely irresponsible. That is why back in March, back in April, back in May so many of us on the Democratic side of the aisle were saying we ought to have a tax cut, we ought to have a large tax cut. It ought to be about $800 billion. If we had set aside a tax cut, if we had done a tax cut of $800 billion, we would not be running into deficit projections now. We, in fact, would have those funds to make sure that Social Security and Medicare would be shored up over the next few years and not at the risk of being weakened simply because of our irresponsible budgeting. We would be looking at fully funding special education. I do not know anyone, Republican or Democrat, who is not hearing from people in his district about the need to live up to our commitment to fully fund special education at the 40 percent that, frankly, was the goal when the special education IDEA Act was enacted in 1974. But if the money is not there, if the surplus is gone, it will not happen. That is what we were saying. We were saying that you cannot project over 10 years with any degree of confidence. Boy, were we right about that one. We did not have to wait 2 years or 4 years or 5 years or 8 years to test the accuracy of these projections. In just 3 months, in just 3 months the numbers change dramatically. As you can see right here, minus $639 billion dollars over 10 years, a change in the projection in just 3 months. But it is that kind of change that many of us were saying, you cannot predict the future with any degree of confidence; and, therefore, what we need to do is to be cautious, not have a tax cut so large that it eats up all of the budget surplus and causes us to dipping into revenues from Social Security and Medicare. We argued then it was irresponsible, and it is more clear than ever today that that course of action was, in fact, irresponsible. I see that I am joined by a couple of my colleagues here tonight, and I want to recognize them in a few moments. I think I would like to close these brief remarks by saying this. When Members look at what is happening with the tax cut, so large that it is jeopardizing our fiscal health, so large that it is making Alan Greenspan's actions at the Fed not as effective as they might be because people understand if we are moving straight to deficit as projections of surplus, long-term interest rates are going to stay up; and for businesses, for homeowners, for all of those people who borrow over some extended period of time, if long-term interest rates are going to stay up, we are not going to do as well. The Federal Government is going to be paying higher interest. The businesses will be paying higher long-term interest rates. Homeowners will be paying higher long-term interest rates. Remember, this economy took off in 1993. This Congress and the administration said, we are going to cut spending and make sure that the very wealthiest Americans pay their fair share of taxes. What happened? Interest rates went down and the deficits turned into surpluses, and the economy took off. It is the reversal of those fundamental policies which is jeopardizing the economic health of this country which is so serious. We are going to be debating in the--next last few weeks and perhaps months about the budget. It is really fundamentally a debate about the future. Fundamentally it is a debate about whether we are going to reduce the amount that we spend together on those things that we can only do together. What am I talking about is, Abraham Lincoln said in 1854, the role of governments is to do those things that a community of individuals cannot do or cannot do so well alone. We cannot create a public education system one by one, and yet every business in this country depends on having a well-educated, well-trained work force. We cannot take care of our seniors one by one, individually. That is why Medicare and Social Security were created. We cannot do an interstate highway system, we cannot provide for the common defense, we cannot lift up this country so that individuals in this country can reach their full potentials unless we use our government, as well as other voluntary associations, to do things together that we cannot do as individuals. The fundamental theory underlying the President's tax cut was that we take every dollar out of Washington, and that is good. Even if that dollar would educate a kid who cannot get Head Start now because there is not enough money to serve every kid who qualifies for Head Start, even if that dollar would help seniors pay for prescription drugs when they are not taking their medicine now because they have to buy food instead, even if that dollar represents a loan to someone who could then go on and get the college education that they feel they need. That is what this country ultimately is all about. We are here somehow to help each other lift each other up, to hang together on things that are of fundamental public importance. But this tax cut was about me and not about we. The health of this country depends on getting back and moving from me to we, from doing well, investing in ourselves, investing in this country, making sure that the people of this country have a fighting chance to get ahead. They cannot do that. They will not do that. They have no chance to do that. If the Federal Government slides back into deficits, if we cannot fund education, if we cannot fund health care and shore up the infrastructure of this country and provide opportunity for all of the people who live here and to our children. The last thing we wanted to do was to shift expenses, shift costs from this generation to our children, but the President's tax cut was so large that is exactly what it is doing. Unless we make changes and unless we figure out how to get out of this problem, we are right back in deficits and we are jeopardizing the future of this country. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Jones).

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Although I am proud of the men and women in our military service and those working for defense contractors who were part of this success, I have to rise in opposition to the resolution for several reasons, first, in terms of process. As the gentleman from South Carolina said, this resolution was never considered by the Committee on Armed Services. It was just brought to the attention of the minority yesterday at 5 o'clock. There was no consultation with the minority until then. I think many Members really do not have a grip on the implications of what it is we are voting on. Second, precedent. This resolution commends the U.S. military personnel and contractors for the apparently successful national missile defense tests of last Saturday. BMDO says it will conduct 10 more tests in the next year. So do we pass a resolution each time it hits? Should we pass a resolution each time it misses? Because there are some Members who would want to do that, although I am not one of them. Would the majority support their right to offer such a resolution? What kind of precedent are we setting? Will we feel compelled to vote every time a major weapons system passes a milestone? The F-22, for example. Why not pass a resolution every time a community gets a COPS grant or a housing grant? My third objection is substance. General Kadish, in the post-test briefing, cautioned that scientists could need months to finish analyzing the test results: ``We do not know for certain that every objective was met,'' he said. ``In all probability, some of them were not.'' I believe it is irresponsible to put the House on record before there has been a full analysis. Now, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) on the Republican side, who has worked on this issue for years, and I do not see eye to eye on missile defense very much, but together we sent a ``Dear Colleague'' last week urging Members not to rush to judgment on the test results, positive or negative. We quoted General Kadish: ``I do not believe it is helpful to overplay our successes or failures.'' This resolution runs counter to the spirit of his plea. It is not productive. When the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) and I can actually agree on something related to missile defense, we hope a few other Members will listen. Finally, politics. This resolution will not help solve NMD's technological problems. It will not resolve the ABM Treaty issues. It will not get us to deployment any faster. In my opinion, it serves no purpose other than a political one. The best thing we could do for national missile defense is to reduce the political and idealogical motivation and focus on the technology, on the strategic and security issues. For those reasons, I believe this resolution is ill-advised and should be withdrawn or defeated.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment because it would equip the FDA to prevent blatant patent abuses. This amendment does not open up Waxman-Hatch, cut into patent protection, legislate on an appropriations bill or spend new money. What this amendment does is to enable the FDA to exercise the existing authority to prevent blatant patent abuses under the Waxman-Hatch Act. Today, some drug companies attach unrelated patents to approved drugs and then sue companies that want to produce a generic equivalent for patent infringement. As the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) indicated, this can produce a 30-month delay in generic drug approvals and result in substantial delays in consumer access to generic drugs. Mr. Chairman, let me point out, the FDA has the authority to prevent these blatant abuses right now. What they need is $1 million through the Office of Generic Drugs in order to enforce this agreement and ensure that patents are not inappropriately listed.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I rise in support of the Sanders amendment, not because it is the perfect amendment but because I believe it is a step in the right direction. During all this debate, few people, no one really, has asked why are drugs so much less expensive in other countries. The reason is because other countries do not allow the pharmaceutical companies to gouge their citizens, senior citizens or others. In Canada, in all the rest of the G-7, there are caps on what the pharmaceutical industry can charge. In those countries the pharmaceutical industry sells lots of drugs, they make profits, and they do just fine. Only in America, only in America do we basically allow them to charge the highest prices in the world to seniors, who can least afford it. That is why this is a step in the right direction. I do believe we need a prescription drug cap here in the United States so that our seniors are not discriminated against and our seniors no longer pay the highest prices in the world.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise to offer an amendment with the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) to provide American taxpayers with information about our collective investment in the research and development of new prescription drugs. The Food and Drug Administration should not approve, in our opinion, a new drug application unless the total cost of the research and development of that drug is available to the public. We are particularly interested in knowing how much money the taxpayers have contributed. The pharmaceutical industry claims that efforts to make drugs affordable for seniors would reduce the industry's ability to conduct research and to develop new drugs. I disagree. This industry is the most profitable in the country. Their profits last year were more than $27 billion. The manufacturers will always be able to attract capital in order to do R&D. The industry asserts that they have a right to charge high prices to those least able to afford it because of the $500 million, more or less, that they claim it takes to launch a new drug. What the industry consistently fails to disclose is that new drugs are usually the result of a partnership with the public. A good portion of our Nation's pharmaceutical research is conducted by publicly-funded entities. We deserve to know how much. The pharmaceutical industry says we do not deserve to know. They say this amendment is unjustified. I say there is no justification for the way America's seniors are currently treated. Seniors pay taxes which are used to fund research, but the product of that research, which saves lives, is too expensive for many of them to afford. The drug manufacturers say no other industry has to disclose R&D figures. But no other industry gouges the needy as they do, or operates in such a shroud of secrecy. We are not asking that the FDA make an approval decision based on the R&D data. We are not asking that trade secrets be made public. We are simply asking the FDA to inquire about the data on the cost of R&D and to make it available. The industry has attacked this amendment. I can only assume they know their arguments about their R&D expenses will be undermined if the public is told how much of the cost of the development of new drugs is actually paid by the public. We know that the taxpayer contribution to the development of innovative medicines is significant. NIH estimates that taxpayer-funded research, combined with private foundation-funded research, accounts for about 50 percent of all medical research in this country. Now we need to know the details, just how much public and private funding is involved in the development of new drugs. We do not want to slow the approval of or access to new drugs, but there are too many patients who cannot afford the drugs, even if they are approved by the FDA. Proving a drug safe and effective can take years. Providing the cost of development should be easy. A memo to the FDA would do the job. I can assure the Members that the pharmaceutical industry is capable of tracking expenditures in their development of new drugs. I am confident that this Congress and this administration can find a way to implement this amendment successfully. Because the cost of R&D is one of the most important components of our debate over prescription drug costs for the elderly and disabled, it is hard to believe that anyone could object to making basic information on those costs available to the public. Millions of our seniors have paid taxes for decades and contributed to the development of new drugs. Now, in their retirement, they pay the highest prices in the world for those drugs. The pharmaceutical industry spends millions of dollars on TV ads about their miracle drugs, but does not want the public to know how much the public has contributed to those miracles. The public deserves to know. I urge passage of this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, I have one more speaker. I am not willing to withdraw the amendment.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of our time to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown).

Mr. ALLEN. I simply await the ruling of the chair.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman. (Mr. MANZULLO asked and was given permission to speak out of order.) Personal Explanation

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. I would like to enter into a colloquy with the chairman of the Subcommittee On Interior of the Committee On Appropriations. Much of the land within the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge in Maine is protected today. However, several in-holdings and other areas of critical concern are not. The Rachel Carson Wildlife Refuge consists of tidal creeks, coastal uplands, sandy dunes, salt ponds, and various types of wetlands that provide precious nesting and feeding habitat for a variety of migratory waterfowl, and a nursery for many shellfish and fin fish. The refuge also serves our communities by providing countless individuals and school groups the opportunity to gain firsthand knowledge of the critical and unusual nature of Maine's coastal habitats. Mr. Chairman, there is an opportunity in fiscal year 2002 to purchase properties for the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge. Southern Maine is witnessing rapid development. Without preservation, coastal and wetland habitats are at great risk. I ask for the gentleman's assistance to identify funding for a $3 million appropriation from the Land and Water Conservation Fund. This would ensure that the opportunity to protect these properties is not lost.

Mr. ALLEN. I yield to the gentleman from New Mexico.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, on June 13, 2001, 1 was unavoidably absent for two rollcall votes. Had I been present I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall vote 160, the Sudan Peace Act, and ``yea'' on rollcall vote 161, a resolution relating to human rights in Afghanistan.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield. The gentleman from Texas is exactly right. In my home State of Maine, we have Bath Ironworks where half of the destroyers for the Navy are built. There is no question in my mind or the minds of many people in Maine, those who served in the military and those who did not, if you spend tens of billions of dollars more on a national missile defense system, it will simply sit there. And we will not have the kind of Navy we need to protect our interests around the globe. The same argument can be made with respect to procurement for tactical aircraft. Clearly it can be made with respect to the pay and benefits for the men and women in our armed services. Mr. Speaker, what we have to remember about a national missile defense system is that it protects against one single threat and is useful for no other purpose. It would not be effective against Russia or China. It would only be effective against a state like North Korea or Iran. When you look at those states, North Korea is willing to sit down and negotiate away their missile defense program. Iran just elected a reformist president with 75 percent of the vote. We can deal with these countries and negotiate with these countries. Believe me, it is a lot less expensive to do that, negotiate away the threat than it is to build this kind of system. But the gentleman is absolutely right, you stay within the defense budget and before we get to education and health care and the environment, this kind of system will drain money away from other urgent national priorities. If I may add one more thing, it is important to note that Secretary Rumsfeld recently said that he thought there should be deployed the rudiments of a missile defense system by 2004, even before the testing is complete. As one of our colleagues mentioned today, that date is significant. The point is, try to get something in the ground before the next election, before the President comes up for reelection. That is no way to run this kind of defense procurement effort and weapons system. Mr. Speaker, if we know anything about weapons systems for the Department of Defense, we should fly before we buy, we need to test before we purchase. It is particularly true of the most complex system on the drawing board at the Pentagon. This system is being rushed in a way that is destructive not only to our military, but to our national security. And we need the public to understand this is not a simple issue, but a great deal is at stake. Mr. Speaker, I want to say personally to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney), I appreciate very much his holding this event tonight and yield back.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney) for holding this event tonight to talk about national missile defense and the Bush administration's enthusiasm for an untested and uncertain project. The reason I think it is so important to have this conversation tonight is that it is very clear to me that this is one of the most critical issues facing this Congress and one in which the public obviously needs more information. And whatever the right answer is, we have to have this kind of discussion and debate. We are not going to get it during the regular legislative day, so we need to get it after hours. In many respects, all of us believe that if we had a national missile defense system that actually worked and did not threaten our security, that would be a good thing to have. The difficulties are several: first of all, we have now spent tens of billions of dollars on the system to date, and we are a long way from having a system that is actually tested and that works. There are scientists across this country who are convinced that this system can never work. It is also clear that to build a system on the scale that the Bush administration envisions is a hundred billion dollars and up. A huge amount of money. Third, there is a problem. We need defenses that are proportional to the threat. And it is not at all clear that a threat of a ballistic missile attack by North Korea, by Iran, or some other rogue state is really at the top of the list of the threats that we face. Many of us in this room today joined with other concerned citizens who came to Washington with a simple message for President Bush, and for all of us as policymakers. First, the President's fast-track missile defense will make the world less stable, not more stable. Second, rushing deployment of missile defense will provoke other nations to increase their offensive arms and undermine U.S. national security. In particular, it is very likely to encourage the Chinese to develop more ICBMs, which in turn will make India uncertain and insecure, which will add to a race in missile development in India and in Pakistan. Third, abandoning arms control agreements and gambling on unproven missile defense technologies is unsafe and unwise. When we look back through the centuries, military history has really been a battle between the sword and the shield. Building a better shield has always compelled the forging of a better sword. The Bush administration needs to explain why it thinks this missile shield is exempt from the laws of history. As I said before, missile defense might be justified if it could be proven to work reliably and consistently and if we were confident that it would improve our overall national security. But President Bush has not provided any particulars about his proposal. It is only a multilayered proposal which will protect us against all kinds of threats. Congress and the American people really have to force this administration to answer the hard questions that they have so far avoided. For example: one, can missile defense technology be proven to work reliably and consistently? To date, the answer is no. Second, what is the cost? To date, the answer is, who knows, but perhaps tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars. Third, will national missile defense improve other overall national security? Well, not if we abandon the ABM Treaty and abandon an arms control regime that has kept the peace for 50-odd years. Fourth, is national missile defense a proportional response to a credible threat? I serve on the House Committee on Armed Services, which evaluates threats to our security. The U.S. intelligence community recently issued a report on global threats and challenges we may face by 2015. This is shown on the chart beside me here, ``Threats and Challenges in 2015, a National Intelligence Council Report.'' There are many diverse threats here. Some of them relate to population trends, aging patterns, migration, health and AIDS. Others relate to natural resources and the environment, access to food or to clean water, the availability of energy, or environmental degradation. Some are related to science and technology, the global economy, or to national and international governance. There are some threats that do relate to future conflicts, and a national missile defense system protects against one of those threats, that is, a weapon of mass destruction delivered by means of a long- range missile. It does not protect against a Ryder truck or a boat or a suitcase that can be carried into a building or near a building and blown up. If we look at what happened tragically in Oklahoma City, or if we look at what happened to the U.S.S. Cole, I submit that is the future. Those are the risks that we in this country really have to worry about far more than having some country decide they are going to fire a missile at our country, which would be tracked from the moment it left the ground in North Korea or Iran or somewhere else. Over the last 55 years, deterrence has worked and it continues to work. Just take one example. During the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein did not use his chemical and biological weapons. Why? Because the first Bush administration made it clear that if he did that there would be massive retaliation. Even Saddam Hussein, in the middle of a conflict, respected the power of retaliation of this country. My concern is if we put all our money into missile defense, there is no way that we are not going to underfund these other threats to us with the delivery of weapons of mass destruction by other means.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, the Congressional Budget Office just released revised estimates on the fiscal year 2002 surplus. The so-called contingency fund has shrunk from $12 billion to $1 billion. Surprise, surprise, surprise. I know now why we rushed through passage of this $1.35 trillion tax cut. There is not enough room for both the tax cut and funding for essential programs. In school, we learned that the hip bone is connected to the thigh bone, but unfortunately many of my colleagues do not understand that expenditures are connected to revenues. As a result, our constituents will suffer. According to the Economic Policy Institute, my home State of Maine will lose $44 million next year alone under the proposed Bush budget. LIHEAP is cut. School renovation and construction grants are eliminated. That is only the beginning. This country would be better off if the President today did not sign this $1.35 trillion tax cut which benefits the wealthy at the expense of everyone else.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) for yielding to me, and I thank particularly our friend, the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin), for coming here tonight and speaking on this particular topic. We really have built strong support on the Democratic side of the aisle for the discount, which would be about 35 percent for all Medicare beneficiaries in the cost of their prescription drugs reflected in the bill that I have sponsored, the Prescription Drug Fairness for Seniors Act. Also, we know that seniors ultimately need a Medicare prescription drug benefit, not a private insurance company prescription drug benefit. That is really the choice that is presented between the Democratic side of the aisle and the Republican side of the aisle. If I could say a couple of things, I guess I want to go beyond the prescription drug issue for a moment and talk about Medicare generally. The American public has every reason to feel a bit confused because in the last election there was all this talk about prescription drug coverage for seniors, and there has been talk for years about Medicare reform. The question always is, what is contained in those little words ``Medicare reform.'' Well, today there is breaking news, Mr. Speaker, on health care, breaking news on Medicare. I guarantee the Members, it will not be on the evening news, it will not be covered on the front page of any newspaper tomorrow, but still, it is breaking news. It comes in a story by Robert Pear in the New York Times this morning. The headline is significant: ``Medicare Shift Toward HMOs Is Planned.'' So the question is, planned by whom? Well, planned by the Bush administration. Now at last we can see a little more clearly what this administration is up to when it comes to Medicare. There are many people on the Republican side of the aisle who have never liked Medicare because, after all, it is a government health care program. It takes care of our seniors. It has been there since 1965. It was put in place because in 1965 only one-half of all of our seniors had any health insurance at all. Medicare stepped in where the private insurance industry simply would not provide coverage to our seniors. It has been a success. It is there in every State. It is equal. It is trusted by our seniors. It is respected by our seniors. Well, the President has appointed and the Senate has confirmed a new administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration, the organization that runs Medicare. His name is Thomas Scully, and he made his first speech, significantly, at the United States Chamber of Commerce. Here is what he said: ``The government is better in the long run when it is a buyer of insurance, rather than an insurer.'' What did Mr. Scully mean by that? He meant that it would be better for our seniors to have private insurance than it would be to be under Medicare, under a Federal health care plan. Let us look at some of the facts. I am interested in this because the program that allows some, about 14 or 15 percent, of our seniors to get their Medicare benefits through a private insurance company has a name. It is called Medicare+Choice. What that Medicare+Choice refers to is coverage that will be obtained through HMOs. Now, this is wonderful, I suppose, in a few places in this country, particularly in our big cities, because there we may have several competing plans that are there to try to provide more choices to seniors, and in some big cities in this country it works, with an exception which I will note later. But in my home State of Maine, we do not have a single, not one, HMO providing insurance for our seniors. We did last year. We had one company which had about 1,700 beneficiaries. Two of them were my parents. But the insurance company decided it could not make money in Maine, and so it pulled out. My parents had to go looking for another supplementary health care insurance, causing all sorts of confusion and upset. Well, what is happening across the country? Medicare, I would note, Medicare does not pull out of a State when it is not making money, but private insurance companies do. In fact, in the last 3 years, managed care plans have dropped more than 1.6 million Medicare beneficiaries; 1.6 million beneficiaries dropped. Why? Because the company could not make money off them, could not make money in a particular area, could not make money off some of our seniors who are sicker and need more help than others. Now, until Mr. Scully was chosen and confirmed as the administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration, Medicare officials have historically professed to be neutral. They have said we are not taking sides between traditional Medicare fee-for-service, which is there for about 75 percent of all Medicare beneficiaries, and the 15 percent who get their coverage through an HMO. They are trying to, over the last few years, the goal has been, under the Clinton-Gore administration, to make sure that there was a level playing field. But as I said, that has all changed. That has changed because Mr. Scully has made it perfectly clear that the government is better in the long run when it is a buyer of insurance rather than an insurer. In other words, traditional Medicare that Americans have come to rely on and respect and depend on because they know the benefits will not change every year, they know Medicare will not pack up and leave a State when it is not making money, that system is now under attack from the administration. Because what Mr. Scully wants to do is he wants up to 30 percent of elderly patients in managed care by 2005. That means we have to reverse this trend of managed care companies simply dropping people. But it is far more significant than that. Mr. Scully, I suggest, has not done his homework. Why do I say that? Because he does not yet understand that these managed care plans cost more than traditional fee-for-service Medicare. As Dave Berry says, I am not making this up, it is right here. In a GAO report published in August of 2000, this is a review of Medicare+Choice plans. This is a review of how managed care is working in Medicare. Here is the title, ``Payments Exceed Cost of Fee-for-Service Benefits, Adding Billions to Spending.'' Adding billions to spending. What the GAO did was to do a comparison between traditional old fee- for-service Medicare and these new health maintenance organization managed care plans for our seniors. They make the point, the GAO makes the point that Medicare+Choice was designed to expand beneficiaries' health plan options, and it was supposed to improve Medicare's financial posture by better controlling spending growth. Well, lately, the industry has been saying over and over again the payments that we get that the health insurance industry gets under Medicare+Choice plans are too low. We cannot make money. That is why we are dropping people in Maine and all across the country. Well, the GAO looked at 210 of the 346 Medicare+Choice plans that were in operation in 1998. These plans enrolled 87 percent of all beneficiaries in Medicare+Choice plans. What did they find? I quote, ``Medicare+Choice, like its predecessor managed care program, has not been successful in achieving Medicare savings. Medicare+Choice plans attracted a disproportionate selection of healthier and less-expensive beneficiaries relative to traditional'' fee-for-service Medicare, ``while payment rates largely continued to reflect the . . . costs of beneficiaries in average health.'' Here is the key, this is a quote right out of the GAO: ``Instead of paying less for health plan enrollees, we estimate that aggregate payments to Medicare+Choice plans in 1998 were about $5.2 billion . . . or approximately $1,000 per enrollee, more than if the plans' enrollees had received care in the traditional'' fee-for-service program. ``It is largely these excess payments, and not managed care efficiencies, that enable plans to attract beneficiaries by offering a benefit package that is more comprehensive than the one available to FFS,'' fee-for- service, ``beneficiaries, while charging modest or no premiums.'' What does that mean? It means that traditional fee-for-service Medicare is cheaper, $5.2 billion in 1998 alone for 15 percent of the elderly population. Fee-for-service is cheaper than Medicare managed care. So those managed care beneficiaries in this country who are getting prescription drug benefits are getting it, not because the managed care company is saving money, they are getting it because the managed care company is getting more money over and above what it would get for traditional fee-for-service beneficiaries. It is out of that money that the additional benefits are coming. We are making a huge mistake in this country because we have devised a system through Medicare+Choice which is going to drag the insurance industry into Medicare, will provide our seniors with less effective and fair and beneficial services at a higher cost to the taxpayer. Now we have the Bush administration stepping up and saying, what we really need in this country is more health insurance companies taking over Medicare. Mr. Scully is wrong. Fee-for-service Medicare, traditional Medicare works. What our seniors need is a system that is reliable and predictable and stable, something they can count on. They do not need insurance companies changing the benefits, reducing benefits one year, raising premiums the same year, pulling out of a State because they are not making enough money. Medicare needs reform, but it does not need to be taken over by HMOs. That is what, in his first major speech, Mr. Scully of the Health Care Financing Administration is saying is his goal for Medicare, to turn it over, to turn more and more of it over to our insurance companies. If he succeeds in doing that, our seniors will be worse off than they are today. Our taxpayers will be worse off than they are today. But the health insurance industry will be making more money and their stocks will be higher than they are today. That is what this is all about. At the end of the day, what Mr. Scully is suggesting is not the best system for our seniors, it is not the best system for consumers, it is the best system for the health insurance industry. That is what it is about. Those who gave money in the past election campaign will get their reward if this administration can succeed in undermining, changing our Medicare system that seniors have grown to depend on, and turning it over to private industry to make more money, more profits than ever before. It is abomination. This Congress, if we do nothing else, has got to stop this administration from taking Medicare apart and turning it over to the private sector. I have gone on some period of time. This is an issue I care deeply about. I certainly want to thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) for holding this event this evening and allowing all of us to come forward and express our views.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, during the weeks of May 7, and May 14, 2001, I was unavoidably absent for seven rollcall votes, due to the illness and death of a family member. Had I been present I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall votes 109, 110, 111, 112, and 113, and voted ``nay'' on rollcall votes 107 and 108.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings) for yielding, and I rise in support of the motion to recommit the bill to create the special position of special coordinator for Korea. North Korea tested a missile in August 1998. They have not tested a missile since, because the Clinton administration successfully negotiated a moratorium on their test program. North Korea has voluntarily continued this moratorium through 2003. If they cannot test their missiles, they cannot deploy their missiles to threaten us. President Bush, Mr. Speaker, has refused to continue negotiations with the North Koreans. Mr. Speaker, we can negotiate away the North Korean missile threat but only if we sit down at the table to discuss the subject. That is why we need a special coordinator for Korea. President Bush appears to be more interested in justifying a technologically unproven missile defense than in eliminating the missiles themselves. It is easier to defend against the missile that is never launched than one that is. Let us seize this opportunity to negotiate an end to the North Korean missile threat. I urge my colleagues to support the motion to recommit.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Hall) for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose this rule. I am disappointed that the Hastings-Allen amendment was not made in order. Our amendment would establish a special coordinator for Korea to negotiate the end of the North Korean missile program. We can negotiate away the North Korean missile threat, but only if we sit down at the table to discuss the subject. President Bush has refused to do so. In denying the House a vote on our amendment, Republicans show they have no interest in getting rid of North Korean missiles. Why? Apparently because those missiles are needed to justify the President's extravagant, unworkable missile defense scheme. It is far easier to defend against a missile that is never built than against a missile that has been launched. There is a new, improved climate on the Korean Peninsula. The North Koreans have voluntarily continued their moratorium on testing. It is a shame on this bill we cannot even vote for a special coordinator to negotiate an end to the North Korean missile threat.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, on April 23, 2001, Altrusa International, Inc. of Greater Biddeford-Saco, Maine, USA, celebrated its 25th anniversary of service to its communities. This service group consists of professional women and men from the congressional district who have generously volunteered their energies and expertise in a wide variety of worthy activities. Many of their projects have emphasized literacy, including ``A Mile of Books,'' which literally offered a mile of books for children in Head Start to take home and keep. They also provide financial assistance to ``Literacy Volunteers'' and work with families through ``First Teachers,'' a program designed to improve the literacy skills of entire families. In addition, the group has helped innumerable people in the community through its hospice volunteers, knitters group, meal program for the homeless, and financial support for the area's battered women's shelter and YMCA. This incomplete list of the many projects of Altrusa International, Inc. of Greater Biddeford-Saco illustrates the depth and breadth of its members' involvement in the community. At a time when few Americans seem to find the time or interest to share the joys and burdens of their fellow citizens, this selfless engagement is most heartening. These volunteers have learned firsthand that giving of themselves is the greatest gift of all.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I would note that we are having a Special Order at 3:15 in the afternoon, and that seems to be typical in this Congress. The Republican agenda is tax cuts, and then tax cuts and then tax cuts, all of them directed and weighted to the wealthiest people of the country. But other than that, there is not much of an agenda. We have learned a couple of things in the first 100 days of the George W. Bush administration. The first thing is that the word ``compassionate'' was a political slogan for use during the campaign. You cannot find any compassion in the President's budget. Once he gets to the point of putting down numbers, there is nothing compassionate about his particular brand of conservatism. Second, he came to Portland, Maine, in my district to pitch his tax cut. As he has done all across this country, he said that in effect the tax cut comes from leftover money. He says after we have funded our priorities, there is a huge surplus in this country and it should go back to the people because it is the people's money. In other words he basically was saying this money is not needed to run the programs that benefit people in their districts, in their States right now. That is not true. It is absolutely not true, and once you have the budget you can see that it is not true. The tax cuts do not come from leftover money. What he gives back to the American people in tax cuts, he takes from them in budget cuts. Let us talk about a few of these that he is clearly going to try to get through. For example, let us take law enforcement. By and large Democrats and Republicans have agreed that we need to fight crime in this country. We need to help local communities fund law enforcement. That is why we have had this program for a 100,000 police officers. That is why we have tried to encourage community policing across the country. The President's budget cuts the COPS program by 17 percent. All of these cuts, some of which I am going to run through, there is not time to run through them all, what they do is they will grow dramatically over time because the tax cut grows dramatically in each successive year. That is why the budget cuts have to be so severe. The Bush budget cuts funding for land management programs by $2.6 billion including the Department of Interior, the EPA, the Army Corps of Engineers; and these funds have helped parks and wildlife refuges in Maine. The Bush campaign said that he would leave no child behind. The Bush budget leaves many of America's children behind. How does that happen? On the one hand he says we are going to add $1 billion more for special education. On the other hand he pulls back $1.2 billion for school construction and renovation. In my State of Maine it means we get $4.5 million more in special education funds, whereas full funding would be $60 million for the State of Maine. And he takes back $5.5 million. We lose $1 million, and yet the President is saying education is one of his top priorities. This makes no sense. It makes no sense at all. This is the one chance we have had in decades, in fact since the special education law was passed, this is our one chance to pass special education. And if the President's tax cut passes, that chance will be gone for a decade. It is absolutely clear that the priority is tax cut first, tax cut second, tax cut third; and education, prescription drugs for seniors, Social Security and Medicare, the environment, they are so far down on the agenda that you cannot even see them. The President says we have an energy crisis. He favors more drilling in ANWR, but his budget cuts funds for renewable energy resources programs and energy conservation programs. What sense does that make? Mr. Speaker, I think that certainly in my State it is clear that his budget cuts are aimed directly at the heart of Maine municipalities. The cuts in special education or the reduced fund for education overall, the reduced funding for law enforcement, inadequate funding to separate storm and sewer drains, all in all this tax cut is way too large, way too weighted for the wealthiest people in this country; and that is what he is asking the country to judge him by. A tax cut of the size that the President has proposed will not allow funding for special education. Half the size would allow us to make dramatic progress in a variety of different areas. It would, for example, help with some of those mandates that we really struggle with all of the time. It would allow full funding of a Medicare prescription drug benefit. I want to say something about that, an issue I have worked on for some period of time. When you look at what the Republicans are trying to do, both in the House and in the other body, and when you look at what the President is proposing, there is no way it works for rural States. I do not care whether you are a Republican, Independent, Democrat, in rural America the privatization of Medicare which is what the Breaux-Frist reform plan is all about, will not work. We learned last August from the Congressional Budget Office that traditional fee-for-service Medicare is cheaper than the services provided to Medicare beneficiaries by managed care companies, by HMOs. Yet the President continues his train down a track that provides that we are going to make sure that at least half, maybe more, of Medicare beneficiaries are served not by Medicare but by Aetna or United or the private insurance companies that have gone in and provided some HMO coverage to Medicare beneficiaries in other parts of the country, not in Maine. Mr. Speaker, I know this: Medicare does not pick up and leave a State when it is not making money. Private insurance companies do. HMOs do. They pick up and they leave States. Not only that, in any given year if they are not making enough money, this will increase the premium. If they are not making enough money, they will decrease the benefit. What kind of system is the President laying before this Congress? We can already see in this first 100 days what the President's agenda is. It is easy to find. If you want to know his policies on energy or the environment, just look at those policies advocated by the oil industry, by the coal industry, by the gas industry. That is where you will find perfect agreement. If you want to know his policies on health care, look at the pharmaceutical industry and the health insurance industry. They are the same policies as the President has. If you want to know his policy on privatizing Social Security, it is the same policy that Wall Street brokerages have been advocating for years because it will make them lots of money. This administration is captured by the special interests of the country. The President talks about running the government like a business. Well, at the rate we are going, the government will be nothing more than a business. It will pay no attention to those values that we deal with every day here because in this Congress, in the people's House, our job is not just about commercial values, it is about making sure that people have a chance to get ahead. That is what this country is all about. In a wide variety of areas, whether education, health care, the environment, we can only do, we can only improve our collective well-being through the Federal Government, the State governments, and the local governments. Abraham Lincoln said in 1854, ``Governments exist to do those things which a community of individuals cannot do, or cannot do so well by themselves.'' That message has been lost on this administration. Lost on this administration. Mr. Speaker, we need to move in this country from thinking not just about me, not just about our individual welfare, but to thinking about the common good, an old-fashioned phrase, but one that still has meaning and one that the people of America still understand. They know. The people in my State know. Here is a headline from yesterday's paper: ``Local Advocates Rally Against Bush Budget Cut.'' People in Maine know we have an interest in making sure that the young people growing up in public housing projects have a chance for a better life. The President has zeroed out a $60 million grant to the Boys and Girls Clubs of this country. A small portion of that money goes into Portland, Maine. Let me tell you what it does. It funds four study centers, after-school study centers for kids. They come out of school, they have a place to go. They have tutors, and materials to work on. They can improve their education and do better in school. Four different areas in Portland. It helps pay for a satellite Boys and Girls Club, a peer leadership program through which young people are able to develop leadership skills. It helps fund the Institute for Practical Democracy, a place for girls; and a variety of other programs. One woman who works with these children said if we eliminate this, we eliminate opportunities for our kids. The truth about the Bush tax cut is that it is taking money out of the hides of our kids. It is taking money out of the hides of our seniors. It is taking money out of the hides of the municipalities and communities all across this country, and it is taking money away from our ability to protect and preserve our environment. Mr. Speaker, there is no free lunch in this country. Revenues are related to expenditures, even though the administration would argue the tax cut as if it were totally separate from the programs that American people and American communities have come to depend on. We need to do a better job, and we can. A tax cut half this size protects and preserves the kinds of programs which make a difference in the lives of Americans all across the country. This budget and tax cut are bad for my State of Maine. They are bad for the country. They are bad for working men and women all across the country, and it is our hope that they will be rejected. Mr. Speaker, we may not change the administration; but it is our hope that in this Congress and in the other body we will be able to change the direction to one that is more balanced, more sensible and fairer for ordinary Americans.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to remember Robert B. Ganley, for 14 years the city manager of Portland, Maine, who died suddenly from a heart attack on Saturday, December 23, 2000. He was 51. Bob Ganley preached substance over style, and that is how he lived. As city manager first of South Portland and then of Portland, he revitalized our communities. A master of the budgetary process, he made local government more efficient, improved services, held down taxes, and made Portland a better place to live. His sometimes blunt demeanor could not hide a passionate commitment to his city, his family, the Portland Sea Dogs and Boston sports teams. Bob might have become a journalist, but as he told a friend who was one, ``I loved government.'' Not many today understand the depth of his kind of commitment to public service. For 6 years, from 1989 to 1995, I served on the Portland City Council, including one year as mayor. I learned from Bob the importance of fighting for the long-term interests of a community against the negative passions of the moment. Bob Ganley knew that his job was to strengthen the community he served. He wanted Portland to be a place where people cared about each other and could work effectively together toward goals that transcended their individual interests. Portland today is that kind of community. When homeless people were sleeping in city parks in the late 1980s, Bob pushed the shelter program to meet his declared goal that no one would be without a bed in Portland. He succeeded. When the local economy stalled in the early 1990s, Bob helped create a downtown improvement district, pushed through tax increment financing packages, and established a business advisory committee to connect city hall with downtown businesses. He worked closely with our employee unions to cope with unusual budgetary pressures. Bob seized opportunities. When Portland was offered the chance to host the AA baseball team, Bob made it happen and became one of the biggest fans of the Portland Sea Dogs. He understood what the team would do to lift the spirit of the city, even though the economic impact could never be calculated. Bob Ganley's management style was defined by his unwavering public support of the men and women who worked for the city. He had high expectations for his staff and they knew it. He nudged and pushed and challenged them; but in public he always defended them, even if he thought they were mistaken. Critiques were reserved for private meetings. Above all, Bob could make decisions. We can do this, he would say, about some difficult undertaking, and his staff and the council went out and did it. When Bob died on December 23, he left behind three children. His pride in them was evident to all who knew him because if he was not talking about the city or sports, he was telling friends about his kids. He had reason to be proud of his children, Amy, Jillian, and Robert, Jr., all now young adults. Their mother, Susan, is helping them adjust to their loss. At Bob's memorial service in the Merrill Auditorium at city hall, his son Bobby said, ``Thank you, Dad, for teaching me that life is all about substance and not about style.'' He captured his father's character, as well as his passion for public service. Bob's own life was about to change. He had proposed to Tracy Sullivan less than 24 hours before he died. Tracy's sadness after so much joy is profoundly felt by all who know her. Her young son, Dimitri, loved Bob, too. His friends, family, and colleagues all miss Bob Ganley; but we take heart from his example, for he showed us how to brush aside cynics and lead the citizens of Portland to build together a better place to live. Thank you, Bob, for all you taught us.