Tom Allen

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this bill. The time has come for substantial estate tax relief. We should increase the lifetime exclusion, reduce the tax rates and make special additional provisions for small businesses. But we should not repeal the tax, because the world has changed. Surpluses have been transformed into deficits. The baby boom generation continues its relentless march toward qualifying for Social Security and Medicare. The threat of terrorism requires significant resources for defense and homeland security. Repeal would be irresponsible budgeting. Today, we should be considering legislation to reform the estate tax. We should reform the estate tax to reflect the extraordinary contributions family-owned businesses and farms make to our local communities. In my state of Maine, small businesses are vital to the well-being of our communities. Those who own family farms and businesses often spend too much time and too much money in an effort to keep their farms and businesses intact for the next generation. Full, immediate, and permanent repeal for family-owned small businesses would be wise policy. Full, immediate, and permanent repeal for small businesses would let small businesses in Maine, like Brown Goldsmiths & Company, Lucas Tree, O'Donal's Nursery, and Hancock Lumber, keep their businesses in family hands. Family owned businesses like these are often significant community employers. They contribute to our quality of life in ways that large publically held corporations can never match. Farms passed from one generation to another are less likely to be subdivided for residential development and, therefore, less likely to contribute to suburban and rural sprawl. For these reasons, I urge my colleagues to support the Pomeroy and Thurman substitute. This amendment offers immediate and permanent estate tax relief beginning on January 1, 2003, by increasing the exemption to $3 million for individuals and to $6 million for couples. passage of this amendment would provide full relief to all but 0.3 percent of estates, and the increased exemption would reduce the tax even on these estates. However, full repeal of the estate tax would represent a bonanza for a relative handful of wealthy individuals and jeopardize our ability to fund vital national priorities. Last year, betting on a then projected $5.6 trillion in surpluses, the Republican controlled Congress passed a bloated tax cut that primarily benefits the top one percent of taxpayers. But the majority's repeal of the estate tax was itself repealed in 2001, in order to mask its devastating long term impact on the federal budget. Today, the Republican controlled House wants to make permanent the repeal of the estate tax, even though repeal would erect a barrier to full funding of special education, a real Medicare prescription drug benefit, strengthening Social Security and even meaningful tax relief for middle and lower income Americans. In Maine in 1999, about 200 estates would have benefitted by repeal of the estate tax. Yet all 1.2 million people in Maine will pay the price of repeal of this progressive tax with higher interest payments on the national debt and cuts in vital programs and services. Debate over the estate tax is really about priorities. Reform is about making fairness a top priority. It provides relief to those who need it. Repeal is about making favoritism a top priority. It widens the growing disparity in incomes in this country. Reform allows for the funding of top priorities. Repeal shortchanges important priorities. President Theodore Roosevelt, in arguing for an estate tax, said, ``The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relative small means.'' Today, some Americans have fortunes beyond the imagination of Theodore Roosevelt. Others cannot afford their prescription medicines. Many find the doors of higher education closed to them because of the cost of attendance. Approximately 40 million Americans have no health insurance. In these circumstances, repealing the estate tax for multi- millionaires is both irresponsible and unethical. I urge my colleagues to vote against this bill and to vote for the Pomeroy/Thurman substitute.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for yielding. I am pleased to be back here again with him talking about the high cost of prescription drugs and what we should do about it. One thing that strikes me is that this is an issue that is hard to understand. This really is not a contest between the parties over the number of times we can mention the words prescription drugs, but there is a fundamental difference and the gentlewoman from Florida mentioned it. We have on the agenda this week a bill to make permanent the estate tax repeal. In other words, once again, tax cuts take a higher priority, particularly tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, take a higher priority than providing prescription drugs at an affordable price to seniors on Medicare who simply cannot afford to take the drugs that their doctors tell them they have to take. We saw it with the original tax cut. So much money was taken out; in fact, all of the non-Social Security surplus was taken out for the next 5 or 6 years. So when we look at which party is likely to provide real relief for prescription drugs, it will not be the party that says all the time, smaller government, lower taxes. It will be the party that says, we have a plan that will help all Medicare beneficiaries with the high cost of their prescription drugs, and that is what we are trying to do. So here we are again revisiting a plan that the majority in this House has still not brought forward, but that we know is coming forward and we know it will be the same old, same old story. Essentially it will say, the way to provide prescription drugs for seniors is to rely on the private sector, to rely on HMOs. HMOs, Medicare managed care, otherwise known as Medicare+Choice, does not operate everywhere in the country. In fact, there are 15 States where there is no Medicare+Choice plan at all that covers prescription drugs. In another seven States, there is one Medicare+Choice plan. Where you have one of the major insurance companies providing coverage for prescription drugs to Medicare beneficiaries, every year we see that the premium goes up and the cap on coverage goes down. There is no future here. There is no future here for the same reason that Medicare was passed in 1965. The private insurance companies do not want to cover people who are old and sick and poor. If we are going to cover everybody, and I do not mean just the very poor, I mean just ordinary retirees who are living mostly on their Social Security, that group is simply not going to get covered by these private sector plans. But what is fundamental in my mind is the Republican plan is really an assault on rural American seniors. The reason I say that is that the 15 States which are not covered tend to be rural States in this country, the places where it is not economic for the large insurance companies to go and provide Medicare+Choice, managed care, HMO coverage. They are rural States. But all those people who live in those States, like mine, in Maine, they are all part of Medicare. When it comes to part B, the physicians services, they get treated the same way as people in other States. Why should it be that people in at least certain parts of New York and Florida and California and Texas get treated one way, but people in Maine and Vermont and Montana and Wyoming, North Dakota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Utah, and Arkansas get treated differently? There is no good reason for doing that. That is why we need a Medicare benefit. I have advocated one thing you could do in the short term is simply pass the legislation that I have introduced which would provide about a 35 percent discount for all Medicare beneficiaries on all their prescription drugs at no cost to the Federal Government. It would essentially give Medicare the power to bargain with these large insurance companies and set rates that are no higher than the average in the rest of the industrialized countries, the six major industrialized countries. If that is too simple for the other side, then we go to a Medicare benefit. And, sure, a Medicare benefit costs some money, but seniors are obviously going to be paying a significant amount, anyway. They need a benefit that is worth signing up for, that virtually everyone will sign up for, but we are not likely to see that. We are not likely to see that brought forward by the Republican majority in this House because it involves strengthening in a major way an important government program. If you believe in smaller government and lower taxes and that is always the priority, there will always be another tax you want to cut before you take care of our seniors, and that is the dilemma that we are facing. I believe that what we are really looking for is a Medicare benefit which applies to all our seniors, which is voluntary but which is appealing, which people will sign up for and pay the monthly premium in order to get the benefit. That is the only way to make this work. That is what the Democratic plan would do. But it will not work to create the illusion of a plan and call it a Medicare prescription drug benefit when by its very terms seniors will not sign up for it because it does not make economic sense for them to sign up for it. We really come back to this issue we talked about last time. It was quite a spectacle last year and will be, I suspect, quite a spectacle this year. The largest and most powerful lobby in Washington, the pharmaceutical industry, will say to the Republican majority, what we need in this country is drug-only insurance policies offered by the major insurance companies, and we should provide those companies with a subsidy to encourage them to offer that kind of policy. And the insurance companies will say, We don't like that idea. There's no way we are going to offer drug-only insurance policies. That is why it is all smoke and mirrors. That is why it is all an illusion. They have developed a plan for private insurance, private prescription drug coverage, which will not be offered and if it were in fact offered, it would not cover everybody. Rural States would be left out. Other beneficiaries would find it ineffective. This resistance, this fear of taking Medicare, the most cost-effective health care plan we have in this country, and not simply using it as the vehicle for improving the assistance to seniors on prescription drugs, it just is staggering. But that is what we are contending with. There is no question in my mind that if we are going to have equity, if we are going to have a plan that actually works in the real world, if people are going to be able to get their prescription drugs at a cost they can afford, the Republican plan that will be presented to us will not do the trick. I want to thank the gentleman from New Jersey for organizing this Special Order and being here once again to talk through the issues, because it is not easy. Americans can often hear the words over and over again and think we are talking about the same thing, but we are not. There is a huge, fundamental difference between the two types of approaches; and what we need is to give America's seniors the same type of coverage that people working when they have prescription drug coverage get from their insurance company. American workers get their prescription drug coverage through their health insurance company. America's seniors should get their prescription drug coverage through their health care plan. It is called Medicare. It works, it is cost effective, and it is how we ought to approach this problem.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I rise today, first of all, to applaud this bill for what it does for our troops. I am proud of what this bill does for the men and women in our armed services around the world. They should be proud of what we are doing in that part of the bill. I was over in Afghanistan in early March in the first 3 days of Anaconda, and I have never been prouder of the men and women who are over there doing their best to make sure that this country remains protected and strong. They know, they know that their performance, that our security depends on their performance. They are motivated. They are doing a good job, and this bill, insofar as it provides them the resources they need, is a good bill. I am not so sure that they can be proud of us. In fact, during this debate I have an image. It keeps coming back. I cannot help it. I think of the men and women I saw in Afghanistan, and I imagine them armed and ready behind a row of tanks, and behind them I see something else. I see the Republican majority hiding, trying not to be seen, trying not to allow a debate on the fundamental economic issues that are also wrapped up in this bill, not by the language in the bill but by what the bill does not do. The debate that we need to have over the Federal budget is being hidden, and a debate on the debt limit is one of the very few opportunities we have or will have to have that debate, but it is being hidden, and there will be no clear vote on the debt limit if the majority has its way. Now, why do we have to do this? We are being asked to raise the national debt limit because in just 1 year the Federal budget has fallen apart. Just 1 year ago we were looking at a $5.6 trillion surplus, and what happened? The new administration took 5 months to do enormous damage to this budget, and when that tax bill was signed, the damage was done. The damage began. Let us take a good look at what has happened. Just look at the question of how much of the Social Security surplus has had to be used over the last couple of decades. What we see happening here, the line on this chart moving down during the first Reagan-Bush era is the amount by which we were dipping into the Social Security surplus, and when President Clinton was elected, we were dipping into the Social Security and Medicare surpluses by over $300 billion a year, and then we can see what happened. As the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) said, on a bipartisan basis, we fought our way back. We fought our way back, and gradually the line came up, and just before this President Bush took office, we were using none of the Social Security surplus, not any of it, and then look what happened. We are right back down between $300 and $400 billion a year into the Social Security surplus. That is an outrage. That is unacceptable, but that is what this majority is preventing us from talking about. Why is this important? Because we are now using Social Security dollars to fund our military, for general government expenses, and to pay for a tax cut for the wealthiest people in this country. Look at what is going on. We have a tax cut for the wealthiest Americans and they, according to the majority, must keep their tax cuts. The other side of the aisle wants to make that permanent. In the meantime, we are going to use the dollars at 6.2 percent. All of our workers are earning less than $80,000 pay; 6.2 percent is going to fund the tax cut and to the general government. That is irresponsible. That is reckless. In other words, what we are doing, we are not calling for a sacrifice from the wealthiest Americans. We are not calling for sacrifice equally from all Americans. We are saying basically that the young men and women who are over there and are fighting for us now, and their parents, middle income people in this country, they are the ones who should bear the burden of being in the armed services, and they are the ones who should bear the financial burden, not just now, not just this year, not just next year, not just the year after that, but we are saying to our children they shall pay, they shall pay, too. We are not going to pay for this war as it goes along. They will pay, our children, our grandchildren, at a trillion extra dollars alone. This is failed policy, and to pass it without a vote is outrageous and unacceptable.

Mr. ALLEN

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

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I was interested in what he was saying. We are going to see sometime eventually here over the next week or two or three the unveiling of a Republican prescription drug benefit plan. It will be dressed up. It will be described as a Medicare prescription drug benefit, but it will not be real. That will be the paint, that will be the veneer, that will be the cover, but it will not be real, and it will not be real for a couple of reasons. First, as my colleague mentioned, the Republican plans that we have heard of so far are plans which say to the American public, we are going to tell my colleagues here is the plan, these will be the benefits, and this will be the cost. Of course, we are not going to provide it to seniors, they will not be able to get it through Medicare; we are going to rely on private insurance companies to come in and offer seniors these benefits at this cost. In the true private sector, those decisions about benefits and costs are made by private insurance companies. They are made by the private sector, but the Republican prescription drug plan will basically say here they are and now we put all our faith in the insurance industry to come in and give seniors these benefits at that cost. That is the first problem. It is not the real world, and as my colleague pointed out so well, this is great theater down here in Washington right now. We have the two biggest lobbies in this city, the pharmaceutical industry and the health insurance industry. The pharmaceutical industry says what we need to do is rely on the health insurance industry. They will provide people with stand-alone prescription drug coverage. And the health insurance industry says, well, we really do not want to do that. And the response of the House Republicans is, well, we think you will if we just pass this plan. And it will never happen. Back in Maine, I say over and over again to people, you know, if 85 percent of the people in Maine filed a claim for flood insurance every year, you would not be able to buy flood insurance in Maine at any price. But 85 percent of our seniors use prescription drugs, and it just is not possible for insurance companies that have 20 percent overhead and profit that they have to earn, it is not possible for them to provide prescription drug coverage to seniors at a price lower than Medicare could provide. What we are working on is a real prescription drug plan, a Medicare prescription drug plan, a plan that will provide a benefit that is generous enough to attract everyone, get everyone into the pot. Medicare's overhead is generally around 2 or 3 percent, not 20 percent, because they do not pay huge salaries to their executives and they do not have the same kind of overhead. That is the kind of efficient plan that we really, I think, need to pass. But I do not think we will see it coming out of the Republican majority right now. The gentleman from New Jersey was talking not so long ago about the issue of price. Here is another case. If you want to have an affordable prescription drug benefit, and by that I mean affordable to seniors on the one hand and affordable to the Federal Government on the other, you have to contain price. As the gentleman knows, I have a bill that would reduce prescription drug prices for seniors by about 35 percent simply by saying we will not let you charge our seniors more than you charge people in Britain, in France, in Germany, in Italy, in Canada, and Japan. That is it, end of story. 35 percent average discount. Every time this comes up, the House majority, the Republicans, or the pharmaceutical industry will stand up and say you cannot do that. If we have discounts of that size, then we will not be able to do research and development anymore. We will not be able to develop new drugs, and people in this country will not be able to get the medicines that they need. And yet these companies have just started promoting their discount cards. And what do they say the discount will be? Oh, 25 to 40 percent. One company is out there with a card for a significant percentage of Medicare beneficiaries; and they are saying to that group, we will charge you $15 a month for all of our drugs. For any of our drugs, $15 a month. Now, the average cost of those drugs right now at the pharmacy is $61 or $62. They are not talking about a 35 percent discount, they are talking about a huge discount, from roughly $61, $62 to $15 for all their drugs. Now, it turns out that, according to them, that discount will not affect the bottom line. That discount will not affect their research and development. But here is this discount card, here is another discount card. What are we really talk about here? The bottom line is this, and then I will yield back to the gentleman, the bottom line is that if we are to contain drug prices for our seniors, all of whom are in a Federal health care plan called Medicare, if we are to do that, Medicare has to have the negotiating power to drive down price for the benefit of our seniors and for the benefit of our taxpayers. That is what we need to do. And if we do that, we can have the kind of Medicare prescription drug benefit that will not be just a veneer, just a sort of painting, something that will never happen in the real world; but it will be something that will be of great benefit to all Medicare beneficiaries. At some point here I think what we will hear from the other side is smoke and mirrors and surface, anything to avoid a confrontation with the pharmaceutical industry. But, frankly, we cannot help our seniors without doing something that the pharmaceutical industry will not like.

Mr. ALLEN. Basically, it works the way other companies hold down the cost to their citizens. It is really simple. It would allow pharmacies to buy drugs for Medicare beneficiaries at what is called the average foreign price. That is defined in the bill to be the price at which that drug can be purchased in Britain, in France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan, the rest of the G-7 countries, industrialized countries. It would obviously hold down costs, because in those countries the average foreign price for any particular drug is typically about $60, $63 or $64 compared to $100 a month here. So it is about a 35 to 40 percent reduction that we would be talking about.

Mr. ALLEN. If the gentleman will continue to yield, in my office we are helping people all the time purchase their drugs at discount, and there are ways to purchase drugs through a Canadian physician and get that help. But let me tell my colleague about the last bus trip that seniors took to Canada from Maine. It was a few months ago. There were 25 seniors on this trip. Twenty-five. They went over the border. They checked in with a Canadian doctor. They got their prescriptions written, and they went to the pharmacy and came back. Those 25 people saved $16,000 on their prescription drugs; $16,000 for 25 people in one bus trip. Let us talk about one important drug, Tamoxifen. Tamoxifen, as the gentleman knows, for 15 or 16 years has been the standard accepted treatment for breast cancer in this country. Well, in Maine, as in I assume most of the United States, if someone does not have health insurance, a month's supply of Tamoxifen is about $112, $114. In Canada, it is $13 or $14. There is a ten-to-one differential. Now, that is greater than the average of other drugs, but it gives us some indication. Here are people out there fighting for their lives, needing Tamoxifen in order to get by, low-income people, middle-income people; and they have to worry about how on Earth they are going to pay for their drugs. I heard a story the other day, an older couple in Maine, both of them have significant drug expenses, so what do they do? How do they manage to both eat and pay the bills and then purchase their prescription drugs? Well, one month he takes his medicine and she does not. The next month she takes her medicine and he does not. There is not a doctor on the planet that thinks that is the way you should manage your prescription drugs. But they have no choice. I have talked to people who are basically slowly sliding into bankruptcy because of the cost of their prescription drugs. Through my office, we do everything we can for them, but what they need is what working Americans have. Working Americans who have health insurance typically have prescription drug coverage through their health insurer. For seniors, the health insurer is Medicare. And yet, on the Republican side of the aisle, the thought of strengthening Medicare, strengthening Medicare, because it is a Federal Government program, the thought of strengthening it to provide a significant additional benefit seems to be something they just cannot abide. So they try to find out how possibly the private sector could do something that they cannot possibly do as efficiently as Medicare itself.

Mr. ALLEN. I am glad the gentleman brought up the question of TV advertising. A few months ago the Kaiser Foundation came out with a study. They looked at the difference in cost, the difference in spending on prescription drugs in the year 2000 as compared to the year 1999, just that 1-year differential. They found a 20 percent increase in expenditures on prescription drugs. Then they started looking more closely at particular drugs. They surveyed almost 10,000 drugs and looked at the price increases and increased spending on prescription drugs. They found that half of that 20-percent increase was related to just 50 drugs. Fifty drugs accounted for half of the increase. They were the 50 drugs that were most heavily advertised. Those were the drugs that were on television all the time. So half of the increased expenditure came with 50 drugs and the other half of the increased expenditure came with 9,950 drugs. Fifty drugs over here; 9,550 drugs over here. Each of those accounted for half of the increased expenditure. There is no question that pharmaceutical spending on advertising is driving up the cost of prescription drugs in this country at an alarming rate. That is why they do it. Let us face it. That is why they do this heavy advertising. Part of the problem has nothing to do with Medicare. Part of it has to do with our businesses. Health care costs for small businesses and large businesses in this country are skyrocketing. We have got small businessmen and women in Maine who just cannot abide 20 percent, 30 percent, 40 percent increases this year. I have been talking to them. I have got a piece of legislation that I think would help. But that kind of increase is going to drive the small business community out of small business entirely if we are not really careful. One of the major drivers is the high cost of prescription drugs and one of the drivers for that, it is not really research. It is really the advertising. Look, the pharmaceutical industry has to maximize the bottom line. God bless them, that is the American way. There is nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is for government to sit back and do nothing to protect our consumers from inflated prices. This is not a free market. This is a case where we provide money, tax credits. We do half of the basic research through the National Institutes of Health for the development of new drugs. Then we provide a research and experimentation tax credit to encourage the development of new drugs. Through that mechanism, the pharmaceutical industry winds up paying one of the lowest taxes as an industry in the country. Yet they are the most profitable industry. And we do not do a thing. We give extended lengths of time in the patents. This is not about them. This is a good industry. They make a good product. But the Federal Government has fallen down. We have not protected our people. That is why we need a Democratic prescription drug benefit, one that works through Medicare, that covers everyone, that provides a generous enough form of coverage so everyone will sign up. If we do that, we will finally, I think, get this problem of our seniors and ultimately of the business community as well, start to get this problem of health care costs under control. I get a little wound up about this.

Mr. ALLEN. We should be so lucky and the American people should be so lucky. We would be better off if we got a real plan. There is no reason to put up a plan which is just a shell, the kind of plan which is going to be supposedly funded or operated by an insurance industry that does not want to do it; that purports to cover everyone, but in fact will only make economic sense for people at the lower-income levels and at the end of the day will not be a Medicare prescription drug benefit at all. It will be some sort of shell of a benefit. Many of the proposals seem to be saying that one way to pay for this is to drag money out of other health care providers. But the doctors and the home health care agencies, they cannot keep going. When you really think this through, it is worth remembering a little bit of history. The reason in 1965 that Medicare was created was because the private insurance market would not cover people who were older and sicker than the general population, people over 65. In 1965, half of all seniors in this country had no hospital coverage. It was the trip to the hospital and surgery that would drive people into bankruptcy. That is still true today for people who do not have health insurance. But our seniors have it. They have Medicare. The problem, of course, is they do not have the kinds of prescription drug coverage they need. Almost 40 years ago, the answer of the Republican Party, the position of the Republican Party, is that somehow the private sector will provide; and that is still the same answer today. But if you look at the Medicare+Choice, managed care under Medicare, that is not working. That is not working. It costs more according to the GAO to fund Medicare+Choice, Medicare managed care plans, than it does clunky old ordinary Medicare. And what are we talking about here? The way to do real Medicare reform is to provide seniors with a Medicare benefit that they need, not to try to go back to pre-1965 times when it was the insurance companies, that we are going to rely on insurance companies to provide health insurance and prescription drug coverage to a population that they did not want to cover then and do not want to cover now.

Mr. ALLEN. Before the gentleman describes the Democratic plan, and I know he wants to do that, but the gentleman from Massachusetts made a good point and I cannot resist going back to it for a moment, because back in the campaign for President, the current President said during a time of great economic prosperity that what this country needed was a huge tax cut. He said, ``It's not the government's money. It's your money.'' Eventually, 5 months after he was put in office, the tax cut went through. Of course by the time the tax cut went through, we were slipping into a recession. And then the argument was not that the tax cut will not overstimulate the economy, it was that the tax cut will help stimulate the economy. So whether we were talking in times of prosperity and budget surpluses or whether we are talking about a time of a bit of a recession and budget deficits, in any case the solution is always the same, ``What we really need is a tax cut.'' I should have brought down my chart that I have got here, but it is remarkable. The gentleman from Massachusetts was talking about the benefits to someone who dies with millions and millions and millions of dollars from that estate tax. The Republican majority was down here recently saying, We have got to make this tax cut permanent. That is what is needed for this economy. When you look at the numbers, which they will not show you, but when you look at the numbers, here is what it shows: the bottom 60 percent of people in this country in terms of income run from $44,000 on down. Sixty percent of the entire country comes from households of $44,000 or less. From the tax cuts that have been passed but not implemented, that group will get an average annual tax cut of $104. $104. When you look at the top 1 percent, the people in this country who earn over $370,000 a year, the top 1 percent in income, they will get from tax cuts passed but not yet implemented an average annual tax cut of $50,000. In other words, the tax cuts that the Republican majority is rushing to make permanent, if they can, those tax cuts will give a tax cut on an annual basis to people earning over $370,000 a year. They will get a tax cut that is more than roughly 60 percent of the people in this country even earn in a year. That is somehow described as a notion of fairness. But if we are going to do that, if that is a higher priority than making sure that seniors struggling to get by on 20 or $25,000 a year, struggling to pay for their prescription drugs, if tax cuts for those wealthy people are more important than prescription drugs, I have to say that is a value system I do not understand. I am actually anxious to hear the gentleman's description of the Democratic plan which is a real plan, a real Medicare prescription drug plan for seniors.

Mr. ALLEN. Could the gentleman describe the catastrophic coverage.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this misguided bill. If this is welfare reform, our States don't need it. They will have to raise taxes or cut services to compensate for the 5-year, $11 billion State government cost of this one-size-fits-all, heavy-handed Federal policy. Maine will need $56 million to meet the new work requirements. If this is welfare reform, our families can't take it. The bill requires mothers with children under 6 to double their required work week from 20 hours to 40 hours per week. For these mothers, this bill means less time with their children, and not enough money to cover expanded child care costs. It probably means at least two jobs for many mothers, because low-wage jobs are usually part time. For States like Maine, this bill reduces flexibility. For example, Maine's successful ``Parents as Scholars'' program, which provides access to post-secondary education, has increased the wages and benefits of participants when compared to other strategies. But Maine would probably be forced to divert those dollars to other mandated work activities in order to meet the requirements of this bill. To all those wealthy individuals who came to Congress last year with their hands out, the Republican party said, ``Here are your tax cuts.'' To all those families who need a hand up to move from welfare to work, this Republican bill says get off welfare, but do it by yourself, with inadequate child care, longer work hours, and less vocational education. I urge my colleagues to reject this bill and vote in favor of the Democratic substitute. The Democratic substitute would give States the option of raising the work requirement to 40 hours where adequate childcare and educational resources are available, allow States to credit education toward the work requirement, and increase childcare funding by $11 billion over 5 years.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, the House Committee on Armed Services does so much of its work on a bipartisan basis, but this rule is an outrage. The Republican leadership has allowed what will probably be about a dozen amendments not considered en bloc to a defense bill authorizing $393 billion. In the past, under Democratic leadership, dozens of amendments over several days was the rule. Why so little debate permitted? So Members can go home tonight and not have to vote on Friday and not have to deal with controversial matters. Why so few amendments? So the American people will not hear what Democrats have to say. The House Republicans are squeezing the life out of democratic debate in the people's House. They have blocked amendments to prevent exempting the Defense Department from our environmental laws. They rejected my amendment to stop the development of a proposal to use nuclear weapons to blow up missiles above American cities, a really dumb idea. They barred amendments by the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Tauscher) and the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) that would have led to a longer floor debate over the emerging Republican plans to develop and use on a first-strike basis new tactical nuclear weapons. They blocked debate over aid to Colombia and base closings. When Republicans change our defense policies, change our environmental policies, change our nuclear policies without a full and fair debate, this country loses. Democrats and Republicans stand shoulder to shoulder in the war on terrorism. This rule makes a mockery of our unity. We are weaker as a country when the Republican majority in this House slams the door on a full and fair debate. I urge my colleagues to defeat this rule, vote down this rule.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I rise in support of the defense authorization bill. I commend the chairman, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Stump), and the ranking minority member, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), for putting together a good bill. It will enable today's troops to succeed in the war in Afghanistan and makes investments in the future to assure the U.S. military retains its edge. I commend the bill's shipbuilding initiative to fix the Pentagon's paltry request in this area, and it sets an important marker for restoring funding for a third DDG-51 destroyer. The Merchant Marine panel, of which I am ranking member, does quiet but important work to assure a healthy and viable U.S. maritime fleet. I thank the panel chairman, the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), for his leadership in restoring funding for the title XI loan guarantee program, which gives life to our vital shipbuilding industrial base. I also welcome the creative provision on ship scrapping, which helps States acquire obsolete vessels for artificial reefs. There are, however, parts of this bill that I do not support. First, it contains three environmental provisions not under the jurisdiction of the Committee on Armed Services. They belong to the Committee on Resources, which was denied the opportunity to consider them. These provisions are a part of a last-minute stealth attempt by DOD to exempt itself from a variety of landmark environmental laws. The package was submitted just 4 days before committee markup, denying time for proper review. In the only hearing, the majority refused to invite State or local governments, environmental groups, or any other nonadministration witnesses to testify. Second, I disagree with the aggressive nuclear policy language in the bill and report which endorses new nuclear weapons or new uses for such weapons. I am afraid that money spent to revitalize and legitimize nuclear weapons will divert funds from weapons our warfighters actually need for combat. I believe it will be destabilizing and lead to new arms races. Finally, I am disappointed the committee did not make in order my amendment to previous nuclear-tipped interceptors. The U.S. rejected that idea decades ago.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Tierney amendment to ban spending on space-based national missile defense systems in fiscal year 2003. Before funding space-based weapons, we should have a consensus on the wisdom of space-based warfare and today there is no such consensus. The Missile Defense Agency has requested $35 million to do R&D on a space-based laser which has not completed concept definition and was killed by the House Committee on Appropriations last year. The administration wants to resurrect space-based kinetic interceptors to shoot down missiles in the boost phase. This approach has been tried and rejected twice before on technological and cost grounds. The Missile Defense Agency should focus on getting the most mature systems like PAC 3 and THAAD to the field to protect our troops, not to invest in systems that will make outer space the next battlefield. Mr. Chairman, I urge support for the Tierney amendment.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Speaker, I urge support for this motion to recommit to prohibit the development or deployment of nuclear-tipped ballistic missile interceptors. As the gentleman from South Carolina has said, the Safeguard nuclear antimissile system was canceled by Congress 2 months after it was deployed in 1975, partly because the new Russian MERVs would easily evade the defense and partly because the public would not tolerate U.S.-nuclear explosions over our cities and territories as a way of defending this country. President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative rejected the nuclear option. If President Reagan knew it was a bad idea 20 years ago, why revive it now? Yet Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld has reportedly instructed the Defense Science Board to explore this option. There are bad ideas and there are really bad ideas, and this bill should slam the door on really bad, half-baked ideas like nuclear-tipped ballistic missile interceptors. General Kadish, director of the Missile Defense Agency, has said that he has no interest in developing nuclear-tipped interceptors. He knows that Americans will never tolerate this sort of defense that relies on U.S. nuclear explosions over our homes, raining down radioactivity and blinding radars and other sensors of conventional missile defenses. The Committee on Armed Services has held numerous hearings supporting hit-to-kill technology and showing it works. If it works, why return to nuclear explosions as a way of defending our country? The other side will suggest that we should not restrict the Pentagon's ability to experiment with any technology; but, Mr. Speaker, if that is true, why are we even here? Why do we not write a blank check at the beginning of the year and go home? Because Congress has a constitutional duty to set spending priorities. We should reject this type of missile defense and vote for the motion to recommit.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, this month marks the beginning of the celebration of Girl Scouting's 90th anniversary. During this time, more than 50 million girls have participated in this wonderful program. One of those who benefited from years as a Brownie and Girl Scout was my wife, Diana. She recalls with great fondness the happy times she spent in troop meetings making crafts and other projects and the weeks in summer camp where she met counselors from all over the country. Girl Scouts of the USA has kept up with the changing and expanding challenges facing girls today. At each level of Girl Scouts, girls have the opportunity to embrace traditions and learn about the changing world. The program challenges girls to develop into healthy women strengthened by strong values, a social conscience and belief in their own self-worth. In my District, girls participate in programs overseen by the Girl Scouts of Kennebec Council. The jurisdiction of this Council is very large, encompassing one-third of the State of Maine and two-thirds of the population. The Council serves a highly diverse population--girls living in cities, small towns, and in isolated coastal areas and islands. Girl Scouting successfully meets the needs of all kinds of girls. Girl Scouting succeeds because of its volunteers, who serve as troop leaders, trainers, cookie supervisors, trainers, and a host of other positions. Their generosity and dedication has kept Girl Scouting strong and relevant. Thanks to them, Girl Scouts of the USA will continue to help girls grow into productive citizens.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my disappointment that the Republican leadership refuses to schedule a debate on the future of Social Security. They appear unwilling even to schedule or to bring up the plan introduced by their own majority leader. Perhaps it is because that plan calls for benefit cuts, substantial benefit cuts for many Americans, including disabled Americans. Perhaps it is because creating private accounts will cost more than $1 trillion in transition costs; and perhaps it is because the plan exposes beneficiaries to unnecessary risks for unlikely rewards. I welcome the opportunity to debate the future of Social Security, but the Republican leadership so far refuses. Perhaps it is because, if they do, their plan will be rejected by the American people.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, in April, 2002, Wayne R. Poland will retire from the United States Postal Service and from his position as the local president of the Portland Maine Area Local #451 of the American Postal Workers Union. He has served with distinction in the Postal Service since 1967, when he began as a part time flexible clerk. After Joining the American Postal Union, he held numerous trusted positions in the union. In 1980 he became the president of the Portland Maine Local, and has remained in that position for the last 22 years. Wayne was born in Portland on March 29, 1943. He was the eldest son of four boys and one girl of John Poland, Jr. and Phyllis Pauline Woods Poland. Wayne grew up Portland, and attended my alma mater, Deering High School. I had the pleasure of working closely with Wayne during a difficult time for the Portland postal workers, when plans were being discussed for the relocation of the principal mail facility in the region. Thanks in large part to his able leadership, we were able to resolve the issue, ensuring that the hundreds of postal workers working at the facility would not have to relocate or leave their Jobs. Throughout his tenure, Wayne worked hard and effectively to serve the needs of both workers and the Postal Service. He earned the respect of all who worked with him, and he will be sorely missed.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, current campaign finance laws were written to curb the abuses of another generation. Thirty years later, a new plague has infected our Nation's elections, soft money. This money, these unlimited contributions, are used to run attack ads, and they do distort our public policy choices here. That is why I urge all my colleagues to defeat all of these amendments and substitutes that are being proposed and to pass Shays-Meehan. If this government is to remain a government of the people, by the people and for the people, we must take soft money out of this campaign finance system. We must pass Shays-Meehan and take these unlimited contributions and set them aside. Our democracy will work, and work far better than it does today, if we pass this bill.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. This is a very important day. As the gentleman mentioned, for a very long time now the House leadership has fought to prevent campaign finance reform coming to the floor under a set of rules that would be fair and appropriate. But today with the gaining of the final signature, we reached 218 signatures on this discharge petition. We know that that legislation, the Shays-Meehan bill, will come to the floor. I think a lot of credit goes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan), the Democrat who has been pushing this bill for a long time, and to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays), the Republican who has worked tirelessly to make this a possibility. Against the leadership of his own party, he has worked extraordinarily hard to make this happen. Most of the signatures on that petition are Democratic signatures, but there are some Republicans who are willing to stand up to their leadership and say that the time for campaign finance reform has come. It is embodied by the Shays-Meehan bill, a bill which has already passed the United States Senate under the name the McCain-Feingold bill. And now we will have a chance, the leadership cannot deny us a chance any more to vote on this legislation. So it is a great day, and that certainly will be the big story. But let me come back, I want to make a couple of comments about the budget.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, this is a great development. We have to say that maybe finally with the collapse of Enron there is a recognition in this country that big money and politics is not a combination that is healthy for ordinary Americans, and I hope that we can change that.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to make just a couple of comments about the budget. I have not been here for the whole debate, but I wanted to say that those of us last year who said over and over again as the President rushed this enormous tax cut through the Senate and through the House, we said this is a reckless proposition. It is an irresponsible proposition because it leaves no room for error, no room for error. They were making the assumption, in fact, the gentleman may have a chart available there that shows how the tax cut basically over the next 5 years would simply eat up, and that is the chart I was referring to, would eat up all of the non-Social Security, non-Medicare surplus. That really is what did the damage. And though certainly other factors have come into play since then, that you need to spend more money to defeat the terrorist network, the decline in the economy, it was that miscalculation that really was the more serious mistake. I do not know whether others have mentioned it, but right now as a result of a downturn in the economy, virtually every State in this country is facing a State budget shortfall and all of the stimulus packages which came before the House and the Senate late last year, all of them would have made the predicament of our State governments much worse. In my home State of Maine, it does not matter what the proposal was, we have been faced with a $250 million shortfall over the next 2 years. And all of the stimulus packages were designed in such a way as to make that situation worse. The basic problem is that when you change Federal tax law, State tax law changes automatically in 44 of the States. And when we act here, it is very important that we keep in mind our colleagues in State government who are trying desperately to protect Medicaid, education funds, all of those things that State governments do, and do so well.

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, like the gentleman from Vermont, I was in my office watching C-Span. I looked at all these bright faces down here in the front rows, David Bonior's staff and David sitting down here, as well, and I could see him so I knew he was not gone; but I did want to come over and say a few things about Dave Bonior. First of all, David, I just want to thank you for all you have done for me. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate having been part of the whip organization and having the chance to work with Members here on the floor to make sure that the right thing gets done on particular pieces of legislation. For those who do not know all the details, the whip organization is really a way of bringing information to other Members so that they are voting with good information and not necessarily bad information, that they have complete information. David has done this job extraordinarily well for many years. But beyond that, I have to say, this is a city, not alone in the country, but this is a city where people's faces can turn and their votes can turn to those who have money and to those who have power. But not with David Bonior. Because David Bonior in the House of Representatives has been what I think the Founding Fathers expected of a Representative, that he would represent all of the people all of the time and not be diverted by special interests. I cannot think of anyone in this Congress who has consistently day after day after day, in a long legislative career, kept the people in his district right in the forefront of his mind. He has not forgotten them ever in terms of what he does here and what we do here. So I think it is a remarkable career and he is a remarkable human being. As I have gotten to know David over the last 5 years here, several things have struck me. One is that he treats everyone the same, which is, as I said, not common in this place, and that he is receptive to information and to people from all walks of life. But the other thing I have noticed is you know where David Bonior comes from. He comes from Michigan, and in many respects my image of Michigan is shaped by you, David, because I know how important working men and women who have had to join unions in order to get ahead, to have decent wages and decent benefits, have been to your State. Yet I know your State has such incredible diversity, with aspects of the new economy as well, with the service economy, as well as the manufacturing economy, and you seem to have somehow captured all of those threads. I know from your remarks before the Democratic Caucus yesterday that you also have appreciation for the outdoors. I come from Maine, and this is real important to me. But I know how much you have walked around the State, how much time you spend on your own, getting away from this hurly-burly, in order to renew yourself so that you can do the best thing, day-to-day, for the people who sent you here to the House and who I believe will send you to the Governor's mansion in Michigan. I cannot help but think that, to me, you have always been someone who has Michigan in his bones, Michigan in his blood, and Michigan in his dreams, and I know that you will be a fabulous governor for the people of Michigan. Thank you very much. (Mr. HOLT asked and was given permission to speak out of order for 5 minutes.)

Mr. ALLEN

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, this bill is the product of negotiations of the House Republicans with themselves. In our system, a remarkably ineffective way of making law. They cannot seem to give up writing big checks to big corporations. Take, for example, the alternative minimum tax. It is not repealed retroactively as in the first Republican bill. Under this bill, corporations get only $13 billion in several smaller checks and not all at once. The gentlewoman from Connecticut said that the unemployed will get $30 billion. We think it is about half that amount. Compare that number to the cost of this bill over 5 years, $260 billion. While most States right now are facing desperate situations with respect to their own finances, the bonus depreciation provision will reduce State government revenues by $5 billion a year for each of the next 3 years. Tell that to your governors. Rarely have we heard so much talk about the unemployed and so little help for them.