Roscoe Bartlett

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 408) expressing appreciation for the United States service members who were aboard the British transport HMT ROHNA when it sank, the families of these service members, and the rescuers of the HMT ROHNA's passengers and crew.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, I understand the gentleman's concern. I would state that I do not believe it was the intention of this bill to enlarge this practice. The gentleman mentioned that waivers have been granted. These were in very limited locations, and they were granted because it was felt that voting at the military facility was the only reasonable thing that could be done. I think the reason for this bill is that we cannot, in a military base, waive law. That is what they were pretending to do. We cannot just waive law. The law now says we cannot do it there. I think what the intent of this bill is is simply for those rare occasions where this needs to be done, that this now puts the commander of the base not in violation of the law when he does a reasonable thing, and that is to permit the people to vote there. That is my understanding of the bill, and I think that is all that was intended by the bill, was to solve a current problem where those commanders who have waived the law, and I do not think we can waive a Federal statute, they have waived the law and in effect they have been in violation of the law when they have permitted voting in their facility, this now would make them in compliance with the law, because this would say they have the option of doing that if it is appropriate. The bill makes very clear that this is not appropriate when it violates any of the intent, any of the mission of that facility. It is totally permissive, it is not obligatory in any sense. I believe that I am clearly expressing the intent of the legislation and the desire of the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas).

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I would ask the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) if he might engage in a colloquy with me. It is my understanding that for a number of years now at certain limited number of our military facilities that there has been voting. If this has been going on, and I am assured that it has, then clearly this is in violation of current law. What this bill, as I understand it, intends to do is to make it possible to continue voting at some of these remote bases and a few reserve bases where this has appeared to be in the best interest of the community. I would point out that this legislation is entirely permissive. The military can decide that they do not want voting in any of their facilities. I am reading from the bill itself now. It says: ``The secretary of a military department may make a building located on a military installation available, and for the reserve component the language is essentially the same.'' The secretary may make a facility covered by subsection A available for use. They do not have to make it available at all. My question to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) is if this has been a practice, and if at some very remote locations where the military facility is just about the only show in town, because it was placed there because of the desire of the military to be very remote so that essentially all of the people in that community are associated with the military, it is my understanding that is predominately the locations where this has been going on, and my question is, if that has been going on and if it was deemed necessary to do that because of a shortage of other places in the community, then why would this totally permissive legislation be objectionable since in all other places the military could exercise its option to not permit voting at all?

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 5174 clarifies the authority of the Secretary of the Defense to use DOD facilities as polling places in Federal, State and local elections for public office. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 5174 brings a common sense approach to the issue of voting on military installations. There is no retrenchment from the prohibition against using military forces to influence voters. The Congress will remain vigilant against any potential that military forces could be used to intimidate voters. However, we must guard against the over reaction that voting must never be allowed on military facilities regardless of the benign circumstances in the absence of a threat of coercion by military forces. The simple fact is that in some remote and rural locations in our Nation, military facilities are important community resources that have been used for polling for a number of years. The members of the local community that have used DOD facilities for voting are not threatened by the military forces that live and work in their communities. It is important to note that this language does not require military commanders to open their facilities for voting. The bill only makes explicit that polling on military facilities is not illegal. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 5174 does not force either local community leaders nor the military commanders to use military facilities for voting. However, if both sides agree that using military facilities for polling is in the best interest of the community and the military mission is not harmed as a result, then this bill authorizes the military commander to make the facilities available legally. I commend the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) for bringing this important matter to the attention of the House, and I urge my colleagues to vote yes on H.R. 5174. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5174) to amend titles 10 and 18, United States Code, and Revised Statutes to remove the uncertainty regarding the authority of the Department of Defense to permit buildings located on military installations and reserve component facilities to be used as polling places in Federal, State and local elections for public office.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. I yield to the gentleman from Hawaii.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 5174.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Madam Speaker, I want to thank my friend, the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. Morella), for yielding me this time and I want to thank my other friend, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings), for his quote. Madam Speaker, it is hard for us to realize what a radical document the Declaration of Independence was. If we think back, our forefathers now, they come from all parts of the world; but our forefathers when this country was founded came from principally the British Isles and the European continent. If we remember our history, almost every one of them came from a country where the king or the emperor claimed and, incredibly from our position, was granted what was known as divine rights. In other words, what the king or the emperor claimed was that the rights came from God to him; that he would then give what rights he wished to his people. Sometimes many; sometimes very few. Our forefathers made a radical departure from this, because in the Declaration of Independence they said we hold these truths to be self- evident that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. That the rights did not come from God to the king, that the rights came from God to the people, and it was the wish of our forefathers that they would found a government which had very limited rights. Most of the rights should still reside in the people. So they wrote the Constitution 11 years later, ratified in 1787. The ink was hardly dry before they recognized that it might not be clear to everyone how committed they were to the proposition that the rights fundamentally belonged to the people, and they would give just what few rights were necessary to the government. Four years later, in 1791, the first 10 amendments which we know as the Bill of Rights were finally ratified by three-fourths of the States. If we look through those Bill of rights and reflect on what they said, most of them address the rights of the people. Then to make sure that no one could misunderstand that they meant most of these rights to reside with the people, in the Ninth Amendment they said that, just because we did not mention in the Constitution that the right belonged to the people, do not disparage the fact that it does belong to the people. Then in the Tenth Amendment they came back, and I think this is the most violated amendment in the Constitution, the most violated part of the Constitution, they come back and say, in today's English, if you kind of put this in today's English, our Constitution is old English and it is legalese so sometimes we have to paraphrase it to understand clearly what they meant, what they are saying in the Tenth Amendment is that if we cannot find it in article 1, Section 8, of the Constitution, the Federal government cannot do it; that they can only do those things which are found there, and all the things which are not found there, all the rights not specifically given to the government, belong to the people or to the States. So I think it is very appropriate that we designate a Liberty Day. That is what our forefathers wished so much for us to have. That is what we are at risk of losing as government becomes ever bigger and bigger and more and more intrusive. I wholeheartedly support the resolution.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the people of Taiwan as they celebrate their 89th National Day, which anniversary is today. There is a great deal to celebrate for the people of Taiwan. Taiwan has an even distribution of wealth and its citizens enjoy a high standard of living. Taiwan has been able to prosper in recent times despite its limited resources and relatively large population. President Chen Shui-bian and the political leaders of Taiwan have done an excellent job of leading their country into the 21st century. Their effort to rejoin the United Nations and to maintain a dialogue with the Chinese mainland are admirable. Taiwan deserves a voice in these and other international organizations. There is no question that President Chen wants a serious dialogue with the mainland. He seeks stability in the Taiwan Strait and wants peace to prevail in the Asia Pacific region. May God continue to bless our friends in the Republic of China on Taiwan. May Taiwan continue to shine as a beacon of prosperity and freedom in the Far East. And may Taiwan play an active role in international affairs and coexist with the Chinese mainland.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5314) to require the immediate termination of the Department of Defense practice of euthanizing military working dogs at the end of their useful working life and to facilitate the adoption of retired military working dogs by law enforcement agencies, former handlers of these dogs, and other persons capable of caring for these dogs, as amended.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, in this time of great prosperity, it is imperative that Congress works to pay off the public debt and provide a prescription drug benefit for all seniors. The Nation has a public debt of over $3 trillion. However, in the last 3 years, Republicans have paid down $354 billion in public debt and are on track to completely pay off this part of the national debt by 2012. Republicans are committed to using 90 percent of next year's budget surplus to pay off the public debt, while locking away 100 percent of the social security and Medicare surpluses. While we remain the most prosperous Nation in the world, the sad reality is that there are still some seniors who have to choose between putting food on the table and the prescription drugs they need to live healthy lives. Mr. Speaker, that is not fair. When we passed a prescription drug benefit that was voluntary, available, and affordable for all seniors, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Gephardt) and the Democrats walked out on seniors. That is not right. Republicans will not walk out on seniors, and will continue to work to find a bipartisan solution to reducing the cost of prescription drugs while working to pay off our public debt.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to spend a few minutes talking about some terminology associated with the debt. There are a lot of terms that are used. I hear terms like the ``public debt,'' the ``trust fund debt,'' the ``national debt.'' The other day I heard someone say ``Federal debt.'' What are all these debts, and how do they relate to each other? Before we can talk about debt, though, we have to talk a little bit about the balanced budget and what the balanced budget means. The budget that we had hoped to balance and have balanced, as a matter of fact, is the unified budget. The unified budget is all the money that comes into Washington and all the money that leaves Washington, and that budget is balanced. But about 10 percent of the money that comes into Washington should not be Washington's money to spend because a big percent of that is monies that come from the American people taken from them presumably to be put in trust for them. The two biggest trust funds are the Social Security trust fund and the Medicare trust fund. But in the unified budget, which looks at all the money that comes into Washington and all the money that leaves Washington, we take that trust fund money, we took it all up in the lockbox for Social Security and now the lockbox for Medicare, we took all that money and spent it. And what is in the trust fund is not money. There are IOUs in there. And it is a very special IOU. It is an IOU; it is a non-negotiable U.S. security. Although the Social Security trust fund should have about $900 billion in it and the total trust fund should have roughly double that in it, there is in fact no money in the trust funds. All that is in the trust funds is IOUs. In the past years when we were running a $300 billion deficit, the real deficit in terms of accounting for the trust funds which we took and spent, the real deficit would have been about $160 billion more than that. What we have done is just phenomenal. At the beginning of this administration, the President never thought that we could balance the budget, and he was showing $300 billion deficits which were really $460 billion deficits if we account for the trust fund. He was showing those out as far as the eye could see. When we balanced the unified budget, the total debt, the national debt, continued to go up. If you will look at national debt figures, you will see that they went up. Now, let us come to the debt and what we are doing today. What we are doing today is paying down the publicly held debt. The publicly held debt is the Wall Street debt. It is the debt which is owed to people who have bought bonds and securities, government bonds and securities and so forth. That publicly held debt represented, or it did until we started paying it down, we are now paying it down, represented about two-thirds of the total debt and the other debt was the trust fund debt. We are now paying down the publicly held debt but we are doing that largely with moneys from the trust funds, so as we pay down the publicly held debt, we are accumulating an equivalent amount of trust fund debt, which would mean that, all things being equal, the national debt or the total debt would stay at exactly the same figure. But all things are not equal and the truth of the matter is that at least for the next couple of years or so, the national debt, which is the total debt, will continue to go up a little. If this roaring economy continues, we will in fact have a true surplus and the total debt, the national debt, will begin to go down. What we are doing is very advantageous and it is what we ought to do, because as we pay down the publicly held debt, the Federal Government is competing less for dollars, which means that interest rates will drop, and we expect interest rates to drop by about 2 percent. That is great good news if you are buying a home or buying a car or putting your kid through college. But the flip side of that is that as we pay down that publicly held debt, we are, and by law we can do nothing else but invest the moneys in these nonnegotiable U.S. securities. We are driving up the trust fund debt. That trust fund debt now becomes a liability. We will not have to pay that. I will not. But my kids and my grandkids are going to have to pay that money. And starting about 2012 or 2013 or 2014 depending upon your projections the way our economy is going, not enough money will come in Social Security to meet the obligations, and we are going to have to go to the trust fund. There is no money there. There is only IOUs there. And so we are going to have to borrow the money to make good on that. It is great good news for the present, but we must really do something about Social Security or it is not all that great good news for our children and our grandchildren.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, Republicans are working to pay down the debt and help seniors get the prescription drugs they need. Republicans believe that in this time of plenty, it is critical that Congress reduce the public debt and enact a prescription drug benefit for our elderly. As government surpluses pile up, we have a moral obligation to wipe out the public debt to provide our children with a brighter future. Reducing the public debt will strengthen the economy and result in lower interest rates for consumers. Our budget plan will pay down $240 billion of the public debt next year alone. America is the most prosperous nation on Earth, yet some seniors here are forced to choose between putting food on the table and the prescription drugs they need to lead healthy and productive lives. That is just not right. Republicans have passed a plan to make voluntary prescription drug coverage available and affordable to all. Mr. Speaker, as the 106th Congress enters the final stretch, Republicans are working to pay off the public debt and help seniors pay for their prescription drugs they need to live happy, productive lives.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, look at this week's headlines. The Boston Globe: ``Gore Misstates Fact in Drug Cost Pitch.'' The Washington Times: ``Gore Made Up Anecdote About Cost of Drugs.'' Mr. Speaker, we now have a new twist to ``the dog ate my homework'' saga. Just like supposedly inventing the Internet, the Vice President has invented a story on the campaign trail where he falsely claims his mother-in-law pays three times the price for prescription drugs as his black labrador. Make no mistake. No senior citizen should have to choose between food and medicine. That is why the Republican House passed legislation to lower the cost of prescription drugs by 25 percent, without creating a cumbersome government-run HMO as the Vice President has proposed. Mr. Speaker, our Nation's leaders should give the American people some straight talk, not invent personal stories solely for political gain. Our Nation's seniors, mothers-in-law, and even family pets, deserve no less. People should come before politics.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, yesterday was a very special day for the district I have the honor of representing. On that day, 263 years ago, in 1737, Charles Carroll of Carrollton was born. Carroll County and Carroll Creek in my district was named for him. Charles Carroll has received special honor here at the Capitol. His portrait hangs on the third floor, and a statute of him stands near the memorial entrance to the Capitol. Charles Carroll was a member of the first Congress and a framer of the Bill of Rights. He was the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence and he was the final surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, dying in 1832 at the age of 95. Charles Carroll was outspoken about his faith and declared that his religious convictions had caused him to enter the American Revolution. In fact, his faith was so important in his life that he built and personally funded a house of worship. Charles Carroll, one of the very first Members of this body, reminded us, and I quote, ``Without morals a Republic cannot subsist for any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments.'' That is just as true today as it was then.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, in a former life, I had a Ph.D. I guess I still have it. Coming here does not remove that. I taught medical school. I taught nursing students. I have about 100 papers in the scientific literature. So I know something about the process that we are talking about today. We also have 10 children in our family and 11 grandchildren and one great grandchild. And I will tell my colleagues from the perspective of a professor, a teacher, a parent, a grandparent and a great grandparent, that I think this policy of using taxpayer money to fund the morning after pill without parental consent is obscene and insane. My colleagues should just stop to think about this. A child in school cannot get an aspirin without parental consent, and yet this legislation, this legislation that we are talking about, that we hope to somehow modify with this amendment, would permit the school, without the parents' knowledge, without parents' consent, with taxpayer money, to give a serious medication to a student which will terminate a life. I say again: As a professor, as a father, as a grandfather, as a concerned citizen of this country, this is obscene and insane. Support, please, the Coburn amendment.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, I want to talk for a few minutes this evening about U.N. dues. I am not going to talk about the proposal of the U.N. to levy taxes on the countries of the world, including ours, which frightens a number of our people. Indeed, that is frightening. I am not going to talk about the proposal that the U.N. have its own army, and I know that there are those and some of them from our country in the past and at present who genuinely feel that the world would be a safer place if the U.N. had the largest army in the world and, therefore, could keep the peace. I am frightened by that prospect, and I know a number of our people are. I am not going to talk about U.N. resolutions which once they are made have the effect of law, which have the effect of setting our laws aside and actually sometimes have the effect of setting our Constitution aside. Of course, that should be unthinkable but it has happened and we need to talk about that, but I am not going to talk about that because I am sure that others will this evening. I am also not going to talk about whether the U.N. is effective or not, whether it really meets the promise that we held for the U.N. when it was established a number of years ago. I am not going to talk about whether the U.N. should be expanded or not. I understand they want 10 new floors on their building. They are already a monstrous bureaucracy. I am not sure being a bigger one would make them more effective. I am not going to talk either about whether it is in our vital national security interests to continue to be a part of the U.N. That needs to be debated. I hope it will be debated across the countries; and others, this evening, I am sure will cover that subject. I am also not going to talk about whether 25 percent dues and 31.5 percent for peacekeeping is a fair share for the United States. I do not think we have 25 percent of the vote or 31.5 percent of the vote. As a matter of fact, when one looks at our vote, the U.N. has threatened to remove our vote because we have not paid our dues; that is, our vote in the General Assembly. Let us just look at that vote for a moment and what it would mean if we did not have a vote in the General Assembly. We have less than 1 percent of the vote cast in the General Assembly, and there are a number of countries, we could easily name 15 or 20 countries, that if we vote yes they vote no and some of those countries have less citizens than the District of Columbia, and so they can cancel our vote in the U.N. What does our vote mean in the General Assembly? It means very little, obviously, if it can be cancelled by a half dozen countries that have no more population than the District of Columbia. The only vote in the U.N. that has any importance for us is our vote on the Security Council of the U.N. and they cannot remove that vote for not paying dues. What I do want to talk about is a lonely fight that I waged here for several years to keep us from paying dues that we had already paid a number of times over. What I am talking about is the enormous cost of peacekeeping operations which we have borne. Three agencies of the government have looked at these costs, the CRS, Congressional Research Service; GAO, the Government Accounting Office; and the Pentagon. They have all reached essentially the same conclusions, that we have spent about $19 billion on peacekeeping activities since 1992. Now, we have been credited with $1.8 billion of that against U.N. dues, so a precedent has already been made, that if we spend money on an authorized U.N. peacekeeping activity that those monies that we have spent there are in lieu of dues; that is, they could replace dues. They only did that, though, with $1.8 billion. There is about another $17 billion that is still out there that we have received no credit for. All I wanted was a very simple thing, which was an accounting of the dues that we owe. I was not arguing whether 25 percent was too much or 31 percent of peacekeeping was too much; my only argument was that we needed to get credit for what we have spent on legitimate peacekeeping activities. I think that most Americans when they hear that argument say, well, of course, it makes sense, that if we are sending our military there, if we are using our resources there in the pursuit of a U.N. resolution, an authorized U.N. activity, that we should be given credit for the monies that we spend doing that. We have been given credit for $1.8 billion, but what about the other roughly $17 billion? Mr. Speaker, that needs to be accounted for before we pay another dime in U.N. dues.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this bill.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, last month the Clinton-Gore administration vetoed tax relief for the American people. They struck down a repeal of the death tax, a measure which taxes family businesses and farms on up to 55 percent of their value upon the death of their owner. Eighty-five percent of these businesses do not survive to the second generation because of the death tax penalty. And to what end? Government enforcement of the death tax costs nearly as much as the tax actually generates. As a result, the death tax adds less than 1 percent of revenue to the Federal budget. In contrast, if we had ended the death tax last year, we could have created 45,243 more jobs this year and nearly 236,000 by 2010. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to do the right thing: override this senseless veto and do away with the death tax.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in strong support of the Taylor motion to instruct the conferees. I have seen the recruitment brochures from a number of years ago when those who are now our seniors were recruited. The recruitment brochures promised them and their family lifetime care in a military facility. We have broken that promise, and we are paying a heavy price for having broken that promise. Three of the services are now unable to meet their recruitment goals, and that is partly because when prospective enlistees confer with their father or their uncle or their grandfather, they frequently get the advice that ``I am not sure that you can believe what they are telling you, because they did not keep their promise to me.'' We are having problems with retention for exactly the same reason, because our young men and women in the military are not sure that what we have now promised them is going to be there after they retire because we have broken our promise to their elders. What Medicare Subvention does is to permit our retired military people, who either with great difficulty or not at all, can now get health care in a military facility. For those who have not been in the military or worked for the military and lived in a military community, they cannot understand the sense of community that these people have, how important it is that they continue to get health care where they have gotten it all their life, in a military facility. We have had a demonstration project which has been very successful, and what the legislation now in conference does is simply to make this universal and permanent. It is the right thing to do, and the benefits we are going to accrue from this are enormous compared to the modest cost, because the cost should be very, very modest, because Medicare Subvention assures that the money is going to be there. What this does is to help us in recruitment and help us in retention. Even if there were a meaningful cost, I think that that cost should be more than justified by the benefits that we are going to have in recruiting and keeping our young people in the military. This is the right thing to do. My only regret is that we did not do it years ago. But we are doing it now. So let us make sure that our conferees understand that we want them to hold with the position that we voted so overwhelmingly here in the House. Again, I want to thank the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) for his commitment to this cause.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, nothing we do in Congress can be accomplished alone. Today I want to thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who have worked to make the 106th Congress' record one of accomplishments and not of partisan gridlock. This Congress has passed some of the most solid education reform ever brought before this body, measures that will give parents and teachers more flexibility to meet students' unique needs. But that is not all. We have also worked tirelessly to pay off our public debt portion of our national debt which is saddling children born this year with a $13,300 debt burden. Our debt relief measures will save the average household an estimated $4,000 in interest payments over the next 10 years. Think of what American families can do with $4,000 in additional income. The 106th Congress has an agenda for success, and I am proud to be a part of it.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Madam Speaker, since 1995, Republicans have worked to change the very essence of government to make it an example of common sense, not nonsense. While it is impossible to change 40 years of big government overnight, we are making significant progress. This year alone, House Republicans passed a Medicare lockbox bill, a sequel to last year's successful Social Security lockbox measure, which protected Social Security surpluses from being spent on anything but Social Security or debt reduction. We have also passed a prescription drug measure that makes prescription drugs affordable and available to the 30 percent of Medicare beneficiaries who currently cannot afford the prescription drugs they need. We have also passed the IDEA Full Funding Act, legislation to help handicapped children get the best education possible. These measures bring much-needed fairness to the Federal Government, and Republicans will continue to work to make legislation like this a priority for Congress.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, throughout our summer gas crisis, the Clinton-Gore administration has played possum with the American people. They have claimed that the gas crisis was not caused by a supply issue and blamed oil companies for price gouging. But a recently released internal memorandum obtained from the Department of Energy by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan) tells a different story. The Energy Department memo dated June 5 indicates that ``high consumer demand and low inventories have caused higher prices for all gasoline types.'' The memo also indicates that recently implemented gasoline standards may increase costs. But not 10 days after this memo was drafted, Secretary Browner told more than 30 Midwestern Members of Congress that the gas price hike was inexplicable. The Clinton-Gore administration has lost e-mails, lost important files and lost nuclear secrets. Now, we can add the true reason for the energy crisis to the lost list.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, we must be doing a good job when our friends on the other side of the aisle are racing to take credit for our accomplishments. To set the record straight, it was a Republican Congress that provided the fiscal discipline needed to balance the budget for the first time in a generation. We passed the first broad-based tax cut in 16 years and returned more dollars back to the American taxpayers. We are continuing to find ways to eliminate unfair taxes that penalize hard-working Americans. This Congress has worked to abolish the earnings limit for our Nation's seniors, repeal the burdensome death tax, and has extended incentives for hard-working Americans to save and invest in the future. This week the House will again vote to reduce the unfair marriage penalty tax which punishes couples just for being married. We have proven our commitment to secure a better future for every American.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 4430, which renames the post office in Savage, Maryland, after one of my constituents, Mr. Alfred Rascon. Mr. Rascon received the Congressional Medal of Honor on February 8 of this year for his gallantry during the Vietnam War. He served as a Specialist 4 medic to a reconnaissance platoon in the 173rd Airborne Brigade. On March 13, 1966, Mr. Rascon's platoon came under heavy fire from a numerically superior force while moving to reinforce another battalion. Disregarding his own safety, Mr. Rascon ran to assist his fellow soldiers under heavy enemy fire. He was wounded numerous times, fell on fellow soldiers three separate times to shield them from heavy machine gun and grenade attacks with his own body, and yet, continued to search for more wounded comrades to assist. He later refused aid for himself or to be evacuated and continued to provide assistance to his fellow soldiers. The paperwork for Mr. Rascon's original recommendation for the Congressional Medal of Honor was lost in the Pentagon and was only recognized recently due to the efforts of members of his platoon who testify to this day that they are alive only because of Mr. Rascon's heroism. I was pleased to assist in remediating this problem, and I am pleased to pay him tribute now by naming the post office in Savage, Maryland, in his honor. I would like to thank Mr. Rascon and his wife for being here with us in the gallery today. I thank them very much more honoring us with their presence. Mr. Speaker, we live in a world today where role models for our children abuse drugs, break the law, or act totally out of self- interest. It is men like Alfred Rascon who show us what role models are supposed to be. He regarded the lives of his comrades as more important than his own and acted totally out of his care for them. Even after being wounded, he did not stop seeking to help them. He considered his own life as forfeit and completely sacrificed himself. He did not seek attention when his paperwork was lost in the Pentagon, nor did he seek that this post office be renamed for him. Indeed, in no way has he ever tried to glorify himself or take credit for his actions. His friends and those whose lives he saved had to bring to light the fact that his heroism had gone unrewarded by his country. We must constantly remind ourselves and educate our children that we are privileged to live in the greatest and most free country on earth only because of the service and sacrifices of brave individuals such as Alfred Rascon. Our country can never truly reward these men or those like him who have sacrificed so much for us. The only thing we can do is to never forget them. Naming this post office after him is one very small way to ensure that we never forget his extraordinary heroism or that of many like him who have fought, bled and died for our freedom. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the members of the Hispanic Caucus and the Maryland delegation who cosponsored this bill with me. I would also like to thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. McHugh), the chairman of the subcommittee, for expediting this bill's consideration.