Marion Berry

Mr. BERRY

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a great Arkansan and a leading citizen of Trumann, Arkansas. I am proud to recognize Wayne W. Hinds in the United States Congress for his invaluable contributions to his community, his state and his Nation. Wayne was born and raised in Trumann, Arkansas, and even starred on the football team at Trumann High School. During his senior season in 1955, he set an Arkansas state high school football record for the most touchdowns scored in a single game. After graduation in 1956, Wayne decided to remain close to home and attended Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, where he majored in business administration. On November 14, 1959, Wayne married Glenda Moye. He and Glenda had two daughters, Tamera Taylor and Misti Sims and are the proud grandparents of Raven Dawn Taylor, Brett Taylor, Mackenzie Sims and Bailee Sims. In August 1967, Wayne began the job that has become the symbol of his commitment to his community. That year, Wayne was appointed Superintendent, Drainage District Number Seven. This jurisdiction covers 190,000 acres, 300 miles of channels and 65 miles of levees along the St. Francis River and Right Hand Chute of Little River. In February 1978, Wayne was elected General Manager and Executive Secretary of Drainage District Number Seven and since then has led the effort to protect the valuable waterways of Poinsett County. In addition to his remarkable service in his professional career, Wayne has also been an important leader in his community. Wayne is a member and past president of the Trumann Booster's Club. He also served for many years on the Board of Directors of the Trumann Lions Club. As children, we all learn the importance of ``remembering where you came from''. Wayne not only remembers . . . he serves. He embodies the old fashion values of service, leadership and commitment to his community that have made our State and our Nation great. On behalf of Congress, I pay tribute to Wayne Hinds for his tireless service and unwavering commitment to the people of Poinsett County, the people of Arkansas and the people of the United States.

Mr. BERRY

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize those men and women who have served our country in battle and have been taken prisoner. Today is National Former Prisoner of War Recognition Day. It is right that we pause to honor the sacrifice of veterans like these. However, Mr. Speaker, we must do more than honor these men and women with words. Talk is cheap. I rise to talk about the Budget that this house passed on March 21. The budget that this House passed hurt veterans by proposing long term cuts to essential health care programs. I was proud to vote against this budget. However, it is important the public fully understand why this budget is so bad for our nation's veterans. The Budget calls for $28.3 billion dollars to be cut from veterans health care and other spending on veterans benefits over the next 10 years. This is a disgrace. Why is this body going to cut this money? In order to pay for a $1.35 trillion tax cut for the wealthiest Americans that doesn't create jobs or stimulate the economy. So, that means that this Administration and the leadership of the House of Representatives has made a choice. They would rather have tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans than veterans benefits. Period. No other explanation is plausible. It is almost impossible for me to believe that as the veterans population rises and ages, that this House would eliminate benefits. Mr. Speaker, we have men and women on the field of battle in Iraq, fighting to make others free. Should we not honor their sacrifice by keeping our promises to those that have already served? Should we not eliminate these cuts in VA spending? The wealthy need a tax cut less than veterans need the health care they were promised. If our society has sunk to the point where we are choosing to dishonor service in order to make the rich richer, then we surely are not the great nation we once were. Mr. Speaker, we should honor those who have served, those who were POWs, and those that gave the ultimate sacrifice.

Mr. BERRY

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, since 1980, over and over again, the Republicans have come to this House and this Congress and this Nation and promised that if we just cut taxes some more, everything will be wonderful. Inscribed on the walls of the first floor of this wonderful building is a saying from Patrick Henry. It says: ``I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided. That is the lamp of experience.'' Experience tells us that this maddening, crazy, lunatic economic plan that we are being presented with tonight on this floor leads us down the path to enormous debt. And that is all it gets us. And we know that. Mr. Speaker, I would associate myself with the remarks of the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor). Where I come from, we teach our children that one can go to the bad place for lying just like you can for stealing. Let us not steal the future from our children and grandchildren.

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, parliamentary inquiry. I believe the Chair has directed speaker after speaker this evening that we should address the Chair. I do not believe this is the way this is being done, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. BERRY

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a great Arkansan and an outstanding citizen. I am proud to recognize Sam Boyce in the U.S. Congress for his invaluable contributions and service to his community, his state and his nation. Sam showed signs of the talent, determination and achievement that have been the hallmarks of his career at an early age, when he graduated valedictorian from Tuckerman High School in 1949. After receiving a bachelor of science in journalism from the University of Arkansas, Sam served his country in the Armed Forces, rising to the rank of Second Lieutenant in the Army Signal Corps. In 1958, Sam graduated with his law degree from the University of Arkansas. Since then, Sam used his legal acumen to champion the rights of Arkansans in the legal system and to assume a leading role on two issues of particular importance to the people of Arkansas: worker's compensation and Social Security. During his career, he co-chaired United Labor of Arkansas, chaired the Arkansas Trial Lawyers Worker's Compensation section and served on the Legislative Ad Hoc committee on Worker's Compensation Reform. His work on Social Security issues includes chairing the Social Security Committee of the Arkansas Bar Association and his continuing service on the Executive Committee of the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives. Above all, Sam's career has centered on service and leadership. In the 1960's, Sam twice ran for statewide office, including a gubernatorial bid in 1966. Later, Sam was a member of the Arkansas Bar Association House of Delegates and continues to serve on the Board of Governors of the Arkansas Trial Lawyers. He's a man who has truly used his talents and abilities, particularly his legal expertise, to benefit the people in his community and across Arkansas. He has made life better and richer for all--like me--who were lucky enough to call him a friend. On behalf of Congress, I pay tribute to Sam Boyce for his tireless service to the people of Arkansas and the United States.

Mr. BERRY

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor this evening with a heavy heart. I came to Washington, D.C., in 1993 as part of the Clinton administration. We worked hard for 8 years. We passed on to the next administration a $5 trillion surplus. We passed on to the next administration peace and prosperity. Today it is not that way. The great country singer Merle Haggard has a song that he sings; it is called ``Rainbow Stew.'' One of the verses in there says when a President goes through the White House door and does what he says that he will do, we will all be drinking that free Bubble-up and eating that rainbow stew. When the President came here a few weeks ago and gave us the State of the Union, one of the things he promised was that we would not pass our problems on to another Congress or on to another generation. And yet just a week ago Monday we are presented with a proposed budget from that same President that is nothing more than an assault on our children, on working people, on veterans. We are asking our young men and women to go on the battlefield, and at the same time we just heard the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) tell us what the President is proposing to do to veterans. He said, ``We're not going to pass this problem on to the next generation.'' Yet in his own budget, by his own Office of Management and Budget, we are faced with about another $468 billion in debt. Check with the CRS. The percent of the gross domestic product that the nation of Brazil has in debt is 60 percent. The percent of debt that the United States of America has of our gross domestic product is 62 percent. And that is what we owe today. That does not include 300-plus billion-dollar deficits for as long as anyone can imagine. Yet the President presents us with this idea that we can have it all: it's rainbow stew. Just reach out there and grab you some. Have a big drink. It's free Bubble-up. We can cut taxes, we can fight at least two wars, maybe more, we can provide everything that anybody is going to possibly dream up, and nobody has to pay. We'll just keep borrowing money. I have a button back there at my desk that they told me I could not wear when I came on the floor to make a speech. It says, How much is the debt tax? How much are we going to pile on our children and grandchildren? How much of a debt are we going to continue to just put on our children and grandchildren that they cannot pay? No nation, I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, can be free and powerful and broke, and that is where we are headed. I have been on this floor many times. I have heard people make great patriotic remarks, declare their intense love for this country; and I share that love. I think the Founders, our Founding Fathers, would absolutely be disgusted with what we are doing right now, with the idea that we are going to borrow ourselves into financial oblivion by just continuing to borrow money and borrow money and borrow money and not even acknowledge that we have got a problem. It is time, Mr. Speaker, that we recognize that we cannot continue to do this irresponsible thing.

Mr. BERRY

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor one of Arkansas's finest citizens, Cecil Williams, Jr. I am proud to recognize Mr. Williams in the United States Congress for his invaluable contributions to his profession, his family, his state and his nation. Mr. Williams was born in Tyronza, Arkansas on October 17, 1932. He grew up working in the fertile cotton fields of Eastern Arkansas before graduating from Wilson High School in 1950. He spent one year at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro and joined the United States Air Force in 1952. As a weather observer in the Air Force, Mr. Williams lived in Alabama, Texas, Illinois and Alaska. After serving his country in the military, Mr. Williams enrolled at Louisiana State University, where he received a degree in agricultural economics in 1960. After graduation, he spent five years working as a field representative for the National Cotton Council in Louisiana and south Arkansas. While living in Louisiana, Mr. Williams married Barbara Lee Rodgers, They have three sons and currently are the proud grandparents of one granddaughter with a second grandchild on the way. In 1965, Mr. Williams became executive vice president of the Agricultural Council of Arkansas [ACA] and has now served the members of the ACA for more than 37 years. He has used his experience and expertise to help readers of the ACA newsletter stay informed about the rules and regulations pertaining to farm, environmental and occupational safety and health policy. His influence has assisted policymakers in creating a sound farm policy and farmers in accessing the farm programs available to help them. He is active in many professional organizations and has served as president of Memphis Agricultural Club and Memphis Society of Association Executives. He was named ``Man of the Year'' by the Memphis Agricultural Club in 1980. In 1986, Mr. Williams received the prestigious ``Man of the Year in Service to Arkansas Agriculture''. On behalf of Congress, I offer my friend, Cecil Williams, Jr., my deepest appreciation and gratitude for his tireless dedication and honorable service to the people of Arkansas and the field of agriculture.

Mr. BERRY

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding time to me, and I thank her for her leadership in this matter. Mr. Speaker, I agree, we should fix the physician fee schedule. We tried to fix it. We offered a pretty good one in the bill that was passed in this body earlier this year. I can tell the Members this, this bill does not go far enough. Rural hospitals, nursing homes, long-term care facilities, and home health agencies are all in trouble in rural America. Our rural health infrastructure is crumbling. We suffer from a lack of nurses, doctors, skilled medical professionals. We are losing the ability to provide health care to Medicare recipients because the reimbursement rates are so low, not only to the doctors but to the hospitals and the other providers. Rural hospitals in my district are struggling to keep their doors open and at the same time provide health care to our people. It is time that we face this problem, deal with it in a responsible way, and stop playing the games that are being played like we are doing here tonight. We just passed a bill yesterday that reduces the amount of money that is spent on road construction, which does not make any sense at all. If there is one thing we know that helps the economy, it is constructing highways. It gives us not only immediate jobs, but long-term benefits. We are playing all these games with the American people. I hope that the people that are supporting this today have to go and face these people that do not have any health care 2 years from now.

Mr. BERRY

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from South Carolina for yielding me this time, and I appreciate his leadership. Mr. Speaker, I can tell my colleague this, I say to the gentleman from Iowa. He may think it is cute, he may think it is funny, he may think it is smart to stand over there and act like the Blue Dogs did not submit a plan. He may think that because he put a rule up here that would not let us put a plan on the floor to be voted on that he did something cute. But let me tell my colleague something. He can continue to be intellectually dishonest, he can continue to deceive the American people, but he is passing on a burden to our children and grandchildren, and I will not be a part of it, and he is going to answer for it one of these days, and he deserves it. But I can tell my colleague this: It is not cute. So when my colleague is over there making those smart remarks, just remember, it is not funny.

Mr. BERRY

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, I rise this morning with great concern. As my colleague from North Carolina has just referred to, we are a Nation at war. We are faced with acts of terrorism around the world at home and abroad. We have unprecedented random acts of violence, and we have the worst economy that this country has seen in 50 years. We have got political campaigns going on all over this Nation. When I have had the opportunity to see some of these campaigns in action, and we see the political advertisements that are on television and the various and sundry activities that are taking place, mostly it is negative. Mostly, it is attacking each other, the Republicans and the Democrats going after each other and declaring in some way or other what a horrible person the other one might be. I have to say today, Mr. Speaker, that the issues that face us today are not partisan. We should be focused and concentrating on some very serious issues, but they are not partisan issues. It is time for this Congress and this country to come together, unified, and deal with these very serious problems that we face. It is not a partisan issue for senior citizens in Arkansas in the First Congressional District to not be able to afford their medicine that they need to stay healthy, stay alive, and have a decent life. It is not a partisan issue that this country continues to allow the prescription drug manufacturers to rob our senior citizens. It is not a partisan issue that our farmers are more economically distressed than they have been since the Great Depression. Our farmers do a wonderful job. We have a farm program that is just really not adequate. But never in the history of this country has it been more important to have the ability to produce the food and fiber that we need in our own land. Our manufacturers are distressed because of foreign competition because the value of the dollar, just like it affects the farmers, makes them not competitive in the international marketplace. Our health care system, because of the failure of this Congress to rescind cuts for Medicare reimbursements to our hospitals and doctors, is threatened. We have rural hospitals and rural providers of all kinds that do not know whether they are going to be able to continue to provide Medicare services or not because the reimbursement rates are so low. We are faced with having to make a decision to reduce the amount of money that is going to be spent on Federal highways very soon if this economy does not improve dramatically. These are not partisan issues. If you do not have a road to get there on, it does not matter whether you are a Democrat or a Republican. The First Congressional District of Arkansas benefits more from good highways than almost any place in the country. And yet we have to struggle to get the money to accomplish the task that we have at hand, and that is to complete good four-lane highways across the First Congressional District. We know that our education system is going to be underfunded because of cuts that have been made in the budget and expected cuts that will be made in appropriations. Our debt has grown out of control and we continue to borrow from our children and grandchildren and pass the burden on to them rather than come together, Democrats and Republicans on the floor of this House, and come to a consensus agreement on how we should deal with these serious issues. We know how to fight a war. We will figure out and we are figuring out how to deal with terrorism, and we will get those jobs done, and we should get those jobs done; and we should spare no resources to accomplish that task. But for the domestic economy, for the things that affect Americans and Arkansans and the citizens of the First Congressional District of Arkansas, we should be working on a plan today; and right now no one is working on a plan to deal with this great economic distress that we face. We know it continues to get worse. We have begged. We have begged both sides. I belong to the Blue Dog Coalition; and we have encouraged both sides, come together, let us develop a plan. Let us do what is good for America and get the job done.

Mr. BERRY

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding time to me. I appreciate his leadership, and the leadership of the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey). Mr. Speaker, the success or failure of any nation or any endeavor is determined by the leadership it has and the decisions they make. This Congress was sent here by the people of this country to make decisions and to do the people's business, and to represent the people of this country in a responsible way and make decisions for the common good, and not serve special interests. It is amazing to me that we continue to not have appropriations bills on the floor of this House to deal with the people's business and to accomplish the tasks for which we were sent. I am reminded of the old joke that they tell in my part of the country: Do not worry about the mule going blind, just load the wagon. We act like we do not know what we need to do. This is not complicated. We know how to deal with this. Blaming somebody else; let us just find somebody, it does not matter who, but let us blame it on somebody else; let us blame it on the other body, on somebody down the street. Let us just blame somebody. It is always somebody else's fault. We cannot stand as a Nation to continue to ignore the business of the people. We must be responsible. The economy, to say the economy is not doing well is a gross understatement. We have a war at our doorstep. We have a war on terrorism that we have been fighting for over a year, and we have not dealt with issues pertaining to those two great concerns. The cost of health care is skyrocketing, and taking money out of the economy at such a rate that none of us know how we are going to deal with it; yet, we cannot get to the floor of this House the business of the people. We have been up here playing games since Labor Day trying to make it look like somebody is doing something, when the fact is we have not accomplished a frazzling thing since we got back after Labor Day. At the very least, bring it to the floor and let us vote on it. We have asked, and the Blue Dog Coalition that I am a member of repeatedly has asked, the other side of the aisle, we have asked the leadership in the Republican Party, just work with us; just talk to us. We can figure this out. Let us do the job. Let us do the job that we were sent here to do. We are not asking them to agree with us, we are just asking them to talk with us about it. Bring it to the floor and let us vote on it. When we work together, there is nothing we cannot do. But when everything has to be done in accordance with the Republican leadership, and when they are making bad decisions like they are right now, it makes it very difficult to get the job done. It is the American way. This is what this Congress was established for. Let us bring it to the floor and take care of it.

Mr. BERRY

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I have to tell you, I am reminded of the coffee shop breakfast table where I ate breakfast every morning for 27 years. We have a motto, ``Often wrong, but never in doubt.'' It is a sad day, as previous speakers, have mentioned. We are Americans. We can do better. We can do anything. All we have to do is work together and do the right thing. The facts are we have got more people in poverty now than we had 2 years ago. Middle income has gone down. The debt is $440 billion greater. The American people continue to get robbed every time they go to the drugstore by the criminal acts of the prescription drug manufacturers. We have spent all of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. It is all gone. We collected that money with a promise to the American people that we would take it and it would be there to pay your benefits when your time came. It is all gone. Those are facts. You cannot hide from them. You cannot make up something else. You cannot blame it on somebody else. That is the way it is. It is also a fact, as I said in the beginning, that we are Americans. We can do better. This is a shameful event in the history of this House.

Mr. BERRY

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my good friend, the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen), and not only for his great friendship but for his leadership in this Congress and in the time that we have served together on this issue. Here we are again, and it is a sad day in America. America is better than this. We can do better. We know how to do better. This issue is not something we do not know how to fix. We know what to do. This Congress is full of good people on both sides of the aisle. We know what to do about this issue. It is just simply not that complicated. Here we are today, late in the afternoon, the session is over with for the day. No more votes to be taken. We are not going to vote on anything that is going to change anybody's lives or very likely ever become law tomorrow. Nothing is happening on the floor of the United States House this week. Nothing happened last week. Very likely nothing is going to happen next week or the week after that. Here we are again, another year has passed. The end of the session is approaching, and the senior citizens in this country still do not have any way to even get a fair price on prescription medicine. They do not have a Medicare prescription drug plan, and we can do that. We know how to do it. We can figure out how to pay for it. Like I said, it is not complicated. Makes me think of a fellow I grew up around who used to get aggravated, used to say it would make him want a dip of snuff. That is how it affects me. Makes me want a dip of snuff. I cannot believe that all the good people in this House that serve their constituents, and they do it with a dedication and determination and in an honorable way, are willing to let another year pass and let the prescription drug companies of this country continue to rob the American people over and over again. It just absolutely astounds me, but nothing is happening. Nothing is happening. The American people pay three times as much for their medicine as any other Nation in the world. Why would we allow that to go on? Why would we let that happen? Why would this House let that happen? Why would this Congress let that happen? I just heard my good friend from Maine refer to the last presidential campaign, and the President himself swore that he would do everything he could, he was going to pass a prescription drug bill, he was going to get some relief for our seniors. We passed a bill, an amendment to the agriculture appropriations bill in December 2000, very late in the session, and it made it possible where the President of the United States, with the stroke of a pen, can allow the American people, not just senior citizens, all Americans to buy their medicines at the world price. That is all he has got to do is say let us do it, and we are still getting robbed. We are still paying three times as much. Every country in the world gets their medicine cheaper than we do. It is not right, it is not fair, and we can do something about it. We have already passed a law. All we need is for the President to tell the Food and Drug Administration, get it done. Where I come from that is value. We are not interested in folks that have got good excuses. We are interested in folks that get the job done, and that is what this is all about is getting the job done for the American people. The American people deserve better. We are a better people than this than to let something like this go on and on and on, and I think it is terrible that we are doing that. In the little town where I live, and it is full of wonderful people, we look after each other. We do not lock the doors or take the keys out of our cars. Somebody has got a little problem, we try to get over there and help them. If we had somebody going around, stealing from senior citizens, taking their money, taking their food, taking advantage of them in any other way, we would do something about it. If nothing else, we would run them out of town. Preferably we would have the law enforcement officials go find them, take them and put them in the State penitentiary and keep them for a while and see if we could not improve their way of making a living. We are letting that very same thing happen with the prescription drug companies in the United States and the companies that sell products in the United States. We are letting them rob the American people, and we are letting them rob the senior citizens of this country, and it goes on day after day after day, and nobody is willing to do anything about it. The President can do it with the stroke of a pen, and he refuses to do it. Why, I ask, would anybody sign up on a deal like this? This is corporate greed taken to the most disgusting level I can imagine. Why would we allow giant corporations to make great profits? And I want them to be profitable. They should be profitable. We want them to be successful. They ran an ad in the Congress Daily this morning, says pray for a miracle, and implied in that ad that generic drugs were bad and that they would never cure any disease. I can tell my colleagues this, no drug will cure a person if they cannot afford to buy it or if they get robbed, if they have to spend all their money for the drug and they cannot buy their food and cannot pay for their place to live and they cannot pay their utility bills because their drug bills are so high and everybody else in the world gets to buy it for a third of that. We better pray for a miracle if we keep letting these drug companies run over us in this country like they are now. I think it is an absolute, unmitigated, pitiful shame that we stand in this House of Representatives today and there is nobody else here willing to come down here and do the right thing for the American people. That is not the American way. That is not the reason that these members of this House were elected, and it is time that we do something about it.

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) makes an outstanding point. When I think of the Republican drug bill that was passed on this House floor a few months ago, and I think of the memos that were being sent around on the other side of the aisle, and basically what they were saying is that the American people are tired of being robbed by the drug companies, they may not know all of the details, but they know that they are being taken advantage of. They also know that the senior citizens are being put into great disadvantage, and some of them thrown into poverty because of the cost of prescription drugs. So just vote for something. Tell people when you go back home, I voted for a prescription drug bill. It does not amount to a hill of beans, but tell them that is what you did. That so-called prescription drug bill that was passed on this floor, and it was a deceitful thing, but what it makes me think of is a little restaurant which I saw in rural Arkansas. There were two restaurants close together in this community. One of them had been offering an all-you- can-eat special, and he was really making life tough on the fellow down the street. So the fellow down the street decided he would be competitive. He put up a sign that said all you can eat for $100. That is about the way that this prescription drug bill that was passed by the Republicans works. Let us just make them think that they are going to get something, do not worry about the details. Just pass anything, put your name on the board and let us move on. Hope for the best. What they also do not tell us is that the United States taxpayers pay for the biggest part of the research and development that drug companies do. We want them to do research. Their profits are such that they can do research. There is no problem with that. But everybody ought to know that the American taxpayer pays for the biggest part of it. Why should we give these guys such a special deal? This is absolutely a ridiculous situation. On the floor of this House just a few weeks ago, we had a very close, highly contentious vote on trade. I believe in trade. I think we ought to trade across borders. The administration came down here and did all of the arm-twisting they could do to get that fast track trade bill passed; but yet when the President himself holds it within his power where the stroke of a pen or instructions from him to the Food and Drug Administration will allow us to fair-trade drugs in this country and get a good price for our people, he refuses to do it. What is good about that? Nothing. This is corporate greed at its most ridiculous level. We should not allow this to go on.

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, this is a copy of an ad that was run in Congress Daily this morning. It is an attempt to convince Members to do everything they can to discourage generic drug use and to help the pharmaceutical manufacturers in this country continue to be able to overcharge and rob the American people. At first glance Members can see it has, of course, the words at the top, Pray for a Miracle. That is one thing in this ad that I agree with. I think that we should, indeed, pray for a miracle because I think that is what it will take on the floor of this House and in this Congress and with this administration to achieve a situation that will allow us to let the American people buy their medicine at a fair price and to make sure that the senior citizens of this country have the necessary medicine that they need to stay healthy, have a decent lifestyle, and to not have to go to bed hungry at night because they had to spend all of their money on medicine and could not afford to buy any food. That is an idea that I think the American people will be ashamed of. We are a better country than that. We are a better people than that, and we are a better Congress than that because we represent good people. It is time, and I say that over and over again, I say it because I believe it, it is time for this Congress to present to this administration the opportunity to do the right thing, to do the right thing and let the American people get a fair deal when they buy their medicine, to let our senior citizens have the same opportunity to have a fulfilling life and not get robbed when they have to go buy their medicine. I also want to make one point in a very strong way. We need to recognize the community pharmacies in this country. These people have to pay these exorbitant prices, make almost no profit, scramble like crazy to try to stay in business, and sell their products to their customers as cheap as they can, and they do heroic work trying to provide this expensive medicine at the lowest possible price to our senior citizens, and I think they need to be recognized for the great work that they do. I thank the gentleman for his comments. I might call attention again to that advertisement. It says, ``Pray for a miracle because generic drugs will never cure him.'' It is an ad run by PhRMA, the pharmaceutical industry association or the association for the brand- name prescription drugs. The reason that ad is being run right now is that the Senate has passed a bill, basically, to encourage more competition and, therefore, lower prices between the generic industry and the brand-name pharmaceutical industry. A lot of important drugs have gone off-patent lately and some more are to follow and the generic companies are providing exactly the same medication, exactly the same medication; but typically once they are in the market, once they are able to compete, the price of the brand-name drops precipitously and prescription drugs go down. We have the same kind of bill, bipartisan bill, that is here in the House. It is called the Prescription Drug Fair Competition Act, H.R. 5272. But the Republican majority, the Republican leadership is not willing to bring this to the floor. On the Democratic side of the aisle, we are going to start a discharge petition to bring this bill to the floor, to see if we can get enough signatures so we can actually have a vote to do what the Senate did. Let me just say a couple of things. In recent years, the brand-name companies have really been gaming the whole patent system to keep generics off the market for months and even years beyond the time that it was intended by Congress when it passed legislation in 1984. The bill that we are going to try to get to the floor on the Democratic side here is intended to prevent abuses of the existing law and allow competitive generic drugs to reach the marketplace more quickly. The Congressional Budget Office has looked at this bill and has estimated that this bill, the Prescription Drug Fair Competition Act, would reduce total spending on prescription drugs by $60 billion, or 1.3 percent, over the next 10 years. That does not include the enormous savings that would accrue if a Medicare prescription drug benefit is enacted. There have been so many ways that the brand-name pharmaceutical industry has really lifted the cost of prescription drugs. When there is a patent lawsuit going on, and it is easy to get a patent lawsuit going on, then they have been able to basically get repeated delays so that the FDA is not able to approve a generic application for sometimes 30 months; and sometimes they can stack these 30-month periods one after the other and make the delays run for years. This is a bill that would provide early resolution of some patent disputes. It would also prevent these collusive agreements that sometimes the brand-name companies have paid generic companies not to bring a competing drug to market. The result of that is the generic company gets some money, the pharmaceutical company, the brand-name pharmaceutical is able to charge much higher prices for an additional 6 months or longer, and the only people who are really seriously harmed are the consumers, the public. This legislation would prevent that from happening. This is good legislation. There is some Republican support for this bill. It ought to be something we could do following the lead of the other body. We ought to be able to do this, but right now we are sitting here not doing anything on appropriations bills. I told people back home during the August recess that when we came back in September we were going to be very busy because we had only passed five of 13 appropriations bills and we would be working hard on that. We are now almost at the end of our third week since we came back, and we have not seen a sign of an appropriations bill anywhere in this Chamber. They are not about to bring up any of the appropriations bills, it looks like. So we are not doing the work we were sent here to do. We are not helping our seniors with prescription drugs. It is a sorry state of affairs. A large part of the reason has to be that the pharmaceutical industry, at least with respect to prescription drugs, a large part of the reason is so much money is being spent on lobbying, on campaign contributions and on ads. You cannot watch television without seeing ads from the pharmaceutical industry. Now they will not just be feel-good ads with people running through fields of clover, but they will be ads touting particular candidates; and you can be quite sure that if they are praising a candidate, it is probably a Republican in most cases and if they are attacking a candidate, it is probably a Democrat in almost all cases. As a result, the people's will, what people over and over again want in Arkansas and Maine and around this country, a Medicare prescription drug benefit, a discount on their prescription drugs, the right to get medicines from Canada or other countries with lower rates, all of these approaches are being stymied and the will of the people in this country is being frustrated by a majority that is locked into the pharmaceutical industry and doing the bidding of the pharmaceutical industry. It is a national scandal.

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Maine is absolutely right. It is a national scandal. A few months ago, we had these corporate scandals. We were having, it seemed like, one or two a week. We had corporations that had been caught not telling the truth. Apparently we had corporations that had some executives that might have even taken money that did not belong to them. We found out all of a sudden that these companies did not have the assets they said they had. They were not worth what they said they were worth. They could not do what they said they could do. We just rushed to the floor of this House, we could not get here quick enough, and passed a law that said we are going to punish them some more. And we should have. They deserve to be punished. Every day now you pick up the paper and you see another corporate executive is being charged by the Department of Justice for breaking the law and they are making him a criminal. If they broke the law, they deserve to be treated as criminals, and they deserve whatever comes to them. That is for the law to decide. But for the prescription drug manufacturers in this country and those that sell their products in this country to continue to rob and cheat the senior citizens of this country should be against the law. It should not be allowed. It is just as wrong as those corporate executives that betrayed their stockholders and betrayed their employees and betrayed people that invested in their companies. It is just as criminal for these drug companies to cheat and take advantage of and rob our senior citizens and the sick people of this country and the working people of this country that cannot do anything about it. This is just as wrong as these corporate scandals that we have. And we rushed to this floor. You could hardly stop folks from coming down here and talking about how bad it was and what a terrible thing. And it was. But these folks are stealing more money than all of those companies stole or misappropriated or misused or lied about or whatever it is they did. What the drug companies steal from the senior citizens of this country on a daily basis is absolutely overwhelming. The $16 million that they spend on campaigns, that is not even walking-around money. That is not even soda pop money for these folks. Yet they are doing it day after day after day. I believe the gentleman from Maine referred to the idea that the drug companies had decided they needed to improve their image. Boy, you are right about that. If there is anybody in this country that ought to improve their image, it would be the prescription drug manufacturers. They have got a sorry image, as far as I am concerned. I will say once again, America is better than this. The American people are better than this. This Congress is better than this, than to let it keep going on and on.

Mr. BERRY

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a great American, a dear ffiend and a distinguished citizen of the First Congressional District of Arkansas, Dr. Jane Gates. During my tenure in office, it has been my privilege to know and work with Dr. Jane Gates. As Chair of the Political Science Department and former Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Arkansas State University, Dr. Gates has mentored numerous students as they have prepared for their future endeavors. Countless individuals from across our state and nation, regularly seek the wise counsel of Dr. Gates who has authored many scholarly publications, presented at many academic forums, and participated in numerous professional and community activities. Despite the overwhelming pace she sets for herself, one priority always remains--her students. Perhaps the most impressive of her legacies are the many former students that now serve our state and this nation as public servants. In August, Dr. Gates will leave Arkansas State University after a distinguished 27-year career to assume her new responsibilities as Dean of the College of Arts and Social Sciences at Savannah State University. It has been a profound honor and privilege to know Dr. Gates and to be her friend for many years. I have been the recipient of her wisdom and the witness to her fairness and compassion toward all those she encounters. The state of Arkansas is a better place because of Dr. Jane Gates, and I am proud to call her my ffiend. On behalf of the United States Congress, I extend congratulations and best wishes to this faithful public servant and wish her the best in her future endeavors.

Mr. BERRY

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a talented artist, a shrewd political observer and great American, George Fisher. Since the 1950s, George has been dispensing his incisive form of commentary in the form of political cartoons. He has trained his artistic ``guns'' on everything from satirizing Arkansas politicians to commenting on international affairs. Nothing seems to escape his notice, and his ability to expose and explain complex social and political issues truly puts him in a league of his own. George began drawing political cartoons for the West Memphis News soon after returning from Europe where he bravely served his country as an infantry solider in World War II. He honed his talent and predilection for exposing corruption in local politics during this time as he worked to undermine the influence of the local political machine through his political cartoons. After the West Memphis News was driven out of business by the political machine that he fought, he moved to Little Rock and opened a commercial art service. On the advice of friends and admirers, George picked up his pen and began drawing cartoons again a decade later for the North Little Rock Times. In 1972, he signed a contract with the Arkansas Gazette to draw two cartoons a week for publication. To the surprise of no one who knew him at the time, he was appointed the Gazette's chief editorial cartoonist just four years later. George's career also outlived the life of the Arkansas Gazette, and he continues to periodically have cartoons published in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and the weekly Arkansas Times. I have been a big fan of George's throughout his career not just for his great talent, but also because of his professionalism and honesty. When you see a George Fisher cartoon, you know that George is just ``calling them like he sees them.'' After reading one of his cartoons, I may not always agree with George, but I always respect him. I think that Ernest Dumas summed up George Fisher's genius best when he wrote in the introduction to a volume of George's political cartoons called ``The Best of Fisher'': What has robbed Fisher of greater national celebration is the perception of him as a provincial cartoonist. It is not without premise. He has continued to draw as much about local and state subjects as national and international ones. And alongside his arsenal of classical metaphors from Shakespeare to Norse mythology, are all those bucolic images, so familiar to Arkansawyers, so foreign to those outside the Rural South. . . . Nothing is provincial, however, about the lessons or the humor of the art. They are universal. On behalf of the United States Congress, I express my gratitude and best wishes to a faithful public servant, an Arkansas icon and a man I am proud to call my good friend, George Fisher.

Mr. BERRY

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from the Fourth District of Arkansas (Mr. Ross) for his leadership on this matter. Clearly, the bill that he has introduced and I cosponsored, H.R. 4959, that requires health insurance to cover medically necessary reconstructive surgery for congenital defects, developmental abnormalities, trauma or disease is the right thing to do. People that are so unfortunate that they would be faced with a situation like this and desperately need insurance coverage should be respected by the insurance companies that choose to take advantage of a situation and refuse to pay for the care that these people need. My colleague from the 4th District has already referred to Ms. Osborne, an Arkansas resident who was diagnosed with a rare, life- threatening congenital bone disease as a child. This should not be something that the insurance companies are allowed to take advantage of. It is time that this House does the right thing. It is time that we make it possible for Ms. Osborne and others that have been unfortunate enough to need this kind of treatment, that they will be allowed and that they will have the opportunity and that the insurance companies will provide the necessary coverage for their treatment.

Mr. BERRY

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) for yielding time to me, and also for his great friendship and leadership. Mr. Speaker, we have heard the other side come to this floor this evening and talk about this debt as if we did not have good sense over here. Now, if we are doing so good, Mr. Speaker, how come we are broke? I just do not quite understand that. It is like we did not have enough sense to tell the difference between turnip greens and butter beans. If we are doing so good, if this plan that the gentleman from Iowa kept referring to a while ago is working so well, how come we are broke? How come we need to borrow another $450 billion, not from ourselves, but from our children and grandchildren, for crying out loud? Who in their right mind would want to do something like that? Why would we want to come to this floor and borrow another $450 billion from our children and grandchildren and have no idea how we are going to pay it back?

Mr. BERRY

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, this rule is a fraud. This bill is a fraud. They have come to the floor and said that they are going to do something about prescription drugs for our seniors. Not a dime of this money goes to buy any medicine. It goes to the insurance companies. I wondered, as I listened to this debate this evening, if my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have bought into the philosophy of that old philosopher and spiritual leader, Brother Dave Gardner, who said, ``When you get a man down, kick him because it gives him incentive to rise above himself.'' They have got our senior citizens down, and now they want to kick them. The Greatest Generation that lived through the Depression, fought World War II and built this Nation, and now we are going to just kick them one more time. And if we cannot kick them, we are going to trick them and try to make them think that we are going to buy them some prescription medicine. This bill does not buy them anything. Mr. Speaker, this rule should not pass and this bill should not pass because everyone who votes for it is going to have to live forever with the fact that they mistreated our senior citizens, the Greatest Generation one more time.

Mr. BERRY

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas, and I thank him for his leadership and the great work that he has done on this issue throughout the years and also his friendship and willingness to cooperate not only with me but with many others in the Democratic Caucus to try to solve this problem for our senior citizens and for all Americans. Mr. Speaker, it is a sad day when we come to this floor once again, and we have done this over and over. I came in with the gentleman from Texas in 1997. Ever since then, we have been coming to this floor, coming to the well of the House, repeatedly asking the United States Congress and the House of Representatives to pass a prescription drug plan for our seniors. The reason I say it is a sad day, we know how to do this. We know how to pay for it. We know that we can do it. Just last weekend, I was back home in Arkansas, ran into a dear, dear friend, has breast cancer, has to take expensive medicine. Her medicine in Arkansas costs $775 a month, just for one particular item. She can buy that medicine in Canada for $70, same medicine, made in the same place, does the same thing for a person, made by the same company; but it costs 10 times as much. That is not right. It is not fair. It is unbelievable that the United States Congress has allowed that to go on and on and on. We tried to do something about that. In December of 2000 as an amendment to the agricultural appropriations bill, we made it possible for the Food and Drug Administration to put a stop to that very practice, to make it so that Americans could buy their medicine at the same low price as every other country in the world. We passed it, Senate passed it, President Clinton signed it into law; but today, it has never been implemented because the instructions were given to the Food and Drug Administration, do not implement this law, do not let this happen. The same folks that made that decision attended that multi-million dollar dinner last night at the convention center right here in Washington, D.C., that was paid for in large part by enormous, hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions from the manufacturers of prescription medicine. I wonder why they did that? That is unbelievable. That is so inhumane that we cannot imagine that we would allow this to happen. I never go home and spend time with my constituents that I am not reminded, prescription medicine is absolutely throwing our senior citizens community into abject poverty, over and over again; and my colleagues on both sides of the aisle have this same experience. It is not unique to the First Congressional District of Arkansas. It is not unique to east Texas. It is not unique to Connecticut. Every one of us sees this every time we go home. Our seniors have a Social Security check that will not even pay their drug bill; but if they lived in Canada, if they lived in Mexico, if they lived in Great Britain, if they lived in Panama, if they lived in Argentina, or Russia, they would have enough money because they would not be getting robbed, and yet we allow this to go on and on. I represent a rural district, grew up in a rural community, place that is very special to me. We did not have a lot, but we did not know it. We had a lot of very wise people in that community that I grew up around. They had a lot of sayings. Sometimes they made sense and sometimes they did not. One that I particularly remember that this particular situation brings to mind, they used to say, Don't worry about the mule going blind, just load the wagon. I can tell my colleagues for a fact that the American people and certainly the senior citizens in this country have had their wagon loaded. They cannot pull any more. They cannot bear any more burden as far as the cost of their prescription medicine and the way the prescription manufacturers in this country continue to rob the American people. This is something we should not allow to continue. Just yesterday I believe the Committee on Ways and Means marked up a new prescription drug bill. Talk about loading the wagon. My colleague from Texas has already described the bill. It takes Medicare funds that are collected, supposed to be used to pay for health benefits for our senior citizens, and it does not buy one single pill. It does not buy any medicine. They take that money with that bill, and they give it to the insurance companies; and they say now we want the insurance companies to provide a prescription drug benefit for our seniors. We are going to give you billions of dollars, and we know, since you gave us millions of dollars in the last election, that you are going to write a good prescription drug benefit for our seniors. But we are going to let you charge whatever you want to for it. We hope you do not charge any more than $35, but if you charge more, that is your decision. Now, we have actually tried this in a few places. In some of the places they have tried it, what they thought was going to cost $35 ended up costing $85. If we add up the Republican plan that came out of Ways and Means yesterday, after a senior citizen would spend $3,170 out of their own pocket, if they were real lucky, had a real good insurance plan, and an insurance company that really wanted to do the right thing, they would receive a benefit of $1,100. Now, who wants a deal like that? None of this is guaranteed in this bill. There is not a defined premium. We do not know how much it will be. In the Democratic plan it is $25. We put it in the bill. There is not a defined benefit. We do not know what drugs they would pay for, whether they would have to be in the formulary, not in the formulary. We do not know what it would be. If I ever saw a pig in a poke, this is it.

Mr. BERRY. I will be glad to yield to the gentleman from Connecticut.

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Connecticut. And, as I said when I began, it is sad that we are back on this floor once again to have to talk about this issue when we have senior citizens and other Americans all over this country today that are being put at a tremendous disadvantage just because we have continued to allow the prescription drug manufacturers in this country to rob them. In Washington, D.C., we have a multitude of strategists, consultants, and people that read polls to figure out a strategy to win politically. What the strategists have told our colleagues across the aisle is it does not matter whether they pass anything or not, it does not matter whether they help the people that are getting robbed, it does not matter whether they provide a serious prescription drug benefit for senior citizens or not. The only thing that matters is to vote for something; make them think we are going to do something. That is just simply not the right thing to do. There are many Members in this House on both sides of the aisle, and we just had a couple of Republicans earlier this afternoon talk about how unfair it is that Americans pay more than anyone else for their medicine. They have the right idea about prescription medicine for America. What we would like to do is, for once, in the 107th Congress, let us all come together to solve a real problem and to do away with a serious injustice to the American people and to our senior citizens. Like I said a while ago, we can do this. We know how to do it. This is not rocket science. The interesting thing is that there are many financial analysts that have looked at this and said if we do the right thing, make this medicine affordable, the drug companies will still make more money because they are going to sell a lot more product. Right now, we have got senior citizens and other Americans that just simply do not take their medicine because they cannot afford it. Imagine a horror movie where there is a terrible, unscrupulous, evil person that owns and has in their possession the medicine to save someone's life, and they sit across the table from that person and hold it just out of their reach, and laugh and ridicule them and make fun of them because they cannot afford it. They would have control. That is a scene that none of us would appreciate nor would want to be a part of. But effectively that is what we do in this country when we allow the drug companies to overprice their product and overcharge the American people. All we are asking for is a free market situation. Take away the monopoly. Let the market do its work. I am confident that if we do that, we will solve an enormous problem. We will do a lot of people a lot of good, and the drug companies will make just as much, if not more, money than they are making right now. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Connecticut.

Mr. BERRY

Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a great American citizen, and I am proud to recognize Lionel Jay Silverfield in the United States Congress for his invaluable service to Arkansas and our nation. Lionel Silverfield was born July 6, 1932 in Memphis, Tennessee, but considers himself a lifelong resident of Osceola, Arkansas. He studied at the University of Alabama and nobly served his country in the United States Army, where he rose to the rank of 1st Lieutenant. On July 28, 1958, Lionel married Lenora Pevsner of Oklahoma City. The couple has a son, Martin Silverfield, two daughters, Debbie Scheinberg and Elise May and a grandson, Matthew May. Lionel enjoyed a successful career as a business leader in Osceola. He was the owner and president of Silverfield's Department Store which closed in March 1995 after 75 years in downtown Osceola. He also served on the local Chamber of Commerce for 36 years, including two stints as Vice President. The city of Osceola proclaimed March 15, 1995 Lionel Silverfield Day in Osceola for his leadership in the local business community. In addition, Lionel has been a committed public servant and a leader in a variety of community groups. He served on the Osceola Planning Commission for 40 years and is a founding board member of the Riverlawn Country Club. He maintains a 43-year perfect attendance record in Kiwanis International and was recognized for his leadership with the George F. Hixson Award by Kiwanis International in 1999. The state of Arkansas is a better place because of Lionel Silverfield, and I am proud to call him my friend. On behalf of the Congress, I extend congratulations and best wishes to this great Arkansan on the occasion of his 70th birthday.