Dan Burton

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for his fire tonight. I think he should be angry more. I yield to the gentleman from California [Mr. Dornan].

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, let me just end by saying I really and truly feel for my colleagues in California and their constituent, and I hope all of their colleagues paid attention to this special order tonight, because they are right on the money. It is an absolute tragedy what this President is perpetrating on this country and particularly the citizens of California. We need immigration reform. We should not be using Americans taxpayers' dollars to pay all of their bills, to the detriment of all of your citizens in California.

Mr. BURTON

Mr. BURTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that very eloquent and accurate statement. I yield to the gentleman from California [Mr. Rohrabacher].

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Does the gentleman [Mr. Cox] need additional time?

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. I yield to the gentleman from California [Mr. Cox].

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California [Mr. Horn].

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. It does grandfather those children already in school.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, my colleagues who just took the previous hour chose not to engage me in debate. I asked them if they would yield to me, and of course they did not have time, because what they said simply will not stand muster. So I am now going to spend a little bit of time setting the record straight as they leave the hall. I would have been happy to engage and debate them, but unfortunately, they do not want to debate the issues. I would like to say the majority of this hour is going to be given to my friends from California, who have a lot to tell my colleagues about, and people of this country, regarding immigration reform. Immigration reform is absolutely essential. We have so many illegal aliens coming into the country, costing this country so much money, and we have passed a bill and the President said he would veto it, keep us here, shut down the government if it passed and was put on his desk, rather than sign it into law. I will let them talk about that in a few minutes. What I wanted to do right now is set the record straight on some of the things that my colleagues previously just said. First of all, we are not running away from the promises that we made to the American people. We kept those promises. Seven of the 10 things we promised in the Contract With America passed both houses and went to the President. Four of them became law. Nine of them passed this body, and we acted upon all 106 of them in the first 90 days of this session of Congress. So we did not run away from them. Let us talk about what we passed. We passed a law which said that every law Americans have to live by, we have to live by. Congress is no longer a special entity. Before, under the Democrats for 40 years, they had special privileges. We changed that. We came up with lobbying disclosure, so the American people would know what is going on in this body. We were the first ever to vote on term limits. For 40 years they talked about it, but they would not vote on term limits. We did. We downsized Congress itself. We downsized congressional committee staffs. We put term limits in for the Speaker of the House and for committee chairmen. We put a ban on proxy voting. We opened all committee hearings to the public, which was not the case before. We eliminated three committees and 20 subcommittees. We cut total congressional spending two years in a row, and for the first time in many years, we had a comprehensive House audit. That may not be great information for a lot of Americans, so let us talk about the Contract With America that we promised. We promised a line item veto. It is the law of the land. There is a line item veto. They never did it; we did. We passed a balanced budget amendment in this House, and because of Democrats it failed by one vote in the other House. Otherwise,we would have a constitutional amendment passed and sent to the States that would mandate that we live within our budget. They do not want that, because they like to spend a lot of money, and they have not changed. They talked about welfare reform, but they never did anything about it. For 40 years we had a welfare state that grew and grew and grew. Remember Lyndon Johnson saying we are going to do away with welfare in 10 years when he passed the Great Society program? Welfare is about 500 percent higher than it was when he passed the Great Society. Instead of solving the problem, he merely compounded it by putting more and more and more people into the system, to the point where every taxpayer in this country is burdened up to here paying welfare benefits. We changed that. We passed welfare reform. The President has tried to take credit for it, but he vetoed that bill twice. The only reason he signed it the third time we sent it to him was because the American people demanded welfare reform. And he signed it because he saw in the polls that about 78 percent of the people wanted welfare reform because they could not stand that socialistic trend anymore. But that was in the Contract With America. We didn't run away from that pass. We passed health insurance reform. They did not do it. They wanted everybody in this country to be dependent on a national, socialistic health care plan. We passed health care reform so people who have cancer or some life threatening disease that leaves one job, they could not take their insurance with them. Now if they have another job opportunity, they can go from one job to another, and there is portability with their insurance. They can have that. Megan's Law, that dealt with child abusers and nailing them, we passed that. Let us just run down a few things. They said we do not care about the environment. We passed safe drinking water reform update, clean water reform, private property rights protection, food safety enhancement, national wildlife refuge improvement, coastal zone management, mercury battery recycling, conservation and environmental reform in the farm bill, and Florida Everglades protection. Regarding education, they said we did not care about kids, that we cut the school lunch program. We increased the school lunch program. What we did was cut out the waste and fraud in Washington, and we turned control of the school lunch program back to the States where the could handle it more efficiently. But there was more money put in there for the school lunches. The only thing is we cut out the bureaucracy. But they do not want to worry about that, because that is their political base. They say we do not care about the kids. We do not care about the bureaucracy. We care about the kids, and that is why we sent the money back to the States where it could be more efficiently spent. We expanded student loans. We increased Pell grants; we increased Head Start funding; disabled students education reform to help disabled students. We extended tax deductibility of employer-provided educational benefits. It does not sound like we are against education to me. But they do not like us when we start cutting the big education bureaucracy here in Washington. That is what they are concerned bout. On women's issues, they say we do not care. The Sexual Assault Prevention Act, increased day care funding, child support enforcement, covering breast cancer treatments under Medicare. That is one of the epidemics, breast cancer. I have that in my own family. We cover that now under Medicare. Women's health research, funding for Violence against Women Act. Adoption promotion. A $5,000 tax credit for people who adopted children to get them out of the people who adopted children to get them out of the welfare system, out of the foster care system. It costs up to $35,000 a year, $15,000 to $35,000 a year to keep a child in foster care, depending on the State. For $5,000, a one time tax credit, people can adopt a child, pay their legal expenses, and get that child into a loving home. Everybody wins. The taxpayer wins, the child wins, and the person who wants to adopt a child wins. they do not mention that. Sexual Crimes Against Children Act; that passed. Domestic violence victims insurance protection and interstate stalking punishment and prevention for people that stalk women and follow them around the country to try to molest them. They do not talk about that. They talk about Medicare and say we do not care about senior citizens. They do not care about the senior citizens because they are not doing anything to protect Medicare. Medicare is going to go bankrupt in less than 5 years if nothing is done. They do not mention that they are not doing anything about it. So what did we do; what did we propose? We proposed not cutting Medicare but reducing the growth of Medicare, the growth of Medicare, from 13 percent a year down to 7 percent a year. It is still going to grow at 7 percent a year. That is not a cut. It is a cut in the growth, but it is still going to grow at 7 percent a year. that is 3 or 4 percent above the rate of inflation. We are going to increase the amount of money seniors get per year from $4,500 a year to $7,100 a year. Now, how can that be a cut? We are increasing the amounts they are going to get from $4,500 to $7,100, and they say, well, that is a cut and we do not care about senior citizens. What we want to do is put Medicare on a fiscally sound basis, and we are going to do it if we stay in the majority. But they have stopped us every step of the way. Hillary Rodham Clinton; her health care plan increased Medicare at 6 percent. We are talking about a percent higher than her, but we can still make it fiscally sound in 5 years and not have it go under. The alternative that they have come up with is nothing. And if we do nothing, what will happen in 5 years is it will either go bankrupt or everybody in this country will have to pay more in taxes to pay for Medicare. We believe our approach is much sounder. We give senior citizens four choices, they give them nothing. We give them the choice of staying in the Medicare Program, or they can go into a medisavings account, where if they do not spend their money they get it back at the end of the year in less taxes. What does that do? It gives you money back, it puts accountability in the system. You are going to ask questions about your coverage, about what your doctor is doing, whether or not that procedure is really important. Because if you do not spend that money, you get it back. So they can go into a medisavings account, stay in the Medicare Program, or go into an HMO or a PPO. We give them four choices. They want the one choice now. Nothing but the one choice in a system that will go bankrupt, and they are doing nothing to address that issue. Mr. Speaker, then they said that Senator Dole does not have a good economic program. He wants to give a 15 percent tax cut to every American. Now, I hope all my friends in America and my colleagues will be thinking about this. Americans work long hours just to pay the bills and feed their kids, and it is not right that Americans spend 5 months a year just paying their taxes. They do that for 5 months. Everybody in America works 5 months of the year just to pay their taxes. That is why the Republicans and Bob Dole are proposing a 15 percent across-the-board tax cut, including a $500-tax credit for every child in America. That means $1,600 more in your pocket if you are an average American family. Now, do American families want to put $1,600 into the IRS or do they want to keep it for themselves for things they need? They are already paying 5 months a year just to pay their taxes. So this November, when we get the message out, I believe the American people are going to say, hey, the Republicans did accomplish a lot, they did live up to their promises, they did keep their agreement with the Contract With America, and they are going to give me some of my hard- earned money back instead of putting it into the IRS coffers and to the Treasury. Now, the Democrats will say that is going to run the deficit up. When we cut taxes in the early 1980's, we were bringing in $500 billion a year in tax revenues. The tax cut stimulated economic growth and we created 21 million new jobs, that is 21 million new taxpayers. That brought the revenues from $500 billion a year to $1.3 trillion a year. It almost tripled the tax revenues because of the tax cut. When we put disposable income in businessmen's pockets and Americans' pockets and families' pockets, they are not going to put it under the mattress. They are going to spend it or they are going to invest it. And if they buy more refrigerators, we will have to make more refrigerators. If they buy more cars, we will have to make more cars. And if we make more cars and refrigerators, then there will have to be more people working to put those cars and refrigerators in the marketplace. That is called economic expansion. That economic expansion in the past has proven that we triple, triple the tax revenues when we give American people more money back in their pockets. Conversely, when we raise your taxes, as Bill Clinton did, after saying he was going to give you a tax cut, he gave us the largest tax increase in history. That is money that comes out of your pocket, that is money you cannot spend, and so the economy starts to contract. That is why we have the slowest rate of growth that we have had in years and years and year. It is not going to get any better unless we stimulate the economy. So let me just say to my colleagues who left, who would not debate me, they are full of prune juice. We did live up to our commitments, and we are going to do more for the American people by reducing this big Government, this bureaucracy and cutting taxes, saving Medicare, and providing a growth in Medicare that is tenable, something we can do to make sure other seniors are protected and still give them four choices. It will be better for America next time after this election. It has been better now, but it will be a lot better once this election is over and we have control. I would just say about Bob Dole, he will keep his word. We will get the tax cut, and the Americans will have more disposable income and, hence, a better standard of living. Now, I am going to furnish this over to my colleagues in California. But let me just say, as a person who is not from a border State, I am concerned about the illegal aliens that are coming into this country. We are getting as many as a million or a million plus a year coming across our borders. Twenty-six percent of the Federal prison populations are illegal aliens, and each one of those people costs the taxpayers of this country $25- to $35,000 a year. We are spending billions and billions and billions of your tax dollars, Americans' tax dollars, just to take care of illegal aliens. My good friend, the gentleman from California, Elton Gallegly, came up with an immigration reform bill that will solve a lot of those problems. There was one provision in there which said that, I think after July of next year, any new illegal alien coming into the country whose child they put into school, will not be able to go into school. But up until next year any illegal alien's child who is in a school will still be able to get their education through the 12th grade. The President said, hey, I cannot swallow that because I want these kids to continue to come in as illegal aliens, even after next July, to still be able to go to school at taxpayers expense, even though they do not pay taxes, to get an education. So Elton Gallegly agreed to take that provision out of the bill so we could get an immigration reform bill passed that would help protect Americans and stop the massive flow of illegal aliens coming into this country that is costing billions of dollars. What did Bill Clinton do? He said, if they took out that amendment that I just talked about, he would not object to the bill. So Elton Gallegly of California took it out. Mr. Speaker, what did the President say? What did the minority leader in the Senate say, Mr. Daschle? What did the Democratic leadership of this House say? Before they said, if you take it out, the bill will be OK. Now they have backtracked and said, and the President said, if you send it to me we are going to veto it, and if you send it to me we may shut down the Government. I think everybody in this country ought to know that this President is prepared to shut down the Government if we pass meaningful legislation dealing with illegal aliens coming into this country at taxpayers expense. I think it is wrong what he said, and I hope my friends from California will carry on this message so that everybody, particularly the people in California, will know that the Republicans are doing their dead level best to stop massive illegal immigration. With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield to my colleague [Mr. Gallegly] from California.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, my good friend Maj. F. Andy Messing of the National Defense Council Foundation has asked me to submit these speeches for the Record. Congressman Dan Burton congratulates the U.S. Coast Guard on the successful cross-decking of the cutter Decisive and the cutter Resolute. The two speeches herein show the dedicated service to our country. Particularly, they illustrate the antidrug missions, the lifesaving actions and environmental deeds done for America. Speech of Cdr. Al J. Bernard--Commanding Officer of the USCGC ``Resolute'' Admiral Barrett, Captain Hested, Capt Hail, Chaplain Michener, other distinguished guests, former Decisive Co's and sailors, Team Coast Guard, friends and family of the Coast Guard, Good Morning: Thank you all for coming today to share in this very special ceremony. For many of us, work is a routine of shuffling paper, long hours in front of a computer screen or toiling through highway congested traffic from home to work and back. It's a far cry from the dreams we had as kids. We day dreamed of being astronauts, explorers, major league baseball players, or even running off to sea. For the men and women you see before you the childhood notion of going to sea is a realty and remains intact. They sail the briny for love of country and for the ideals it represents. Therefore, a ship carries a very special meaning to a sailor. The ships you see behind me represent work, home, school, family, and church for this crew. It is life personified on a floating hull of steel. It takes on the character of its crew and becomes a sacred and noble entity because these ships are their blood, sweat and tears--the very attributes which bring a ship to life. Today, you have witnessed a transfusion of life from Decisive to Resolute. Decisive will always be a part of us. But now we are resolute; and what a desirable trait of human character to be--one especially suited for this crew and her mission. Implied by the word ``resolute'' are steadfastness, courage, and tenacity of purpose. To be resolute is to continue one's task in the face of great obstacles. It is one of the foundations of character. Without this quality, neither man nor nation can survive. But that's only half of the story. These ships of steel and their crews must endure the hardship and punishment that the sea offers without regard. Since the beginning of time, sailors have relied on the sailmaker, carpenter, ship fitter, and dock yard; these craftsmen ensured that the vessels they built or repaired were reliable and intact. The dock yards kept the mighty triremes, galleons, barks and cutters fit for service so that the crews could serve. They provided the sailor with piece of mind when he set for sea. Today, you see yet another example of that relationship between sailor and ship yard. The Coast Guard Yard has delivered another ship of the line in tip top condition from stem to stern, top to bottom, and ready for action. Captain Hested, please accept my sincere thanks from the crew of Decisive, and now Resolute, for a job well done. Your team has done it again. Thirty years ago, Resolute was launched from this very yard contributing to the Coast Guard's unbroken line of development extending over two centuries. As you look at Resolute down the pier, you'll see her clean, sweeping lines, a new look if you will, and a metaphor for the renewed vitality which is surging in our service. This ``new cutter'' incorporates all the latest advances in naval engineering and demonstrates our commitment to the growing needs of our times. For while I stand here and talk of time honored tradition and service, the Coast Guard recognizes that change is inevitable, if we are to keep up with the demands of progress. Let me end here by telling you that the crew is ready to begin a new chapter in the rich history of cutter Resolute. The American novelist, Arthur Somers Roche, captures the very essence of why these men and women do what they do, and do it so well: But the men who sail the ocean In wormy, rotten craft, With a hell-blown gale baft; When the mainmast cracks and topples, And she's lurching in the trough, Them's the guys that greets the cutter With smiles that won't come off. Thank you so much for coming. Speech of Rear Adm. Ed Barnett, U.S. Coast Guard Captain Hested, Captain Hail, Commander Bernard, men and women of Decisive, men and women of the yard, family and friends. A special welcome to two former Decisive CO's, Capt. Mark Fisher and Capt. Rich Hartman--good morning. It is a pleasure to be here today representing the Commandant as we mark a key transition point for the cutters Decisive and Resolute and for the one crew which soon will have sailed both of these vessels. Appropriately, this ceremony is held in Curtis Bay, a city rich in maritime history, and specifically at the Coast Guard yard, a facility which has contributed much to the birth and lifeline of so many Coast Guard vessels. As you know, there are many significant events in the life of a cutter . . . christening, commissioning, changes of command and finally decommissioning. The Coast Guard cutter Decisive was christened here at the CG yard in January 1968, and later commissioned in August 1968 in her first homeport, New Castle, New Hampshire. Since that time, during the past 28 years, Decisive has carved a proud niche in Coast Guard history. Her missions have been wide ranging. In the forefront are search and rescue and law enforcement operations in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. In carrying out these missions, as well as her other duties, Decisive has excelled. I would like to recap a few of these missions which occurred over the past couple of years. 1. Aug 94 First CTU 44.7.9 for the Florida Straits Cuban Sealift; rescued approximately 500 Cubans from unseaworthy craft; overall in 1994 Decisive rescued 1,400 Cuban and Haitian migrants. 2. Nov 95 Sank M/V Juneau Express during t/s Gordon near Florida Keys live coral reef. Fired approx 600 rounds heit 25mm between midnight and 0300 to sink abandoned 200' freighter in high winds/seas and prevent damage to a fragile eco system. 3. Mar-May 95 Coordinated Maritime element for exercise tradewinds 95, a USACOM sponsored annual nation building effort. Trained police and Coast Guard forces from 13 Caribbean Nations. 4. Nov 95 Interdiced 75' Haitian coastal freighter with 516 Haitian migrants in windward pass. Assisted CGC northland w/ safe offload in the vicinity of Cay Sal Bank, w/o injury or loss of life. Decisive's effort in law enforcement are matched by few Coast Guard cutters . . . she has logged thousands of helicopter landings, seized dozens of vessels, and as evident by the marijuana symbols on the stack. She has seized over 500,000 lbs of marijuana. To the crew of Decisive . . . I'm sure you are or will be experiencing a wide range of feelings as you depart Decisive which has been your home, and from which you performed your duties with the highest degree of professionalism. For CDR Benard, it may occur as you order the OOD to haul down the commissioning pennant. For the engineers, it may have occurred as you secured the main diesels. For others, it may be as you finish emptying your lockers and cross the brow for this final mooring. A lot of memories will surface . . . good times in Caribbean liberty ports, search and rescue cases in rough seas, climbing over the gunwales during fisheries boardings, the thrill of a drug seizure, the watches you've stood . . . and always, the memories of sailors with which you've served. Don't be surprised if you also have a feeling of emptiness . . . because a part of each of you will remain with Decisive. It has been your knowledge, dedication, hard work, and perseverance that have allowed Decisive to continue to operate effectively . . . long after she should have entered a major maintenance availability. As a team, you have given Decisive your best, and in return she has served you and the Coast Guard well. Now, on the other hand, you will be surprised at how quickly you will build a similar bond with your new ship . . . Resolute. The craftsmen of the Coast Guard yard have once again done a masterful job . . . the 210' MMA program has turned out to be a real success story for the CG . . . with the employees of the yard providing quality products, ahead of schedule and >$50M under cost. An excellent example of ``better Government at less cost.'' You will acquire from the yard much more than a refurbished ship . . . you will have a new Coast Guard cutter with many modifications designed to both improve operational capability and decrease M/H required for maintenance. The deck department will undoubtedly miss the pleasurable chore of scrubbing Decisive's stern. . . . The caretaking of Resolute's heritage will soon be passed to you . . . her new crew. You are inheriting a ship that has an equally rich history. As with Decisive, Resolute was built by the Coast Guard yard. Resolute's history began in 1966 in San Francisco, CA, under the command of a young commander named Paul A. Yost, whom would later become our commandant. Resolute's law enforcement accomplishments are also impressive. She too has seized dozens of ships--but on the ``other'' coast. And, while not as glamorous as drug seizures, she has admirably performed thousands of fisheries boardings, which have protected our ocean's dwindling fish stocks from exploitation and has provided fishermen with the latest information on F/V safety requirements. She has served our country with distinction. And so, through you, Resolute's history begins again. In June, you successfully completed her builder's trials. The stage is set. Resolute will require your skill and hard work to complete the on-load and ready for sea processes. Learn your new ship well . . . trace every piping run, exercise every new piece of equipment, note every detail of each new space. Soon you will again feel the salt spray, the excitement of the hunt, and the thrill of the rescue. That close bond between ship and sailor will serve you well as CGC Resolute assumes her position in the forefront of Coast Guard operations. Capt. Hested, on behalf of the Commandant, I accept Resolute back into the fleet. At the same time I present Decisive--``the queen of the fleet'' for her major maintenance availability. I pass operational control of Resolute to Commander Atlantic Area and administrative control to Commander Maintenance and Logistics Command, Atlantic. CDR Bernard, I charge you and your crew to be ``Semper Paratus'' in carrying out your missions. Do this in the same manner in which you, your crew, and Decisive's crews have done in the past. In closing, to the Decisive I say ``good job, we'll see you soon plying the Atlantic waters.'' To the Resolute, welcome back, welcome to the LANT area. And we wish you the very best in your endeavors. CDR Bernard, execute your orders.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize one of the best men I have had the privilege to know. His life reflects his life's work: Preaching the message of Jesus. Dr. Russell F. Blowers has served his congregation at East 91st Street Christian Church in Indianapolis for 45 years. As Russ retires I am filled with mixed emotions. While I am happy that he will be able to have time for new ventures, he will be sorely missed in the weeks, months, and years to come. Under his committed leadership, Dr. Blowers has seen church membership grow from 85 people on his first Sunday, to nearly 4,000, making it one of Indiana's largest congregations. East 91st Street Church has provided a myriad of ways for its members to serve, grow spiritually, and evangelize. Russ attributes this amazing growth to having stayed true to the Christian scriptures. By God's grace, Russ has remained faithful to the gospel by preaching the lordship of Jesus Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit, the essential plan of salvation through the Cross and resurrection, and the inerrant nature of the divinely inspired Word of God. Russ Blowers has preached about issues that transcend politics and reflect unchangeable Biblical truths, such as opposition to abortion and that homosexuality is against God's will. Russ has counseled Senator Richard Lugar, former Vice President Dan Quayle, Representative Andy Jacobs, and myself, a member of the church since 1981. Andy Jacobs has said, ``I think Russ's legacy will be that he showed us all the potential of the human heart. He showed us what a considerable contribution one person can make by simply seeking to love and be loved in return.'' I wholeheartedly agree with my colleague. Russ Blowers has lived out the words he has preached. He is Christ-like. Russ was born in Zanesville, OH, in 1924. He is a World War II veteran, having served with the 343d Fighter Squadron, 55th Fighter Group of the 8th Air Force in England and Germany. After his return from the 8th Air Force, Russ entered Ohio University as a journalism- advertising major and met his future wife, Marian. She introduced Russ to Christianity. ``She didn't beat me over the head with the Bible.'' he says. ``She just lived the life and answered my dumb questions about the Bible. I fell in love with her first and then with my Lord.'' After graduation from Ohio University, Russ received a Master of Divinity from Christian Theological Seminary and Milligan College later conferred on him with the Doctor of Divinity. Dr. Russ Blowers became pastor of East 49th Street Christian Church in 1951. As the church grew, the congregation changed its name when it moved to 6049 East 91st Street. Russ Blowers preached his final sermon on September 8, 1996. He sums up his ministry by reflecting, ``Above all, as I close this phase of my ministry, I give God the glory for whatever has been accomplished. He has been faithful to me beyond my deserving, and my most precious honor is being one of His children, one of His servants.'' Russ has also been involved in ministry beyond his local congregation. He has preached in 11 nations and has hosted nine tour groups to Europe and the Middle East. He hosted ``The Chapel Door'' live on WISH-TV daily for 12 years. Russ has also been a contributing columnist for ``The Lookout Magazine'' as well as the church's newsletter ``The 91st Edition.'' Russ and Marian have two sons: Philip, Marion County deputy prosecuting attorney; and Paul, associate professor of church history at Emmanuel School of Religion. Their accomplished sons will confirm that this Pastor who loved the congregation of East 91st Street is the same genuine article at home with his family as he is in the pulpit. The Blowers also have four grandchildren: Shannon, Alison, Leslie, and Colin. Russ has not only been a great pastor, he has also been my good friend and confidant through the years. May the Lord continue to bless Russ and Marian very generously in the years to come, in the way that they have been a blessing to others.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. There was an attempt to get retroactive pay. People showed up at the White House to work in the Clinton White House, with many not having a job arranged. Later, David Watkins wanted to pay them retroactively, go back and pay them for the time that they were volunteers before they were actually hired. He wanted to pay them for the volunteer work before they were actually hired. The head of the personnel for the Office of Administration, Phil Larson, refused and then quit because they were forcing him to illegally go back and pay people when they were volunteers before they were hired by the White House. This is on page 24, and I would like to read to you what it said there. It eventually dawned on the Clinton administration that these people had to be given appointments. David Watkins called Larson and told him to draw up the appropriate documents. Larson told him, and Mr. Larson was the head of personnel for the Office of Administration, Larson hold him, ``It is too late. It is illegal, illegal, to grant appointments retroactively to pay people. We would have to create phony documents to do that.'' Watkins did not care whether it was legal or illegal. He ordered Larson to backdate forms and create whatever documents were necessary, phony or not, so Clinton staff members could get paid. Larson refused, and he ultimately quit because he was under such pressure. There were transition employees who were double-dipping. Twenty-five transition office staffers were also put on the White House payroll and, thus, were doubling-dipping. Some were caught by a General Accounting Office audit but as late as September of 1993 had not paid back the money. The White House said it was too busy to deal with this problem. This is on page 24 and 25. These 25 had no problem paying their bills since they were now collecting two taxpayer financed paychecks. Some were caught by the GAO audit and were forced to pay back the money, but as late as September 1993, 9 months after the Inauguration, they were still refusing to reimburse the Government and were resisting official notice they had committed what happened to be fraud against the Government and a Federal felony. And, finally, a little footnote. Special agent, FBI agent Dennis Sculimbrene was waiting to interview Chief of Staff, Mack McLarty. He overheard a conversation between two of McLarty's assistants to the effect that Hillary Clinton wanted all of McLarty's ingoing and outgoing mail to go through her office. This is on page 92. And he said in his book, I do not know what she is trying to do. If we route all of McLarty's incoming and outgoing mail through her office, it's just going to create another step and delay things even worse. Yeah, but Hillary wants to see who's coming in to see Mack and what he is reading and writing and working on. She wants to control this office. That's the long and the short of it. Hillary is trying to be the chief of staff. I guess we should just get ready for it, since nobody around here seems to know how to say no to Hillary. These are just a few of the things that are in this book that are very disturbing to me, as a Congressman, I believe to the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, of which I am a member. And when we see these things involving national security, the security of the White House, security of sensitive information, top- secret information with people looking at them without having proper clearance, people breaking the law by getting back-pay when they are not supposed to, and trying to falsify documents, all of these things are things that we should not tolerate as a Government, and yet nothing has been done, by my knowledge, to bring any of these people to justice or to bring these things to a head or a conclusion. So we are going to continue to pursue this. We are running out of time in this session of Congress, but the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight has issued a couple of reports that get to some of the questions and answers, but more needs to be researched. No person, no group of persons, no individuals in this country are above the law. We are a Nation of laws and not of men or women. And when people break the law, no matter where they are in our society, the lowest person or the highest person, they should be held accountable. And toward that end, we must get to the bottom of these questions which have been raised in Mr. Aldrich's book.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, we had two FBI agents who worked at the White House, both of whom have retired now, who are very concerned about the policies of the Clinton administration. I have talked with both of those individuals, and they have for the most part corroborated what each other said about what was going at the White House and it has been very disturbing. As a matter of fact, Gary Aldrich, one of the two FBI agents who worked at the White House, wrote a book called ``Unlimited Access'', and it raises a number of serious issues that I believe should be of concern to the American people. Much of the information in the book directly relates to matters that have been the subjects of investigation by the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight on which I serve. Much of the Aldrich book focuses on the security problems that he and his colleague Dennis Sculimbrine directly observed. The background investigation process is very thorough and probing because we need to ensure that persons working at the White House do not have character or other problems that would endanger the President or otherwise jeopardize our national security. The White House is no doubt very familiar with the book ``Unlimited Access''. In February, 4 months before the book was published, FBI general counsel Howard Shapiro gave the White House counsel Jack Quinn a copy of the manuscript of the book, even though the White House is supposed to play no role whatsoever in the FBI's prepublication review of books by former agents. We were very concerned about that, because Mr. Shapiro was the assistant counsel to FBI Director Louis Freeh when he was a chief prosecutor in New York City, and Mr. Freeh was prosecuting some very high-profile figures, in the Mafia and otherwise. And for Mr. Shapiro not to know the policies of the FBI and the legal profession was just beyond me. Nevertheless, he went to the White House with this book, 4 months, to give the White House a heads up on what was going to be in the book so they could protect their derriere, and we thought that that was totally out of order. Recently the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight learned that the White House attempted to send the manuscript of ``Unlimited Access'' back to the FBI. John Collingwood, the inspector in charge of the Office of Public and Congressional Affairs, returned the manuscript back to the White House. In a letter to Jack Quinn dated September 17, 1996 he said, ``Because this is a document in the possession of the White House, which you have described as responsive to a congressional subpoena, we believe it would be inappropriate for the FBI to become involved in this matter.'' I have a copy of this letter I want to submit for the Record, Mr. Speaker. U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, DC, September 17, 1996. Mr. John M. Quinn, Counsel to the President, The White House, Washington, DC. Dear Mr. Quinn: This is in response to your letter to Director Freeh, dated September 13, 1996, in which you enclosed a copy of the manuscript of Gary Aldrich's book. Although your letter is marked ``By Hand,'' it and the enclosure were sent by United States Priority Mail and received by the FBI only today. We are returning the manuscript to you with this letter. Because this is a document in the possession of the White House which you have described as ``responsive'' to a congressional subpoena, we believe it would be inappropriate for the FBI to become involved in this matter. You correctly note that Mr. Aldrich made certain deletions at the request of the FBI. However, the FBI prepublication review process should not affect your consideration of the subpoena. Nothing in the manuscript contains classified information. Sincerely, John E. Collingwood, Inspector-in-Charge, Office of Public and Congressional Affairs. This is very important, because they gave this book to the White House. The White House then tried to get it back to cover their tracks and the FBI said, ``Hey, wait a minute, we don't want to be involved in this,'' and so they were not. Now, a lot of things were pointed out in this book that I think the American people ought to know about, Mr. Speaker. Illegal drug use in the Clinton administration was higher than in the Bush administration and not confined to minor use of marijuana that was used in the past. There were cases of several decades of use of marijuana. Clinton staffers' drug use included hard drugs such as cocaine, crack, LSD, and methamphetamine. These were people who went to work at the White House and they had been using hard drugs, cocaine, crack, LSD and methamphetamine, and those people were involved in issues of national security, and they had not had background FBI checks. According to Mr. Aldrich in his book, he said, if I had to guess, about 10 percent of the persons coming to the Bush White House had tried an illegal drug, which was about a third of the national average, and it was almost always marijuana and only once. Prior use of cocaine was almost never, on occasion; use of more serious drugs was unheard of. The illegal drug use was invariably confined to an individual's college days. Though the age breakdown in the Bush and Clinton administration was probably about the same, illegal drug use in the Clinton administration was much higher and not confined to minor drugs like marijuana. Generally if marijuana was used, it was not confined to the college years, either. In fact, a striking number of cases began to emerge in which the use of marijuana, once started in high school or college, continued into one's twenties, thirties and sometimes the forties. We were talking about decades of illegal drug use. There was another important difference between the Bush and Clinton staffers. In the Bush administration, more of the younger, post-baby boom staffers had managed to get through college with no drug use at all. They were a reflection of the national downward trend in drug use inspired by Nancy Reagan's much mocked but effective ``just say no'' campaign, but in the Clinton administration it was harder to find young staffers who had not experimented with marijuana, cocaine, and heavier drugs. Evidently they just could not say no. The minority of Bush applicants who experimented and admitted inhaling did not try to defend their use of illegal drugs. They were invariably apologetic. ``Yes, I did smoke marijuana once or twice, I was in college and everyone was doing it, so I tried it. I stopped using marijuana after I left college, but I'm ashamed that I ever did it because it was stupid. I'm sorry agents like you are risking your lives fighting drug traffickers while I didn't have the guts to stand to peer pressure.'' By contrast, and this is important, Mr. Speaker, the Clinton staffers, older or younger, made no apology for their illegal drug use, which was more extensive and included many heavy drugs like cocaine, crack, LSD, and methamphetamine. Many were actually in your face about it, using the FBI interview to try to debate me on the merits of making drugs legal. Of course, when I asked them how they obtained their drugs, the lies began. It was a rare Clinton staffer who ever purchased any drugs. Almost all the Clinton staffers were given drugs by friends or could not recall who gave them the drugs or used the drugs at a party where they did not really know anybody there. But the fact is they had an attitude when they were confronted by the FBI agent there, Mr. Aldrich, by saying, ``Hey, what's wrong with using drugs,'' in effect. Clinton staffers often showed no remorse for drug use. They lied about purchasing drugs, as I just said, and they said someone gave them drugs. Bill Kennedy did not seem to regard the drug use as a serious issue. When a case came up involving a staffer who had admitted to serious illegal drug use over a long time, including recently, Kennedy said, quote, now this is one of the counsels to the President of the United States, ``I can hardly fire somebody for being honest with the FBI, can I?'' The staffer was still working at the White House when ``Unlimited Access'' was written and Mr. Aldrich left the White House. This is on page 118 of the book ``Unlimited Access.'' There were problems with White House interns, including theft of lap top computers. There may also have been drug problems. Livingstone, Mr. Livingstone was in charge of White House security. He is the one we have heard about with the 900 FBI files being brought to the White House improperly, and we believe illegally, and I might add at this point one FBI file was used by Chuck Colson during the Nixon administration, and he got a 2-year prison sentence. Mr. Livingstone had 900 and some FBI files, and nothing yet has been done. Livingstone told the interns, ``And I know that some of you guys are going to do it but don't get caught.'' Now this is the chief of security over there. ``I know that some of you guys are going to do it but don't get caught. I mean, I am not asking you to become a narc or anything, but go easy on that kind of thing.'' This is a White House security person in charge of security. Telling them, you know, ``just don't get caught.'' That is unbelievable. That is on page 37 and 38 of the book, ``Unlimited Access.'' A White House intern told Craig Livingstone that she wanted to pursue an FBI career. Livingstone told her that the FBI would investigate her background thoroughly and she could not hide her past. Livingstone said, I mean, quote, this is a quote from him, ``I mean, it isn't like the White House where you can use drugs before and skate past other indiscretions and still work here.'' In other words, if you are trying to get a job at the FBI, they are going to really scrutinize you, but at the White House you are not being scrutinized and you can get around that sort of thing. That is on page 118 and 119 of Mr. Aldrich's book. FBI agents who conducted SPIN investigations; that is, the background check investigations for people wanting to work at the White House, were the first to see disturbing trends in the administration. Then the analysts at FBI headquarters saw them. Problems included drugs, bizarre sexual behavior, failure to pay taxes, failure to honor financial obligations, severe credit problems, bankruptcy, civil suits, liens, loan defaults, failure to repay federally funded student loans. These are people that were working at the White House. That is on pages 125 and 126 in Mr. Aldrich's book. I hope my colleagues will take the time to read that. Now regarding the White House Travel Office and the FBI, we had a Travelgate investigation. The White House did not use Secret Service to investigate travel office staff because the Secret Service had traveled with Billy Dale and the Travel Office staff for years and had never seen the slightest evidence of wrongdoing. On page 131, and I quote, ``Why didn't they use the Secret Service then? Because Secret Service agents had been traveling with Billy Dale and his crew for years and had never seen the slightest evidence of theft or fraud.'' Yet these people were accused of all kinds of wrongdoing. Their reputations were besmirched and ruined. They had to spend thousands and thousands of dollars of legal fees defending themselves and the Secret Service said there were never anything that they did wrong. Craig Livingstone said that it was stupid of David Watkins at the White House to have the FBI investigate the Travel Office staff. Livingstone said this in a meeting on page 81H in the book, and I want to read to you what he said: At the mention of the Travel Office, Livingstone, the chief of security there, really got going. ``That blanking Watkins,'' he said. ``I told them that Watkins was going to screw everything up.'' He is talking to Gary Aldrich, the guy, the FBI agent at the White House. ``Gary, I sat in a meeting when it was decided that the Travel Office guys were going to get fired and that they would be reported to the FBI.'' So the FBI was supposed to try to make them look bad and to convince everybody in this country that they were guilty of wrongdoing: I told them they were nuts. Look, we had heard rumors that the press was taken care of by the Travel Office guys, bottles of wine in their rooms, easy customs exams and stuff like that, but it was stupid of Watkins to suggest that the FBI be brought into it. There was no wrongdoing. Now, this is Livingstone working at the Clinton White House saying this: There was no wrongdoing, no illegal acts that we could prove. The only good rumor we had some some reporter brought in a carpet illegally through customs. A carpet. That was it. I argued very strongly against bringing in the FBI. It was wrong. We unnecessarily ruined their reputations. It was Watkins and Kennedy, Gary. This was their big idea of how to get rid of them. I told them it was stupid idea that would never work. Nevertheless, Mr. Watkins and Mr. Kennedy, the White House counsel, and some people believe even the First Lady were involved in saying, ``We're got to get those guys out of there so we can put our people in.'' And so they fired them and they accused them of wrongdoing, they summarily moved them out of the White House and after they moved them out of the White House, in an unmarked white van and made them sit in the back of it, they said that they were guilty of pilfering funds for the White House Travel Office. They were exonerated in less than about 10 minutes before a jury once the case went to trial, and yet they have never had their legal expenses paid and they have never received an apology, to my knowledge, from the White House. Bill Kennedy said to Aldrich, this is assistant counsel to the President of the United States, Bill Kennedy said to Aldrich and Schulimbrine, ``By the way, tomorrow you guys are going to hear about something you aren't going to like, but you're going to thank me for keeping you out of it.'' Aldrich asked Kennedy what he was talking about. Kennedy said, I can't tell you now. Just read the papers. You are going to thank me for keeping you out of this thing. Just read the papers. And the next day, the White House Travel Office people were fired. At the same time, the announcement was being made that the FBI would be conducting a criminal investigation of the White House Travel Office. Evidently the White House was going to FBI headquarters rather than having Aldrich and Scuimbrene, the agent on site at the white House, to investigate the travel office. So they went around them to people they thought they could work with at the White House. And in our hearings today and in testimony that was sworn deposition involving Mr. Livingstone, we went through a litany of issues today and in the past, and we found that Mr. Livingstone and others had indicated that there were FBI agents who said that they would do favors for the White house. So they went around Sculimbrine and Aldrich, the agents on site there, and went to these other people. It creates a lot of questions about why they did that, and were they trying to get their political agenda through by using the FBI, which could involve some felonies. Late one night, after the Billy Dale trial, Dennis Sculimbrine talked to Craig Livingstone in his office. Sculimbrine had been subpoenaed to testify in Billy Dale's defense. Livingstone said, I don't appreciate what you did for Billy Dale, Dennis. It wasn't helpful. Sculimbrine, who is retired from the FBI, said he was subpoenaed. He had to tell the truth. What else could he do? I mean, he was subpoenaed, he had to go before the grand jury, and he had to tell the truth. What else could he do? Livingstone responded, and I quote: The truth, Dennis? Don't you know the truth is relative? Your testimony was your version of the truth. Truth is what ever you want it to be. And another thing, I don't ever want to discuss anything related to the FBI or background investigations with you ever again. That is on page 134 of the book. I hope my colleagues will read that, because that is the way to split hairs and to get to your ends by obfuscating or skirting the truth, so you can get what you want done. that is what they did, and they fired the White House staff. And because Mr. Sculimbrine, the FBI agent at the White House, told the truth, he was criticized severely by Mr. Livingstone. Associate Counsel William Kennedy asked Aldrich what he thought about hiring Craig Livingstone in the first place. Mr. Livingstone had been involved, along with Mr. Marceca, his sidekick there at the office involving security, they had been involved in the nefarious political activities, dirty tricks, back in 1984 during the Gary Hart campaign. They were working for Mondale, and they were trying to get some information on some labor people who were supporting--I guess they were working for Hart and trying to get some information on some labor people supporting his opponent, and the fellow in charge of the campaign there said that he would not work with these fellows because they were involved in these dirty tricks, and they were summarily dismissed. But anyhow, let me get back to the subject. Associate Counsel William Kennedy asked FBI agent Aldrich, on the way to the airport when he was taking him out there to drop him off one day, what he thought about hiring Craig Livingstone to replace Jane Danehauer, and in particular asked him what he would think if there were character issues that were flaws in his background. Aldrich simply responded that the position should be filled by someone who is squeaky clean, but Kennedy cut him off and said, quoting, ``I guess I see your point, but it really doesn't matter. It is a done deal. Hillary wants him.'' That is on page 36-K. I will quote exactly what he said: I responded gingerly, saying that it was a post that should be filled with someone squeaky clean, and before that, before Kennedy cut me off. And Kennedy did cut me off and he said, I see your point, but it doesn't matter, it is a done deal, Hillary wants him. So they hired Mr. Livingstone, and Mr. Livingstone was the one that got the 900-some FBI files unethically and, we believe, illegally. Beginning after the election, the incoming Clinton administration stonewalled the FBI's attempts to conduct background investigations and interviews that were necessary to get clearances for people to go into the White House. This is on pages 8 and 9. But we were already off to a bad start. There were about 70 days between the election and the inauguration, sufficient time to complete a large number of Spin cases, that is background investigations. But for some reason there aren't many cases coming in. All of this chaos was so unnecessary, and eventually it caused the administration so much trouble that there seemed to be only 3 possible explanations, all disturbing: The administration was being managed by people so disorganized that they could not conform to basic procedures essential to the administration's own effectiveness; or, key people in the administration had simply decided the security procedures were not important and were taking a so what attitude toward possible scandal, embarrassment or worse; or, key people in the administration were so actively hostile to the background investigation process that they wanted to guarantee we wouldn't have enough time to perform adequate checks and follow up on allegations. Now, think about that. These people are working in the White House on national security issues, and they did not have FBI background checks. That is unthinkable. Also think about the security of the President himself. David Watkins was evasive in his background investigation interview, in particular, finally telling FBI agent Aldrich to back off because he was a close personal friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton. That is on page 18-M. He said back off, because I am a friend of Bill and Hillary. That is on page 18. FBI agents Aldrich and Sculimbrine made countless complaints and wrote many memos about the White House's lack of cooperation in background investigations. This is on pages 28 and 29. Aldrich and Craig Livingstone were discussing the security problems at the White House. FBI agent Aldrich suggested they both talk to the White House counsel, Nussbaum. Livingstone replied Bernie Nussbaum, the chief counsel to the President? It is not Nussbaum we got to talk to. We will be talking to Hillary. That is on pages 82 ad 83. Livingstone went on to say Hillary is the one to talk to. However, Livingstone never mentions the possible meeting to Aldrich again. Pages 82 and 83. I hope my colleagues will take a look at that. Most of this is all in sworn deposition by Mr. Aldrich. The media reported that David Watkins, he wouldn't submit to an FBI background check. The media reported that David Watkins had been accused of sexual harassment in 1992. It was also reported that the victim of the harassment was illegally given $37,000 of campaign money from the Clinton campaign to keep quiet. The media reported that a document to this effect was crafted by Chris Barney, who is now working in the White House as a Cabinet secretary, a high level position. Aldrich approached Barney regarding the matter because he believed it was relevant to Watkins' background investigation. Barney did not cooperate, and Aldrich wrote a memo to the FBI spin unit chief, James Bork, the man who was supposed to make sure they got the background checks, asking him to call the White House counsel's office to get the relevant people to submit to interviews. Nothing happened. Aldrich was later told the case was to be closed without any interviews. They closed the case with no interviews, never got to the bottom of the White House, and Watkins was later fired for some of his nefarious activities. But the fact of the matter is they had evidence the Clinton for President campaign paid $37,000 to pay this girl off on a sexual harassment suit, yet the FBI couldn't even conduct a background check involving Mr. Watkins. Dee-Dee Myers was uncooperative in filling out forms for her background investigation. In her position Myers was seeing and hearing highly classified, very sensitive national security information. Aldrich wrote a report about this problem and faxed it to headquarters and his immediate supervisor. The FBI ignored the report. They simply couldn't get through to the White House and to the President, because evidently they had gone around Sculimbrine and Mr. Aldrich, the FBI agents there, and had gone to somebody at the FBI who was willing to shut off the FBI background checks. Related security problems. According to an October 1995 General Accounting Office report, from January 20, 1993 to March of 1994, only 24 employees in the Clinton White House had been cleared to handle classified documents. The Bush administration had hundreds of people handling the same volume of classified material. This raises a serious possibility that Clinton employees without security clearances were handling classified, secret material, in violation of the law. This is on page 67 and 68 of this book. Mr. Aldrich says there was no way they could have handled the workload. I believe that classified material passed through the hands of Clinton employees without security clearances. After all, little or no regard was given to any other security related policy or procedure. Why would they treat classified documents any differently? Handling classified material without a clearance or allowing classified material to pass through uncleared personnel is a violation of Federal law and yet it was taking place. But to think of what it means for national security when just about anyone can handle classified material? It wouldn't take a KGB genius to infiltrate the Clinton administration. Apparently most of the White House documents are freely available to whomever might look at them, however inadvertently. Accordingly, many of the more than 200 volunteers who worked at the White House, worked for weeks, sometimes months, with no salary, no benefits and no security clearance to work at the White House. That is page 25-S. Mr. Aldrich says, nor did they have any legal right to work in the White House, review classified material, or do anything else as government employees, and yet they had them working there. Now, Vince Foster, before he committed suicide, or was found dead at Fort Marcy, Foster asked FBI agent Aldrich if all staffers in the West Wing were required to have FBI security background investigations. Aldrich said that Mr. Foster did not have a clue. This on page 73. Clinton had the old phone system replaced, even though it had worked well. The new phone system cost more than $27 million. It offered staffers a secret unpublished phone number, a secret phone number, that even the FBI was not allowed to know about. FBI agent Aldrich was told please don't call it secret. It makes people around here nervous. Patsy Thomasson responded with crude language that she would not furnish this phone list to the FBI. They wanted these phone numbers to be kept secret. Why would they not want the FBI to know about them? Maybe some things were going on on the phones that they simply did not want anybody to find out about. The new phone system was installed without the usual input or approval from neither the FBI or the Secret Service. Patsy Thomasson and David Watkins made this decision. This is on page 46 and 47. I would like to read a little bit of the dialog that took place. There was a lady there named Sylvia, who evidently worked with Patsy Thomasson, and Mr. Aldrich says on page 46, later I met a good friend in the hallway, a permanent employee who saw Patsy Thomasson frequently. Gary, there is no secret phone list. Her eyes swiveled to see if she had been overheard. Sylvia, it sure as hell is secret, if I, an FBI agent, can't get it. Well, all right, Gary, but please don't call it secret. It makes people around here nervous. The next day a very muted and intimidated Sylvia called me. Gary, I passed your request on to Patsy, Patsy Thomasson, and you don't want to hear what she said. Oh, go ahead. Nothing would surprise me anyhow, Mr. Aldrich said. When I told Patsy you wanted the list, she said screw the FBI, to hell with the FBI, they are not getting this list. In addition to making it tougher to reach people, the new phone system was a security nightmare. The old system was self-contained and manned 24 hours a day. The new system was computerized and therefore not self-contained. In preparation for this book, I interviewed a White House telephone company official who requested confidentiality. Gary, as you know, the Secret Service has always had a say in the past on changes to the phone system. This time they were effectively told to sit down and shut up. The system was installed without any of the usual input or approval from the Secret Service. Oh, come on, you are kidding. What bonehead would cut the Secret Service out, Aldrich said? No, I am not kidding, it was Patsy Thomasson and David Watkins who were the boneheads, Gary. Aldrich met with Vince Foster and told him that the counsel's office had blocked the Secret Service from seeing the FBI background reports. This is important because the Secret Service needs to know if there is something problematic in an employee's background. This is on page 71 and 65. I want to read this. Then Foster turned to the question of security as I had anticipated and hoped that he would. How is the security around here? Not that good, Mr. Foster. What is the problem? If the FBI knew I were offering you my opinions on the faults in the White House security, it would cost me my assignment or even my job. It is all right, Gary, this is just between you and me. You have my word on that. Now, tell me what the problems are. I told him the security process was still stalled and I was seriously worried about how the Secret Service had been blocked from seeing the FBI reports. Blocked? Who blocked them? Well, Mr. Foster, it was the counsel's office. He seemed surprised to hear this. He asked about the magnitude of the character issues we discovered during our investigations. I told him they were numerous and serious. I also told him I was not comfortable about giving him any information about any particular staff member. After all, many of these persons were his friends and there were questions of protocol and discretion. Any negative comments from me about specific individuals could be misinterpreted or even misused. Foster should simply order copies of the FBI summaries and read the results and judge for himself. And he went on, on page 65: In the past, the Secret Service had a right to determine the potential dangerousness of an individual and advise the counsel's office accordingly. In the past, there has been no question that the experts, the Secret Service, not the associate counsel, was the agency responsible for security and its recommendations carried great weight and were rarely, if ever, overruled. To shut the Secret Service out from receiving the spin or background check reports would change the Secret Service into a reactive body. Without access to the background investigations, the Secret Service could not prevent security problems. It could only react once they had occurred. In other words, denying the Secret Service access to background investigations would mortally wound its capacity to protect the President and everyone else who working in the White House. Kennedy's problem was that he needed to hire Clinton's appointees regardless of their character issues that were considered irrelevant by the group as a whole. The yardstick by which person were selected to work in the Clinton administration was different from any yardstick used by the FBI or the Secret Service. The Clintonites adjusted the White House security system accordingly and, I might add, to fit their needs. An example of this problem: Questions raised by Foster's death. What if he had brought a gun to the White House and shot himself there or shot others? The Secret Service had never examined his FBI summary. And that is on page 76. And I want to read that. At 10 a.m. the next morning, I met a Secret Service buddy in the hallway of the Old Executive Office Building. We were both in deep shock. This is after Vince Foster's death. Not only because we knew Vince Foster but because we understood the possible ramifications of his death. What if Foster had shot himself in his office? What if he had first turned the gun on others? The fact that the Secret Service had never examined Foster's FBI summary and had no idea what risk he might pose to others or to other staffers. I thought the security mess would hit the fan now and we might be called in front of a Congressional committee in a major battle between Congress, which had oversight responsibility, and the White House over the unconscionable and inexcusable risks that were being taken with the President's security. And I knew who would get the blame, the FBI and the Secret Service, not the higher-ups, not the Bernie Nussbaums and the others in that office who knew how to cover their tails. Staffers with temporary I.D. wanted to bring visitors to the West Wing. Rules prohibit people with temporary passes from bringing in visitors. Secret Service turned them away, and the staffers got very angry. Within hours-- Because they were bringing people that should not have been in the White House. Within hours, the rule forbidding uncleared staffers from bringing in visitors was waived. That is on page 53 of the book. Temporary pass holders had to go through the metal detectors. They didn't like this and got the rule rescinded, even though one Clinton volunteer got caught trying to bring in a pistol. Even though they tried to bring in a pistol through a metal detector, they got that waived, that you didn't have to go through the metal detector. That is absolutely ridiculous. That is on page 53 of the book, and I hope my colleagues will read that as well. Clinton criticized the Bush administration--this is a little side issue that I think my colleagues might get a kick out of. Clinton criticized the Bush administration's use of limousines, really small dark sedans, but bought new ones to replace the year-old vehicles. And that is on page 17 of the book. I hope my colleagues will read that, because they used that in the campaign. And as soon as they got into office, they bought all new ones.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, on the occasion of the 85th National Day of the Republic of China, I would like to convey my greetings and congratulations to President Lee Teng-hui and the people in Taiwan. The Republic of China on Taiwan is the 7th largest trading partner with the United States and the 17th largest trading country in the world. The Republic of China on Taiwan is an excellent example to the third world of how a free market system can achieve economic success in tandem with democracy. The Republic of China on Taiwan has achieved one of the highest standards of living in all of Asia, coupled with respect for human rights, freedom of speech, and full-fledged pluralism. Such a country deserves to be a participant in the international community, namely, all international organizations. But the Republic of China has always been isolated by the People's Republic of China. I want to reiterate here an unfair situation of Republic of China's accession to the World Trade Organization. The Republic of China applied to the GATT Secretariat for membership on January 1, 1990. Because the WTO was established in January 1995 to replace GATT after 1996, the Republic of China reapplied to the WTO Secretariat for membership on December 1, 1995. Under the pressure of the People's Republic of China, a political understanding among members--including the United States--of WTO was reached which promised that the People's Republic of China should be admitted to the WTO earlier than the Republic of China. But the People's Republic of China is still reluctant to remove obstacles to comply with WTO criteria, therefore the Republic of China has to wait even though they are ready to fulfill all obligations as a WTO member. I believe that the Republic of China on Taiwan's accession to WTO should be considered separately with the People's Republic of China's. Whoever reaches the criterion first, should join the WTO first. It is unfair and unjust to ask Taiwan to wait for the People's Republic of China joining the WTO first. I would like to enter into the Congressional Record that I praise the Republic of China's endeavors in its bid to join the WTO, and I maintain that political pressure from the People's Republic of China should not hinder the Republic of China's accession to the WTO.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, Bill Clinton said on June 16, 1992, when asked about inhaling marijuana: Sure, I would inhale marijuana if I could, I tried before. After the took office, Bill Clinton effectively abandoned the war on drugs. He slashed the White House Office of Drug Control Policy by 80 percent. He cut the number of drug enforcement agents and cut training for them. His National Security Council dropped the war on drugs from third to dead last among their priorities. His Surgeon General even suggested legalizing drugs. What has been the result of all this? Overall drug use among kids 12 to 17 years old has gone up 78 percent. Marijuana use among the same group has gone up 105 percent, and LSD use has gone up 183 percent. Mr. Speaker, this is intolerable. The American people need to know these facts. I hope they remember them in November.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, let me just tell my colleagues of one good provision in the bill that I think everybody will agree with, and that is that there will be something at the airports that will deter terrorists that is not currently there. The machines that we are spending $1 to $2 million on to deal with detecting explosives that get on planes simply have not worked. They are not in force. They are not in place. And we have been waiting 7 years for them. We use dogs at this Capitol, we use them at the Olympics, and they use them at many other areas, but they do not use them at airports. This bill provides a mechanism to get bomb inspecting dogs, bomb- sniffing dogs at every major airport in the country. It will have a deterrent effect on terrorists. They will be able to sniff out bomb devices in luggage and it will protect the public. Mr. Speaker, this is a step in the right direction. It is not the answer to every problem, but it is a step in the right direction. Until we get a device that is perfect, that will detect bombs getting on planes, the public in this country deserves to have these dogs at every single major airport.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, once again India's genocide against the Sikhs has been exposed. Just Monday, July 22, India's Central Bureau of Investigation [CBI] told the Supreme Court that it had confirmed that ``bodies tagged as `unidentified' by Punjab Police had been disposed of surreptitiously during 1990-95,'' according to the India Express of July 23. The CBI told the court that it had prima facie evidence of almost 1,000 cremations by the police, and its investigation is ongoing. However, police officials are making it very difficult for the CBI to get information. The court said that if this behavior continues, it will constitute contempt of court. According to human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, who first exposed the mass cremations, over 25,000 young Sikh men have disappeared and subsequently been cremated by the police. Mr. Speaker, these are very significant admissions by the Indian regime. An agency of the Indian Government is admitting that the police were involved in the murder of Mr. Khalra, that the mass cremation scheme is ongoing, and that police officials are trying to cover up these atrocities by burying the information. The justices of the Supreme Court labeled these acts ``worse than a genocide.'' They said that ``we shudder to think that such a thing could happen in a democracy.'' These events prove not only that India is a long way from being a real democracy, but that it could even be branded an authoritarian police state which commits acts of genocide against the diverse peoples living under its rule. Is it any wonder that so many of them are struggling to free themselves from this brutal regime? I urge my colleagues to consider carefully whether this is the kind of country we should be propping up with hard-earned dollars of the American taxpayers. I thank Dr. Gurmit Singh Aulakh, president of the Council of Khalistan, for bringing this report to my attention. As you know, Dr. Aulakh and his organization have worked for several years to secure freedom for Khalistan, the Sikh homeland which declared its independence on October 7, 1987. The case of the cremations, as well as the beating of a Sikh leader in the Delhi airport, and the continuing detention of an American citizen on what have now been proven to be false charges, show why this struggle is vital to the survival of Sikhs and others in the South Asian subcontinent. The Council of Khalistan has issued a press release on this story, and I would like to place this in the Congressional Record. It is time to end the oppression in India. [From the Indian Express, July 23, 1996] Cops Cremated 1,000 as Unidentified New Delhi, July 22.--The Supreme Court was today told by the CBI that it had found enough material and evidence to show that as many as 1,000 bodies tagged as ``unidentified'' by the Punjab Police had been disposed of surreptitiously during 1990-95. A 74-page preliminary report submitted by the CBI to a division bench comprising Justice Kuldip Singh and Justice Saghir Ahmed has stated that on the basis of the material collected during the probe ordered by the court, it had prima facie found that a total of 984 bodies had been cremated by the police on the ground that they were ``laawaris'' (unidentified). Expressing their ``horror and shock'' at the finding the judges in a brief order directed the CBI to continue its inquiry into the matter and issue a general direction to the public authorities or government officers to hand over any information regarding the issue to the CBI. The court ordered the DIG (Border) Punjab Police, B.S. Sandhu to hand over all relevant records regarding the cremation of bodies of unidentified persons to the CBI without any further delay. The direction came after the additional solicitor general K.T.S. Tulsi told the court that there was some delay in those records being handed over to the CBI. The court warned that any further delay in handing over the records to the CBI by Sandhu would amount to violation of its orders and would attract contempt of court. The judges observed that this incident of disposal of bodies of unidentified persons was ``worst than a genocide.'' ``We shudder to think of such a thing happening in a democracy,'' the judges said. Adjourning the hearing in the matter to October 7 to enable the CBI to submit its final report the judges asked the CBI to speed up the probe. In another report the CBI told the court that it had investigated into the murder of a human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra and had found several policemen were involved in the case. It sought the court's permission also to file three separate cases in the killings of three other persons by Punjab policemen.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker in 1990, we passed the Aviation Security Improvement Act, which was supposed to protect people in airports getting on their airplanes. It was supposed to deal with the possibility of detecting plastic explosives, which could kill a lot of people like that which happened in New York just a few short days ago. The problem is it did not work. It has not worked and since 1990, nothing really has been done. They said by 1993 we would have devices at every airport, especially the international airports, to detect these plastic explosives. It has not happened, and now we have lost 230 some people over the Atlantic. We need to put dogs at the airports that have the ability to sniff out plastic explosives. We use them in this Chamber, in the Capitol of the United States, and it will work at the airports. The cost is very small compared to the machines we are talking about. Those machines could cost up to $2.2 billion. To put dogs at 50 airports costs about $4 million a year, and we could do it right away. We do not need to mess around. If we are going to protect the flying public in this country, we need to do it now. Mr. Speaker, I have introduced a bill to this effect, and I hope all of my colleagues will cosponsor it.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, in deference to the New York delegation and to the untimely death of our beloved Ham Fish, I will not take the entire 5 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I would just like to say real quickly that there was a tragedy that occurred last week in New York going out of Kennedy airport. The TWA airplane that took off from Kennedy heading for Paris was blown up shortly after takeoff, and it is highly suspicious as to what was the cause. Some people right now believe it may have been the act of a terrorist. It is premature to say that but it certainly looks that way. Toward that end, I have introduced legislation which I introduced after the Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland a few years ago, which mandated that at every major airport in the United States, the 50 largest airports, that there would be sniffer dogs at the gates and where the luggage goes through to try to find out if plastic explosive or other explosive devices are going through. With the millions and millions of people that are traveling through the airports and through the air in the United States of America, it is imperative that they be as safe as is humanly possible. The mechanical devices that have been tested have been found flawed. Sniffer dogs and other animals that can sniff out plastic explosives can save a lot of lives. We here in the Capitol today were using sniffer dogs because we had foreign dignitaries visiting, and we wanted to make sure they were protected and there were no explosive devices put in this Capitol. They do work. They are effective. There are some down sides to them. It is expensive. You have to have a lot of dogs. But in this climate of terrorism in this world and in the United States of America, I think it is imperative that this legislation be passed as quickly as possible. I urge my colleagues to look at this bill seriously and cosponsor it if they feel so inclined.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I can give the gentleman at least two examples where they were deliberately setting up shell organizations to circumvent the intent of the rules passed by the gentleman from Kentucky. May I give the gentleman examples?

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Chairman, these are not emotional arguments.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I do not know whether the gentleman heard the first part of my argument, but the Legal Services Corporations around the country are forming shell corporations to get around that provision so they can use Federal dollars for one thing and the private dollars for another. I gave two examples: The Philadelphia Legal Aid Center and the Legal Aid Society of Santa Clara. I will quote once again what a Legal Services grantee in California said. He said, and I quote, ``If Congress can screw people with technicalities, we can unscrew them with technicalities. That is why we are lawyers and not social workers. Two can play this game.'' They are getting around what we tried to do by putting constraints on them in this Congress of the United States.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Chairman, my colleague from Texas just talked about the changes that were made in the Legal Services Corporation and how Legal Services was going to be restricted for its original intended purpose. Let me read to my colleagues what a Legal Services grantee in California said about the new restrictions. He said, ``If Congress can screw people with technicalities, we can unscrew them with technicalities. That is why we are lawyers and not social workers. Two can play this game.'' Now, Congress prohibited Legal Services Corporation from doing certain things. Legal Services grantees are getting around these restrictions by forming new shell organizations to accept Federal grants so that the original groups can continue to pursue their liberal agenda with private funds. For example, the Philadelphia Legal Assistance Center and the Legal Aid Society of Santa Clara, in many cases the two organizations have the same board of directors, many of the same lawyers, and they share office space. They are two separate organizations in name only. They are just getting around the restrictions so they can do whatever they damn well please. Let me just ask my colleagues a question. If there is a child and we are concerned about that child being molested by a sex offender, we would like to know if that sex offender moved into the neighborhood because we do not want a 2, 3, 4, or 5-year-old child running around with a known sex offender moving into the neighborhood. Well, President Clinton supports what is called Megan's Law. On May 17, President Clinton signed Megan's Law into effect, which requires convicted sex offenders to register their addresses with local communities after being released from prison. The Legal Services Corporation is fighting that law. On March 6 the Legal Aid Society of New York, an LSC grantee, sued on behalf of three sex offenders to block New York's version of Megan's Law, which includes a 900 number for community notification. They won a restraining order delaying the implementation for months. Legal Services lawyer Thomas O'Brien called sex offenders, listen to this, the Legal Services lawyer Thomas O'Brien called sex offenders ``the victims of a unilateral decision made by the State.'' Now, what about that parent that does not want their child molested by that sex offender? They want to know if he is in the neighborhood. Everybody agreed to it. We passed a law, and the Legal Services Corporation, funded by this Government and the taxpayers of this country, is defending that sex offender and protecting his right not to be known in a new neighborhood by the parents who have kids that might be molested by him. Does that sound right? I do not think we want our taxpayer dollars spent for that. Welfare reform. President Clinton supports Wisconsin's welfare reform plan. On May 18 President Clinton announced his strong support for Wisconsin's bold welfare reform plan. The LSC is fighting the welfare reform plan in Wisconsin. Legal Action of Wisconsin, and LSC grantee, has filed numerous suits to frustrate and block welfare reform in Wisconsin, even though this Congress and the President of the United States say that support it. Why are taxpayers' dollars being used to fight the very things we think are important? Then we take people who live in public housing projects. One of the problems we have in major urban areas around this country is that drug dealers are taking over in public housing projects, and they are taking kids and they are making them become deliverers of narcotics. If the kids do not join the gangs, they shoot them, they beat them up or they scare them to death. Mothers are afraid to let their kids go outside in public housing projects. Now, the Legal Services Corporation is defending the right of the drug dealers to stay in the public housing projects. They are trying to frustrate the local government officials in trying to get those people out of there so that people who live in those public housing projects will be able to protect their kids and protect themselves. Some of those people have been in their living rooms and dining rooms when bullets have come through the windows and they have to get down on the floor to protect themselves, yet the Legal Services Corporations in many parts of the country are defending the rights of the drug dealers to stay in there, in public housing, and not to be evicted. What kind of nonsense is that? It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Now, an agreement was reached to phase Legal Services Corporation out over a 3-year period. We gave them $280 million or so last year, we agreed to $141 million this year and zero next year. The leadership signed onto it and the appropriations leadership signed onto it, and today we are seeing a move to increase it to $250 million and to keep this organization in effect. It is the wrong thing to do. The right thing to do is protect the people of this country and get rid of the Legal Services Corporation.