Dan Burton

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, in October, 65 Members of Congress from both parties wrote to the President of India, P.V. Narasimha Rao, to protest the detention of Sikh human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra. Mr. Khalra was arrested for publishing information about the extensive human rights abuses going on in Punjab. Mr. Khalra had published information exposing the Indian police practice of arresting young Sikh men, torturing and murdering them, then declaring them unidentified and cremating their bodies to cover up their abuses. According to Mr. Khalra, 25,000 young Sikh men have disappeared in this fashion. A copy of our letter was sent to President Clinton, who recently responded. In his letter, he stated that, ``I too am concerned'' by this incident. I am enclosing a copy of the President's letter, along with our initial letter and a newspaper article, for the record. As my colleagues will see, the President reported that [[Page E 2327]] our Ambassador in India has raised this issue with ``high-ranking Indian officials,'' and that he will continue to do so. Mr. Speaker, the human rights abuses--the murders, the rapes, the torture--that are being committed against the Sikh people are truly horrible. Our State Department, our Ambassador, and the President must continue to press the Indian Government on this issue. Congress must be involved as well. It is time for Congress to pass legislation conditioning aid to India on improving its human rights record in Punjab, in Kashmir, and in other areas. If we continue to confront the Indian Government on this issue, we can force them to stop the abuses and allow human rights, democracy and freedom to flourish. The White House, Washington, DC, November 15, 1995. Hon. Dan Burton, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Representative Burton: Thank you for sharing with me your recent letter to Prime Minister Rao of India regarding the situation in Punjab. I too am concerned by the reports regarding Jaswant Singh Khalra. The U.S. Embassy in New Delhi has already made inquiries into these allegations with various Indian government agencies,and our Ambassador to New Delhi, Frank Wisner, has raised the issue with high-ranking Indian officials. We will continue these efforts. I appreciate your interest and concern on this issue. With best wishes and warm regards. Sincerely, Bill Clinton.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone] just gave some figures, and although I know he is well intentioned, I think some of the information that he gave out is not quite accurate. I would like to give a few figures to the people who may be paying attention to my colleagues. For instance, the earned income tax credit. In 1995 we are spending almost $20 billion on the earned income tax credit, and my good friend, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Hoke], the head of the Theme Team, points out that it is going to go up to $25.4 billion. That is a 28-percent increase. They keep talking about cuts. It is an increase of 28 percent. The School Lunch Program is going from $4.5 billion to $6.17 billion. That is a 37-percent increase. Student loans, they keep saying we are cutting student loans. They are going from $24.5 billion to $36.5 billion. That is almost a 50-percent increase. Medicaid, they beat on Medicaid all the time. Medicaid, we are spending $89 billion, it is going to $127 billion. That is a 43-percent increase. And Medicare, they are trying to scare the senior citizens to death in this country. Medicare, we are spending in 1995 $178 billion and it is going up over $111 billion. That is a 63-percent increase over the next 7 years. Think about that. All we hear is how we are cutting, and we are increasing all of these programs from 28 percent up to 63 percent. Medicare is going up from $178 billion to $290 billion. So do not believe all the baloney you are hearing from my Democrat colleagues. Let me talk about something that I think is extremely important. On November 19, 2 weeks ago, President Clinton, in writing, agreed to negotiate a 7-year balanced budget using Congressional Budget Office figures. He agreed to that on November 19. On November 20, the next day, his chief of staff, Leon Panetta, said that maybe we could reach an agreement on 7 or 8 years and he went on to say, ``But I don't think the American people ought to read a lot into what was agreed to last night.'' In other words, he was starting to back away from the agreement the President signed the day before. Two days later, on Wednesday, Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin began talking to reporters about a 9-year budget. Three days before the President agreed to a 7-year budget and he agreed to use Congressional Budget Office figures. Here we are, 3 days later, his Treasury secretary said, ``I think our 9-year budget is every bit as valid as their premise. I've never understood how 7 years got canonized.'' But the President already signed the agreement, Mr. Secretary Rubin. He had signed the agreement. Yet 3 days later you are saying, ``Well, it's not really that important.'' Then on Tuesday, November 28, the Washington Post reported ``a senior administration official said yesterday'' that an outcome without a reconciliation bill, balanced budget act, preserves our priorities and not theirs. Once again they are moving away from it. The Post went on to say even President Clinton in two interviews this month made the case that operating the government under reduced spending bills and leaving the big budget issues until 1997 would not be a bad outcome. In other words, he is not going to negotiate a 7-year balanced budget agreement as he said he would because he said it would be better to run the government on short-term spending bills through the elections in 1996, I guess for political reasons, because he thinks it would be good for him. But then let us see what the head of the Federal Reserve said, Alan Greenspan. He testified before Congress in November and he warned that failure to reach a balanced budget agreement would lead to higher interest rates, higher home mortgage rates, and that the economy would go downhill and suffer. So as the President made this agreement for a balanced budget in 7 years using CBO figures, he and his staff knew that it was just to get over the hump that we had caused by closing down the government. He did not really mean it. That is why they are not negotiating in good faith. They have not sent up anything. Chairman Kasich of the Committee on the Budget has held up our agreement time and time again on television saying, ``Here is our proposed budget. Where is the President's?'' And it was a blank hand he held up in conjunction with that. We need to have a proposal from the President to get to a balanced budget in 7 years, as he agreed to, using CBO figures, and cut out this politics. If we do not do it, according to the Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan, we are likely to see people buying homes having to pay much higher monthly payments, much higher mortgage rates. Interest rates on everything would go up. As a result, sales and the economy will go downhill. Mr. Speaker, if the President does not begin negotiating in good faith, the budget talks will break down. This will lead or could lead to another Government shutdown. It could also cause severe economic problems. If this happens, the American people should and I hope will hold President Clinton accountable.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. The fact of the matter is we are going to lose more young men and women, many more times, 40 or 50 more times in Bosnia. I think the President is making a terrible mistake.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Let me just say one thing about Somalia. When President Bush sent our troops over there initially, it was to feed the hungry masses, and those people welcomed us with open arms and treated our troops very well. It was not until President Clinton made the decision to get into nation-building, which is what he is leading us into in Bosnia, that we started losing troops and ended up having to pull out of there and leaving that dictator Aideed back in power.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Human beings. Real people. The gentleman has said it very well. I do not think anybody could have said it better. The fact of the matter is that I think everybody in this Chamber, once our troops are on the ground, are going to say, ``Hey, we didn't want them there. They shouldn't be there, but they're there and we're going to support our American young men and women who are over there to do a job.'' But the fact of the matter is, I will be supporting our troops, but I certainly will not be supporting this President and this policy that he has adopted because I think it is going to get a lot of them killed.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Let me just say on the front page of the New York Times this week they quoted a gentleman from Sarajevo who lives, one of the 60,000 Bosnian Serbs that live around Sarajevo, and he said, ``What you're going to see is what you saw in Somalia when you saw that American dragged through the streets dead.'' Another lady who lives in one of those suburbs said, ``I'll kill myself and my kids before I'll let them take over my home and my property here.'' And those people are going to be coming back. I am telling you, when people say that they will even kill themselves and their kids, what do you think they are going to do to somebody else who tries to take their property?

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Let me just say one thing, there is an old statement, ``Those that don't profit from history are destined to make the same mistakes over and over and over again.'' This administration in its foreign policy decisions has not looked at history. They do not have the underpinning, the background necessary to be making these decisions. Yet they are going right ahead, hell-bent for leather, making these decisions, putting our young people in harm's way.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. In 1473.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Let me just say, he said he is going to end the suffering and we are going to be there 1 year. In 1 year we are going to be in and out, we are going to end the suffering, and this is a civil war, civil strife that has been going on, as you said, for 500 years or more. I am telling you, you are not going to change these people's attitudes, take away their homes and give them to somebody else, solve all of these problems in a year and make this country whole. It is just not going to happen.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Let me just say something here. Mr. Speaker, this administration has a history of blunders in foreign policy decisions. Haiti, we are now finding out, is costing us hundreds of millions of dollars, and all hell is breaking loose down there. There are a lot of political killings that have been instigated in part by Aristide's own rhetoric. He is now saying he may not leave power, and he is using almost $2 million of American taxpayers' money to lobby Congress for more money. We have Mogadishu and Somalia and the tragedies that occurred there, and now we are going to do the same thing or worse in Bosnia? It makes no sense. This administration needs to get a foreign policy compass. They need to get some direction in their foreign policy, get some experts up there that know what they are doing and know what they are getting us into.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Oh, of course.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. They are probably in their 20's and 30's.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Bob, it is probably going to be more than two. We are going to have 25,000 there, plus support troops, in that 2\1/2\- mile-wide corridor, and they will be able to attack at any point along that corridor, at any time, day or night, with mortars, land mines, or they can use a terrorist attack with a truck bomb. I am telling you, you are probably going to see, and I hope I am wrong, but you are probably going to see a lot more Americans than two or three.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. And your dad was there.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Let me just say that I remember when the other side, when we were in Vietnam, and they were talking about the domino theory, they pooh-poohed that. Of course, now the same people who are doing that are saying, oh, my gosh, this may be a world war. The fact of the matter is, this war is not going to spread unless everybody decides that they want to let it spread.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. The President said, ``I take full responsibility for whatever might happen over there.'' The fact of the matter is he should take full responsibility for what happened in Mogadishu to those men who got killed. They did not send proper equipment there, they did not send M-1 A-1 tanks, they did not send Bradley armored vehicles. He knew they should have sent those over there. The men trapped there, they did not get to them in that little town for 40 or 50 minutes because they could not get through the crowds.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. I just cannot believe that is the case. The President said in his speech----

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. If the gentleman will yield, that is a ludicrous statement for anybody to make, because the administration had their Ambassador over there, negotiating with Aideed during a lot of this stuff that was going on. They knew entirely, from intelligence sources, what was going on. It is absolutely unbelievable that they would make a statement like that. Let me just add one more thing.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. He was the dictator and tribal terrorist over there that was responsible for that.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. If the Americans could see the corridor we are supposed to try to defend----

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. I would like for them to see this map.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. If the gentleman will continue to yield, the fact of the matter is we know there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Moslem terrorists from Iran who are in the Bosnia area right now. We do not know how many. We have no idea. The fact of the matter is that some of those people were involved in such tragedies here in America as the World Trade Center bombing. They do not like our policies, they do not like America very much. When you put troops, American troops strung out between, say, Sarajevo and Tuzla, that long corridor 2\1/2\ miles wide, you are leaving them open for an attack anyplace among that line. That means that you are probably going to have, anyplace along that corridor for Sarajevo to Tuzla that there could be a bomber, there could be a mortar attack, there could be any kind of attack on our troops and they will not know when it is coming. I remember when President Clinton had a number of us in the White House when we were in Mogadishu, in Somalia. The President came up with a new policy. He said he was going to billet our troops on the tarmac at the airport there in Mogadishu. He said they would be safe. They would be there as a security measure, but they would not be involved in any combat or other operations. This was after we started nation building, we quit the food handling over there. Two days later the Aideed forces, the terrorist tribal leader over there, lobbed mortars into the exact spot where our soldiers were going to be billeted. That was not anything like Bosnia, yet if we had had troops in that area where the President said they were going to be, and they found out about it, there would have been many of them killed. Think about that when you talk about a corridor between Sarajevo and Tuzla, 2\1/2\ miles wide with 25,000 American troops in there. They could pick any spot along there, any time day or night, attack our troops and kill hundreds, maybe thousands of them. This is a recipe for disaster. I appreciate the gentleman for yielding to me. The President should reconsider, and he should come clean with the American people. If he said what you alleged he said to Leon Panetta, you know, we do not let the Congress get into this thing, then he should be taken to task. I do not know if he said it or not. The American people need to know the risks. There are going to be young women lose their legs, their arms, their eyes from these land mines, but even a greater risk is the possibility of a terrorist attack from possibly Bosnian Serbs who are going to be upset about losing their homes and the problems around Sarajevo, or possibly Moslem terrorist from Iran. There are a number of people who do not like what is going on over there. They do not like anybody very much. I think our troops are really at risk. It is a mistake to get into this quagmire.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. It is going to run all the way this way.

Mr. BURTON of Indiana

Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Hoke] who is the chairman of our Theme Team here, for bringing to the attention of the body some very important facts. The earned income tax credit, our Democrat colleagues have been saying that we are going to cut that. The fact is, and the American people need to know this, we are increasing it by almost $6 billion over the 7-year period. The school lunch program, which they said we are going to cut, in fact is going to be increased by almost $2 billion over the 7-year period. Student loans are going to be increased by $12 billion, not a cut like they have said. Medicaid is going to go up by almost $40 billion over the 7 years, which is contrary to what the Democrat leadership has been telling us. Medicare is going up by over $110 billion over the 7-year period and they have been trying to scare the American seniors to death by saying that we are going to have Medicare cuts. I appreciate the gentleman for pointing this out. The American people need to know we are increasing all of these things; we are just slowing the rate of growth, and that is going to be good for the country.

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