C. Cox

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, this debate comes on a day when the hot news topics in Washington are the Government shutdown, the question of whether we will raise the debt ceiling, whether we will pass a Balanced Budget Act. But I think all of us, if we pause for a moment, recognize that 6 months from now that will not matter so much. That will be old news. The Government will be back operating again and we will have our Balanced Budget Act in place and the debt ceiling will have been raised. The more important decision is the one we are voting on tonight. I venture to say it is the most important decision we will make in the 104th Congress. Six months from now, this decision will undoubtedly loom large. What we do or do not do tonight is irrevocable. We cannot take it back. I support the peace process. I congratulate President Clinton for bringing the parties together. But if we fail to act now, while there is still time, then, yes, an agreement will proceed for Dayton, one built on the false premise that the United States will commit over 200,000 combat ground troops to Bosnia. If we do nothing tonight, United States will have negligently sidled into the Balkans trying to be neutral just weeks after bombing the Serbs; treating war criminals like Slobodan Milosevic the same as victims of hideous ethnic cleansing; foolishly inviting Russian troops into Central Europe without any guaranty that they will not continue to side with the Serbs, without any guaranty that they will leave when we want them to; putting United States ground troops into the middle of a three-way crossfire with no military objective other than to be shot at. If we do nothing tonight, make no mistake, it will be an irretrievable decision. While Congress could theoretically vote on this question after the commitment is made in Dayton, the reality is, as NPR has reported tonight, prepositioning troops will move into the Balkans from the United States within hours. Fourteen days later, when the final agreement is initialed, it will take, according to NPR, having been just briefed by the Pentagon, no more than 72 hours to get the bulk of the 20,000 United States troops on to the ground in Bosnia. We will have no chance to turn back. And if we did, we would be voting to unravel the peace agreement. How responsible would that be? We would be voting to make seemingly worthless the executive commitment of the President of the United States in Dayton, OH. It is much more responsible to act now while there is still time. Mr. Speaker, what is really at stake here is not the unquestioned power of the Commander-in-Chief to send troops anywhere he likes on the planet. He has the power. What is at stake here tonight is the power of the purse, because the Congress also has the power to pay for or not to pay for things over which we approve or disapprove. The administration has made it clear they will send these troops. I have been down to the White House three times in the last few weeks. They have said so. If we fail to act tonight, we will be acquiescing to plans to divert funds from other vital and legitimate national security functions that will represent nothing less than an usurpation of this Congress' power of the purse. I urge Members to vote yes on the Hefley bill, to act responsibly tonight and to say no while there is still time.

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, the closet thing to eternal life on earth, Ronald Reagan once said, is a government agency. If that is true, then the ICC, the Interstate Commerce Commission, should at least be cannonized. It has been around an awfully long time. How old is the ICC? It is so old that during Grover Cleveland's second term it was then the oldest Government regulatory agency. That is because it was formed by Congress in 1886 in Grover Cleveland's first term. It was put together by Congress with a single purpose, to regulate railroad rates, but like Government agencies so often do, it expanded its mission and grew so that eventually it covered not only railroads but also buses, trucks, household movers and on and on. In its salad days before bipartisan congressional majorities clipped its wing, the ICC was a regulatory terror. It became the textbook example of mindless regulation. Liberal consumer groups, free market conservatives alike opposed it. And as a result of this consensus, the ICC's overregulation was trimmed back by Democrats and Republicans, first in 1908, with the passage of three deregulatory bills: the Staggers Act; the Motor Carrier and Household Goods Transportation Act; then in 1982, the Congress passed the Bus Regulatory Reform Act. And last year Congress eliminated the requirement that 90 percent of trucking rates be filed with the ICC. Together these bills have effectively deregulated all surface transportation in America, and they cut the number of ICC employees to 80 percent. But the ICC continues to live on. What incidentally has been the effect of all of the deregulation? It has been a boon to consumers. Railroad rates, which rose during the decade prior to the 1980 cutback, have since decreased by 25 percent. That has reduced the cost of items ranging from cars and trucks to electricity, which after all is powered by coal shipped on rail. According to the Department of Transportation, ICC deregulation has saved consumers $20 billion since 1980. The ICC remains, however, a relic of the 19th century. Even though it is a shell of its former self, it still is alive and kicking. Despite the dramatic decline in its authority and its operations, the ICC continues to impose unnecessary regulatory burdens that require Federal approval, for example, just to operate a trucking company, or that require common carriage rates, prices, in the rail industry to be filed with Federal authorities even though the Federal authorities no longer have control over those very rates. Mr. Chairman, enough is enough. We are supposed to be running a government, not an antique collection. By accomplishing the long overdue termination of the ICC, legislation that I have long sponsored, Republicans in Congress will finish the job and demonstrate our firm commitment to eliminating Government waste and needless bureaucracy.

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman. Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the debate, and I have to agree with much of what I have heard. It is very important that the Congress pass a continuing resolution and that we get on with the major business at hand, which is, of course, wrapping up all of our work here so that Congress can adjourn and we can get on with the fiscal year that has already commenced on October 1. A couple of points need to be made, though, because they are missing from the debate. We all recall we worked very, very hard here to pass all of our appropriations bills before we adjourned for August. This body has been doing a responsible job, and I want to congratulate the chairman for that effort. Second, insofar as people saying that doodads are being stuck on the bill or extraneous matters, I do not know whether anyone considers it to be an extraneous matter that both the Senate and the House have passed a plan for a 7-year balanced budget and that the administration, the Clinton administration, and the President himself have refused to accept this overall principle. If we had agreement at that [[Page H 12246]] level, then I think all the rest of this could be quickly negotiated. But the great difficulty here is that, for the first time, certainly in my lifetime, we have a President who is vetoing a congressional spending plan because it does not spend enough money. When Leon Panetta was at the Congress I was working at the White House, and at that time President Reagan had to veto a continuing resolution with all the things stuck on to it because Congress wanted to spend too much money. Now, this President is vetoing a continuing resolution because the Congress, in his view, is not spending enough money. This Congress is different. It is the first Republican majority Congress in 40 years; and if our mandate is nothing else, it is to make sure that we change this pattern of endless deficits. The President's plan, finally having agreed to a balanced budget in principle, would have a deficit of $200 billion in the year 2005. We want to bring these deficits to an end, and that is the task at hand. Let us agree to the principle of a balanced budget and do it now.

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 783, I was unavoidably detained outside the Chamber. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues, the gentleman from Oregon [Mr. Cooley] and the gentleman from New Mexico [Mr. Richardson], for the kind words that they have just spoken in behalf of this bill. Mr. Speaker, it should not take an act of Congress for kids to go to summer camp, but that really is what this bill is going to facilitate. For several years, the facilities used by up to 10,000 Boy Scouts in the Orange County area have been deteriorating. They have been unable to build improvements on their land because a master plan cannot be approved by San Diego County until this boundary dispute, which as the gentleman states goes back to 1880, is resolved. Mr. Speaker, like good neighbors, the Boy Scouts who discovered this problem with their property some 30 years after acquiring it from the Federal Government, worked with the Forest Service in good neighborly fashion to resolve it and they have now done so. Mr. Speaker, I would like especially to take a moment to thank Mike Harrison, Kent Gibbs, and Craig Reide of the Orange County Council of the Boy Scouts of America for the extraordinary work they have done in getting this bill this close to passage. I am also grateful to the gentleman from Utah [Mr. Hansen] and other members of the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Lands. Mr. Speaker, I first introduced this bill in 1992, along with California Senator John Seymour. It has taken us a great deal of hard work and effort to get to this point. Instrumental in our success was the work of my colleague, the gentleman from southern California [Mr. Calvert], who also authored this legislation with me, and who has worked tirelessly to make certain that Members of this body recognize the special urgency of this legislation. While the gentleman from California [Mr. Calvert] wanted to be here to mark the passage of this legislation, he has been unavoidably detained off the Hill. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 207 may not be the most significant piece of legislation that this Congress considers, but it will have an immediate, tangible, and lasting positive impact on the lives of the thousands of Boy Scouts who spend their summers at the Lost Valley Scout Reservation. H.R. 207 is the legislative route to implement the agreement that has been reached by the Boy Scouts and the Federal Government. Under the bill, up to 60 acres of the Cleveland National Forest presently encroached upon or heavily impacted by the Lost Valley Scout Reservation will be exchanged for 94 acres now owned by the Boy Scouts. The 94 acres of land do border the existing national forest and will expand the size of the Cleveland National Forest. Additionally, the Boy Scouts have agreed, at their own expense, to pay for new surveys and place monuments which will clearly mark the new boundaries. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 207 is supported by the Forest Service, which testified earlier this year that enactment of this legislation will ``benefit the management of the National Forests by solving boundary, encroachment issues.'' Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, I cannot stress enough the special urgency of this legislation. The county of San Diego has denied building permits for needed improvements at Lost Valley Scout Reservation, pending a master land use plan as I have mentioned. That master land use plan depends on passage of this bill. For all of these reasons, time is of the essence. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted that the leadership of this Congress has made passage of H.R. 207 a priority and I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join with me in supporting a bill that is good for our national parks, good for the Federal Government, and good for the Boy Scouts and good for about 10,000 campers.

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. The resolution before us, Mr. Speaker, is clear and unambiguous. The President should not unilaterally commit 25,000 United States ground troops to Bosnia without congressional approval. Congressional approval for sending U.S. troops into war is no mere formality. It is not a constitutional question, it is a question of whether we want our troops to succeed. It is a question of whether we want the military mission to succeed. It is a question of whether they deserve the support of the American people before rather than in the middle or after. It is a question of protecting our constitutional process under which the Congress, not the President, presumes to commit billions of dollars in U.S. funds to support such an operation. Mr. Speaker, there is no peace to support. We are sending our troops into the middle. Right now we all know the situation on the ground in northwest Bosnia. There is nothing that distinguishes this, the 35th cease-fire, from the 34th or the 36th. And when this one breaks down the only military mission of our troops, purported neutrals, will be to get shot at just as it was in Lebanon. The Clinton doctrine now emerging is that we will commit U.S. troops to protect the gains of a military aggressor. Yes, Mr. Speaker, those were the pictures that we saw, naked military aggression committed by such as Slobodan Milosevic. Now we are told it is wise to trust Milosevic's signature on a piece of paper and U.S. troops will risk their lives to plot his gains and his conquests for a precise period of 1 year, following which he will be free to advance. U.S. troops should not be committed cavalierly. The question is, Should U.S. troops be committed by the President without congressional approval? If we believe the answer to that question is no, vote for this resolution. Vote for this resolution to require congressional authorization.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, I believe that a good point was just made by my colleague from the other side of the aisle. This is an important issue. I ask unanimous consent that an additional 60 minutes of time be devoted to this topic to be divided equally on either side.

Mr. COX of California. If the gentleman would yield for a moment, to clarify the point, the reason that we are here on the floor now without hearings, without any further opportunity beyond the hearings we have already had, and we have had hearings in our committee, the President and the administration are going to, in Ohio, within 48 hours commit or begin possibly to commit ground troops. We want to make sure before they go into those negotiations that we are on record saying do this only with congressional authorization. It is important that we act tonight. Else we will abdicate. But because it is such an important point, I thought I would ask for an additional 10 minutes on either side, and I would repeat my unanimous- consent request.

Mr. COX of California. To be equally divided by each side.

Mr. COX of California. If the gentleman will yield, my object here is to extend the time so that we debate it for a full hour. That is 20 additional minutes.

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, the Seven-Year Balanced Budget Reconciliation Act of 1995 gives taxpayers plenty to cheer about. Previous speakers have talked about the many ways in which this bill attacks wasteful government spending. I'd like to take this opportunity to talk about one boondoggle in particular which our Balanced Budget bill will eliminate: the National Helium Reserve. Humorist P.J. O'Rourke once described the National Helium Reserve as ``amazingly stupid, even by government standards.'' First established in 1925 so America could field a fleet of blimps in time of war, the federal helium program has now piled up a debt of $1.4 billion and loses tens of millions more every year. It's incapable of competing with private industry, which accounts for 90 percent of the nation's helium sales and is fully capable of supplying the entire demand. But no Congress--until this one--had ever taken action to terminate this ``poster child of government waste.'' Mr. Speaker, I'd also like to point out that the true cost of maintaining this wasteful government anachronism has been much greater than its $1.4 billion debt might indicate. A more accurate price tag might be $250 billion--that's the amount in new taxes the American people had to endure under the 1993 tax bill signed into law by President Clinton. Why is it appropriate to link the helium reserve to the Clinton tax bill? The answer can be found in Bob Woodward's The Agenda and in numerous other press reports at the time of the 1993 budget debate: President Clinton promised Rep. Bill Sarpalius--the Democrat who until this year represented Amarillo, Texas, the home of the helium reserve-- that the reserve would be protected if Sarpalius changed his vote, and voted for the Clinton tax bill. Sarpalius did change his vote, allowing President Clinton a one-vote margin of victory on House passage of his tax bill. Privatizing the National Helium Reserve, then, is an achievement steeped in symbolism. While I am pleased that President Clinton now supports termination of the helium program--it was one of the few specific budget cuts he mentioned in his 1995 State of the Union address--I'm disappointed that his budget proposed to forgive the reserve's $1.4 billion debt. This is altogether unfair to the American taxpayers who for so long were forced to keep this antiquated dirigible of a program aloft. We must not simply ``write off'' the reserve's enormous debt. That's why I am especially pleased that the Budget Reconciliation bill before us today rejects the Clinton Administration's approach, and instead incorporates the language from H.R. 873, the helium privatization legislation I introduced earlier this year along with more than 170 Republican, Democrat, and Independent Members of the House. The Budget Reconciliation legislation gets the government out of the helium production business, yielding millions in annual savings. It requires the government to provide accurate annual financial statements that will for the first time reflect the reserve's true cost to the taxpayers. It provides firm dates for beginning and completing privatization of the Federal Government's vast helium reserves. Most importantly, it ensures that the reserve's entire $1.4 billion debt to taxpayers will be repaid out of the sale of the helium stockpile. Mr. Speaker, today's vote on the Seven-Year Balanced Budget Reconciliation Act represents an enormous victory for those of us who have fought for years to get the government out of the helium business. I'd like to thank the many members of this body--including Barney Frank, Ken Calvert, Barbara Vucanovich, and Frank Cremeans--who have worked so hard to help make this proposal a reality, and I urge all my colleagues to join with me in voting in favor of this important legislation.

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Speaker, the House is today considering H.R. 2491, the Seven-Year Balanced Budget Reconciliation Act of 1995. We have a moral responsibility to cease building a flawed Federal bureaucracy on the backs of our children. This legislation, the most important in years, will free our economy from the burden of wasteful Government spending and empower the private sector to build a brighter future for the next generation. There are few provisions of the Reconciliation Act which do more to unleash the creativity and productivity in the private sector than the research and experimentation tax credit. Since 1981, the R&E tax credit has proven a powerful boost to American competitiveness in our global economy. By extending the R&E tax credit, this legislation will ensure that our Nation's research base continues to be a dynamic source of job creation and technological innovation. Though many of us hoped that this credit might be made permanent, I fully understand the revenue constraints under which we all must operate and therefore applaud the decision to favor an extension. Mr. Speaker, in addition to extending this useful credit, the Budget Reconciliation Act we're currently considering will helpfully eliminate a Government-created barrier to growth in the electronics and biotechnology industries. As Gordon Steel, V.P. and CEO of the Xilinx Corp., and others have pointed out, the current tax code unfairly denies full eligibility for the R&E tax credit to companies which began operating between 1984 and 1988. This arbitrary policy has proven to be a significant roadblock to U.S. business development. To correct this inequity, the budget reconciliation bill before us includes commonsense guidelines to determine qualification for start-up R&E credit--regardless of the year a company began operations. I am delighted to support this important effort to remove existing penalties for companies that invest in long-term R&D, and I urge all my colleagues to join with me in voting for this landmark legislation.

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, I want quickly to agree with the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Traficant] on the other side of the aisle. It is true. Ronald Reagan did make sense on this issue. I worked for Ronald Reagan in the White House and I know very well that no one believed more passionately in the free enterprise system and the private sector than did Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan, unlike Robert Reich, understood the difference between government and free enterprise. Ronald Reagan did not have much difficulty answering the question, ``Should the Government direct private pension funds in their investments?'' The answer, of course, is no. Private pension funds represent at least $3.5 trillion in assets in America today. That is more than double the entire Federal budget. A lot of people would like to get their hands on this money for political purposes. In 1988, Jesse Jackson put it in his Presidential campaign platform. He [[Page H 8746]] wanted to have the Federal Government help with the investment of private pension funds by helping to steer them into politically correct investments. Mr. Chairman, at a time when we are trying to reduce the size and scope of Federal Government, the liberal big spenders are obviously beside themselves. Where are they going to get the money they need to control life in America? What better place than private pension funds? There is so much money there, after all. It is double the amount than we have got in the whole Federal budget. The whole idea behind ETI's, [Economically Targeted Investments] is that investments can be made with social goals, not economic goals in mind. That is the purpose of Robert Reich's infamous Bulletin 94-1 issued last year carrying out the campaign platform of Jesse Jackson in 1988. It affects pension plans of all kinds, union pension funds, company pension plans, any private pension plan. What it does is stand the law on its head. Let me quote from ERISA, the existing law that protects our private pension investments. ERISA says pension fund managers must act, ``solely in the interest of participants and beneficiaries.'' That is what the law says. ``Solely in the interest of participants and beneficiaries.'' ``The exclusive purpose of providing benefits to participants and their beneficiaries.'' That is how pension fund managers must invest. ``With the exclusive purpose of providing benefits to participants and their beneficiaries.'' If one is trying to channel money to politically correct causes, is that not violating the law, the taking into account of another criterion? What Robert Reich has said in his bulletin is we can take something else into account. All else being equal, he says fallaciously, you can take into account the social utility of the investments. Who determines this? Not the marketplace any longer. That is what Ronald Reagan thought should happen. The marketplace would determine what is a socially useful investment. No, instead Robert Reich will help you determine this by putting together a list. And the Labor Department, at taxpayer expense, is going to have a list of Economically Targeted Investments. That is where we are going to encourage private pension money to go. There is no element of coercion in this when the Federal Government investments your taxpayer money in a whole system of putting together a list of politically correct investments, and then puts out an order directing people to pay more attention to this issue, as Investors Business Daily told us Robert Reich did 1 month after issuing Bulletin 94-1? Of course not. Stealing the hard-earned after-tax savings of working Americans for social experiments is taxation. Unfair and unwarranted taxation to be sure, but another tax grab. Mr. Chairman, ETI stands for an ``Extra Tax on Individuals.'' Let us not permit it.

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Barton]. (Mr. BARTON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to respond briefly to the important point in this bill that prohibits the FCC from regulating the Internet. Price regulation is at one with usage of the Internet. We want to make sure that the complicated way that the Internet sends a document to your computer, splitting it up into packets, sending it through myriad computers around the world before it reaches your desk is eventually grasped by technology so that we can price it, and we can price ration usage on the Internet so more and more people can use it without overcrowding it. If we regulate the Internet at the FCC, that will freeze or at least slow down technology. It will threaten the future of the Internet. That is why it is so important that we not have a Federal computer commission do that.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington [Mr. White].

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment numbered 2- 3.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, given that no Member has risen in opposition, would the Chair entertain a unanimous-consent request?

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, I wish to begin by thanking my colleague, the gentleman from Oregon [Mr. Wyden], who has worked so hard and so diligently on this effort with all of our colleagues. We are talking about the Internet now, not about telephones, not about television or radios, not about cable TV, not about broadcasting, but in technological terms and historical terms, an absolutely brand- new technology. The Internet is a fascinating place and many of us have recently become acquainted with all that it holds for us in terms of education and political discourse. We want to make sure that everyone in America has an open invitation and feels welcome to participate in the Internet. But as you know, there is some reason for people to be wary because, as a Time Magazine cover story recently highlighted, there is in this vast world of computer information, a literal computer library, some offensive material, some things in the bookstore, if you will, that our children ought not to see. As the parent of two, I want to make sure that my children have access to this future and that I do not have to worry about what they might be running into on line. I would like to keep that out of my house and off of my computer. How should we do this? Some have suggested, Mr. Chairman, that we take the Federal Communications Commission and turn it into the Federal Computer Commission, that we hire even more bureaucrats and more regulators who will attempt, either civilly or criminally, to punish people by catching them in the act of putting something into cyberspace. Frankly, there is just too much going on on the Internet for that to be effective. No matter how big the army of bureaucrats, it is not going to protect my kids because I do not think the Federal Government will get there in time. Certainly, criminal enforcement of our obscenity laws as an adjunct is a useful way of punishing the truly guilty. Mr. Chairman, what we want are results. We want to make sure we do something that actually works. Ironically, the existing legal system provides a massive disincentive for the people who might best help us control the Internet to do so. I will give you two quick examples: A Federal court in New York, in a case involving CompuServe, one of our on-line service providers, held that CompuServe would not be liable in a defamation case because it was not the publisher or editor of the material. It just let everything come onto your computer without, in any way, trying to screen it or control it. But another New York court, the New York Supreme Court, held that Prodigy, CompuServe's competitor, could be held liable in a $200 million defamation case because someone had posted on one of their bulletin boards, a financial bulletin board, some remarks that apparently were untrue about an investment bank, that the investment bank would go out of business and was run by crooks. Prodigy said, ``No, no; just like CompuServe, we did not control or edit that information, nor could we, frankly. We have over 60,000 of these messages each day, we have over 2 million subscribers, and so you cannot proceed with this kind of a case against us.'' The court said, ``No, no, no, no, you are different; you are different than CompuServe because you are a family-friendly network. You advertise yourself as such. You employ screening and blocking software that keeps obscenity off of your network. You have people who are hired to exercise an emergency delete function to keep that kind of [[Page H 8470]] material away from your subscribers. You don't permit nudity on your system. You have content guidelines. You, therefore, are going to face higher, stricker liability because you tried to exercise some control over offensive material.'' Mr. Chairman, that is backward. We want to encourage people like Prodigy, like CompuServe, like America Online, like the new Microsoft network, to do everything possible for us, the customer, to help us control, at the portals of our computer, at the front door of our house, what comes in and what our children see. This technology is very quickly becoming available, and in fact every one of us will be able to tailor what we see to our own tastes. We can go much further, Mr. Chairman, than blocking obscenity or indecency, whatever that means in its loose interpretations. We can keep away from our children things not only prohibited by law, but prohibited by parents. That is where we should be headed, and that is what the gentleman from Oregon [Mr. Wyden] and I are doing. Mr. Chairman, our amendment will do two basic things: First, it will protect computer Good Samaritans, online service providers, anyone who provides a front end to the Internet, let us say, who takes steps to screen indecency and offensive material for their customers. It will protect them from taking on liability such as occurred in the Prodigy case in New York that they should not face for helping us and for helping us solve this problem. Second, it will establish as the policy of the United States that we do not wish to have content regulation by the Federal Government of what is on the Internet, that we do not wish to have a Federal Computer Commission with an army of bureaucrats regulating the Internet because frankly the Internet has grown up to be what it is without that kind of help from the Government. In this fashion we can encourage what is right now the most energetic technological revolution that any of us has ever witnessed. We can make it better. We can make sure that it operates more quickly to solve our problem of keeping pornography away from our kids, keeping offensive material away from our kids, and I am very excited about it. There are other ways to address this problem, some of which run head- on into our approach. About those let me simply say that there is a well-known road paved with good intentions. We all know where it leads. The message today should be from this Congress we embrace this new technology, we welcome the opportunity for education and political discourse that it offers for all of us. We want to help it along this time by saying Government is going to get out of the way and let parents and individuals control it rather than Government doing that job for us. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank all of my colleagues for their cheerful demeanor at this time of night. The debate has been an interesting one to listen to, and it caused me to rise in support of the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon] because I have observed both as a student on campus that campus liberals and former campus liberals have difficulty distinguishing between other people's money and their own. What we are talking about in the Solomon amendment is whether or not Federal funds should be used to subsidize institutions that use compulsory fees for public policy influence or political campaigns, and that is wrong. When we do telecommunications, we are going to vote on a bill that outlaws slamming, that is, when a long-distance company calls you and says, ``Do you want to switch,'' and if you do not affirmatively say ``no,'' they go ahead and switch you anyway. That is wrong. That is dishonest. That is illegal, and we are to fix it when we do telecom. It is wrong whether it is labor union dues that are spent against the wishes of labor union members to fund political campaigns they do not agree with, or students on campus whose dues are [[Page H 8404]] taken without their affirmative consent. The same liberals who for years have regulated every aspect of American life with thousands of pages much legalese tell us now it is too complicated to let students check a box that, yes, they would like their money to go to a political campaign or political influence. The fact is it is easy, it is right, and it is fair. Vote for the Solomon amendment.

Mr. COX of California

Mr. COX of California. I do not know that I heard the gentleman say anything different than that. What I said was that I heard the gentleman to say that Congress refused to deal with the issue. I beg to differ. I do not believe that Congress is at fault for refusing to deal with this issue. As I was about to say, I served on a task force with the gentleman from Iowa and negotiated with the administration on their proposed legislation, on their proposed plan for what became the Mexican bailout. I worked with Larry Summers from the Department of the Treasury. We worked with representatives from the White House. It became clear after the legislation took shape that there was not much support for it in the House of Representatives or in the Senate. The response of the administration was, therefore, to pull the bill. That is why Congress did not have an opportunity to vote on it before anything else could happen, even though Congress at the behest of the Speaker and the majority leader in the Senate, and in very bipartisan fashion, this task force had Democrat and Republicans on it, were working to put together a proposal that could come to the floor. Before that could happen, the administration announced that they were going to seek to do this unilaterally without congressional authorization, that they were going to seek to commit $20 billion in U.S. resources unilaterally. That is what happened. It is not the case that Congress refused to deal with this issue. Rather, President Clinton pulled the bill because he did not have the votes. Those are the facts. Second, we have heard several people talk about the policy, whether or not it is working, whether or not it is a success. I would say, if I had more time, that there is much economic data to suggest that the conditions that have been imposed along with the loan guarantees by international organizations have done as much if not more harm than good to Mexico. But we ought not be debating the policy. We had a chance, as members of the task force, to do that. We would have had a chance to do so on the floor the House and on the floor of the Senate, if there had been a vote, but that never happened.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, I would observe only that under the status quo, speaking of legal technicalities, the President of the United States was able to commit $20 billion in taxpayer resources and claimed to be doing so within the language of the law because they stretched it so far. I would prefer if the law were changed.

Mr. COX of California. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?