Duke Cunningham

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, I will be happy to yield in a minute. Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, in the case of Ronald Reagan, it is the Congress that controlled spending, not the President. The President talks about the economy and how good it is. He has not passed a single budget since we took over the majority, except in 1993 when the Democrats controlled the House, the White House, and the Senate. The only mistake that I think that Ronald Reagan made was that he did not veto enough bills, but at that time the Democrats had such a large majority, it would have been difficult to override a veto. Mr. Chairman, it is the Congress that spends, not the President. The President worked with the Congress, a Democrat majority, to reduce taxes, just like President Kennedy did, because both President Kennedy and Ronald Reagan knew that if we reduce taxes, we are going to increase revenue into the Treasury, and that is a fact. You can try to dispute it, but it is a fact.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming the balance of my time, I would say that this is a promise made by the United States Government. Most of us were not here when that promise was made, much like our friends from Guam. But there is a promise, and that promise was taken away after the war. They fulfilled their contract, and this government reneged on that particular contract. I ask my colleagues on this side of the aisle and the chairman to give this consideration in the conference even though it will probably be struck with a point of order.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I had not planned on speaking, but listening to the last speaker, I think it was a good dialogue, but the ranking minority member, my friend the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) continually talks about tax breaks for the rich. The left, in any fashion, cannot even stand or comprehend giving people their money back. It is not your money. To do that cuts power in this place, the ability to rain money down to different interest groups. It is just wrong. The tax break for the rich, when we said the marriage penalty, people that get married, I do not think there should be a penalty for that. We do things backwards in this country with the IRS. I do not think we ought to tax work. I do not think we ought to tax savings. I think we ought to reward those. I think we ought to tax consumption. A different system. The death tax, you know, I do not mind someone owning the Ponderosa. This country is so great, because you can work hard and you can do anything. Look at the people that have achieved, primarily those that have an advantage of education, but even the immigrants that come to this country. What a great country it is. I do not mind someone having the Ponderosa. As a matter of fact, I am excited about it, because that is part of the American dream. But my colleagues on the other side would have Little Joe and Hoss have to sell the Ponderosa because they cannot afford to pay the taxes on it. The $500 deduction per child, that is not for the rich, that is for families. We pay too much taxes, and families are struggling to support their children. The Social Security tax, my colleagues on the other side, they just could not help themselves in 1993. They increased the tax on Social Security, and we did away with that. But yet that is a tax for the rich and our senior citizens. After rhetoric and rhetoric and rhetoric, they said, in 1993, we want to give tax relief to the middle class, tax relief to the middle class, but yet the Democrats gave us one of the highest tax increases in the history of this country; and again, they could not help themselves, they had to tax the middle class as well. That was extra revenue for their spending here. They increased the tax on Social Security. Every dime out of the Social Security Trust Fund, they put up here and they used that with the tax increase to increase spending, and then they cut defense $127 billion. We think that is wrong. Mr. Chairman, I would say to my colleagues on the other side, the rhetoric of tax breaks for the rich, they may get some of their people to believe it, but it is not so. They know it and I know it. They fought against the lock box for Social Security because it is a political issue, and we fought for a balanced budget. Alan Greenspan said it would cause lower interest rates, and in 1993, the Democrats' budget had deficits of $200 billion and beyond, forever; and they still increased spending and increased taxes and took Social Security money to even increase that and then drove us further in debt. Mr. Chairman, we have a vision. With the balanced budget, locking up Social Security and paying down the debt, we pay nearly $1 billion a day on the national debt. Can we imagine, $1 billion a day. Can we imagine what we can do in this body without having a tax burden on the American people and our children and our grandchildren? I mean, that is a vision worth going after. My colleagues fought against welfare reform, the left did, because they want to just keep dumping more money; and on every single bill, my Democratic colleagues would say, well, we could fund this if it was not for the tax break for the rich. They just cannot bring themselves to give people their money back. They have to spend it. Of course, there is one area in which the left will cut and that, of course, is defense in many cases. We tried to protect Medicare and they used it as a political pawn in the last election, but the President overrode them and signed the Medicare bill. The same thing with Social Security and tax relief. This exercise up here of the left for the November elections is almost laughable. One of the most difficult things that we have to do, when we sit up here and we try and get more dollars to the classroom in education and the left says oh, you are cutting education; well, we actually increased education. A good example is the Democrats, the maximum they ever contributed to special education was 6 percent. In 5 years, we got that, including Medicaid, up to 18 percent. We increased the budget $500 million this year for special education, which none of the Democrats, or very few of them voted for, supported it; but yet they say, the Republicans are cutting education. That is rhetoric, the same as tax breaks for the rich.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, those are the gentleman's actual votes.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, people back in my district always ask me, they say, is it difficult being in Congress? They say, what is the worst thing that goes on? I always reply, the partisanship that exists between the two parties. No matter what we do, how much we try and increase, put up priorities, the other side of the aisle wants the majority back, so they will blast anything we do. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) just said that he had 7 different amendments to increase veterans' health care. Most of us on both sides of the aisle support increasing health care for veterans, and also making sure that the fraud and abuse, like within the VA system, $1 million a day, is taken care of. Yet, when we get to the House floor here, Members will see and hear, well, it is only tax breaks for the rich. We do not think that paying taxes back to people because they get married is a tax break for the rich, or money that people invest with their families their whole lives, they pay taxes on, build up their business or farm, and where the government wants to come in and take 55 percent of it back, that that is a tax break for the rich. There is a legitimate difference of opinion. I would say to my friends on the other side, we added $1.7 billion, the highest ever for veterans' health care last year, and $1.4 billion this year. Yet, it is never enough. We will hear, ``more research, more HUD,'' and in the last bill, ``more Labor-HHS.'' On every single line item, Members the other side of the aisle say, we want more, we want more. There is a difference between fiscal responsibility and irresponsibility. For 30 years they ran the House. Let me give an idea. If we pay down the national debt, we spend nearly $1 billion a day on just the interest, so $360-some billion we would have put into the coffers. But if we continue spending like my colleagues on the other side did when they had the majority, the other side of the aisle, then we just keep increasing that debt. In 1993, when they had the White House, the House, and the Senate, they cut veterans' COLAs. My own party at one time wanted to cut veterans' COLAs. We fought that in our conference and defeated it. I think it is wrong. But Members just continue to spend and build up the national debt. They talk about the President's budget. We as Republicans brought the President's budget back last year to the floor to show how ridiculous it was. Not many Democrats voted for it. Yet, they say the President wanted $1.2 billion, and we are only putting a $500 million increase, so we are cutting. That kind of rhetoric is what makes it difficult to work here, instead of coming together and helping in veterans' health care. I am a veteran, a combat veteran. Most of my colleagues on that side of the aisle know it. The only area which some of the people that are blasting us will support is every other area but defense. Watch, there will be a couple of amendments here today to take out selective service. In time of national emergency, in time of national emergency we are going to need the selective service program not only for biological and chemical weapons that may come forward, but if we end up in a WWII or World War III, that is the only time it would be used. I ask my colleagues, cut the rhetoric: ``Tax breaks for the rich.'' Some people believe it, but they know it is ridiculous. Cut the rhetoric: Well, the President's bill did this. They did not even vote for the President's budget. Only four Democrats voted for it, so the numbers there are inaccurate. Let us sit down and work in a bipartisan way. Let us increase veterans and let us support it, and take this bill on to conference.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, I think this is a good debate. Mr. Chairman, one of the gentlemen says that if we have a plan that gives a judge a better opportunity to look, well, look at the tuna dolphin bill, that passed the House, that passed the Senate, over 300 votes here. It was signed by the President, environmental groups supported it, animal rights groups supported it, but the gentlewoman from California in the other body judge-shopped to get that stopped, and that is why we are talking about this. I have heard extremists, and I have heard anti-environmentalists to ask the Government to follow the law is not extremist. And I would like to take a look at the things that we are actually looking at in this amendment. Californians, when they complain, they call it extremists because we do not want to follow the Antiquities Act on millions of acres without review. This is East Coast and all the colored lands in here are owned by the Government. Now, when we turn this chart around, Mr. Chairman, this is what is in the West. When the President takes Utah and millions of acres and millions of acres in Oregon and other areas, when the Antiquities Act was met, the average is 47 acres, then that is damaging to California and the West. Yet we are called extremists because we want to limit that. And all we are asking, and what the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Nethercutt) is asking, is that for the Government to follow the law; that is not extremist. That is not anti-environmentalist.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter) is a champion of the arts and the NEA and the people that speak for the National Endowment of the Arts. I just happened to disagree with the manner in which they fund the arts, and I will be happy to explain. I want to tell everyone about a little girl that escaped from Vietnam; her name was Foo Lee. She participated in the arts caucus every year which have art students from the high schools submit their work and we pay for the student to come back here, out of our own pockets. Foo Lee escaped in a boat from Vietnam, and if anyone sees the painting, we would actually get tears in our eyes, because she and her whole family escaped from Vietnam on a rickety boat, and she drew a picture of that. We can see the pain and the anguish. Mr. Chairman, the little girl has a fantastic talent. We found out that Foo Lee's mom stayed behind when she came to the United States. She knew that if they were captured, that they would be all put into a re-education camp, and there is nothing education about a re-education camp in Vietnam. So the mom, who was a gynecologist, actually stayed behind so that Foo Lee and the rest of the family could come forward. It took 2 years, but we finally got Foo Lee's mom into Lindbergh Field in San Diego on Christmas Day, and that little girl is still an artist. I want to tell everyone that there are artists like that, and there are paintings of the children in our schools that paint in the hallway here. There is a lot of very gifted children and a lot of talent there. It should be cultured. I respectfully disagree with the way that the National Endowment for the Arts deals with taxpayer funding. I will come into the district of the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter), and I will campaign for the arts, not for the gentlewoman. I will not raise money for the gentlewoman, but I will come in and if the gentlewoman has something here in DC or wants to raise money for the arts, I will be happy to do that. I openly seek from private industry to give and contribute to the arts. I would make a wager that with most of the majority, I give more money to San Diego Symphony and the Escondido Arts Center than most Members give out of your own pockets. Again, I disagree with taking it out of taxpayer dollars for the National Endowment for the Arts in this way. And we have a lady named Mrs. Bell; her husband started Taco Bell. She lives in my district. The first time I met her she told me to take the bucket of lettuce out there and go feed the chickens, Congressman. That is how nonassuming she is. She provided a grant to start an entire music system in Encinitas Elementary School System, and I think that is what we ought to do. If we want to support tax deductions for it, private contributions, industry investing in education and the arts, as I said, I will even come to the most liberal districts; I will come to the districts. I will even come to the district of the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) and fight for the arts. Mr. Chairman, I disagree with this; and I would say to those, the individuals that have the beliefs in this, I know the Members mean well in this and see it as the way to invest in the arts. Some of us disagree with that, and I hope the Members understand that as well. Whatever pro or con of this particular amendment, the bill we feel it will be a killer to the particular bill, and if Members want the bill to pass, then I would reject this amendment. Whether pro or against this particular bill, it may not be the case, but we feel that the bill will go down, one of the reasons for this particular amendment. We would like to pass the bill, and I would say to my colleagues, let us support the arts, but let us not do it through taxpayer-funded messages.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, I will move to strike the requisite number of words and take my own time.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I do not have a dog in this fight. The most agriculture I have in my district is at the swap meet. I do not have any coal fields, I do not have any natural gas, but I will tell you what my concern is. In my heart I understand the gentleman's amendment, any waste fraud and abuse we want to eliminate. But I take a look at our dependence on foreign oil, and my colleague, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks), looks at our military constraints and the problems that we have with oil reserves and those things. He does a very good job of that. In Utah, one of the reasons we lost the fight, but in the fight with the Antiquities Act, the President made a monument of the cleanest coal in the world. And, guess what? Mr. James Riady was the recipient of that because it gave him a collective position on coal to sell to China. The President then gave China $50 million to put a coal plant in. Where does Riady crack his coal? In China. Now we have to buy that coal back. Look at the workers that have been put out of work in Utah. I look at the Antiquities Act also and my concern for renewable resources, or at least resources that we could use, instead of dependence on foreign resources. If they take, for example, ANWR, which is a postage stamp in a large area, but I think the President will probably under this go and try and make a national monument in ANWR, one of our largest reserves of oil in the world. I look at another thing that we did in this House, some conservatives along with the others, the fusion-fission program, which was showing promise, we canceled that research. Natural gas is another area in which I think we ought to invest. I do not know how beneficial the clean coal is. I do know I have been to some of my colleagues' districts that have coal miners and workers, and I know how much they are hurting, and that bothers me. But do we have jobs? Corporate welfare? No. So I would reluctantly oppose the gentleman's amendment, just because we may have some bad research in coal, but we may have some good. My concern, I think like the gentleman from Washington, is where do we get our resources when we run short in natural emergencies? We are going to have to rely on those. I am part of the problem myself. My bill stopped offshore oil drilling off of the coast of California, because I do not want to be like Long Beach and have our beaches all polluted. So I would say to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula), I am part of the problem as well. I understand that. But, on the other hand, we also need to be able to have resources so that this country can work.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, the White House, violation after violation of things, look at what Secretary Babbitt has done; and we are saying that in those cases then the Government should have to follow the law, and that is the reason I support the Nethercutt amendment.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, previous speakers not only in this amendment but in other amendments have used the term antienvironmental extremists 11 times. Doth us think that there is a little politics here? First of all, we feel that the President, a single individual designating land in violation of the law taking State lands and affecting private property is wrong, a single person, without going through the Congress. Even yesterday we had talk about a backlog of taking care of our national forests and fish and wildlife. Just like with the California desert plan and other things, the moneys that are going to be required to take care of these, we do not have. The only way to do it is increase taxes. We do not want to do that. Mr. Chairman, this map indicates the property that is controlled on the East Coast by the Federal Government. If I turn this over, this is the property in color controlled on the West Coast. What is too much? In Utah, Arizona, and Nevada, 70 and 80 percent of the land is controlled by the Federal Government. In California, over half the land is controlled by the Federal Government. What is too much? All we are doing is saying that if we want these parks to be designated or these national monuments, at least bring it before Congress. Let us have a debate. We may lose the debate. But at least bring it before us. Do not have a king with the sign of a pen designate land. That is all our position is. We think that that is a test of fairness. The test of fairness in the past with the President and with Secretary Babbitt has been a one-way street. We think that that is wrong, also.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I would agree with the two gentlemen on this side. In California, when we asked why in San Diego the prices were so high of gas, the oil industry said, because the market will bear it. I think the oil companies are ripping us off. It would surprise the gentleman that some of us do believe that when we look at gas prices and what they are across this country. We had a staged event out here with the truck drivers in this country. They are all going to go bankrupt. They cannot afford the gas prices to haul the products around this country. So I do not disagree with the gentleman on that. I think we ought to have an investigation through the President on why these oil prices are fixed and are costing us so much. I would object and I will not support the amendment of the gentleman, however. I will tell my colleagues why. I also agree with the gentleman that there is a backlog in maintenance and everything else. My whole family used to go to Yosemite in California and the Redwoods. There are gated areas where we cannot get into the roads in San Diego for recreation areas, whether it is even horseback riding; they will not let us into those roads now. But I would ask of the chairman of the committee, first of all, if there is this big backlog, I understand the President under the Antiquities Act put aside millions of acres in Utah; and our concern, and I see the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), we had one of the most lengthy debates on this floor on the California desert plan. We lost that issue. The gentleman prevailed. But one of our concerns is, if we put all of these acres into national monuments, into wilderness, where are we going to get the additional funds, especially since we are in backlog? Now, we asked Secretary Babbitt what areas are they, at least, looking at under the Antiquities Act to nationalize all these millions of acres, most of them in the West, where more than 50 percent of the land is already owned by the Government? Do my colleagues know what the answer was when we asked him would he share where they are, at least, looking? The answer was, no. So I would ask my colleagues that will support this presidential plan, up to 25 of these, where we are going to get the additional revenue, when we are already short, to nationalize all of these areas. I think it would be a mistake. The area in Utah that the President nationalized into a park, if we take a look, it was one of the cleanest coal areas in the whole world. Well, the President nationalized that. The next week he gave $50 million to China to crack coal. Guess who now has the monopoly on clean coal? Mr. James Riady. And guess where he cracks his coal? In China. So we have a question, first of all, of where we want to take and do a backlog; but, on the other hand, they want to nationalize all these different areas. I think we do need more money for our forests and our parks and our recreations. I think some of that may be through a study to find out why these oil companies are gouging the American public. I think it is scandalous what they are doing.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, over the past 20 years Congress has devoted a great deal of time and money toward addressing the important issues facing women's health. We created an Office of Women's Health at the NIH and we have taken great strides to increase the number of women included in health studies. We have undoubtedly saved hundreds of thousands of women's lives, improved the quality of many millions more, and we have every reason to be proud. However, we must now begin to focus on the crisis in men's health too. The simple fact is that every year hundreds of men suffer and die needless--and entirely preventable--deaths. In 1994, Congress established National Men's Health Week, the week leading up to and including Father's Day. Unfortunately, men's health is not getting any better. I believe it is time for us to establish an Office of Men's Health. For that reason, I am introducing legislation today that will establish an Office of Men's Health at the Department of Health and Human Services to monitor, coordinate and improve men's health in America. America needs a concerted effort to combat the problems facing men's health. This year, almost 200,000 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer and almost 32,000 of these men will die. Of course, we cannot save all these men. Nevertheless, we could save a lot of them. While mammograms and Pap smears have dramatically reduced the death rate from breast and cervical cancers, the death rate from prostate cancer could be reduced by widespread use of a simple test called the PSA, which most of us have never heard of. I am one of the thousands of men who have been saved by a simple PSA test. Just a little over a year ago, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. During my annual examination, my doctor noticed a slight elevation in the readings of a Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) test. However, it was only after a prostate biopsy that it was determined that I had cancer. Following the diagnosis, with my family, we decided that I should go ahead and have surgery. I am fortunate that my cancer was detected early, that I had a doctor who was familiar with PSA test results, and that I had healthcare coverage for my treatments. In my case, and in the cases of thousands of men, early detection and treatment have meant the difference between life and death. However, prostate cancer is only a small component of the men's health crisis: men have a higher death rate than women do for every single one of the ten leading causes of death in this country. We're twice as likely to die of heart disease--the number one killer--40% more likely to die of cancer, and 20% more likely to die of a stroke. At the turn of the last century, men and women had equal life expectancies. At the turn of this one, women outlive men by 7 years. Admittedly, the largest part of the problem is that men do not take particularly good care of themselves. Only about half as many men as women have a regular physician, for example, and overall, men make about a 30% fewer doctor visits every year than women--and that's even factoring out women's prenatal visits. So if we got men to start going to the doctor will men start living longer? Well, it could not hurt. However, in a study published earlier this year by the Commonwealth Fund, nearly 70% of men over 40 who visited the doctor were not even asked whether they had a family history of prostate cancer. Men making less than $50,000 a year were even less likely to be asked. And 40% of men over 50--who should be getting a prostate exam every single year--were not even screened by their doctors. And going to the doctor won't do anything about the fact that four times as many men commit suicide as women, that the victims of violent crime are 75% male, that 98% of the people who work in the most dangerous jobs in this country are men, and that 94% of people who die in the workplace are men. What can we do about this? First, we can make men's health a public priority. Just as we support public service announcements aimed at getting women to get regular mammograms and do routine self exams, we must support the same kind of campaign to get men to get regular health checkups and do routine self exams. Testicular cancer, which is the most common cancer in men under 35, is curable if caught early enough. In addition, one of the best ways to do that is to teach boys and young men to check themselves at least once a month. As precious as life is, men--just like women--should have the benefit of as much of it as they possibly can. And because they live so much longer, women are in the unenviable position of seeing their husbands, fathers, and even their sons suffer and die prematurely. So this year, as we approach Father's Day, let's spend some time figuring out what we can do to help men be better healthcare consumers and what we can do to give men the support and encouragement and resources they need to be the kind of fathers their kids need them to be and that they truly want to be. Congress is taking the lead in this endeavor. Over 50 members of Congress have joined with me to cosponsor the annual Men's Health Screenings being conducted this week by the Men's Health Network. Informational brochures are provided by Pfizer Inc, American Cancer Society, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Screenings are available in the Rayburn First Aid station Tuesday and Wednesday and on Thursday in the Hart First Aid station. I encourage my colleagues to take this opportunity to be screened for prostate and colorectal cancer, diabetes, cholesterol, and other significant health indicators. I also hope that all my colleagues will help me by supporting my legislation to establish an Office of Men's Health.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, I am not going to bring Archie out this time. Mr. Chairman, in the spirit of Archie, I have got to oppose the statements of the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey). First of all, the proof is in the pudding right here today. The Democrats controlled this House and Senate almost exclusively for 40 years. Spending is controlled within Congress, not the President of the United States. We sent him the bills. The President in every one of his budgets, not many Democrats ever supported it, nor Republicans. We brought it up to show how ridiculous it was. It was a political document. I would say in the spirit of Archie, Republican Presidents have done similar things. But the proof is in the pudding right here today. No matter what we put as a mark within the balanced budget, within a budget frame, they want more. They want more and more and more. Just like they have in every single one of their appropriations bills, every single time, which drives up the debt. For 40 years, did they have a balanced budget? Absolutely not. They had $200 billion deficits as far as one can see. Welfare reform, which limited their spending, welfare, they spent trillions of dollars in just dumping more money into it. Sixteen years is the average. Now, we have people working, bringing home a paycheck instead of letting the children see them bring home a welfare check. Billions of dollars of revenue in, and not the Democrats when we talk about policies that increased. President Kennedy, along with Ronald Reagan, recognized that tax refunds to the American people, they are going to go out and buy a double egg, double cheese, or double fry burger, or a car or buy real estate; and that money is going to turn over. That revenue is going to provide tax money to the general fund. That has always been the case. But, yet, my colleagues on the other side, tax increases, look at 1993 in the tax increase. Then we have eliminated many of those tax increases on the American people. Look what has happened to the economy. But they cannot help themselves increasing taxes, and then every dime out of the Social Security Trust Fund they spent and put in IOUs, which drove up the debt over $5 trillion. We said no more. Let us put it into a lockbox. Guess what, we are paying off the debt by the year 2012. Forty years they had to do that. We have been in leadership for 5 years. Look at the difference. The chart of the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) is almost laughable, because in every single appropriations bill we bring up, except for defense, watch my colleagues try and increase spending above a balanced budget.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, the Chairman of the Subcommittee, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter) has included in the report accompanying this bill language providing $125 million to the Centers for Disease Control for a National Campaign to Change Children's Health Behaviors. The language is found on page 54 of the H. Rept. 106-645. I want to commend Chairman Porter for seizing the initiative in this area. It makes sense that if we are to improve health habits in our young people, they will sustain better health and better quality of life for a lifetime. Just to cite one example, it was through the hearings in the Subcommittee on Labor-HHS-Education that we have learned a great deal about the growing epidemic of child obesity, its causes, and its effects which include adult onset diabetes, high cholesterol, premature cardiovascular disease, arthritis and other substantial health problems. As a former teacher and coach, I have a particular interest in the health of young people, and in the importance of physical education in particular. Before my election to Congress and my service in the Navy, I was a teacher and coach at Hinsdale (Illinois) High School and at the University of Missouri, and was privileged to coach swimmers who went on to win gold and silver medals in the Olympics. I was also privileged to coach young people who learned through physical activity the kind of good health and good fund that last a lifetime. But just as we are funding that obesity is a major, growing public health problem among young people, we are likewise seeing major declines in the kinds of physical education and physical activity that would reduce obesity and its effects. Children are becoming more and more inactive. One-half of young people ages 12 to 21 do not participate in physical activity on a regular basis. Less than one in four children get more than 20 minutes of physical activity a day. Meanwhile, the physical education programs in this country's schools reflect the sedentary nature of our children's lifestyle. Only 27 percent of school children participate in physical education on a daily basis and 40 percent of the nation's high school students are not enrolled in physical education at all. More children are obese. And fewer are participating in physical education. I believe these two are fairly directly linked. Does every child need to be the star quarterback, or a varsity track star, to benefit from physical education? Not at all. Physical education, with broad participation among every young person blessed with every range of athletic gifts, builds health habits that last a lifetime. More directly to the point on public health, physical education programs can help children counteract physical ailments by increasing their levels of physical activity. Physical education can help children develop skills, such as hand-eye coordination and dexterity. Physical education can provide alternatives to crime, drugs, alcohol, and tobacco. And, Mr. Chairman, physical education is fun. In an effort to realize some of these benefits, I believe that we must renew a real and positive focus on physical education in our nation's schools. I believe that Chairman's Porter's provision allocating funding to CDC to focus on children's health behaviors represents a good start. In part, I believe that it would benefit from a particular strong additional emphasis on physical education in schools, which helps accomplish many of the objectives we have in this area. And I hope that the Chairman and I can work toward this end as this appropriations bill goes to conference committee with the Senate. I am sure that he shares my belief that the time and effort we invest in physical education today will be small in comparison to the amount of work that will be necessary for health care treatment should our children's current trend towards sedentary lifestyles continue. I urge my colleagues to support the bill.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter) will further yield, the fact is that one can spend it any way one wants. The gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Ford) is my friend, and he knows that. One can spend this any way one wants. But increasing the taxes on the American people does not stimulate the economy. Not operating under a balanced budget does not. Those taxes that Democrats supported without a single Republican vote, we have repealed the Social Security tax. We have balanced the budget. We brought revenue in with welfare reform. We saved Medicare. We put Social Security in the trust fund. Those are the economic stimulus that I think have stimulated the economy, not a tax increase.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, the gentlewoman well knows that I am a champion for medical research. I have got a goal. My daughter scored a perfect 1600 on her SATs this year as a senior at Torrey Pines. She is going to intern in cancer research at NIH this summer. I am a cancer survivor. There is nothing worse than a doctor looking you in the eye and saying, ``Duke Cunningham, you have got cancer.'' I am a survivor. And if the gentlewoman would have offsets in this, I would be with her in this amendment. I would hope in conference we can add to this and somehow come up with the additional dollars in this. Unfortunately, the politics in this, that is being shown in all these amendments, is what is discouraging, because the gentlewoman, the ranking minority member, Democrats and Republicans, have come together on NIH funding to support it, and I still hope in some way we can add these particular dollars down the line. In cancer, Dr. Klausner, and you see what he is doing at NIH, I would say I was saved because of a PSA test. Do you know that right now, because of this research, there are markers for ovarian cancer which we have never had before? Women had no markers in this. I met a gentleman at NIH that contacted HIV in 1989. The only thing he ever thought about was dying. And now he has hope. He has bought an apartment. He has even bought stocks. This is what we are talking about when we talk about NIH funding. If the gentlewoman would offer offsets on this, we would support it. She is right. But I want to tell the Members, fiscal responsibility down the line, where we balance the budget and we pay off the national debt as soon as 2012, we spend $1 billion a day, a day, $1 billion a day on just the interest. Think what we are going to have in the future for the Americans for education, for crimefighting, for NIH, just by keeping our fiscal house in constraint. The death tax that we passed, a little bit out of touch, saying tax break for the rich, passed on a bipartisan vote; the social security tax that my colleagues put in in 1993 we eliminated, a little bit out of touch by saying that is a tax break for the rich; taking a look at the marriage penalty for people who are married, that is sure not a tax break for the rich. My colleagues on the other side wish to politicize this and say, tax break for the rich. I think some people actually believe that, after saying it 10,000 times, someone is going to believe it. It is just not so. Let us come together and support this NIH increase in conference, if there is some way we can do it, and work in a bipartisan way on this particular issue.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, I was a teacher and a coach both in high school and in college. I can talk articulation agreements. I also know the value of assisted education. The gentlewoman and I have worked together before on education matters, Pell Grants and the support; but unfortunately, this is just another exercise. No matter what we do, the Democrats try to oneupsman by saying we want just a little bit more and that we, the Republicans, do not care. I think that is wrong. I think this exercise in politics is wrong. I think it disdains the House and what we really stand for. I would tell the gentlewoman Pell Grants are very, very important; but when Members talk about tax breaks for the rich, which is your mantra on this whole bill and probably will be throughout, then I think Members do a disservice. Because in the case of the death tax, it was not for the rich. If we take a look at marriage penalty for people, that was not for the rich. Taking away the Social Security increase tax that Democrats put on in 1993 when in control of the White House, the House and the Senate; that is for senior citizens. I think that that itself is a disservice. If Members take a look at some other areas where we may have cut, take a look at the 149 deployments that the White House has had us all over the world. We had decent debates on the floor. Look at Somalia, Haiti. Haiti we put $2.4 billion, and it is still one of the worst places in the world. Most of the monies in Aristide's pocket, they just caught Russia laundering $7 billion in a New York bank. So when Members go log for funds, most of the people supported on that side all of these deployments. Like we said we should not stay in Somalia. We should not go into Haiti and Kosovo and Bosnia. We should not hit an aspirin factory in the Sudan, $200 billion. And when I tell the gentlewoman there would be a lot of money, that money comes out of the general fund. It comes out of the Defense. So there is money, and we can have increased Pell Grants.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt), a great supporter of education.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, Members do not know how good it is to work on a bipartisan basis on an amendment with the other side. Both sides, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter) and my colleagues, have worked for after-school programs, not just baby-sitting, but to make sure there is education going on. I laud that from both sides. Alan Bersin is the Superintendent of Schools in San Diego. I support him 100 percent. He is one of my champions. He is a Clinton appointee on the board, and before now he was superintendent. If we really want to help special education, we are losing thousands of good teachers that just want to teach in special education. But there are trial lawyers that are using and abusing the schools and forcing many of these teachers out. This is an area where we can come together and work to actually enhance special education, instead of having trial lawyers take all the money that we are trying to help with that. I laud my colleagues on the other side for supporting the after- school programs. I thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter) and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling).

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, once again I find myself up here in support, and I would say to my colleague, the ranking minority member on the committee, in the regards to Archie the Cockroach, which I have right here, in this bipartisan support against this amendment, children do watch too much television. They are going to watch television. If we look at the violence and the things that are out there, I want my children watching something that is going to improve their literacy, that is going to improve their knowledge on education, especially for those who are going to enter kindergarten. This has been proven the case. If we were talking about some of the other programs, yes, I would support this, but in this particular case I reluctantly oppose the gentleman's amendment. In the spirit of Archie the Cockroach, I support the gentleman's position.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, we went through this drill in the subcommittee, the same 10 amendments, the same increase in every single one of them, just to show that Republicans want to cut. We have increased, including Head Start, education $2 billion, increased over last year. Let me give a good idea. One of these amendments increases special education. When the Democrats had control of this House, they promised to increase special education up to 40 percent of the funding. The maximum they ever funded was 6 percent. Republicans, in 5 years, have doubled that spending for special education. This bill increases special education funding $500 million; but yet we will see an amendment come forward to spend another billion dollars without any offsets, just to say that Republicans are cutting special education. That is the logic that they use. Why? Every single one of these bills is brought forward just for the election coming up in November, to show how those mean Republicans want to cut education and cut the other socialized programs. Well, there is a party with fiscal responsibility. There is a party also that wants to tax and spend and spend and spend, just like they did when they were in the majority. Let us take a look at it. Look at education. It was a disaster when they left office. Education construction was destroyed. The infrastructure is terrible. We are last in math and science, because they put more money into it, just kept pouring more money, more money, more money, without any quality or responsibility into it. We have changed that. Look over the 5 years, test scores are starting to go up but at the same time those that are entering colleges are still having to take remedial education. That is wrong. We need to do more in education. I agree with my colleagues on that. We have increased it $2 billion. Now, how did they plan on paying for this? We will hear tax breaks for the rich, tax breaks for the rich. Well, I want to say, any tax relief limits the amount that they spend on these social programs. It will only be for the rich. We will never find them supporting tax relief. Every single bill. The same liberals fought against the balanced budget because it limited their amount of spending. They fought against welfare reform because it limited their amount of spending. They fought against the Social Security lock box because when they were in the majority for 30 years they took every dime out of the Social Security trust fund and put it up here for new spending, and then they increased taxes every year so that they could pass more for increased bureaucracy. Now every one of these amendments we are going to see they want more, they want more, they want more. Every single appropriations bill, except for defense, they will increase. They will cut defense also to pay for more socialized spending. Excuse me. I know I am not supposed to have this on the floor, but God says he does not want this amendment. I am sorry. announcement by the chairman