Duke Cunningham

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, the State of California has almost 1 in 9 of all American citizens that live in it. An accurate census count is very, very important. We are a donor State in transportation. We are a donor State in education. The formulas that devise the amount of dollars that come out of the Federal Government to California is very important. That is why I want to a good, accurate count of every person that comes in. Take the case of the Title I education program, for example. In 1991 when I came here, its state allocation was based on the previous Census in 1980. Most of the immigration that came into California was during that time between 1980 and 1991. We were getting cheated. The gentleman from Massachusetts in the other body did not want the money coming from out of Massachusetts, so he actually added money to the program when the Democrats were in the majority. So an accurate count is important for education. The Census should not be a guess. An accurate statistical system of guessing, as my friend, the gentleman from California, said, is an oxymoron. It is not possible. We cannot do that. Let me give a little statistic. California has more illegals than all the population in Kosovo. If I had my way, only people that are in the United States of America legally would be counted in the Census--not illegal aliens. We cannot do that, but I think it would be the right thing to do. The mayor of San Diego, Mayor Susan Golding whose city has a population that is bigger than many of the States, supports this issue of local post-Census review very strongly. My question is this: If we talk about the 1990 Census being so poor, why did they mess it up so bad? The liberal Democrats had control of the House and Senate in 1989. Why did they mess it up so bad? I would say they messed it up so bad maybe because they were following the Constitution of the United States that says actual enumeration which, in modern times, is very difficult to do well--but very important to do well. We must count everyone. We must not guess in our Census. What we are trying to do is add local adjustment to solving that problem.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I come to correct the record, for a politically motivated injustice. It is titled ``Newt Gingrich Vindicated, But No One Knows It,'' by Brent Bozell. I would like to read and summarize this article for the Record on an issue of basic justice. ``The judgement is in. After 3\1/2\ years of investigation, the Internal Revenue Service has cleared Newt Gingrich and his allied nonprofit groups of any violation of tax laws in the controversy over his television history course, `Renewing American Civilization.' ``So after having run countless news reports highlighting the accusations that ultimately forced Newt Gingrich to pay $300,000 in fines,'' did the media correct the record? I would like to let my colleagues, maybe for the first time, understand and know what Newt Gingrich was about. In our Republican Conference, the then Speaker, Newt Gingrich, and his lawyers met with the entire conference. They said that he would be exonerated 100 percent in this. There was no chance of him being found guilty. But it would take one or more years of court trials and dragging the Republican Party through this event. The Speaker stood up and said, ``I am not going to do this, because we are focusing on a balanced budget, on saving Medicare, on having welfare reform, and having tax relief. And if I go through this court case and don't give the Democrats their pound of flesh by paying this fine, then we will not have a balanced budget or save Medicare or have welfare reform.'' And he agreed to pay that fine. That is the kind of a gentleman Newt Gingrich was. Do you think that the news media after this was announced did anything or said one word? Let me quote from the article again. ``ABC, CBS and NBC devoted exactly zero seconds to Newt Gingrich's vindication. Only CNN's Brooks Jackson filed a TV report, on the early- evening show `Inside Politics.' ``He then showed old footage of Democrats David Bonior of Michigan, in which he said, `Mr. Gingrich engaged in a pattern of tax fraud,' and John Lewis of Georgia, `We now have a Speaker under investigation for lying to the outside counsel investigating his involvement in a massive tax fraud.' ``Jackson quoted from the IRS decision: `The (Gingrich ``Renewing American Civilization'') course taught principles from American civilization that could be used by each American in everyday life, whether the person is a welfare recipient, the head of a large corporation or a politician. The course was not biased toward particular politicians or a particular party. The facts show the class was much more than a political platform.' Of course, that was clear to anyone who watched the course.'' And I quote from Mr. Gingrich: I urge my colleagues, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis), the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior), ``I urge my colleagues to go back and read their statements and watch how they said them with no facts, based on nothing more than a desire, and I quote, to politically destroy a colleague.'' The article continues. ``But the damage wasn't done simply by devious politicians. It was done by the media itself. National Public Radio reporter Mara Liasson justified the event by saying that he only did what Newt Gingrich did to Jim Wright. `Bonior learned his lesson from him,' she said. ``To appreciate the media's antagonism--then, now and probably forever--toward Newt Gingrich, compare their treatment of him with their coverage of a real crook, Webster Hubbell. They roasted Newt when he was charged and then ignored him when he was cleared. Hubbell was celebrated when he was cleared of tax evasion charges filed by Ken Starr, but when a Federal court reinstated the charges on appeal, the networks aired no coverage. ``Let's get this straight. Webster Hubbell embezzled half a million dollars from his law firm partners in Arkansas. After he resigned from the Justice Department in disgrace, the President's friends paid him almost another million dollars for, quote, supposed jobs that asked for no work, money he pays next to zero taxes on.'' I would ask my colleagues to take a look at what they said in this well, and I would ask them to apologize publicly and in writing to the Speaker.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I thank the gentleman. The overall point I am trying to make is that Alan Greenspan, because of our tax relief, of us ``balancing the budget,'' do Members remember when the President said, I can do it in 7 years, in 2 years, in 3 years? It is an arbitrary number. When we finally pinned the President down, three of his budgets increased the deficits by over $260 billion, with a forecast to $200 billion forever. What we did is say no, a balanced budget is important. For them to say that they are fiscally responsible, I would ask Members, look at every bill on the Floor. The other side of the aisle will always want to increase the spending. They will say, we are cutting, we are cutting, except for one area, in defense. That is their cash cow. They also want to raise taxes to pay for it. My last statement I would like to make, I would like Members to look up www.dsausa.org, on the Web page. That stands for the Democrat Socialists of America. This is on the Web page, this is not the gentleman from California (Mr. Duke Cunningham). In there is the Progressive Caucus. In the socialist contract, they want government health care. What did they do when they had the leadership of the White House, the House and Senate? They want to cut defense in this Web page by 50 percent. What does the President do? He has cut it in half. They want to cut it 50 percent more. They want government control of education, private property; they want union control over small business; they want to increase socialized spending the highest ever. They want to raise taxes to the highest progressive tax ever, in this 12-point agenda. How do they pay for it? By increased taxes and cutting the military. That is not what other forefathers meant when they talked about fiscal responsibility. We cannot do it by having government do it. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I have enjoyed listening. It just reinforces the things we do every day. One of my colleagues once said that when we talk about all these numbers, people's eyes glaze over. It is, how does it affect them personally, and can the men and women at the Red Pig understand it. That is what I am going to try and do. Once it was said that if we do not remember history, then we are likely to repeat it. I would like to take just a brief run, based on my colleague's 1 hour, and I will do it briefly. It is laughable, that Congress spends money, not the White House. We authorize, we appropriate; we authorize to spend it. For 40 years, except for a small period of 1 term in the Senate, the Democrats have controlled the House and Senate, which controls all spending. When they say that they are fiscally responsible, that is an oxymoron. The debt was acquired, the deficit was acquired, and it put us on a negative road. They have to spend. I feel sorry for my colleagues on the other side because they have to spend. By their party, they want big government because they believe government can do it better. That requires spending, and that increases taxes to pay for it. It is automatic. They have to spend that. What I would like to do is take us on a walk through memory lane. When I came in in 1990, we said that enough was enough. We had the Gang of Seven. I don't know if Members remember that, for those who were not here. We shut down the House bank. We shut down the post office, because we knew that an individual here was dealing stamps. We set about to do the balanced budget. As a matter of fact, a lot of us wanted the Speaker to be changed at that point, so we could move ahead. But my colleagues said in 1993 that it took courage for them to vote for that budget. It went by for me, because they said in 1993 their highest tax increase in the history of the United States is responsible for the economy today. Let us take a look. In 1993, they promised a tax cut for what they call the middle class. First of all, there are no middle class citizens in this country, they are middle-income. I think we do a disservice to people by calling them middle class. They said they would give tax relief for that group. They increased the tax in that budget. They increased taxes themselves by $270 billion. They cut defense $127 billion. They increased the tax on social security. They cut the COLA for veterans, they cut the COLAs for military. They had no welfare reform, they had no education reform. When they had the White House, the House and Senate, did they have a minimum wage increase? Absolutely not. They said that was not the way to stimulate growth or jobs. When we took the majority in 1994, we did away with the 1993 tax increase. We dissolved it. What did we do? The first thing, we gave back middle-income tax breaks. There are a whole host of ways we did that. People are enjoying that today. We were not able to increase defense. It went down under that watch. That is one of the low points, I think, of our particular budget. But we took away the increase on social security tax. We reinstated our veterans' COLA. We reinstated our active duty military COLA, and while the Democrats put $100 million against us, while we were trying to save Medicare, and blasted us from the unions and all sides, at the end, the President signed our Medicare bill, after he vetoed it. Because of welfare reform, the welfare reform we did in 1995, we have billions of dollars coming into the Treasury instead of going out. The average was 16 years. We changed that. So for them to say that they were responsible for the economy today is laughable.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I was sitting there writing my note and not ready to speak, but I will do it off the cuff. I am vehemently opposed to us going into Kosovo, and I will explain why. But making that statement, now that we are engaged in Kosovo, I will do everything in my power to support the President. I will also tell my colleagues why. The President did not give us that courtesy when I was fighting in Vietnam. He continued protesting in countries that killed many of my friends. I myself was shot down by a Russian SAM. Now, that may not bother my colleagues, but it did bother me that the President was protesting in Russia. We need to get behind every one of our men and women. I do not care about my colleagues here, and I do not care about them over here, and I do not care about my Senate colleagues. I care about those kids we are asking to send in harm's way. And let me tell my colleagues why I am opposed to this. First of all, a majority of the Russian military feel that they need to overthrow the Russian Government. These are the hard-liners that support Milosevic. Milosevic is terrible, but so is Tudjman and so is Izetbegovic. All three of them need to go. And I predict that within this year we are going to see a major coup in Russia because of what we are doing. If I was the head of North Korea, I would come tomorrow if we get tied in Kosovo. If I was Saddam Hussein, I would come tomorrow. We are in 52 wars, Mr. Speaker, in this world. Some of them far more damaging than Kosovo. I am very, very concerned of what is going to happen over there as far as past foreign policy. I look at Somalia, to where the President changed the policy of humanitarian to going after Hadeed and then he drew down our forces, and after our military said we cannot do that because this makes us vulnerable. He did it anyway. And then they asked for armor because they could not get in. Seventeen hours, I watched it last night on television, that it took us to get to our troops; and we lost 22 rangers. People ask me, ``What is it like to work with somebody you cannot trust?'' That is an important question. I do not trust this President to get us out of Kosovo. I do not trust him to get us out of Yugoslavia, no more than I expect him to get us out of Haiti, because we are still there spending $20 million a year building roads and bridges, which is coming out of defense. So, yes, Mr. Speaker, I am dead set against this. But you also have my pledge to do everything I can to help the President to get our kids back.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I am going to do a tribute to an admiral that we lost in San Diego, a four-star. But I would also say, and I would say excluding what the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) has said, in 8 years, this is the most laughable oxymoron discussion I have heard in 8 years on the budget about saving Social Security and Medicare. I would like my colleague sometime to explain how the President takes $9 billion out of Medicare and then puts in 15 percent. So we will have that debate tomorrow. But I do not disagree with the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) on a lot of the issues. But the other group, I am sorry, they are either naive or they just state their own opinion as fact and they are factually challenged. Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk about Admiral William F. Bringle. He was a very good friend of mine. And he is like Will Rogers, that he is the kind of guy that never met a man that he did not like, for anyone that met Admiral ``Bush'' Bringle liked him. Those of us that knew him would call him a leader's leader. Many of the aviators I have talked to and the admirals and the flag officers said that he was a pilot of all pilots. He was heroic in World War II, in Korea, in Vietnam. And one does not reach being a four-star admiral without some significance, Mr. Speaker. Admiral Bringle passed away on Friday. We called him ``Bush'' Bringle. He had wavy, black bushy hair, and that is where he got his call sign that his wife Donnie gave to him. He won the Navy Cross, this Nation's second highest award. He won DFCs, with five different stars for five DFCs, Legion of Merit, and on and on and on. His career spanned 35 years, Mr. Speaker. Retired astronaut Wally Schirra, who lives in his district in Rancho Santa Fe, said, ``most become political and lose sight of the fact that the rest of the people have to look up to them.'' And that signifies Admiral Bush Bringle. Vice Admiral Stockdale, best aviator he ever knew, I draw deference with Admiral Stockdale on that, but Admiral Stockdale was planning missions over Vietnam just before he was shot down with Bush Bringle. Admiral Stockdale said that ``he was born for the profession that he served in for over 35 years, and that is a country both at peace and at war, and he served us well.'' And he was commander of CV Division 7 in 1964, commander of 7th Fleet in 1967, commander of Pacific Fleet in 1970. He was in charge of nine aircraft carriers, 1,600 combat and support aircraft, and 85,000 military. Admiral Bernard Clarey: ``Bush Bringle's leadership and style is just the Bringle touch.'' Enlisted and officers alike respected and liked Admiral Bringle because of his leadership. Vice Admiral David Richardson called Admiral Bringle ``one of the most admired naval officers and aviators dating since prior to World War II.'' His leadership was derived by example. He was a native of Covington, Tennessee. He was an Annapolis grad. To tell my colleagues the kind of guy that he was, he played football. I think he was a whopping 170 pounds. He played football for Annapolis. And when he was playing against William & Mary, during the first play, one of his opponents broke his hip. That gentleman is now Walter Zable, who lives in Bush Bringle's district, and they became the best of friends. He went through Pensacola, Florida in flight training and became an aviator in 1940, before most of us were born. He was in the Allied invasion in southern France, the Leyte Gulf, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Korea. He was CO of the Hornet and the Kitty Hawk and commandant of midshipmen in Annapolis. After his assignments with 7th fleet, Admiral Bringle was promoted with his fourth star. The last 3 years he served as U.S. Naval forces in Europe. Admiral Bush Bringle loved his country. But I want to tell my colleagues, he always spoke highly of his first love, not this country but his wife Donnie, his daughter Lynn, and his fighter pilot son Don Bringle. Memorial services will be Monday at North Island Air Station in the chapel, and I wish those that are in San Diego can attend, Mr. Speaker. Godspeed, Admiral Bringle, to you and your family. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the following newspaper article: Adm. William Bringle Dies; Called an Aviator's Aviator--Colleagues Say He Kept Common Touch During His Career (By Jack Williams) Adm. William F. ``Bush'' Bringle, a heroic World War II aviator who kept the common touch in rising to commander of naval air forces in the Pacific Fleet and in Europe, died of pneumonia Friday. He was 85. Adm. Bringle, who had lived in Rancho Santa Fe for the past 20 years, died at Scripps Memorial Hospital-La Jolla. Known as ``Bush'' because of his thick curly hair, Adm. Bringle distinguished himself as an aviator's aviator, as one colleague called him, while rising through the officers' ranks. In World War II, he took part in some pivotal engagements in the Pacific and European theaters, earning such medals as the Navy Cross, the Distinguished Flying Cross with Five gold stars and the French Croix de Guerre. He also received the equivalent of three Legions of Merit in a naval career that spanned more than 35 years. ``Bush was the only four-star admiral I know who was loved by everybody in the Navy,'' said retired astronaut and Navy Capt. Wally Schirra. ``Most become political and lose sight of the fact that the rest of the people have to look up to them.'' ``Bush was one we all liked, a dear friend of everyone in the U.S. Navy.'' Retired Vice Adm. James Stockdale remembered Adm. Bringle as ``an accomplished aviator, a natural, and he fell into the very profession he was built for--which was command at sea in time of war.'' Added Stockdale: ``He's one of my better all-time Navy all- stars.'' As a commander of Carrier Division 7 beginning in 1964, Adm. Bringle was involved in the early stages of the Vietnam War. He was promoted in 1967 to commander of 7th Fleet naval air forces and in 1970 to commander of Pacific Fleet naval air forces. In the latter role, based at North Island Naval Air Station, Adm. Bringle was in charge of a force that included nine aircraft carriers, some 1,600 combat and support aircraft and about 85,000 military personnel and civil servants. He established sophisticated training facilities for pilots and maintenance personnel at Miramar Naval Air Station, paving the way for introduction of the F-14 fighter plane. Adm. Bringle's Vietnam-era command was characterized by what Adm. Bernard A. Clarey called at the time ``the legendary Bringle touch.'' Clarey also described Adm. Bringle as an aviator's aviator, stemming from his extraordinary rapport with fliers of all ranks and ages. Stockdale recalled joining Adm. Bringle in planning an attack on a city near Hanoi in the Vietnam War. ``It was a piece of beauty the way he was able to coordinate it and build confidence in the joint effort.'' Stockdale said. Another Navy contemporary, retired Vice Adm. David Richardson, called Adm. Bringle ``one of the most admired naval officers and aviators dating from World War II.'' Said Richardson: ``His leadership was derived from the examples he set and the way he handled people. And people responded beautifully to his leadership.'' In 1961, as commander of the fledgling Kitty Hawk, Adm. Bringle took the supercarrier on its maiden voyage from the East Coast to its home base of San Diego. At more than 1,047 feet in length, the Kitty Hawk became the largest ship to enter San Diego harbor up to that time. Adm. Bringle was a native of Covington, Tenn. He graduated in 1937 from the U.S. Naval Academy, where he starred as a speedy, sure-handed 170-pound end in football. Hip and knee injuries played havoc with his football career, and decades later he underwent knee and hip replacements. In his junior year at Annapolis, on the first play of a game with William & Mary, Adm. Bringle suffered a broken hip on what he considered a ``cheap shot,'' a crack-back block. Many decades later, while attending a cocktail party in San Diego, he met the man who claimed to be responsible for his pain: former William & Mary athlete Walter Zable, co- founder of Cubic Corp. ``They shook hands and became great friends,'' said Donald Bringle, Adm. Bringle's son. Adm. Bringle underwent flight training at Pensacola, Fla., and was designated a naval aviator in December 1940. Three years later, after flying observation and scouting patrols over the South Atlantic, he formed the Navy's first observation fighting squadron, VOF-1. He received the Navy Cross for extraordinary heroism in action against enemy forces during the Allied invasion of southern France in August 1944. His role in the invasion also earned him the French Croix de Guerre. After the European action, Adm. Bringle led his squadron on close air support missions in the Pacific campaigns at Leyte, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. His squadron also identified targets for naval gunfire, and its success brought Adm. Bringle a Distinguished Flying Cross with gold stars, signifying five additional awards of that medal. When the Korean War broke out in June 1950, Adm. Bringle was serving in Annapolis as aide to the superintendent of the Naval Academy. He resumed sea duty in 1953 as executive officer of the carrier Hornet. Adm. Bringle became commandant of midshipmen at the Naval Academy in 1958, his last assignment before taking command of the Kitty Hawk. During his last tour in San Diego, Adm. Bringle was honored by the Greater San Diego Chamber of Commerce military affairs committee and the San Diego Council of the Navy League for his contributions to the community. The Navy League award came with a leather golf bag of red, white and blue design. After his assignments with the 7th Fleet and the Pacific Fleet, Adm. Bringle was promoted to four-star admiral. His last three years of active duty were as chief of U.S. naval forces in Europe, based in London. As a Rancho Santa Fe resident. Adm. Bringle enjoyed golf until his late 70s, when he underwent his second knee replacement. ``He kept his competitive fires going by playing tennis into his late '50s,'' his son said. Adm. Bringle was a member of the exclusive Early and Pioneer Naval Aviators Association, an honor society of some 200 members. He is survived by his wife, Donnie Godwin Bringle; a daughter, Lynn Riegle of Thompson's Station, Tenn.; and a son, Donald of San Diego. Memorial services are scheduled for 11 a.m. Monday at the North Island Naval Air Station chapel. Donations are suggested to the U.S. Naval Academy Alumni Association Fund, Alumni House, King George Street, Annapolis, MD 21402.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield for just a second?

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, let me give my colleagues another point. The President, when the gentleman was talking about taxes, I thought the height of conceit was the President first, when we wanted to give tax breaks back, called the American people selfish if they wanted their tax money back. Just 3 months ago, the President, when he heard we were going to give tax relief to working families, said that he is opposed to giving money back to working families because ``they may not know how to spend it wisely.'' That implies government knows how to do it better. I just totally disagree with that. It is not their money. It is the people's money that send it here in the first place, and we should give it back.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I see we have been joined by the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra), a member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce. I used to serve on the committee with the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) who is chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra), along with GAO, the President's own department, identified 760 Federal education programs that take away, which is the reason we get less than half of every dollar down to education. I hope the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Schaffer) will yield to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra), because I think, of all of the people in this body, as far as seeing the waste and fraud that goes on in education from the Federal Government, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) has been there to find it out.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Eighty-five percent of the media around here voted for Bill Clinton.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, look at the historical voting pattern of some of my colleagues on the other side. The President, when they took the majority, tried to get government health care. Not a single Republican or Democrat voted for it, it was so bad. Throughout the years, they have cut defense by almost half, and they still want to cut it even more. If we take a look at their control over the public lands like the gentleman talks about, where over 30 percent in the country and over 50 percent in the West is owned by the Federal Government, but, yet, they want it expanded by more. If we go down to Maryland and Virginia, we see expansive lands being soaked into conservancies which basically locks hunters and fishers and ranchers out of the land. Then we take a look at education, the direct lending program. We look at why most of us were against Goals 2000. Send the money to a State. If they want to run in that local school district a Goals 2000 without all the reporting, then that is fine. But then even under Goals 2000 what happened, how they changed it when the Democrats took control, there were 14 ``wills'' in there. Under legal terms, ``will'' means you must. They said it was only voluntary. It is only voluntary if one wants the money. Then they tied other grants that say, for example, if one did not have Goals 2000, one did not have all these other voluntary grants, one never qualified for these other grants. I heard the gentleman say that Federal dollars only accounted for 7 percent. But that 7 percent, with all those rules and regulations, controls a large percentage of the State money. IDEA is a classic example of how it is destroying and trial lawyers are destroying the public education system through establishing cottage organizations. Talk to Alan Burson. He was a former Clinton appointee, now the superintendent of schools. He said his biggest trouble is with trial lawyers and the unions trying to progress the California schools. Gray Davis is trying to make some changes, the new Governor, Democrat, in California. I am doing everything I can to help them both, because they are moving in the right direction of freeing up our schools, of making a transition when, over 40 years, they want to continue the same thing. We are 20th of all the industrialized nations, Mr. Speaker, 20th in math and science. California is last in literacy. For example, the President wanted a new literacy program. Three billion dollars in the last budget. It sounds great when one is last in literacy. There are 14 of them in the Department of Education. Title I is one of those. We are saying let us eliminate 11 or 12 of them. Let us focus, instead of authorizing them here and funding them here, let us fund the ones that work up here and get rid of all the bureaucracy, because one is paying the salaries, one is paying the retirement, one is paying for the building, one is paying for the paperwork and the overhead; and that keeps the money going down to the classroom.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Oh, and by the way, Mr. Speaker, we are only going to give them 50 cents on the dollar because the other 50 cents funds the bureaucracy.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. The highest in over 30 years.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Fifty eight Members, Democrats, in the Progressive Caucus that are listed under the Democrat Socialists of America.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Their leadership is by the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Bernie Sanders). He was elected as an Independent but is a practicing socialist. It is scary.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I know that firsthand, not secondhand. My wife is the Director of Administration at Encinitas Union School Districts in the State of California; my sister-in-law is the director for all special education for all San Diego City schools under Alan Burson, who I just spoke about. But charter schools were an initiative to try to do that same thing, to take away some of the rules and bureaucracy. The National Education Association fought us tooth, hook and nail against charter schools when they started, and Governor Wilson really pushed those in the State of California, and they have been successful. Another freedom that we would like to use is, and the President talked about our welfare reform bill, which he vetoed twice and he finally signed it, but we have less than half of welfare recipients on the roll now than we had before. Instead of the taxpayers having to pay out billions of dollars for welfare recipients, which the average was 16 years on welfare, that is how bad it was, now those people are working, pridefully working, their children have a chance in society, and they are paying into the revenue stream. And guess what? The States, the governors, who do not have the flexibility right now, since they have one-half the welfare rolls and they have the dollars, they cannot take those welfare dollars and apply them to education. We want to allow the States to use that, the governors, to take that money and use it for education. I think those kinds of initiatives are going to improve our education system; freeing up the States to allow them to do these things without the red tape from Washington, D.C.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. The point that is important is that it is an inflated wage. In Washington, D.C. we could have saved millions of dollars for waiving Davis-Bacon for school construction here because the schools were falling apart. What I am going to do is offer an amendment. The President wants school construction. If he really wants to help the children, let us waive Davis-Bacon for school construction. Let the schools on the local level save the 35 percent and let them decide if they need more teachers, or if they need more school construction, of if they need money for special education. Give them the freedom. Do my colleagues think the unions and the trial lawyers are going to support that? No. They will tell everyone they are for the children, but when it comes down to it, they will support the unions and the trial lawyers over the children, and that is what is upsetting about this. We want people to do it. They want to waste the money here through bureaucracy and they want to waste it through unions and they want to waste it through trial lawyers that take away the money we give to the schools.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I would. And not a single one of the Members that I spoke about on that DSAUSA.org and the 58 Members that are listed in that in the progressive caucus, not a single one of them voted for the balanced budget. Not a single one of them voted for welfare reform. They all voted against tax relief. And that is there agenda. Mr. Speaker, this is an easy way to remember what we are going to do over the next 2 years, and I want my colleagues to remember this. It is called best schools in military. B is for balanced budget. E is for education reform. S is for saving Social Security. T is for tax relief. Schools, different from education, is the infrastructure in schools construction to get the money there to do that. And military is to beef up, which we have not talked about, which is in sad shape and emergency shape. It is our defense. Those are the agenda items that we are going to focus on in this next Congress.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. If the gentleman will continue to yield to me for two quick examples. I want to give two quick examples in the way Federal regulations take the money away from the schools. First of all, the IDEA program. We could put in more money. We could put the 40 percent. But according to Alan Burson, a Clinton appointee, now the superintendent of San Diego City schools, he said the trial lawyers are eating up the money that we are giving special education and we are losing good teachers because they are having to go to the courts. They are not lawyers, but they are being forced out of special education. Teachers that just want to help kids. The second is that we had a bill that offered construction companies a tax incentive for school construction. The President vetoed that. We talk about smoke and mirrors, and they say, well, we are for the children. I asked them in the D.C. bill and also in the President's bill. He wants construction. He wants the Federal dollars to pay for it, not local dollars or tax breaks, because then it falls under Davis- Bacon. The union wage. That costs 35 percent more than letting private contractors do it.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I was all the way down on my boat on which I live, Mr. Speaker, and I heard the gentleman talk about private property in some of the agenda, so I put my tie back on, I think I got it on straight, and I even buttoned my tab. I want to thank the gentleman for holding this special order, because there are a couple of areas which I want to the gentleman to talk about. One, I heard the gentleman on the social security issue. The other is where the President claims to put a percentage in Medicare, and actually draws out $9 billion out of Medicare. When we talk about double-using figures in a budget, and the President takes out $9 billion and then puts in money, and then takes money out of social security and then puts 62 percent in, and he takes those billions of dollars and spends them on programs, then when it comes to our budget time he claims that we are cutting programs. First of all, we believe in maintaining the caps. A balanced budget to us is very, very important. For those, it is not. We will see in every single bill except for defense that our liberal colleagues over here will increase spending, regardless of what the program is. They will pay for anything, a chicken in every pot. That is where our big disagreement is. In the field of education, I was chairman of the Committee on K through 12 before I went on the Committee on Appropriations. GAO said that for direct lending programs, when it was capped at 10 percent, it cost $1 billion annually, $1 billion, not a million, just to administer it out of the government. That was when it was capped at 10 percent. It cost $4 billion to $5 billion to collect because the Department of Education did not have the collection funds. The President wanted the direct lending program to go to 100 percent. I absolutely fought tooth, hook, and nail from doing that because of the waste, rather than letting it go to private. The government shut down at that time. That was one of the President's key points. We got blamed for it. But at the same time, our leadership said, Duke, we need to let this go to 40 percent. I said no, I want to zero, because we can get more student loans out of the private sector at reduced cost, instead of having Uncle Sam here do it. They negotiated, they let it go to 40 percent. They put in just a few language words in the bill that neither the President nor the Democrats saw, but it limited the amount of money that went to the bureaucracy. We added and paid additional money to the Eisenhower grants. We increased IDEA for special education to the highest level ever that was possible. As a matter of fact, I was the chairman that started the IDEA program, along with the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Bill Goodling), and when I was subcommittee chairman we enhanced and increased student loans by 50 percent by limiting the amount of bureaucracy. I think the overall aspect of the differences, as the gentleman said it right, we want to give people the freedom, instead of having government control their lives. I had a committee hearing. We had 16 different groups come in, and each of them had one of the best ideas in the whole world for education programs in their district. At the end of the hearing, I asked which of the 16 had any one of the other 15 in their districts, and not a single one. I said, that is the whole point. What we want is to get you the money directly, let you decide what is good for your particular district, because there may be a difference from San Diego, where the Speaker is from, and Maryland, or the gentleman from Colorado, and let the teachers, the families, and the community make those kinds of decisions. Yet, the big government way would be to take all 16 of them, spread them out, give very little money for them, and defuse all of them. That is what has happened over the last 40 years here. In the field of education, we want to get the money to the classroom. There is a bureaucracy group here that wants to keep it. I would ask the gentleman and I would ask the Speaker, I want to Members to look up on the Web page, and I will say it very slowly, www.dsausa.org. That stands for the Democrat Socialists of America. In there, their socialist agenda is government control of private property, just as the gentleman spoke of, where the government owns over 50 percent of the State where I belong, California. Yet, they want to enhance it even more. They want government-controlled health care, they want government control of education, they want the unions to have power over small business, because they support big government dominance. They want to pay for it by increasing our taxes to the highest progressive tax ever, and they want to pay for it also by cutting defense by one-half. In there is the Progressive Caucus. There are 58 Democrat members in the Democrat Caucus that are poster children in the Web page for the Democrat socialists of America, 58 of them on my left side. They want government control of health care. They want to tie up all the government lands, privately owned, to government control. If they cannot control it directly, they want to control it with the endangered species, they want to control it with OSHA, they want to control it with EPA, whatever. This is not the gentleman from California (Mr. Duke Cunningham) speaking, but on the Web page what their 12-point agenda is.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I am surprised at the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) who just preceded me. For 40 years, the Democrats controlled this House. The most they ever gave IDEA was 7 percent. We came in. I was chairman of the committee that sat literally the school groups and the parent groups together with the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Chairman Goodling), locked them in the room and said no bread or water until they come out. My colleagues want to help IDEA? Listen to Alan Burson, San Diego city schools, a former Clinton appointee. The unions and the trial lawyers are ripping off IDEA. My colleagues give them more money, and the local trial lawyers are going to come in and rip them off. Talk to our new Governor, Gray Davis. Ask him what the problem is with IDEA. It is his number one problem. We have a problem of losing good teachers. Carolyn Nunes just happens to be my sister-in-law. She is in charge and the director for all special education of all San Diego city schools. She is losing good teachers because the trial lawyers are forcing these teachers, who just want to help children, they want to help children, they are not trial lawyers, they are being forced into the courts, and they are leaving because they are getting battered by the damn trial lawyers. Help us. Help us combat that. My colleagues talk about 100,000 teachers. My colleagues wanted 100,000 teachers in the President's bill, a big political move, but they wanted to raise taxes $139 billion. They wanted government to control it. We said no. No new taxes of $139 billion. We are going to send the money directly to the schools, and it is going to be under the caps. If my colleagues want to break the budget, be my guest. We feel that a balanced budget is necessary and to handle that. Ed-Flex. It is amazing how difficult it is to pass a bipartisan bill that the President supports, that Republicans support. But yet there is those who still want government control, government control. Look up www.dsausa.org. That is the Democrat socialist party. Look under the progressive caucus and their 12-point agenda: government control of health care, government control of education, government control of private property, to raise taxes the highest level ever, and cut defense by 50 percent. That is what we are fighting on here. We are trying to give flexibility, not bigger government.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, why is this important now? In 1995, they found out there was a mole in our national labs. He had been operating during Carter, during Ronald Reagan and George Bush and also Bill Clinton. In 1996, the President was told of this. Nothing has happened. The mole was just arrested last week. That is a national security threat. Even worse, the White House, against the insistence of the National Security Agency, DOD and DOE, let China have three capabilities which are very important to this country and others as well. One was missile boost capability. North Korea and the nations that proliferate like China and Russia give this to Iran, Iraq and North Korea. They can now reach the United States. The second is MIRV. The Chinese stole small nuclear capability, and now they can put it on the tip of a missile in multiple launch. Targeting is also very deadly. They can hit the fourth apartment on 332nd Street in New York City now.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, I would like to associate myself with, basically, the comments on both sides of the aisle. I want to tell my colleagues, the things about drugs, the things about illegals, California pays a big price for all of the above. And I would tell the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar), the greatest thing that we do not have to deal with in San Diego is the ice cutters. They have to do that in Michigan. But I support his issue there. The gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) and I will probably never vote for each other more than a handful of times, but this happens to be one of those times that we do. And I do think also that one of the things the Coast Guard does there is actually a requirement under OPA 90, where we have dual hull tankers. I hope some day we can enforce that so we do not have things like the Valdez. And even our offshore oil, I put a requirement that the President supported that limited our offshore oil drilling off California because of the pollution not only in our wetland but our beaches. And we see every day these tankers going up and down from foreign countries that are leaking oil and coming on our beaches, and I worked with the gentleman to stop that. Last year we honored two policemen that died here in defending our Capitol. But we do not hear much about just 96 miles from here right off Point Lookout we lost a Coast Guard cutter, a rescue ship, and people gave their lives in service to that, too. So I think that it is a little unsung part of security that we have in this country but we should not forget, especially them, and it is a reason that most of us on both sides of the aisle support this. Another area in which they helped, we had a bipartisan vote. There is a Chinese shipping company that wanted to take over Long Beach. I am happy to tell my colleagues that the CIA has come out and said that, yes, there is a national security threat over Long Beach if they would take complete control. It is the Coast Guard that found that they were dealing chemical and biological and nuclear triggers. So I rise in strong support and I thank the Members on both sides of the aisle for this legislation.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, is it improper, either in the full House or in the body, to characterize the reasons for why different people vote for things; to characterize and impugn?