Peter DeFazio

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, whenever I can help the powerful chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce. I may have something small to ask in return. If I could continue here, this is a very serious subject. So the question before the House soon will be will we rubber-stamp existing trade policy? Is it so good, is it working so well for the American people that we should say, hey, let us just keep doing more of the same, let us give President Bush total authority to negotiate these agreements in secret, then bring it back here for an up or down vote, no amendments allowed? Let us look at the result of our existing trade policy. Our trade deficit is the largest in the history of the world. It has gone from $66 billion in 1991, 1.7 percent of our gross domestic product, to $417 billion last year, 4.1 percent of our gross domestic product. That is pretty extraordinary. People say, well, wait a minute, our exports are expanding. They are right. Our exports over the last decade have gone up 17 percent; but guess what, the imports went up 44 percent because of this misbegotten trade policy. Current estimates say that our trade deficit could reach $460 billion by the end of this year, $536 billion by 2003, and their prediction, it could reach 7 percent of gross domestic product, $800 billion by the year 2005. That means the loss of tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands more jobs in this country; and in fact, it means a trade deficit that is not sustainable. Essentially, if we move toward those numbers, the United States of America becomes the next Argentina; and the World Bank and the IMF will be in here dictating to us about our budget priorities and how we are going to clean up our house and how we are going to meet our obligation of our $2 trillion overseas debt. Yes, we will owe $2 trillion overseas in the very near future because of these persistent trade deficits. It is not sustainable. In fact, when Indonesia imploded, their trade deficit was only 4.5 percent of their gross domestic product. Similarly, in South Korea, and economists everywhere said, well, that is understandable. My God, no one can have trade deficits that large a percentage. We are talking the United States of America may go to 7 percent in the near future if we maintain the current trade policies. The question becomes, who would want to maintain this failing trade policy? Well, not too many of the American workers who have lost their jobs, seen their wages depress. They are probably not real enthusiastic about it. In fact, I come from a State where when I first raised questions about trade, they said, oh, no, you are from Oregon, you are going to be a free trader. You are right there on the Pacific Rim; your people are going to benefit from this free trade policy of the United States, as I was told by President Bush first, President Clinton and others in opposing their successful attempts, unfortunately, to jam through NAFTA and GATT and the WTO. My State has lost 41,000 jobs; and other States have lost a lot more than that, millions of jobs across the country. Three million jobs in the United States according to the Economic Policy Institute were lost between 1994 and the year 2000 because of our trade policies. What else did trade deficits do? Well, they shift the composition of the workforce. They say, do not worry, everybody is going to wash dishes; we are going to become a service economy. We do not need to manufacture things. I do not believe that. I do not believe we cannot manufacture things and continue to be a great Nation. In fact, during the Gulf War, officials down at the Pentagon were in a panic because they needed some high-tech stuff. They could only get it from Japan, and Japan was not delivering on the schedule that our national security demanded. Imagine that. Do my colleagues think China, who is now producing some of those same critical components, is going to be real helpful in the future? They have been so friendly and helpful so far. I do not think so, particularly if we are in a conflict with them, which I think is very possible within the next 25 years. Manufacturing has lost 1.5 million jobs in the last 18 months. So we are having a huge change in the composition of our workforce from high- wage, high-benefit manufacturing jobs, to low-wage jobs or lower-wage jobs on much lower-benefit jobs in the service sector or other components of manufacturing. What else is impacted? Stagnant wages. Average U.S. wages adjusted for inflation are about the same as they were when Jimmy Carter was President of the United States, and one of the biggest factors in dragging that down is U.S. workers are being asked to compete with people in Mexico who are preferably willing to work for a dollar a day; and if President Bush is successful, they will be asked to compete with the people of Argentina who are totally desperate or the people of Bolivia or other nations. The idea is to search around the world for the most exploitable, most desperate workforce. Sometimes skills are required so they will have to go to countries like Argentina. Other times they can go overseas to Indonesia, Pakistan, countries like that when they are not real high skilled and get cheaper wages. So that is another result. I do have a few more points, and then I will yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), who is a tremendous leader on these issues. It is a drag on economic growth, this $400 billion-a-year trade deficit. Our export output falls. Domestic demand that could be met by domestic output is instead satisfied by higher imports. As I said earlier, our exports are up by 17 percent, but our imports are up by 44 percent. We are losing the jobs that could create that. We are increasingly reliant on foreign investors. We have to import nearly $2 billion a day from foreign investors, and perhaps later I will get into a list of who those foreign investors are. I think it will shock some of the Members of this caucus in terms of national security and economic security, but 40 percent of our U.S. Treasury debt, 40 percent of the debt of the United States of America, the collective debt of all of us, is owned by foreigners. That is an extraordinary number. It erodes our defense manufacturing base. We are going to saddle our children with future debt and interest payments, and it hurts our long-term spending on research and development. These are some of the grand successes of the current trade policy that this Congress is going to be asked to rubber-stamp by once again giving up all its authority to shape trade and trade policy and rubber- stamp a fast track bill to give the President the authority to secretly negotiate this agreement and bring it back here for a hurried up or down vote. I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), who has been a tremendous leader in the House in opposing these failing trade policies.

Mr. DeFAZIO. I thank the gentlewoman. I realize she has to leave and I am almost done myself. I want to go back and reiterate a couple of points. In my own State, 41,000 jobs lost to trade in the last decade, a number in wood products, some in textiles, others in other industries. This is a loss that did not need to happen. We did not need to lose these industrial wage jobs with good benefits to unfair trade. But unfortunately it was done under auspices of United States law. That is, agreements that were pushed through, started in the Reagan administration, continued in the first Bush administration, brought to fruition by the Clinton administration and now the next Bush administration, the current Bush administration wants to expand on those failing policies. Think of that. How much bigger do they want the trade deficit to be? How many more millions of U.S. manufacturing jobs do they want to export? There are not many left. We already know that the deficit is not sustainable. The growth of our merchandise trade deficits over the last 10 years, 1990 to 2001, with our free trade partners, Mexico, 1,861 percent growth; China 713 percent growth; the WTO membership generally that is from the Uruguay Round, 300 percent; the Caribbean Basin Parity Act, 131 percent; and sub-Saharan Africa, 64 percent. Those are numbers from our own international trade commission. That is an outline of the success of these trade policies. They are a success for multinational corporations or corporations that were formerly U.S. corporations but now do not want to think of themselves or act in that manner anymore, who are exporting our wealth and our jobs. I have a couple of more quotes. This one is from one of my favorite groups, the International Monetary Fund, and that was said sarcastically. I think they have done more damage to the world economy than virtually any other organization, but they are now saying: ``The sustainability of the large U.S. current account deficit hinges on the ability of the United States to continue to attract sizable capital inflows. Up to now these inflows in large part have reflected the perceived attractiveness of the U.S. investment environment but such perceptions are subject to continuous reappraisal.'' And with the questions about the bookkeeping and the real profitability of many firms on Wall Street, with the rapid decline of the U.S. dollar, those perceptions are changing very quickly. In fact, the United States of America, not one of these corrupt companies like Enron, the United States of America has been put on the Standard & Poor's watch list for 20 countries that are vulnerable to a credit bust. Why is that? Because Americans are not working hard? No. Because we are a resource poor country? No. Because we have a totally failed trade policy and the current President and the majority in the House of Representatives, the Republicans, want more of the same as medicine to cure that ill. We are talking about the potential to bankrupt the United States of America, to turn us into a yet larger Argentina. They were the miracle of South America, the highest standard of living, a European country in South America is what they were called for many years and now they are a basket case, because of the dictates of the IMF, because of policies that are similar to the ones we are engaging in here in the United States with trade. This is not sustainable. These policies must be changed. It will be unconscionable. And the fact that we are not working here tonight, we are just chattering and in fact the House got out of here at 3 o'clock today and are rumored to be out at 2 o'clock tomorrow and maybe 1 o'clock on Thursday and noon on Friday, because the Republicans cannot quite get together the votes to jam through one more time a bill to rubber stamp this totally discredited and failed trade policy. The President is probably on the horn right now to some reluctant Members saying, ``Oh, I know it's going to hurt you at home. I know it's going to put people in your district out of work. I know this is a real problem for you, but I'll do something to make it up.'' Those are the kind of phone calls that are going on on that side of the aisle. They want their Members to vote against the interests of the people living and working in their districts and in the United States of America in the interest of a few very powerful multinational corporations, the oil industry and others who are essentially dictating trade policies through this administration, and, sadly, as they did through the Clinton administration and the predecessor Presidents for the last 25 years, ever since we started running huge and growing trade deficits, our trade policy has been run by corporate America and intellectual elite that do not see reality and do not want to regard reality and do not want to look at sustainability. I am hoping that a majority of my colleagues here in the House of Representatives will see that issue for what it is, the lies for what they are, and vote to adopt a new trade policy for this country, one that will serve us better and turn our deficits and our hemorrhaging of industrial jobs around.

Mr. DeFAZIO. I thank the gentlewoman from Ohio for assisting in this special order this evening. We will have opportunities to discuss this again. You have certainly opened up the door to discuss energy self- sufficiency and energy policy which I think is one of the strongest steps we could take to make this country secure for the next century, both militarily and economically. I would love to engage in a special order on that subject some evening.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Again, returning to that, we ran also a $7.4 billion trade deficit with Saudi Arabia, and now we find out that some of the most wealthy Saudis are the biggest backers of al Qaeda and other terrorist groups and have been funding this network of schools training Islamic fundamentalist radicals around the world, and we are helping to finance that. It is U.S. consumers who are being extorted at the gas pump by price fixing and production fixing by OPEC, who are sending almost $13 billion a year to Saudi Arabia and Iraq. This is extraordinary to me; and what is the Bush administration response to this: we should do more of the same. These trade policies are working so well, price gouging the American consumers, undermining our industrial base, lower wages and productivity in the United States, we should do more of exactly the same, despite the fact that we are headed toward a $2 trillion debt overseas within the next 2 years. Mr. Speaker, $2 trillion of U.S. dollars are outstanding around the world, and the gentlewoman is right. What if the Chinese decide they are in a dispute over Taiwan or something else with the U.S. and they want to slow us down or hurt us, and they demand payment for, say, their $700 billion worth. Suddenly the U.S. is in a big credit crunch. We cannot afford to make those sorts of payments. Of course, there is one other point that is interesting. I befuddled an economist the other evening. It was Paul Krugman from the New York Times. He is an interesting man, but blind on trade issues. He is a big believer in free trade. We asked him if a $400 billion-a-year trade deficit is sustainable. He said, oh, no, that is close to what Indonesia had before they collapsed. It is not sustainable. We asked, How is that going to rectify itself? He said the dollar will collapse. And so I said the idea is that the dollar collapses, we pay more for goods, U.S. goods are cheaper. Right? Yes. But I said, guess what, if we do not manufacture anything anymore, it just means everything you are importing to run your economy has become a lot more expensive, like oil, critical high-tech components, everything that we are buying, all of the shoes and clothes, all becomes more expensive here in the United States; and our trade deficit might even go up. With that he turned away from me and did not want to continue the conversation. We are defying conventional wisdom here. The conventional wisdom is if our dollar tanks, yes, it hurts a little bit; but we will turn our sights inward and buy from our own manufacturers. But guess what, our own manufacturers have been sold out by these trade agreements. Try and buy some running shoes made in America. There is apparently one company that makes men's shoes in the United States. Try to buy a suit made in the United States of America.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, we ran a trade deficit last year of $40 billion with the OPEC countries, the same countries that are fixing oil prices to stick it to American consumers and the remaining industry that we have in this country with extortionately high prices for fuel; and the Bush administration, they are all for free trade. They love the WTO, the secret tribunals. They want to get hormone-laced beef in from Europe, and other things that are in favor of corporate America; but guess what, they will not file a complaint with the WTO against OPEC for price fixing which is prohibited by the World Trade Organization and by GATT. Why not? Well, maybe there is something to do with the oil industry that I am not quite aware of, but we are running a $40 billion trade deficit. These people are making no secret of the fact that they are restraining production to drive up the price, and that violates the WTO. It is an open and shut case. All the U.S. has to do is file it on behalf of its consumers. Consumers of the United States cannot file a case. Even those industries that are still left in this country cannot file a case. Only the Bush administration can file the case, and they are refusing to take on the OPEC countries and to file against them for price gouging of the American people. Also on that list, kind of interestingly enough, we ran a $5.754 billion trade deficit with Iraq. The President is talking about invading Iraq, and we are running a $5.750 billion trade deficit with them. There is something weird about that.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, Alan Greenspan said in an article in Business Week that over the past 6 years, 40 percent of the increase in the U.S. capital stock was financed by foreign investment, a pattern that will require an ever-larger flow of interest payments going out to foreigners. He said, ``Countries that have gone down this path invariably have run into trouble.''

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, this long-term trade deficit is not sustainable. With depressed wages in this country, ultimately we are buying all of this on credit, and the credit is overseas. We are getting close to $2 trillion of debt. Forty percent of the Treasury debt of the United States is owned by foreigners. Our number one trade deficit is with China, not the country with the best interests of the United States in mind, in my opinion, anyway. I do not consider China to be a great ally or friend of the United States. Number two is Japan. Number three is Canada, obviously a close relationship with the United States. Then Mexico, Germany, Taiwan, Italy, South Korea, Malaysia, and Ireland. Those are the countries with whom we are accumulating this huge and growing debt. This is of tremendous concern. As we undermine the buying capacity of the American people and the industrial might of the United States, and ultimately when they one day ask for their money, their $2 trillion that they are owed, we are going to have the IMF and the World Bank dictating terms because this is not a sustainable system. We cannot borrow money year after year after year.

Mr. DeFAZIO. If the gentlewoman would yield back, in fact, she is making an excellent point. Henry Ford sort of figured out the formula for success in this country back early in the last century. He said, I want to produce a product on an assembly line with a large number of workers, and I want my workers to be able to buy it. And we did phenomenally well as a country. The managers, the owners of capital, and the workers all kind of came up together. Sure, the managers always did better, and the owners even did better yet, but there was some proportionality. The workers could afford to buy the products, and it created tremendous wealth for our Nation. It created an industrial base that won World War II and was the envy of the world. We rebuilt the world after World War II, led the race to space, and everything else, all those things. That was American technology based on sort of this formula of equality. But now greed has taken over as we have seen in so many ways in corporate America, and if they can get the labor, desperate labor somewhere else a little cheaper, and avoid environmental restrictions, that is where they want to manufacture. And their vehicle is these free trade agreements. They cannot do it without the imprint and the approval of the President of the United States secretly negotiating deals that favor the export of their capital and their manufacturing jobs to these other countries. The problem is ultimately it is going to collapse; but they will not care, like the managers of Enron who had already looted the company and are living in their six, seven or eight mansions, and they may have to sell one of their mansions.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Exactly on that point, the passage of NAFTA was really the big lie strategy. We were told it was to produce hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the United States, and we were going to ship all these goods to Mexico. Of course, what they did not look at was the total buying power. If every peso earned by every person in Mexico was only spent on U.S.-produced goods, not on bare necessities, not on rent, locally, or anything else, it would have almost equaled the buying power of the State of New Jersey. This was theoretic. And, of course, obviously, that cannot happen. And, in fact, what has happened is our trade deficit with Mexico is up 1,861 percent. We have lost hundreds of thousands of jobs. We are running a $40-billion-a-year trade deficit to Mexico. U.S. corporations are moving their capital to Mexico. This was never intended to be an agreement for U.S. firms to produce in the United States and ship to Mexico. That was a joke. It was a lie, plain and simple. Unfortunately, a majority of our colleagues bought it. What it was always about was a cheap export platform in Mexico for U.S. manufacturers to move their capital and foreign manufacturers to move closer to the U.S. market so they would not have to ship things so far; big, heavy things.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman, and, of course, the people of Ohio also have shown extraordinary wisdom in returning her, for more years than I have been here, to the House of Representatives. The gentlewoman has been tremendous on this fight. Although we have been losing, the margin is getting closer and closer. The gentlewoman will certainly remember that last fall, after an extraordinary effort by the Republican leadership in this House, the President and all his Cabinet and others, they only prevailed by a one- vote margin in getting through the fast track trade bill. A number of Members on that side had to change their vote, and voted reluctantly against interests of their district, particularly people from the South and textile States, and they got what are thus far some pretty hollow promises in return. Certainly the voters in those States are going to have to look to see what it is that their elected Representatives have wrought by proposing to do more and more and more of the same. Under this legislation, Free Trade of the Americas Act would be one of the things negotiated, and we would go to a few of the very few countries in the Western Hemisphere, where the United States is currently running a trade deficit, where we do not have this kind of a perverted free trade agreement in place, and we would give them the opportunity to join most other nations on Earth who are running huge trade surpluses with the United States, notably Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil. A very large economy in Brazil would fall under this new free trade authority, and Brazil is a major manufacturer of automobiles, certainly something close to the gentlewoman's heart, and other very sophisticated goods. So we can fully expect that under this sort of an agreement that we would find those products coming from Brazil where labor is indeed much, much cheaper than it is in the United States.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I scheduled this time to come to the floor tonight and talk about the issue of trade, trade policy in the United States, and our record trade deficits, the impact on the economy, and in the future. Before I engage in that, I could not resist. I had to sit through a good part of the previous hour, and I would like to comment upon a number of the points made by the gentlemen before me on the issue of prescription drug coverage. First off, they said it has a fiscally huge cost, the Democratic alternative. It would cost $800 billion. Guess what: That is the cost of the estate tax which they tried to permanently repeal last week over 10 years, $800 billion. So we could have a trade-off. We could have a very meaningful, substantial prescription drug benefit for every American eligible for Medicare, or we could give back $800 billion to the wealthiest of the wealthy in this country. Even if we adopted the alternative, which I supported, which would have given a $6 million exemption, I think $6 million is quite enough tax free, we could have saved half that money, $400 billion. So if we matched it to the $350 billion, we could again have had a more generous plan. Mr. Speaker, also, there is a glaring deficiency. In fact, I am a bit critical of the Democrat proposal, also, because neither bill takes on the immensely powerful and wealthy pharmaceutical industry head on. Americans are paying 40 to 80 percent more than citizens of other highly industrialized, developed nations. Our neighbors in Canada pay about half what we do for drugs manufactured in the U.S. by U.S. firms; Mexico even less. The European countries all pay less. The Republican bill would do nothing to control these outrageous costs, which means we are not going to get much of a benefit. If we do not crank down the obvious costs of pharmaceuticals, we are not going to get much of a benefit. We could spend the entire Federal budget within a few years, and we would not get much of a benefit. We have got to do something about the runaway pharmaceutical costs, but I do not think there is a lot of will on that side. Tomorrow night's $25 million Washington, D.C. fundraiser for the Republicans in the House and the Senate, the lead fundraiser is the head of GlaxoSmithKline, a large pharmaceutical company, one of the largest in the world, J.P. Garnier would not want to upset him too much when he is out raising money. Now they say, well, the rising costs are because of advances in new drugs. Actually, if one lifts up the covers and looks underneath where they are spending their money, the pharmaceutical companies are spending more money on their CEO salaries, administration, and advertising than they are on research. In fact, all their blockbuster drugs for profits are makeovers of drugs they invented 20 years ago. Clarinex, that is Claritin with a tiny molecular change so they can continue it under patent, so they can continue to charge 10 times as much per dose as the one that finally, after fighting in court, after trying to buy up other pharmaceutical companies that are going to provide a generic, after trying to get legislation through Congress, knock through a number of bills to continue their monopoly on Claritin, they finally developed another dodge which is get the doctors to prescribe this new drug which is not any different but has a different name and they can charge ten times as much for it. So if we do not deal with the costs, we cannot have a meaningful prescription drug benefit. But I see no will on that side of the aisle to deal with that issue. Back to trade, let us talk a bit about trade. Later this week perhaps or next week, the House will take up at least perhaps an extraordinary proposal by the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) of the Committee on Ways and Means to adopt an arcane procedure called a self-executing rule on a motion to go to conference. Why is that? Because they are trying to help push through this fast track bill for President Bush. I opposed fast track authority for President Bush the First. I opposed fast track authority for President Clinton, and I oppose fast track authority for President Bush today. This is a bad idea. The United States Congress gives up all of its authority to amend, modify, or meaningfully review these trade agreements and instead says they will be adopted with an up or down vote only, no amendments allowed. Why would we do that? We would do that because these are really bad deals for the American people. That is why we would do that. The WTO, which I opposed, the GATT, that was a really bad deal for the American people, done through a fast track process. The NAFTA, total disaster. We are running over a $40 billion trade deficit with Mexico. That was done on one of these fast track deals. But what they said was, oh, Congressman, you cannot mean you want to vote to amend that. Well, in fact, first of all, you cannot vote to amend it, and, why, if you voted to amend it, the other countries who are agreeing to this might get upset. Come on. They want access to our markets. Reasonable amendments to deal with labor and the environment, consumers, those things would not be a problem in these trade agreements, but they want to keep those things out because the real people who dictate the trade agreements are multinational corporations who have had a direct pipeline to the last four Presidents of the United States, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II. They are virtually identical in their position on trade. Is our trade policy working so well that we should rubber-stamp it yet one more time? That is what this House of Representatives will be asked to do, rubber-stamp one more round of fast track for the free trade of the Americas. Let us bring in all of the nations into the western hemisphere, into this wonderful construct that we have under NAFTA. Would that not be peachy? Maybe we can get cheaper labor in Bolivia than we can in Mexico because some people are demanding as much as a dollar an hour down there in Mexico now, Bolivia and Argentina. They might be more desperate. Maybe they could take more American jobs at a lower price than the Mexicans. I am about to be interrupted again, but I will certainly be happy to yield or suspend for the purposes of a unanimous consent request on the part of the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin). Auction Reform Act of 2002

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, well before the Republican majority forced passage of the 1996 ``Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act'' (PRWORA)---the so-called welfare reform package-- Oregon pioneered several welfare and poverty alleviation initiatives and landmark education and training programs. The 1996 welfare bill allowed states, like Oregon, a waiver to continue their successful social assistance programs with minimal federal interference. Oregon was able to offer such programs as the JOBS welfare-to-work program and the JOBS Plus program that assists in job placements in fields with opportunities for real career advancement and makes an impact not just in the caseloads, but in poverty alleviation. Oregon was also one of the first states to include innovations like incentives for employers to train and hire welfare recipients. There are a number of proposed changes to the Temporary Assistance to Need Families (TANF) reauthorization that will end up costing Oregon more and reduce its flexibility in delivering innovative, individualized programs. Under current law, adults have two years to find a job before losing their welfare benefits. One of the most important factors in finding a stable job at a living wage is education. That's why I've advocated that any reforms allow recipients to enroll in two-year college or four-year university programs, job training or professional development programs, or rehabilitation programs for mental health, substance abuse, or domestic violence, without hurting their eligibility for benefits. Over 50 percent of the poor in Oregon have, for one reason or another, not completed high school. Over 35 percent of the poor in Oregon have only an eighth-grade education or less. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, of the 30 fastest growing, well-compensated occupations, only five can be accomplished with short-term training. With Oregon suffering from the highest unemployment rate in the nation at nearly 8 percent, and many Oregon counties at double-digit unemployment, education becomes even more important during these tough economic times to ensure living wage jobs. The facts are shocking. A single mom with two children will only earn $13,520 a year before taxes working a full-time minimum wage job and not receive TANF benefits because the minimum wage--$6.50/hour in Oregon--is too high to qualify. This is nowhere near the federal estimate of a living wage for a family of three of $34,429 (or $16.55/ h). The Republican proposal doesn't even address how Oregon can resolve this disparity. Instead, they leave it to each state to address. Oregon is drastically cutting social service programs in order to deal with a near billion dollar deficit. I can't imagine the state will find resources to deal with this issue. Equally important is the amount of time TANF recipients spend at work activities and the quality of these activities. I'm concerned about proposals advocating 40 work hours per week, either implicitly or explicitly stated, that will push recipients into ``workfare'' programs that fail to increase earnings or opportunity. Forty hours of direct work is unrealistic for most TANF recipients because of the other support programs--like training, job search assistance, counseling-- that recipients need to participate in. Education, training and ensuring a living wage are only part of a successful plan to allow recipients to become more self-sufficient. Many working mothers depend on child care. I've always supported significantly increasing funding for the Child Care Development Block Grant (CCDBG). The CCDBG is currently funded at $2.21 billion nationally, which means $2.5 million for Oregon. This funding doesn't come close to meeting demand. A 2000 Radcliffe Public Policy Center study found that for families under 200 percent of the poverty level, the most likely reason parents lose jobs is because of a lack of child care. The Republicans claim that the TANF bill commits $6 billion towards child care but looking at the fine print, the Republicans have made mandatory only $2.9 billion and merely authorized another $3.1 billion. A good press hit in an election year, but given the disastrous federal budget situation, it's unlikely that child care funding will ever reach its full authorized level. Like many of my colleagues, I want make sure states have some degree of flexibility in implementing TANF and allow a measure of program coordination with other social assistance initiatives. But I'm also concerned that the Republicans have included a completely unnecessary provision in this legislation that would override, at a governor's request, Congressional authorization and appropriations laws related to a range of social assistance programs. This so-called ``superwaiver,'' would allow the diversion of funds from some programs to others and trump Congressional funding decisions. The superwaiver allows states to circumvent the legislative intent and programmatic standards in the name of state flexibility. Significant amounts of money are involved, too. Programs--like TANF, food stamps, job training under the Workforce Investment Act--slated for superwaiver authority are going to receive $65 billion in FY2002 and, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates, will receive nearly $669 billion over the next ten years. This puts an enormous amount of money outside normal Congressional oversight. Finally, I'm concerned that the TANF block grant of $16.5 billion to states has not even increased with the rate of inflation since it was instituted in 1997. By 2007, the block grant will lose nearly 22 percent of its value. This needs to change. I urge my colleagues--especially those across the aisle--to pursue responsible reforms that offer a hand up, rather than a hand out; that offer a real chance of reducing poverty, not just caseloads.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I had not intended to speak this evening. I am not an attorney, one of the few in the House who I guess is not, but I decided to come and speak on certain practical aspects of this farcical legislation which we are voting on again this evening. I heard a gentleman from the Republican side say this is about working families. Come on, let us not kid people in America. This is not about working families. This is about the super wealthy and the unpatriotic corporations who want to set up new tax dodges to move their profits offshore. For years they have been moving their foreign earned profits offshore to Bermuda and that has been accepted. Unfortunately, the Clinton administration left that loophole open and the Bush administration has tried to widen it. Now they have got a new dodge. They strip their corporation and move the assets and profits to a tax treaty country, Luxembourg being one, but Luxembourg might require that they pay some taxes. God forbid they should pay any taxes. So then they also do the Bermuda trick so it has become now the new Bermuda Triangle. This debate is too strange. It reminds me a lot of the Bermuda Triangle, but this is a new tax dodge being pushed by the same folks who brought us Enron, those same wonderful, ethical accounting companies, and now they have set up Stanley Works and other American corporations who are based in the United States of America, sell most of their product in the United States of America, have traditionally produced goods in the United States of America, of course now they are all going to China to produce their product. Some are still employing people here and it will say that they will pay taxes on their profits nowhere. That is the new Bermuda Triangle trick. So, under this legislation, which is, of course, for working families, yeah, wink, wink, nod, nod, Stanley Works and other unpatriotic corporations and other unpatriotic multi-millionaires and billionaires would move all of their profits offshore, pay no taxes in the United States of America, still enjoying the defense and the blood of our young men and women in the military, still enjoying all the privileges of living in the greatest country on earth but paying nothing to support it, and guess what it would take to change that? A two-thirds vote of the United States House of Representatives. We cannot even get a simple majority vote to stop the unpatriotic corporations and these people from moving their profits offshore, and imagine what it would take to get a two-thirds vote. It is pretty easy these days to buy half the House of Representatives. All they would have to do in the future would be cheaper, just buy a third of the House, and they could block any changes to close these loopholes. This is absolutely outrageous. At a time when America is engaged in a fight to defend our citizens against deadly threats from abroad and even perhaps within our own Nation, the wealthiest of the wealthy would pay nothing toward that fight, and under this legislation, it would be impossible to ever require that they pay some semblance of a fair share. This is absolutely outrageous. My colleagues should be ashamed of what they are trying to do.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to express support for H.R. 3983, the Maritime Transportation Antiterrorism Act. I also want to mention a couple of areas where the bill needs to be improved during Conference Committee consideration. According to the Economist magazine, last October, a discovery at the southern Italian port of Gioia Tauro shook the foundations on which world trade has grown so rapidly in the past half century. A suspected al-Qaeda terrorist was found inside a container. The Egyptian suspect, who later disappeared while on bail, was equipped in comfort for the duration of the container's intended sea voyage from Italy to Halifax in Canada. He carried plans of airports, an aviation mechanic's certificate and security passes. Intelligence sources say other containers similarly outfitted were found at the Italian port. Had this container actually reached an American or even Canadian port, this suspect would likely have escaped into the interior of the United States. Why? Because many terminal operators have abandoned the practice of inspecting so-called empty containers to ensure that the container is actually empty. They have also abandoned the practice of inspecting container seals, to ensure that no tampering of the container has taken place. It is time for Congress to step in and demand that every terminal operator do their part to enhance the security of American ports, containers, and our communities. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union testified before the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and made a compelling case for legislation to mandate security checks of containers. Port workers can inspect the outside seal of every container moving through our ports. A broken seal would alert the port facility that the container has been tampered with and that it needs to be carefully inspected before entering a facility or being placed on a vessel. A systematic check of container seals also provides authorities with a record of the parties responsible for placing the seal on any container that may contain a terrorist or contain the means of a terrorist act. Another equally necessary security measure is the mandatory inspection of so-called empty containers, which regularly move on and off ships each day. Many countries, including Japan, require such inspections because of the increased risk that these ``empties'' pose for the placement of bombs, weapons and contraband. In fact, inspection of empty containers on American docks was the customary practice up until a few years ago when companies decided it cut into profits. We can no longer allow our port facility operators to place profits over the security needs of our country. H.R. 3983 is a good bill, but it is weak on container security solutions. I hope that provisions providing for security checks of empty containers and the integrity of container seals are considered by the Conference Committee.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, we are here today because the Republicans say, well, there was a glitch in the estate tax repeal last year, some kind of a loophole. Well, guess what? The Republicans controlled the House, the Senate and the presidency, and they wrote the entire bill. The reason the estate tax is sunset was because even last year when they were projecting a $5.6 trillion surplus, they could not afford to finance the full repeal of the estate tax on the most wealthy families in America. And guess what? Now with a $300 billion deficit, the Social Security lockbox looted and no prospect except deficits for the future, they are saying, ``Oh, it was a glitch, it was a loophole, we couldn't anticipate it,'' and they want to pass a bill today that will go to 3,000 families a year instead of 53 million Social Security recipients starting in the year 2010. Yes, families, those 3,000 whose estates are worth more than $6 million. There is an alternative. We have it before us, a fair, affordable and permanent alternative that would take care of every small business, family farm and family forestry operation that I know about. I am concerned about them. I do not want them to prematurely harvest the trees or break up the farms or sell the family business. The gentleman from California talked about the small businesses would lose their jobs because of the estate tax on estates over $6 million. Like perhaps Ken Lay's small business? He already cost thousands of people their jobs and he will get $59 million under their proposal. Ken Lay, the thief, gets $59 million more. Then, of course, the small businesses that are being run by Secretary O'Neill. He will get $51 million under this. I am not aware that he is running a small business. This is a huge windfall being taken directly from the broken-open Social Security lockbox and being transferred into the pockets of the most wealthy Americans. They say, ``Well, they've already paid taxes.'' No, Bill Gates has not paid taxes on his $50 billion fortune. It is unrealized capital gains. If he died today under this bill, there would never be any taxes paid on that $50 billion. What you are doing is not fair, it is not affordable, it loots Social Security. What we are offering is a fair alternative for family farms, small businesses and other individuals. $6 million is enough of an exemption.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow the House of Representatives will consider a proposal by the Republican majority to permanently repeal the estate tax. Now, we had a vigorous debate over the estate tax last year; and I along with many others supported a reform of the estate tax that would lead to the exemption of 99\1/2\ percent of the estates in the United States of America. But to take and permanently repeal the tax as will be proposed tomorrow for the largest estates will be an extraordinarily expensive measure and add dramatically to the deficit of the United States and ultimately undermine the Social Security trust fund of the United States. Permanent repeal would cost $740 billion, B, billion dollars, over the next decade after 2012. But if we were to instead say, well, let us exempt the first $5 million of everybody's estate, now that seems like a pretty reasonable step. We do not want people, for instance, in my district or in Oregon who own forestry, tree farms, to go out and prematurely harvest the trees so they have to pay their estates taxes. We do not want people to have to break up their small businesses so they can pay their estates taxes. Those things are well and good. We could do that. We could easily do that. The current law will exempt by the year 2009 the first $3.5 million of each estate. So let us just round that up to $5 million. So if we did that, that would reserve $400 billion in taxes or $400 billion of money that would not be drained from the Social Security trust fund to help pay for the retirement of the baby boom. Now, it is true that there would be some 4 or 500 estates a year worth more than $5 million who would have to pay taxes to support the 53 million people on Social Security. I believe that they can afford that burden. Some say, well, we know they should not pay taxes twice. Well, guess what, most of them will not pay taxes twice. In fact, the way the current laws are set up, many of these estates have unrealized capital gains, and if those estates are exempt from taxation, not even the lower rate of capital gains will be paid. The American working people have to pay day in, day out a substantial portion of their income to Social Security, day in, day out a substantial portion of their income in income taxes, but these people with the estates worth more than $5 million would never, ever pay a penny in taxes. The unrealized capital gains would be rolled over into the estates, the estates would be tax-exempt, all at a cost of $400 billion to the rest of the United States of America, the rest of the taxpayers in this country. This is not fair. It is not fiscally prudent, and the Republican majority should be ashamed of pushing this through at this time of financial crisis. We are looking at a $300 billion deficit this year. The Social Security lock box that they had us vote on seven times, which I voted for seven times, has been busted open and depleted. There is nothing, nothing going into it over the next 10 years, and for the next 10 years after that; if they permanently repeal the estate tax for estates worth more than $5 million, in fact, the Social Security trust fund will continue to be drained. So we will threaten the benefit of 53 million Americans' Social Security benefits to benefit a handful of extraordinarily wealthy families. This is not the America that I know and I love. The estate tax was put in place nearly a century ago by a Republican president because the accumulation of wealth generation to generation was creating extraordinary disparities in our society, and the idea was, well, those people should help carry a little bit more of the burden, but if this becomes law, if they are successful tomorrow, as I suspect they might be, then many of these estates, many of these families will never, ever contribute to the collective burdens of citizenship in the United States, much as many corporations are now setting up phony overseas offices in Bermuda and Luxembourg to avoid paying taxes on overseas or U.S. earnings. We will ultimately, if they are successful, be a country where only wage-earning Americans pay taxes and those that live off the accumulated wealth of their predecessors and the largest corporations will not contribute a penny. This is not right, and my colleagues should vote against this legislation tomorrow for fiscal prudence and for fairness.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, if we are going to extend a Federal tax benefit, if we are going to take the money of the American working people and give it to corporations, should we ask something in return? Just a little something? The answer in this legislation is, no. We should not. Here is the subsidy, do whatever is desired. Let us take a no-brainer here which was knocked out. Should companies that set these new triangular tax scams to avoid both taxes on their overseas production and on their U.S.-based production by doing the Bermuda Triangle, should they be prohibited from receiving this subsidy? That is, they are not paying any taxes any more in the United States of America. They have set up a scam which the wonderful accounting companies have figured out. Should they receive these subsidies? The answer in this report is, yes. There was language in there to prohibit this that was taken out. These companies are not paying any U.S. taxes, but we will give them a subsidy. We hear a lot about small businesses. Yes, a large number of the transactions do involve small businesses. That is true. But the real measure is what percentage of the U.S. taxpayers' dollars in subsidies are going to the small businesses. It is less than 10 percent. So what we are saying here is a large number of transactions and a tiny amount of the money are going to help small businesses, and the largest amount of the money, more than 80 percent, is going to the largest corporations in the world. All Fortune 500. Could we have just a little bit more of a restriction there and a real direction towards small business? This conference report says no. Then we just heard, we have prohibited in this bill a repeat of the Benxi Steel Company. Well, guess what? No, this bill does not prohibit that. The original version might have prohibited it, but the language that has now been adopted in the conference report is so watered down that, indeed, I would challenge either the ranking member or the Chair to stand up and say definitively that the language in this bill would prohibit a repeat of that travesty, U.S. taxpayer money going to fund a corporation in China to steal jobs from United States workers. It will not. Then finally, we can go to the issue of future here. AT&T, they are going to get an $87.6 million loan under the condition of the Chinese Government that they can begin to sell telecommunications products in China. Good news for U.S. workers? Well, it might have been, except that the Chinese Government also said that within 5 years, all of the production for all the equipment sold in China must be based in China. We are going to subsidize that. United States workers, taxpayers, are going to subsidize this. A colleague stood up before me and said this should not be about the measure of where the jobs are, U.S. or overseas, that it does not matter. It matters a hell of a lot to me and the people I represent and to the U.S. taxpayers. Yes, the jobs should be based here in the United States of America.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to continue with my statement against H.R. 4546, the fiscal year 2003 Department of Defense authorization act. In my prior comments, I detailed how some quality- of-life improvements for active duty and retired military personnel that I strongly supported were overshadowed by unnecessary spending on weapons systems like the Crusader artillery system and the Comanche helicopter. Unfortunately, as I mentioned in two previous statements about H.R. 4546, the House Rules Committee blocked any amendments to reform or eliminate unnecessary weapons systems from being considered. Today, I want to talk about another weapons system of dubious value, the F-22 Raptor fighter jet, that was fully funded in H.R. 4546. There is no threat that justifies the pursuit of this fighter jet program. Particularly when the Pentagon is simultaneously pursuing two other new fighter jet programs, the Joint Strike Fighter and the F-18E/F. I offered two amendments on the F-22 that came directly out of the recommendations in a March 2002 GAO report. My first amendment would have reduced the number of low rate initial production aircraft from 23 to 13. My second amendment placed two conditions on the program: requiring a reassessment of the costs, and requiring the Air Force to monitor key manufacturing processes of the private contractors. Neither of these amendments was allowed to be debated by this House. In addition to the GAO, a variety of independent analysts have raised concerns about the F-22. Even the House of Representatives has gone on record expressing concerns. In the House report for the fiscal year 2000 Department of Defense appropriations bill, the Armed Services Committee highlighted a number of concerns about the program including various technical problems, the inability to control rising costs, and the questionable need for the aircraft. The House report even mentioned suitable alternatives to the F-22. The problems highlighted in the House report have only gotten worse. Unfortunately, Congress seems content to bury its collective head in the sand and move forward with procuring F-22s that are too expensive, don't work, and are unnecessary. A March 2002 GAO report identified a number of ongoing problems with the F-22. In summary, GAO found ``The F-22 did not meet key schedule goals for 2001, the cost to complete planned development is likely to exceed the $21 billion reported to Congress, and the program is not far enough along in flight testing to confirm Air Force estimates of the aircraft's performance.'' The problems identified by GAO include: Rising cost concerns: In the FY02 DOD authorization bill, Congress removed the development cost cap. Current estimates are the development costs will be $21 billion. However, that cost is likely to rise because flight testing delays may lead to an extension of the development program, and Lockheed Martin's costs, which are borne by taxpayers, have increased. Over the last two fiscal years, Lockheed's costs have exceeded budgets by $218 million. In addition, restructuring the test schedule increased costs by $557 million. Delays in testing: The Air Force realigned the testing schedule in June 2001 because development test aircraft are taking longer to assemble than anticipated, available test aircraft are not achieving the number of test objectives per flight hour that are specified in the plan, and completion of the test schedule is highly dependent on a single test aircraft rather than the three as originally planned. The Air Force has a goal of ten test points per hour, but the program is only accomplishing seven per hour, 30 percent less than planned. GAO notes, ``avionics testing with development test aircraft has been limited.'' Only around 22 percent of planned avionics test points have been completed. GAO computations show that development flight testing necessary for the planned start of operational testing might not be completed until March 2004, 11 months later than planned. However, the Air Force now plans to overlap development flight testing with operational flight testing. But, GAO wams ``there is an increased risk involved in the concurrency, and there is still a high risk of not completing an adequate amount of development flight testing before operational testing is scheduled to begin.'' The Air Force has also decided to dumb down the testing. GAO notes, ``the Air Force eliminated and consolidated some test points (specific test objectives conducted during flight testing) and deferred other test points . . . as a result, the combined total flight test points remaining have been reduced by approximately 4,708 points, or 31 percent.'' A recent review by the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center concluded there was insufficient testing completed to assess nine of the ten key performance parameters. GAO projects that airframe flight testing will have to continue until February 2008 to accomplish all the remaining 8,199 test points with one aircraft, which is almost four years beyond the current schedule. GAO concludes that the Air Force's cheerleading about the success of the test program is largely overblown. GAO wrote, ``the Air Force's estimates are based on limited flight test data, computer models, ground tests, and analyses. Flight test progress has been slower than expected, thus delaying the confirmation that the F-22 will deliver requirement performance.'' I am also concerned about quality control problems in the F-22 program. According to the GAO, ``The Air Force has estimated that the F-22 should at this point in development be able to complete 1.55 flying hours between maintenance actions . . . However, development aircraft have been completing only .60 flying hours between maintenance.'' GAO also identified problems with the compound that helps make the F- 22 stealthy. GAO noted that even the new formula has been prone to cracking and swelling. The Air Force is also investigating a problem with the aircraft's vertical tails that could impact performance. GAO wams: ``Buying production articles before they can be adequately tested can result in buying systems that require significant, and sometimes costly modifications to achieve satisfactory performance; accepting less capable systems than planned; and deploying substandard systems to combat forces.'' Finally, I am concerned about inadequate oversight of private contractors. In November 2000, when the F-22 program office ceased collecting information on the percentage of key processes in control, the contractor had only 44 percent of its manufacturing processes in control. GAO expressed concem about this lack of oversight. ``During our current review, the F-22 program officials told us that neither they nor the prime contractors track the status of manufacturing processes in control because of the cost involved in tracking these processes. They rely on subcontractors to manage their own manufacturing processes. Hence, the program office may be committing to increased production quantities without knowing the percentage of key manufacturing processes that are in control. Continuing to increase the F-22 aircraft production quantities in low rate production before 100 percent of the key manufacturing processes are under control increases the risk that manufacturing and assembly problems evident with the development test aircraft will carry over into the production program.'' In a strongly worded conclusion, GAO wrote, ``The cost involved in correcting manufacturing and assembly problems would most likely exceed ,he cost of tracking and manufacturing processes.'' My amendments would have addressed the concerns of the GAO and protected taxpayers. Unfortunately, as I mentioned before, the Rules Committee refused to allow a real debate and blocked my amendments from floor consideration.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I think, given the words of the gentleman who preceded me in the well, there is substantial ground for agreement on homeland security, money for the National Guard; our troops, giving them what they need; the Coast Guard needs more funding; aviation security, I was a principal in writing that bill, and it is going to cost billions of dollars; and money for New York City. There was tremendous agreement on the Committee on Appropriations. If that bill were brought to the floor, I would venture to say it would get a two-thirds vote. We would probably do it under suspension of the rules, or maybe better. But that is not what is before us today. That is the problem. This is not an emergency supplemental, it is the early arrival of the Capitol Christmas tree. This bill has been larded down with billions not requested by the President, and extraneous provisions like raising the national debt limit. In other areas, some of particular concern to my constituents, they have shorted the President's request. I will tell the Members what is an emergency to the people of my district. In addition to fighting the war on terrorism and defending our homeland, it is the fact that we have the highest unemployment rate in the United States of America in my district. This bill shorts the President's request of $550 million for national emergency grants under the Work Force Investment Act to provide unemployment training assistance by $250 million. That is going to be shuffled elsewhere. They ignored the President there. That is a real crisis, a real emergency to people in my district. There are other things about this bill that are particularly outrageous: the increase in the debt limit, running up the credit card by spending Social Security trust funds. What happened to the lockbox? That was a Republican invention. We voted on it 7 times in the House. I voted on it each of the 7 times. I supported the idea of a lockbox for Social Security. Where has it gone? They have blown the door off and pulled the money out. This year, in this year's budget, $150 billion of money that should be going in the lockbox, that should be there to pay for future generations of Social Security retirees, is going to be spent and replaced with IOUs with this year's projected $307 billion budget. This merits an airing. This merits a debate on this floor. If we are going to increase the debt of the United States of America by three-quarters of a trillion dollars, if we are going to run $200 billion to $300 billion-a-year deficits as far as the eye can see, half of that money coming out of Social Security, how are we going to pay for the retirement of the baby boom generation? Will they be better off watching the money flow to the most wealthy Americans with the tax cuts, or would they be better off safeguarding their trust fund, paying down some of the national debt, making us more capable of carrying those burdens when that generation retires? That is a debate we should have. Let us have a debate over the policies that are leading to this request that we increase the debt ceiling of the United States by three-quarters of $1 trillion: $750 billion. It is $750 billion, B, billion dollars. That is a lot of money, even here in Washington, D.C. Can Members not have the courage of Ronald Reagan? He jammed through huge tax cuts and big spending increases with similar rosy projections. Two years later, he had the courage to admit he was wrong. In fact, we were running huge and growing deficits, and the tax cuts were too big to support. In fact, he rolled them back, very significantly working with a Democratic House and a Republican Senate. Can Members not have that courage to admit that the $5.6 trillion of rosy scenario, which has now evaporated, which allowed them to put through a tax cut, which is going to absorb about half of that money, that is not here anymore? We are in deficits. Should we borrow money from Social Security to finance tax cuts principally for the wealthiest Americans, or should we safeguard those funds? We could have a wonderful policy debate here on the floor of the House about raising the debt limit, what is leading to it, and what we should do about it. But that is not going to be allowed. That is being rolled into this bill with little bitty sneaky language so it can come back. Let us have a fair debate on that issue. Let us strip out all of the extraneous provisions of this bill. If they will do that, I will vote for it. I will support a unanimous consent request to just deem the bill adopted. Just strip out all the extraneous positions out of this bill, and I believe we could get every Democrat to support a motion similar to that. We support the money that is going in there for the troops, the war on terrorism, the other essentials; but we do not support the Christmas-tree approach that this bill is taking, including avoiding any significant policy discussion about trading off tax cuts for increasing the debt in the United States and raiding the Social Security lockbox.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to continue my remarks about H.R. 4546, the fiscal year 2003 Department of Defense authorization act. In my previous remarks, I criticized the House Rules Committee for blocking all amendments, including five I drafted, that would have allowed the House to debate the wisdom of various weapons systems. I also detailed the rationale for my amendments to eliminate the Crusader artillery system. In my remarks today, I want to discuss another weapons system--the Army's Comanche helicopter--that is behind schedule, over budget, and unable to meet critical performance requirements. In at least eight reports since 1986, the GAO has raised concerns about the Army's effort to develop its next generation light helicopter, now known as the Comanche. Further, the Army itself has recognized problems with the Comanche program, which has been restructured five times since its inception. Previous restructurings have significantly delayed the development schedule, extended the production schedule, and reduced planned quantities. I personally have been raising red flags about the Comanche program since the late 1990s. The first GAO report I requested on the Comanche was released in August 1999. This report identified a number of cost, quality control, and performance concerns about the Comanche program. An updated report I requested from the GAO was released in June 2001. This report concluded that the concerns raised in the August 1999 report had only gotten worse. It is not just the GAO that has raised concerns. The Director of Operational Test and Evaluation has also been critical of the Comanche. I was pleased to see the House Armed Services Committee imposed a few conditions on the Army's Comanche helicopter program in H.R. 4546. One of the conditions, a requirement that the Army reassess the cost and timeline of the Comanche program, is similar to what I proposed in an amendment last year. The other condition, an annual report by the DOD Inspector General, is a useful step in providing for constant, independent oversight of the program. However, I am concerned that the Committee did not go quite far enough in protecting taxpayers from runaway costs for a program GAO and others have consistently identified as failing to meet testing and performance goals. The amendment I offered would have prohibited the Pentagon from awarding contracts for low rate initial production (LRIP) until the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, certified that the testing program has been rigorous enough to determine the program performs as expected in an operational environment, in other words, not just in computer simulation or laboratory tests. The amendment also required that the Comanche achieve key performance standards before contracts for LRIP could be awarded. According to the June 2001 GAO report, a decision on whether to move forward with low rate initial production was expected in June 2005. It is my understanding that in the year since the GAO report, the Comanche program has fallen even further behind schedule, and a LRIP decision now may not occur until 2008. Some might argue that my amendment, therefore, was premature. I would argue that given the repeated mismanagement of the Comanche program, Congress must send the unmistakable message that the program will not advance toward production until timing, cost, quality, and performance concerns are all addressed to our satisfaction. My amendment would have sent that message. Defense contractors push hard to get to LRIP decisions because, once they are over that hump, they know it is nearly impossible to kill the program. That is why Congress needed to signal now that we have no intention of allowing the LRIP decision from being made until we are fully satisfied the Comanche will work as advertised and will be built within reasonable cost and time constraints. I'd like to run down a few of the specific problems with the Comanche. In August 1999, the GAO warned the Comanche faced significant risks of cost overruns, scheduling delays, and degraded performance primarily because the Army decided to (1) begin engineering and manufacturing development before key technologies had matured, (2) compress the flight-testing schedule, which increases concurrency between development and operational testing, and (3) begin initial production before completing operational testing. In its most recent report, issued in June 2001, the GAO noted the problems identified in the August 1999 report have gotten worse. The GAO cites a range of concerns including understated acquisition program cost estimates; ambitious flight test schedules with substantial concurrency in test events; delays in another DOD program, the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), which had been counted on to develop a critical component of the aircraft; inadequate facilities to fully test and integrate system hardware and software; and considerable growth in aircraft weight. The program's total development and production cost estimate has increased by almost $4.8 billion--from $43.3 billion to $48.1 billion. This includes a $75 million increase in development costs and a nearly $4.8 billion increase in production costs. As the GAO notes, these costs are likely to further escalate. DOD's most recent cost estimate for the Comanche was done in April 2000. At that time, DOD's Cost Analysis Improvement Group estimated the Comanche would need an additional $180 million for its engineering and manufacturing development phase. However, this money was not included in the April 2000 baseline. Further, in January 2001, DOD added about $504 million in funding to the Comanche program over the next few years. About $84 million was earmarked for RDT&E, the remaining $420 million was for production. These additional funds have not yet been reflected in the program's official cost estimates. The Comanche program office also maintains a list of unfunded requirements that total $68 million. According to the GAO, ``The program office acknowledges that, unless additional funds are obtained, some yet-to-be-determined program performance requirements could be impacted.'' The Comanche is also missing testing and production targets. The GAO is particularly critical of the Comanche development and testing schedule, in which many crucial events come close together or concurrently in the late stages. The GAO specifically writes, ``We have reported that when development work and low-rate initial production (LRIP) are done concurrently, significant schedule delays that cause cost increases and other problems are not uncommon in early production. Also, production processes are often not able to consistently yield output of high quality when full-rate production begins.'' Before entering the LRIP stage, previous GAO work has shown successful commercial firms already know that (1) technologies match customer requirements; that is, they can fit onto a product and function as expected, (2) the product's design meets performance requirements, and (3) the product can be produced within cost, schedule, and quality targets. According to GAO, ``It is unlikely the Army will have this level of knowledge about Comanche'' by the June 2005 LRIP decision date. Specifically, the GAO notes ``several critical subsystems--to be included in the mission equipment package--may not be available until development flight-testing is well underway. These subsystems are very complex state-of-the-art systems that have not been demonstrated on a helicopter platform like Comanche.'' The GAO goes on to warn ``the Army's schedule for developing and testing software for the Comanche may not be completed prior to the full-rate production decision.'' Failure to correct deficiencies prior to LRIP could lead to costly retrofits and repairs to aircraft already produced. As GAO wrote ``To produce that many aircraft during low-rate initial production, the Army will have to ramp up its production capabilities rapidly and at a time when the aircraft design is still evolving as new subsystems are introduced and test results are evaluated.'' The Comanche is also failing to meet performance requirements. GAO says the Comanche is at risk of not achieving its rate of vertical climb requirement. The Comanche's ability to climb at a rate of 500 feet per minute is a key performance requirement as identified by the DOD itself. The Comanche's weight was a concern in the GAO's August 1999 report. The problem had only gotten worse by the time of the June 2001 report. The Comanche's empty weight had increased by 653 pounds--from 8,822 to 9,475--which threatens the vertical climb requirement. GAO also says the Comanche is unlikely to complete the development and integration of its mission equipment package, which is needed to support a range of important functions including early warning, target acquisition, piloting, navigation, and communications. GAO also warns the program is not successfully completing development of the system for detecting equipment problems. A critical component of the Comanche is its on-board fault detection system that can rapidly and accurately provide information about equipment problems. Without this system, the cost of maintaining the aircraft would increase. According to the Army, this system needs to be 75 to 95 percent accurate--75 percent for mechanical and electrical equipment and 95 percent for avionics and electronics equipment. However, the Comanche program office has concluded this requirement will be difficult to achieve within the current cost, weight, and packaging constraints and does not expect to achieve a mature fault detection and fault isolation capability until two years after initial fielding. Finally, the GAO warns the Comanche is failing to achieve the ``beyond-line-of-sight'' communications capability needed to perform its mission. Satellite communications are essential to this reconnaissance capability. The Army was planning to rely on satellite communication technology that was being developed and miniaturized as part of the Joint Strike Fighter program. However, the JSF has been delayed. The Comanche program office now believes it must develop its own satellite communication technology. GAO warns the development schedule ``remains high-risk for the timely inclusion of this capability on the initially fielded Comanche helicopters.'' Finally, the Pentagon's Director of Operational Test and Evaluation raised significant concerns about the Comanche in a 2000 report. Among the criticisms, the report said: ``It is highly unlikely that the Service can deliver the expected system performance within the current budget and schedule. Lacking an operational assessment of an integrated system, it is difficult to predict with any degree of confidence whether the individual subsystems can be successfully integrated, whether the subsystems will function properly in an operational environment, or whether, in concert, they will provide the anticipated benefits in operational performance.'' ``DOT&E's assessment of the Comanche's weight projections found several questionable areas, including overly optimistic expected weight reductions and questionable estimates of future weight growth.'' ``Overall, the Comanche has a risky test and evaluation strategy for integrating the MEP (mission equipment package) on the aircraft ... The resulting schedule compression allows little reserve in the timetable, thereby increasing the impact of unforeseen events/delays.'' As the aforementioned warnings I've outlined from the GAO and the Pentagon's own Director of Operational Test and Evaluation make clear, Congress should not continue to pour money into the Comanche without regard to results. Unfortunately, H.R. 4546 continues to sink billions of taxpayer dollars into weapons system of dubious utility and questionable performance.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, today the United States House of Representatives will take up legislation to accelerate and phase in relief from the marriage penalty. This is meritorious legislation, which I intend to support. The House was supposed to take up this legislation last Thursday. Strangely enough, it was postponed until today. The reason it was postponed until today was so it could be brought up under an extraordinary procedure which does not allow amendments because the Republican leadership feared the Democratic amendment to that bill. Mr. Speaker, we wanted to close a huge new corporate loophole which has been discovered by people who make Arthur Andersen and Enron look kind of honest. Major U.S. corporations have found, and they have known for years, that they can go to Bermuda and avoid taxes on their overseas earnings. Now they have found if they do a new Bermuda triangle, they can avoid all taxes in the United States of America while living here, being protected by our military and firefighters and police, but not pay one penny in Federal income taxes. This is a great country. This, of course, has the support of the administration, quietly. They are quick to accuse people of being unpatriotic, and God forbid they accuse corporations of being unpatriotic for failing to contribute their fair share and going under a flag of convenience and making a phony move offshore to avoid paying taxes in this time of crisis. This is extraordinary to me. Mr. Krugman explained it very well in the New York City Times. ``By incorporating itself in Bermuda, a U.S.-based corporation can, without moving its headquarters or anything else, shelter its overseas profits from taxation. Better yet, the company can then establish `legal residence' in a low-tax jurisdiction like Barbados, and arrange things so that its U.S. operations are mysteriously unprofitable, while the mail drop in Barbados earns money hand over fist.'' And, it is exempt from any tax anywhere in the world. That is just great. That is what Secretary O'Neill calls competition. I call it tax evasion, skulduggery, and unpatriotic; and the Republican leadership should be ashamed that they are not willing to vote about keeping this loophole open. If that is what they feel, allow us to offer our amendment and vote in favor of this tax loophole. Admit that they have thrown in with Secretary O'Neill who says corporations should not pay any taxes in the United States of America. Yes, that is true. The Secretary of the Treasury, appointed by George Bush, says that corporations should pay no taxes in this country, that working people should pay all of the taxes, a shift that has been going on over 30 years, where 30 years ago corporations paid one-quarter of the taxes in this country. Today it is down to a little less than 10 percent. He says that is too much. The American people should carry that burden, not corporations. People say they have stockholders and they will do well. Under this new scam with Stanley Works, the company that is most known for this recently, actually the stockholders are going to have to pay taxes when the company makes its fake move to Barbados, but the CEO is going to get 58 percent of the tax savings. So over 8 years, the CEO could potentially profit by $385 million with his stock options, one individual, while the stockholders pay more in taxes, while the U.S. Government was deprived of $240 million in taxes. If they had just cut his stock options and salaries down to $140 million, they could have paid their taxes to the United States of America. Of course, he would have had to scrimp by on $140 million over the next 8 years. Pretty tough to make ends meet in Connecticut on $140 million over 8 years. I know the cost of living is way up. This is just an absolute new low both for this body, this administration, and such an unbelievable fraud on the American people. This practice must be brought to a screeching halt. In a time of deficit and crisis, for a profitable U.S. corporation to make fake moves overseas to avoid their patriotic obligation to pay taxes is, I believe, akin to treason.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, on April 15, not that long ago, more than 88 million Americans dutifully filed their individual income taxes. But now we find out that a growing number of United States corporations have developed a new tax dodge, a new sort of Bermuda Triangle to disappear their tax obligations to the Federal Government and the United States of America. That is not too surprising, given the attitude of the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. O'Neill. He said that absolutely he backs the abolition of taxes on corporations. ``The clear economic truth is that businesses and corporations don't pay taxes, they just collect them for the government,'' he told the Financial Times. He is part right. Many corporations do not pay taxes anymore. The burden is growing on individual Americans. Thirty years ago when our corporations were the envy of the world and we were the manufacturing capital of the world, 25 percent of the taxes of the United States were paid by corporations. Today, it is less than 10. Of course, most of our manufacturing has fled overseas and now those companies that have remained here are hoping to move their tax obligations offshore to places where they do not pay taxes. They say, as Stanley Works did in defending this practice when they held a recent vote of stockholders, it is all about the stockholders. From today's New York Times, it is not about the stockholders. It is about the CEOs. It is all about the CEOs. According to the New York Times, the CEO of Stanley Works will get 58 percent of the $30 million they expect to not pay in Federal income taxes by moving the corporation to Barbados and Bermuda. So we screw the American taxpayers. We screw the stockholders, too, because they are going to have to pay capital gains taxes. But the gentleman who runs the company will get a huge bonus. He might still have to pay some U.S. income taxes, but he probably has some smart accountants who will figure out how he can get around that, too. What is the reaction of the United States Congress to this scandal? We had hoped here in the United States House of Representatives, the people's House, that there would be some outrage about this shift of taxes from large, profitable corporations and their CEOs on to individual Americans and small businesses. But instead, on the Republican side, the reaction is protect these tax dodges at any cost. We were going to take up a bill on the marriage penalty, which is a real problem for American families. But on the Democratic side we were going to offer an amendment, an amendment to close this tax loophole, to break up the new Bermuda Triangle, to not allow companies that are based in, manufacture in, employ people in the United States of America to pretend that they are in Barbados and pretend that they are in Bermuda in order to avoid their tax obligations. It should not be very controversial, should it? This is a time, as we heard so eloquently from the gentleman before me, of great threat to our Nation where people should not be asking questions about who knew what, when, where and how. But this is something we know, and we should be asking, why should we allow these corporations to avoid their tax obligations? Why should they not join in the great patriotic need to raise funds to fight the threat of terrorism? Why should they enjoy all the privileges of American citizenship and pay not a whit for it? But the reaction of the House leadership was to cancel the consideration of the marriage penalty on another day as a regular bill and bring it up instead as a suspension tomorrow with no amendments allowed. God forbid that the United States House of Representatives should break up this little scam. I mean, after all, this CEO of Stanley Works will probably send a good part of his little take there, his $17.8 million to one of their fund-raisers in gratitude, maybe 10 percent, maybe 20. Who knows what the share will be. This is absolutely outrageous. The American people are paying their taxes. The country is under attack. We are in a huge deficit. We are spending the Social Security trust fund. The lockbox for Social Security is long gone. We are piling up a huge and growing deficit. We have enough controversy over the proposals by the Republicans to make permanent the tax cuts for the largest estates and the wealthiest Americans, but to allow this outrage, companies based in the United States of America, in all reality, to rent a post office box in Bermuda and a filing cabinet in Barbados and pretend they are not U.S. corporations anymore and not pay any taxes. I am ashamed of the Republican leadership.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, over the next few days, I will be taking time to comment on legislation recently approved by the House of Representatives, H.R. 4546, the fiscal year 2003 National Defense Authorization Act. I voted against this legislation because it perpetuates the misguided spending priorities and lack of accountability that is ingrained at the Pentagon. In my upcoming series of floor statements, I will be outlining some of the reasons I opposed this bill. I will also be describing several common sense amendments I drafted to H.R. 4546 that were blocked from consideration on the floor by the House Rules Committee. Before I get into some of specific reasons why I opposed this bill, I wanted to mention a few of the provisions I felt are worthwhile. I am pleased H.R. 4546 continues the effort begun a few years ago to improve the pay and benefits for our men and women in uniform. This legislation includes a 4.1 percent pay raise, with other targeted raises of 6.5 percent for mid-grade and senior noncommissioned officers and mid-grade officers. The bill also reduces out-of-pocket housing costs for military personnel by increasing housing allowances to cover 92.5 percent of all housing costs. The ultimate goal is to eliminate out-of-pocket expenses by 2005. The bill extends the practice of authorizing special pay and bonus incentives for key personnel. These incentives will also be extended to National Guard and Reserve members. H.R. 4546 also includes long overdue provisions to assist military retirees. For example, for individuals with a disability rating of at least 60 percent, the bill would eliminate the requirement that retirement pay be reduced by an amount equal to any disability compensation received through the Department of Veterans Affairs. Congress should now work toward repealing the disability compensation offset for all veterans. Important enhancements to TRICARE were also included in the bill. I was pleased these quality-of-life improvements for active duty and retired personnel were proposed. I have consistently worked throughout my congressional career to ensure our military men and women are not forgotten in military budget debates. After all, having adequately compensated, fed, and trained troops is arguably more important to our national security than gold-plated weapons systems. Unfortunately, these worthy provisions were heavily outweighed by the many problems in the rest of the bill. The problems with the bill include the gag rule under which it was brought to the floor. There were more than 80 amendments submitted to the Rules Committee for the defense authorization bill. Only 25 were allowed on the House floor. Of those 25, around half were noncontroversial amendments that were eventually rolled into a manager's amendment. What would be the harm in providing 10 minutes of debate on all of the amendments submitted to the Rules Committee? That would allow approximately six amendments to be debated per hour, which would mean it would take 2-3 days to finish the bill, assuming we actually would work a full day. Is that really too much to ask--that we should have 2- 3 days to debate Pentagon spending which, after all, accounts for $1 of every $2 available to Congress for discretionary spending? This House used to debate the defense authorization bill for a week or more at a time. Apparently, the Rules Committee believes that Congress doesn't have the right to debate Pentagon priorities during a time of war. Stifling debate does a disservice to the American people and does not constitute national security readiness for our country. Under the gag rule on H.R. 4546, Congress was authorizing $833 million in spending for the Pentagon for every minute of debate. It was an expensive debate, but not an extensive debate. So what type of issues did the Rules Committee and the House Republican leadership believe the American people did not deserve to have a debate about? I offered five amendments questioning the merits of weapons systems like the Crusader artillery system, the Comanche helicopter, and the F- 22 fighter jet. I also offered an important amendment with Representative Ron Paul to reinforce Congress' constitutional prerogatives relating to war. The Rules Committee blocked all of these amendments from even being debated on the House floor. Since the Rules Committee wouldn't allow a debate during floor consideration of the bill, over the next several days, I will take time on the House floor to explain my amendments and why the House should have adopted them. Two of my amendments were offered on behalf of Secretary Rumsfeld to help him carry out his stated intention of terminating the unjustifiable $11 billion Crusader artillery system. Even President Bush has lambasted the program. During the campaign, when asked for an example of a wasteful Pentagon program that would be sacrificed in the name of military transformation, he said, ``I'll give you an example--the Crusader Howitzer program. It looks like it's too heavy, it's not lethal enough.'' Even soldiers on the front line know the Crusader is a turkey. I recently met the father of an Army artillery soldier. I asked him what his son thought of the Crusader. He said his son considered it ``a joke.'' Despite universal support among independent military analysts as varied as the CATO Institute, the Center for Defense Information, and the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments for terminating the Crusader, some powerful Members of Congress have decided that they know best and included nearly half a billion dollars for the Crusader in H.R. 4546 as well as report language prohibiting the cancellation of this ridiculous program. My amendments sought to overturn this misguided effort to keep the Crusader program. One of my amendments would have cut the $475.2 million from the Army's research, development, test and evaluation account that was provided by the House Armed Services Committee for the Crusader. My other Crusader-related amendment would have prohibited the funds in H.R. 4546 from being spent on the Crusader program until the Secretary of Defense submitted a report to Congress certifying his continued support for the program as well as an analysis of a number of problematic aspects of the Crusader program. Proponents of the Crusader claim it is faster and can fire farther than the system it's replacing, the Paladin. The Army even faxed talking points to some select members of the House Armed Services Committee with the disingenuous, outrageous claim that U.S. soldiers would be killed if the Crusader program was cancelled. The Crusader is essentially a computer simulation. I think there have been a few laboratory tests. But, make no mistake, the Crusader essentially doesn't exist. It's still on the drawing board. It's not scheduled for deployment until 2008. For the Army to make the claim that terminating the continued development of a computer simulated artillery system threatens the lives of U.S. soldiers is pathetic and misleading, to say the least. So, what's wrong with the Crusader? In short, everything. Let's start with the mission. Planning for the Crusader began after the Gulf War when the Army discovered the Paladin system had trouble keeping up with our tanks and fighting vehicles. But, the Crusader's mission--blowing holes in massive lines of approaching soldiers--is irrelevant to the real world threats we face. The Soviet Union doesn't exist. There are not going to be lines of communist troops marching across the plains of Europe. Further, in Kosovo and Afghanistan, the two largest post-Gulf War military engagements, it became clear that aircraft with smart bombs and, in Afghanistan, on-the-ground human spotters, can effectively take out enemy positions just as effectively as any artillery system. In fact, probably more effectively since the Crusader would likely have trouble negotiating tough terrain like that found in Afghanistan. Besides, the Army is already developing the Future Combat Systems (FCS), a portion of which has the same artillery mission and deployment date--2008--as the Crusader. So, as the Crusader is being deployed, it is immediately made obsolete by its more high-tech successor, the FCS. The Crusader also has a number of technical problems. A June 1997 GAO report found the cannon cannot fire if the automated loading system fails. There is no manual backup system. The automation of the Crusader has been one of its key selling points because it would allow troops to remain under the protection of armor. But, as GAO has noted, if the automated system fails, the crew will be forced to resupply the vehicle by a ``time consuming hand process, making them more vulnerable to counterfire.'' Another key selling feature--the Crusader's theoretical rapid rate of fire--would drop dramatically if the cooling system fails. A lot has also been written about the weight of the Crusader. While the weight has been reduced from 60 tons to about 40 tons, as GAO reported in February 2002, ``the deployability advantage gained does not appear significant.'' GAO also warns that development is not done and the weight could again increase. Not exactly the faster, more mobile force the Pentagon says it wants. At its current weight and size, the only possible way to load two Crusaders onto a single C-17 is back to back. But, that only leaves mere inches of room, not enough space to properly restrain them with heavy chains. There is also some concern on how the Army has reduced the weight. The Army reduced the size and payload of the system. The Army also plans to remove the heavy armor and road wheel protection and turn them into kits that can be applied when needed in combat situations. Weight reduction by removing armor is probably not much comfort to the soldiers. There have also been development problems. For example, the cost of the Crusader program has increased by $1.5 billion. Testing to date has been restricted to modeling and simulation, hardly sufficient to determine if the Crusader can operate in real- world operational environments. As GAO noted in its February, 2002 report, many critical Crusader technologies are not sufficiently mature to start product development. GAO wrote, ``If, after starting product development, the Crusader technologies do not mature on schedule and instead cause delays, the Army may spend more and take longer to develop, produce and field the Crusader system. Crusader performance goals may be at risk.'' GAO also wrote, ``Confining delays in maturing technology to a time prior to the start of product development . . . is critical to saving time and money . . . a delay during product development costs several times more than a similar delay that occurs before product development.'' Despite all of these problems, and Secretary Rumsfeld's stated intention to kill the program, Congress fully funded the Crusader program in H.R. 4546. The conference committee that will be created to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions of the DOD authorization bill should kill the Crusader program. If they don't, and if money is included in the upcoming DOD appropriations bill for the Crusader, I will do my best to eliminate its funding. The Crusader is not necessary for our national security. Rather, it is a corporate welfare boondoggle for a well-connected defense firm.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, according to the GAO and Secretary Rumsfeld, the Pentagon cannot account for $1 trillion, T-trillion, of expenditure and acquisition costs over the last decade, a bookkeeping shambles that makes Arthur Andersen and Enron look somewhat respectable. So what is the response in this United States House of Representatives, the people's House, in considering this bill for 1 year, $43 billion increase for a budget that will total more than $400 billion? Hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil. No amendment to question any Pentagon program, no matter how behind schedule, overbudget or unneeded, will be allowed. It is an expensive debate, $833 million a minute, but not extensive in examining the priorities, waste and abuse at the Pentagon. I hoped to offer a number of amendments for troubled programs, particularly one on the $12 billion Cold War-era artillery system Crusader that Secretary Rumsfeld says is not needed and he wants to kill, but it will not be allowed nor will an amendment on the F-22, the Comanche. Stifling debate does not constitute national security readiness for this country. I believe it does a disservice to the people in uniform, those who go without necessities while we put on pedestals gold-plated turkeys.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. When Yasir Arafat walked away from the peace agreement so painfully negotiated with President Clinton and Prime Minister Barak, he was recklessly irresponsible and not a leader in the interest of peace. He provided the fuel for the current endless, downward spiral of violence. But when Ariel Sharon engaged in provocative foray to the Temple Mount to foster his political ambitions, he provided the spark that ignited the fuel of Arafat and the current violence. And his actions since then have only fanned the flames. These are not men who will lead to peace, neither of them. The United States must stand tall as a powerful and honest broker of a balanced plan for peace. I believe that President Bush and Secretary of State Powell have made a strong and credible effort to bring an end to the violence and to begin a negotiated peace. They have offered a balanced plan. I have offered a resolution which mirrors their balanced plan. It will not be considered. It is not allowed to be debated. It will not be voted upon as an alternative. We only have this one resolution before us, which is totally slanted and biased and will only encourage more irresponsibility by Ariel Sharon. I thought there was one thing that might turn the tide in this struggle, and it was a horrible tragedy in the end of March. Look at these two young women. They look like sisters. One, Ayat al-Akhras, 18, was a suicide bomber who killed Rachel Levy at the grocery store, age 17. I thought that both sides would be so appalled by this unbelievable tragedy and see the hopelessness of this that they might turn toward peace. But, no, that has not happened there. Let that happen here, in the home of democracy and peace. Let us not have the United States Congress somewhere to the right of the Likud in Israel. Let us have the United States Congress stand up for the American people, for peace and democracy in the Middle East. And this resolution that we are being forced to vote on today will not lead us in that direction.