Tom DeLay

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, the Republican Party stands for lower taxes, and that is not news. The Democrat Party stands for higher taxes, and that is not news either. What is news is that we have yet another Democrat who has had the courage to say out loud what liberal Democrats believe with great conviction to the depths of their souls. Just last week, one liberal Democrat, proud to call herself a liberal and a leader of the party of big government, said point blank, ``The fact is that Democrats are not for tax cuts.'' Let us all listen to that again, because I find her candor quite refreshing: ``The fact is that Democrats are not for tax cuts.'' Now, I am sure that the White House spin machine could probably take that statement and show how we are all just cretins for thinking that these words mean what they say. But I am afraid most Americans understand exactly what these words mean without the benefit of the White House spin doctors. How far the Democrat Party has come from the days of Andrew Jackson. Mr. Speaker, I tremble at the thought that the Democrat Party will practice what it preaches.

Mr. DELAY

Mr. DELAY. Mr. Speaker, as the President travels the continent of Africa, he has made a whole lot of promises. For example, earlier this week he promised to send taxpayers' money to Uganda to help them wire their schools for the Internet. We have schools right here in the District of Columbia with roofs that leak, and the President has promised money for the school districts of Uganda. You would think that Bill Clinton is running for the President of Uganda. But I doubt that the people of Uganda would support the President's agenda of higher taxes and more Washington spending. I wonder if this is just another version of executive privilege. Mr. Speaker, I hope the President returns soon. The way he is making promises in Africa, we can all kiss that surplus good-bye.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman for his remarks, and I think this is a wonderful day for the House of Representatives in reflecting this vote.

Mr. DeLAY. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this vote, and I appreciate the work of the chairman of the Committee on International Relations, and I appreciate all the hard work that has been put into this bill. Our Members are very appreciative of all of the cooperation of all of the Members on the floor. We think this is an excellent bill, and we want to give credit where credit is due to the Members of the House, and particularly the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary. The chairman of the Committee on International Relations has done a great service for this House, and the gentleman is to be commended for a bill that is consolidating the State Department and bringing some very needed reforms.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to address the House for 1 minute.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. I really appreciate the statement that the gentleman from Arizona makes, Mr. Chairman, and I too rise in support of this legislation and, frankly, in opposition to this gutting amendment. And I appreciate the gentleman standing against this amendment. I am just amazed at the liberal opposition to this legislation. It must represent a really a low point. It must really represent a low point in their anti-small business efforts; now we understand the real motives of the far left. The liberals are in favor of more paperwork, they want more work for government. Mr. Chairman, it seems to me that the liberals are in favor of more paperwork, they want more work for government bureaucrats, they want more profits to be wasted on redundant forms and silly Federal regulations and requirements. I got to tell my colleagues, Karl Marx must be turning over in his grave. Is this the once proud left wing, is this all they have to fight over? I too oppose this gutting amendment, Mr. Chairman, and support this commonsense legislation. I just think we ought to give small businesses a break today.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, according to press reports, the President has invoked executive privilege to avoid explaining some of his actions in the White House. And for the record, neither George Bush nor Ronald Reagan ever invoked executive privilege during their tenure in the White House. If the President is allowed to use executive privilege regarding current events, I can only wonder what other ways would he use executive privilege. Would he cite executive privilege to avoid explaining his plans to spend the surplus? When people ask him his real thoughts about cutting taxes, will he simply say executive privilege? And when it comes to his opposition to education savings accounts, the President could cite executive privilege. It is better than admitting he is a pawn of the teachers' unions. Mr. Speaker I urge the President to rethink his use of executive privilege. It sets a terrible precedent.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, the President's own spokesman has said that he does not want to know the truth about this entire affair. He has also said that the truth may be very complicated, as it so often is with the President. But while the President's spokesman may not want to know the truth, the American public deserves to hear it. The President's silence is a grave disservice to the American people who elected him. Twice a plurality of voters elected Bill Clinton to lead this country. Twice they put their faith in him to do the people's work. Well, Mr. Speaker, a Presidency enveloped in scandal is good for nobody, and the faith that the American people have put in President Clinton has been violated time and time again. I sometimes hear that none of this has any relevance to public policy. The President's defenders point to the polls that show high job approval ratings. While this may be an appropriate defense for an administration guided by polls rather than principles, it fails to even scratch the surface of the true implications of this affair. For most of this Nation's history, the American people have held a very high standard of conduct for the President of the United States. The reverence with which they held this office of the Presidency dictated this higher standard. Now it seems that the loftiness of the office is an excuse for a lower standard. He is the President. We should give him the benefit of the doubt. As long as the economy performs well, it does not matter how a President acts, or so the thinking goes. Well, I disagree with that thinking. One should not be able to get away with more simply because of the office that he holds. The leader of the free world should be held to a higher standard, not a lower one. After all, the eyes of our Nation and of the world are constantly upon him. Mr. Speaker, poll numbers are fleeting, but the tarnishing of the highest office in the land has permanent consequences, and as for the character and morality of our leaders, I do not see it as my duty as a Congressman to give frequent lectures on this subject. We are legislators, we are not preachers. And all of us are flawed. We have all made mistakes. But there comes a point when remaining silent becomes a breach of responsibility. I cannot remain silent any longer. To do so would be to forsake my duty as an elected voice of the people. I am a representative of the people, and it is on their behalf that I implore the President to come forward with the truth. The charges against the President of the United States are very serious, and that is why Congress may have to act on them. Aiding in his defense, the President is said to have the best political tacticians and consultants in the business. We see and hear from these consultants very often. They miss no opportunity to malign the motives of the independent counsel or belittle the investigation, or send forth into the airwaves any number of legalistic evations and desperate semantic stonewalls. Ken Starr is just doing his job. The independent counsel is doing the job that the Attorney General of the United States and a three-judge panel has asked him to do. Yet, if we look at the charges made against him, one would think he was the devil incarnate. It is always the same with these people. The spin, the whole spin, and nothing but the spin. Are these the best political minds in the business? I am not so sure about that. They certainly know how to buy time, but that only works for just so long. They may be able to obscure the truth for a while, but they cannot change it. Their act is wearing very thin with the American people. It only aggravates the offenses and postpones the day of truth-telling. I cannot think of a better way to bring on formal congressional proceedings than to go on hindering, obstructing and belittleing the judicial proceedings that are now under way. Now, if that is the current White House strategy, then they will not be first to discover that deceit is one offense our forgiving public will not abide. We Republicans know something about this from our party's bitter experience just a generation ago. There is no more fragile construct than a stone wall. In any scandal, the shortest route to safety is always the truth. It is worth recalling that many of these same people 6 years ago promised, and I quote, ``the most ethical administration in history.'' The troubling thing is that they still believe it. Six years and who knows how many scandals later, their moral self-assurance seems undiminished. Where does this self-assurance come from? It seems to arise from a profound understanding of everybody's misdeeds except their own. No administration has ever been more demonstrative in acknowledging our national sins past and present than this one. This is the same President who has so touchingly apologized for the sins of racism, the sins of discrimination, the sins committed during World War II against Japanese-Americans, and so on through our entire checkered social history. How easy admissions come when the wrongdoing is someone else's. How repentant they are when the guilt is broad and general and national and universal. But now the question is one of personal wrongdoing. A strange silence has fallen over the White House. Mr. Speaker, at the heart of this investigation are some very, very serious questions, and a shrug is not an answer. The response that these are personal traits that the public was well aware of when it elected him, that times are good, and people just do not care, and so on, likewise, rings very hollow to me. We have heard this line many times from the commentators. I must say it absolutely amazes me. It is not very flattering, no matter how you look at it. Surely it marks the first time a President's integrity has ever been defended on the grounds that our expectations were low to begin with. I do not for 1 minute buy into the argument that the public does not care about integrity, because, like most of us, the public is clearly bewildered by all of this. I suppose you can add to that a certain public fascination with this spectacle. But we have an administration that often seems to defy so many of life's rules: honesty is the best policy; character is destiny; whatsoever a man soweth, so shall he reap. We all grow up believing these rules were firm and inflexible. Yet, somehow this White House seems to have found a loophole in each one of them. They shy from the truth. They attack the character of others as if to divert attention from their own. They sow shame and scandal. Up till now, it seems to be working. But all of this can only work for just so long. In politics, as in life, you cannot stave off the consequences forever. My money is still on the old saying that honesty is the best policy. Where simple honesty is concerned, there is no such thing as executive privilege. Sooner or later, straight answers will have to come out. The longer the White House waits, the greater the harm to themselves and to their bond of trust with the American people. The sooner we hear the truth, the sooner they will regain public trust and respect. Let me repeat that, Mr. Speaker, not mere approval or popularity but trust and respect. Leaders do not live by polls alone. Without trust and respect, they are nothing, and any title they hold is a mockery. On his way to Washington for the 1993 inauguration, the President- elect, Bill Clinton, made a stop at Monticello to pay homage to Thomas Jefferson. It was Jefferson who offered, perhaps, the most prophetic comment of the next 6 years of this presidency. No man will ever bring out of the presidency the reputation which carries him into it. Something is amiss when a president receives almost as many bills from his lawyers as from Congress. The judicial proceedings will run their course regardless of this White House stonewalling. But if the President would just tell the truth to the American people, it would go a long, long way toward bringing this ordeal to an end. The truth, the truth is the only thing now that can preserve the dignity of the presidency. That is what it is it all comes down to, Mr. Speaker, is the truth. The Independent Counsel must pursue it. Congress must expect it. The public must hear it. The President must tell it. Then, finally, we can put this sad chapter behind us and move on.

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, not far away in a United States Federal courthouse, a grand jury may hold in its hands the fate of our President. Now, how it will end is anyone's guess. At this moment, fair-minded people are suspending judgment. All we can say for sure is that the Presidency seems diminished by it. Republican and Democrat alike, we will all be happy to have this spectacle behind us, because for weeks I have withheld comment on the charges leveled at the President. I thought it only fair that he be given the chance to explain himself to the American people without any rush to judgment on our part. These are, after all, serious charges, and premature condemnations of the President would not be fair to him or to the public. So I waited for the President to speak out, and I waited, and I waited, and I waited. But with each passing day, the silence emanating from within the White House grows evermore deafening. It is a silence broken only by the sound of character attacks launched at the President's accusers. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I have checked the speech with the Parliamentarian and have gotten clearance from the Parliamentarian for this speech.

Mr. DeLAY

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

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, if the President offers you anything, you better turn and run. What is the President afraid of? Why does he keep hiding from the truth? Last year Bill Clinton threatened to veto the historic balanced budget agreement because it contained a provision establishing a tax-free savings account for education. This year he has maintained his steadfast opposition to this common-sense proposal. Why? Because he is afraid of the Nation's powerful teachers unions. This proposal will help millions of middle-class families save for the education of their children. It will give parents more power to make the right education choices for their kids. Mr. Speaker, the President should stop hiding from the truth and drop his opposition of tax-free education savings accounts. It is a smart way to improve education in America.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. I thank the distinguished majority leader, Mr. Speaker, and I appreciate the gentleman for bringing this special order that I think is so important, particularly in the beginning of this session of Congress. I really appreciate the presentation done by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts). For all of those in the Nation today that are talking about the fact that character does not matter or that what one does in their private life has no affect on their public life, I hope they will go back either to the Internet or to their library and pick up tomorrow's Congressional Record and read the presentation by the gentleman from Pennsylvania, because he so eloquently points out the foundation of values to our country and their importance. I really appreciate this opportunity to join my colleagues and the majority leader this evening in this very, very important discussion. And as we are talking, a friend of the majority leader's and mine is somewhere in the Capitol leading a tour of this Capitol, a gentleman that is vice president of the Texas Republican Party and a fellow by the name of David Barton, who is the symbol of values, particularly Texas values, that represents what we are trying to say here tonight. We are very appreciative to have him here. I have been asked to discuss with the American people, Mr. Speaker, our legislative agenda and how it reinforces our family values. But we have to first ask the question what are family values? And according to the dictionary, the definition of a value is something intrinsically valuable and desirable. Now, most Americans believe that a strong family structure is intrinsically valuable and desirable. This is not a new belief. Indeed, an ancient philosopher once said, the root of the state is in the family. And likewise, the root of the United States lies in the families of the United States. But for too long the family structure has been under attack. It has been under attack from many different quarters. Today's culture all too often designates the family as the building block of our civilization. As the gentleman from Pennsylvania points out, divorce rates continue to climb in this country. Child abuse and neglect has become a national epidemic in this country. Drug abuse tears families apart. And the government has become, in many ways, an unwitting accomplice in the process. The government continues to take more money from middle-class families in the form of taxes and regulations. If we add up local, State and Federal taxes and the cost of regulations, today the average American family is forced to fork over more than 50 percent of its income to the government. That means 50 cents out of every dollar that a family makes today goes to the government. No wonder it takes one parent to work for the government while another parent works for the family. This puts additional pressure on a two-parent family, and all too often one parent is forced to work to pay off the government while the other works to support the family. That money pays for two unnecessary things: One is a bloated Washington bureaucracy, and the other is a misguided welfare state that creates a culture of dependency that quite often undermines the family structure in many of our most fragile communities. We have taken the first step to reverse this process. In the last Congress we reformed the welfare state to give families a hand up rather than a handout. And that welfare law has been a great success. In fact, there are fewer people on welfare today than there were in 1970, and I think that is quite an accomplishment. But we must not rest. We are committed as a majority in this House to creating conditions that support strong family structures in all our communities. Our legislative agenda has five components: First, we want to reduce the government burdens put on our families; and we want to eliminate things like the marriage penalty in our Tax Code. Our Tax Code actually has an incentive for divorce. I just feel that that is so ridiculous, and we are going to change it. Our current labor laws also make it difficult for workers to substitute vacation hours for additional pay. If a mother or father wants to spend more time with their children in lieu of cash, that should be their choice, not the choice of some Federal Government. We want to give more choices to parents for child care. We want seniors to have more choices for their retirement security. Giving families more choices and ending government policies that take away those choices is a very critical part of our family-friendly agenda. A second pillar of this agenda comes with our efforts to improve education. Some of our Nation's public schools are getting better and better every day, but many others are getting worse. Parents need to have that option to send their kids to good schools. Good schools are accountable to parents. They maintain discipline. They use their resources wisely. Providing parents with school choice and making those schools face competition are innovative ways to improve education in this Nation. The majority leader, who is standing here, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey), has been a vocal proponent of a D.C. scholarship program that will give parents more choices in this beleaguered school system in Washington, D.C. Now the President has an opportunity by signing this legislation to help at least 2,000 underprivileged kids in the D.C. area to have access to a better education. Making certain that more dollars go to the classroom rather than to Washington education bureaucracy is another important way we can improve education. My colleague, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts), has introduced a bill that does just that. Under committee consideration right now, the Dollars to the Classroom Act block grants 30 Federal education programs and requires that at least 95 percent of those funds go straight to the place that they are needed most, at the kids in the classroom. We will also be working on providing middle-class parents with a tax- free education IRA. This will give parents the ability to save for their kids' grammar school and secondary school education. I think these are fitting ways to show our commitment to an improved education. A third pillar of our family-friendly agenda involves the war on drugs. Congressman Denny Hastert from Illinois, working with Congressman Rob Portman of Ohio and other Members in our conference, has designed a strategy to put some teeth in our war on drugs. We must not lose another generation to violence and drugs. We need aggressive enforcement of our drug laws, we need better interdiction at our borders, and we should build on the innovative efforts of faith-based programs that have been successful in ending drug addiction. Protecting the sanctity of life is the fourth pillar of our pro- family agenda. The President vetoed legislation that outlawed the barbaric partial birth abortion procedure. That was a shame. Because, as Senator Moynihan from New York put it, this procedure is very close to infanticide. We will work to override that veto this year, later on this year. The culture of death that surrounds partial-birth abortion and assisted-suicide laws must be stopped. We should also stop government funding for groups that promote abortions abroad, and we should be exporting policies that celebrate life, not policies that promote death. The final pillar of this values-based agenda comes with protecting people of faith in America and across the world. All too often people of faith are oppressed and condemned rather than respected and welcomed. One example, of course, is in China. They have persecuted Christians, they have torn down churches, and they have imprisoned peace-loving pastors who only want to promote the gospel. We should continue to put pressure on the Chinese and other governments that practice religious persecution to allow more religious freedom. We should also end policies in America that unfairly discriminate against people of faith. The courts have changed our Constitution by distorting the original intent of the First Amendment. The First Amendment to the Constitution says, and I quote, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. There is no separation of church and state in that statement. That does not mean that the Founding Fathers wanted us to ignore God or to forbid our children to pray. We believe that children should be allowed to pray in our schools. We should talk about the moral basis of our Government. We should be allowed to post the Ten Commandments in Federal buildings. Moses looks down on this Chamber every day. Right over that door, I am looking at the face of Moses; and he gazes down at the Speaker's chair. We open each of our sessions with a prayer to God. We should not allow the judicial branch to stamp out religious expression in other areas of the government. My colleague the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook) has introduced a religious freedom amendment that reestablishes the people's right to acknowledge God according to the dictates of conscience, and it has been reported out of committee and should see floor action in this session. So let me just conclude by saying that some liberals have called us the ``do-nothing Congress,'' and maybe we are the ``do-nothing-they- like Congress.'' But we are a busy Congress, doing the things that support the values of this country, the values that have built this country. And it is wrong to call us a ``do-nothing Congress.'' We are working on a value-based agenda that will strengthen families into the next century. I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey) for yielding me the time.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, the President has been unfaithful to the historic budget agreement that he signed only last year. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the President's newest budget plan will wipe out the surplus and create a $5 billion deficit by the year 2000. If we did nothing and kept the current plan, we would have a $38 billion surplus by the year 2000. It is no secret that the President's budget plan busts the spending limits set in last year's budget agreement. In fact, he has close to $100 billion in new wasteful Washington spending. Some Democrats have called this a do-nothing Congress. But if the choice is between doing nothing and getting a surplus, or enacting the President's plan and getting higher taxes and more Washington spending, then I think most Americans would wish that we do nothing. Mr. Speaker, we should not let the President cheat on the budget agreement he signed only last year.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Before I start my prepared remarks, I just have to answer my good friend who just spoke, Mr. Chairman. The President balanced the budget? The President lowered interest rates? The President has the lowest unemployment figures in history? The President did nothing to accomplish any of those things. This Congress balanced the budget. I can remember the President fighting against the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. I can remember the President laughing and vetoing our balanced budget the first time we took over in 1995. This President is taking a lot of credit for things he did not do, and the American people understand that. But I will tell my colleagues what this President is doing. He has his agencies out there legislating like there is no tomorrow and promulgating all kinds of new rules and new regulations. Because he knows he cannot get legislation out of this Republican Congress, he is legislating by using his agencies and his executive orders to do things that the American people would reject if they were legislation on this floor. So I rise in support of this very important piece of legislation and I urge my colleagues to vote for it. The key question here today is very, very simple. Should the Federal bureaucracy become more accountable? It has nothing to do with the President balancing the budget, but should the Federal bureaucracy become more accountable? Now, we believe that the administration should become more accountable to the taxpayers. We believe that the taxpayers deserve to know how their hard-earned money is being spent. It is not our money, it is their money. We believe that the Federal agencies should develop very common sense plans, just little common sense plans to outline clear objectives so that we can track their performance goals. That just makes sense. We believe that our Federal bureaucracy is too big and it spends too much. We believe that effective reforms can save taxpayers billions of dollars in wasted Washington spending. Now, the opponents to this legislation, which I can not believe anyone would oppose this great piece of legislation, these opponents will come with all kinds of excuses why the government should be more careful with the taxpayers' dollars. But these excuses just cannot measure up to one simple fact: This legislation, in the end, will lead to a smaller and a smarter government. That is why my colleagues should support it.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, the President and his allies in this House are calling us the Do-Nothing Congress. I agree. We are the do-nothing- the-liberals-like Congress. Maybe that is why the poll numbers for Congress are at an all-time high, because this Congress will not do anything to the American people. We will not raise their taxes, we will not stick them with unfunded mandates, we will not drive their small businesses out of business, we will not kill the economy, we will not spend the surplus, we will not waste their hard-earned money. I understand that the minority leadership has another agenda and we are hearing it this morning. When Democrats have another so-called agenda, the American taxpayer should have a panic attack. You can say this about our liberal friends on the other side of the aisle. They got what it takes to take what you got. Let us face the facts. The American people want a break from more wasteful Washington programs no matter what our liberal friends might say.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, earlier this week, President Clinton turned his back on fundamental tax reform by reforming the tax code. He said that getting rid of the current tax code and replacing it with a better one is irresponsible. The President is finally revealing his true liberal self. As we enter a new century, we need a new tax code. We need a tax code that encourages savings and investment. We need a tax code that is simple, so that our citizens do not need to hire accountants and lawyers to comply with the rules. We need a tax code that takes less money from working families. We need a tax code that gives the American people a break, not manipulates their lives. For 40 years, the Democrats in this Congress built a tax code that was riddled with loopholes, ridiculous rules, and hard-to-understand regulations, all to control our lives. It is time to tear that system down and build a better, simpler, and fairer tax code for the next century.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, today the Congressional Budget Office announced that the Federal budget is in surplus for the first time in 30 years. This is remarkable, especially when we look at where we were in 1994. In 1994, President Clinton's budget projected $200 billion in deficits for as far as the eye could see. Now, back then, the pundits laughed at the Republican leadership when we said we were going to balance the budget as we cut taxes. Well, who is laughing now? Now that we have a surplus, we need to return the money back to the American taxpayer. Unfortunately, the President has different ideas. He has proposed over $100 billion in new Washington spending. Well, Mr. Speaker, my constituents do not want any more wasteful Washington spending. Their message to the President is very clear: Don't spend our surplus.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge the Congress to pass legislation that would give the average American consumer a 30 percent tax cut. We can do this without breaking the caps, without finding offsets, and without spending the surplus. We can do this without even going to a flat tax or consumption tax. We can do this by breaking up the electricity monopoly. The time has come to allow greater competition in the electricity industry. Giving consumers the power, the power to choose their electric company, will lead to a more efficient and cheaper electric industry. When we deregulated trucking and the airline industry and the telephone monopoly, the average savings to the American consumer was 30 percent. We can do the same with the electricity industry. Let us give America's consumers the power to choose, and let us do it this year.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Madam Speaker, last Sunday, the Nation celebrated George Washington's birthday. Washington was known for his honesty. We all remember that story of how he admitted to chopping down the cherry tree. Now, if that were Bill Clinton, he would have blamed Ken Starr and the vast right-wing conspiracy for chopping down that poor cherry tree. We might say that Bill Clinton has a credibility problem. So, Madam Speaker, when he says we should reserve the surplus for Social Security, I think we all need to be very, very careful. We know Bill Clinton wants to spend more money. In fact, as the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green) just said, his budget has close to $100 billion in new Washington spending programs. Now that is a lot of cherry trees. When it comes to the surplus, I believe the money belongs not to Washington bureaucrats, but to the American people. Madam Speaker, let us not allow the President to spend that surplus.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to an energetic, intelligent and gifted young man who tragically died over the weekend. Sandy Hume was a rising star in the media world. An aggressive reporter, Sandy broke the biggest congressional story of the year in 1997, regarding the frictions in the House Republican leadership. I didn't always agree with Sandy's conclusions, but his reporting was first class. I'll always remember Sandy, roaming the halls of the Congress, hanging out in the Speaker's lobby, getting insights from so many members of Congress. He had a gift for understanding the news business, and he had a knack for getting the story first. Sandy Hume represented the best of the younger generation. He worked hard, but he didn't let hard work upset his perspective. He had an innate sense of right and wrong, an abounding sense of fairness and a healthy skepticism of the political class that served him well as a reporter. Sandy's death is tragic. Our souls survive death, the Roman poet said, and we know that Sandy's soul lives on. But all of us who knew him will miss Sandy's spirit, his sense of humor, and his sense of mission. I want to extend my deepest condolences to his family, including Sandy's father Brit and his wife Kim, Sandy's mother Clare, and Sandy's sister, Virginia.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, is there a liberal bias in the nation's media? Just ask a prominent member of that media. Bob Zelnick had been a respected member of ABC's news division for 21 years. He was fired because he wanted to write a book on Vice President Al Gore. The head of ABC news had first granted him permission to write such a book, but then changed his mind when it became clear that Zelnick was not going to write a puff piece about Mr. Gore. In my own experience, ABC News has a liberal bias. I recently traveled to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, to investigate whether the accusations of sweatshops and other labor abuses were true. At a reception hosted by the Governor of the CNMI, a member of my staff noticed that a film crew was spying on us from a clump of bushes. When the staff asked this film crew whom they represented, they would not identify themselves. Later, they admitted that they were from ABC News. When someone is spying on you from a nearby bush, it's hard to believe that they will do a fair story. I tried to accommodate them in their story later on. For example, I made certain that they had a chance to follow me as I inspected various garment factories and workers housing units on the island of Saipan. But I have every expectation that the story will be unfair and unbalanced when it ultimately comes out next month. Bob Zelnick's experience with ABC News just further goes to show the true bias at that news division. I urge my colleagues to read this illuminating piece that appeared in the Wall Street Journal today, entitled ``ABC: Anyone but Conservatives.'' ABC: Anyone But Conservatives By Bob Zelnick Last week I was forced to leave my position as a correspondent for ABC News. What happened to me illustrates something of what is wrong with TV news today. In December 1996, following a dinner conversation with my publisher, Alfred Regnery, I agreed to undertake a biography of Vice President Al Gore. Early the following month I phoned Richard C. Wald, the ABC News executive who tends to the business of editorial standards, to describe the project and secure his permission to proceed. Mr. Wald asked if I intended to write a ``straightforward'' biography or one with a distinct point of view. I replied that except for opinions I might develop during my research, the book would be reasonably straightforward. Mr. Wald then inquired what I thought of Mr. Gore. I replied that I knew the vice president only slightly, but had a generally favorable impression of him, shaped by his pro-defense views in the Senate and his critical support for the 1991 Gulf War resolution. I added that my sense was that his environmental views might be a bit extreme. `you have my permission' Late in the conversation, Mr. Wald remarked: ``If you write a book about him, you probably can't cover him for us.'' I told him I thought that writing a book on the vice president would enhance my credentials to cover him. ``Now that I think of it, you may be right,'' said Mr. Wald. ``We'll have to see. In any event, you have my permission.'' I conducted scores of interviews. I hired a researcher who performed more than four months of full-time work. I traveled to Harvard, where Mr. Gore went to school, and to Tennessee. I came up with fascinating, previously unpublished material on both Mr. Gore and his father, also a former Tennessee senator, and mined a rich lode of background material on Tennessee politics. My sense was that the project would prove helpful not only to my own career as a television correspondent but also to ABC's coverage of the 2000 presidential campaign. But last September, just days before my contract with ABC was to expire, the network informed me that if I wished to sign a new one, I would have to break my contract with Regnery, return the advance and discontinue all work on the Gore book. ABC's new position was that there was an inherent conflict between writing a book on a subject and covering that subject. In a written appeal to Roone Arledge and David Westin, respectively chairman and president of the news division, I objected to the ruling as unjust, contrary to ABC's own standards and procedures, and repugnant to the First Amendment values we all endorse. I pointed out that the decision was wildly excessive as regards any valid interest of ABC News, in that I was willing to submit the manuscript months before publication in order to address any editorial problems the company perceived. I noted that most news organizations encourage their correspondents to write books on subjects they cover, then point to them with pride as indicating staff depth, scholarship and authority. Examples from the print press are legion, but even in television, where a career spent writing 90-second spots can erode the ability to think and write in depth, correspondents such as Marvin Kalb, Bernard Kalb, Dan Rather, Sam Donaldson and I have published books on subjects close to our beats. Nonetheless, Mr. Westin's written reply explained that ``we cannot have a Washington correspondent writing a book about one of our national leaders whom that correspondent will undoubtedly have to cover.'' Otherwise, we could be ``held up to ridicule that our reporting is influenced by views you/we have formed about the individual involved.'' I eventually decided to complete the book and to leave ABC News after 21 years. Mr. Wald, asked by a newspaper reporter why he had granted permission in the first place, concocted a tale that I was about to be fired when I approached him, and he didn't want to impede my earning a living by writing books. Thanks, Dick. Would I have faced the same problem if I were an avowedly liberal journalist undertaking a book that made conservatives mildly uncomfortable rather than a moderately conservative one writing about a liberal icon? Had the proposed title been ``Gingrich: A Critical Look at the Man and His Climb to Power,'' would I have been forced to choose between my book and my career? I rather doubt it. Nor does the double standard stop with books. My friend and former colleague Sam Donaldson is again covering the White House six days a week. On the seventh day he does not rest, but rather appears on ``This Week With Sam and Cokie,'' where he is free with his concededly liberal opinions. Sam is a gifted reporter, and in 21 years I have never seen evidence of deliberate bias in his work. I think ABC is wisely using his talents. But where is his conservative counterpart, licensed both to report and to ruminate? My original sin may have been my earlier book, ``Backfire: A Reporter's Look at Affirmative Action,'' also published by Regnery. In 1996, when ``This Week'' decided to interview Gary Aldrich--author of yet another Regnery book, ``Unlimited Access: An FBI Agent Inside the Clinton White House''--and I was asked to prepare the set-up piece, George Stephanopoulos, then a White House spinmeister (now an ABC commentator), blasted ABC News for anti-Clinton bias, specifically citing my limited involvement with the program. Months later, Jane Mayer, a New Yorker reporter, did the same. Is this what Mr. Westin had in mind when he said he feared ``ridicule''? Like others at ABC News, I committed my life, my fortune and my sacred honor to the furtherance of the First Amendment and the pursuit of truth. Along with a brave and resourceful crew, I was thrown into a Moscow prison for refusing to stop interviewing a dissident on her way to court. I accompanied soldiers who came under fire in South Lebanon and Somalia. In these times I was conscious of the far greater physical dangers that other correspondents had faced in times and places as different as Gettysburg, Normandy, Khe Sanh and Srebrenica. But the principal dangers that threaten television journalists today are not those of an errant bullet, or even a well-aimed one. Rather, they spring on the one hand from the merciless demands of the news cycle, the dumbing down of public affairs programming and the belief in viewers' shrinking attention span. The end results of these dangers are poorly sourced, factually insubstantial, overly sensational stories that, in the end, harm our credibility and make us easy targets for political demagogues. ideological orthodoxy The other danger--the one that led to my departure from the industry--involves ideological orthodoxy, political correctness and complete lack of self-confidence regarding the management of a news organization, partly because so many of those at the top have little or no background as working journalists. For most of my career I felt honored to serve as a correspondent for ABC News. But the ABC News I served did not practice prior restraint. The ABC News I served did not demand that its reporters shatter their integrity by breaching contracts. The ABC News I served did not look for a rock to crawl under when the Jane Mayers of the world attacked. The ABC News I served did not seek to destroy correspondents who had performed for the company over two decades with dignity, integrity and excellence. The ABC News I served did not break its word, ignore its standards or brazenly lie to explain its actions. Sad to say, the ABC News I served is not the ABC News I left.

Mr. DeLAY

Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, the biggest problem with the 1996 Telecommunications Act isn't the way it was drafted, it's the way the bureaucrats at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have decided to implement it. Much of what the FCC has done has been reversed on appeal by the courts, or pulled back for reconsideration by the FCC itself. The law has been good for Washington lawyers and economists. It has been great for the paper industry. But from the public's standpoint, the new law hasn't delivered on its promises. Maybe our basic mistake was to place an independent regulatory agency in charge of trying to promote competition. If Congress had relied on the Washington bureaucracy, instead of the marketplace, to foster competition in the airline, surface transportation, energy or banking fields, we would still be waiting for true competition in those areas. You don't need 3 years in law school to figure out that Congress expected results. Throughout the 1996 Act, Congress imposed 90-day deadlines on the FCC to act. Why would Congress establish deadlines like that if the result were no long distance applications accepted by the FCC? The FCC has new leadership today. Four of the five FCC Commissioners are new. It seems to me that the agency's approach over the past 2 years has been wrong. They need to try a different approach. Mr. Speaker, I don't have any magic solutions. Coming up with solutions, after all, is why we have a FCC. Congress and the American public didn't support communications reform just to help the Washington lawyers. Something needs to be done, and soon.