Peter Deutsch

Mr. DEUTSCH

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to speak in favor of this amendment. I represent a district that provides most of the tropical foliage for the United States. Without passage of the Pombo-Chambliss amendment, the immigration bill will severely hurt U.S. agricultural producers in south Florida. This bill will make it tougher to hire workers during peak harvesting periods. Some of my colleagues will argue that this amendment hurts American workers by allowing employers to hire illegal immigrants. This is simply not true. In fact, the Pombo-Chambliss amendment requires an employer to give preference to U.S. workers for a minimum of 25 days before the position can be offered to an immigrant. Moreover, no aliens can be employed at a position which is open due to strikes or labor disputes. Let us be clear. This amendment helps the American economy. And it does not sacrifice our desire to stem the tide of illegal immigrants. It allows agricultural producers to hire guest workers only when there is a temporary shortage of American workers. It requires employers to withhold 25 percent of the guest workers pay until they return home. Finally, those immigrants that violate this program can be deported and prevented from participating with this program in the future. This amendment does not weaken the immigration bill. Rather, it enhances the effectiveness of this bill and helps the American economy.

Mr. DEUTSCH

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of Lou Marsh, a close friend and constituent. Mr. Marsh is the Florida chairman of the national board of the Boys' Town of Italy as well as its tireless advocate. It is through his commitment that I have become familiar with the Boys' Town of Italy and how I come to pay tribute to the humanitarian efforts of Msgr. John Patrick Carroll-Abbing and this years Boys' Town honorees. The monsignor's work has spanned the course of the last half-century and has served to establish and preserve the Boys' Town of Italy. In 1945, Monsignor Carroll-Abbing founded his first Boys' Town 45 miles from Rome. The purpose of the town was simple, to give orphaned or abandoned children a home. The Boys' Towns were run completely by the children. They shared in the work responsibilities and learned to respect one another. The dreams of monsignor Carroll-Abbing have been realized today with nine Boys' Towns and one Girls' Town in Italy, all run by the monsignor's International Boys' Towns of Italy--the organization which he established. Today, orphans in Italy no longer go without homes. Besides the towns which he established, the monsignor's organization also donates money, clothes, medical care, furniture, and time to children in need. Today, Monsignor Carroll-Abbing's touch is felt around the world. He has extended his aid across seas and continents. The monsignor's Boys' Towns have provided homes for hundreds who have suffered due to war, famine, and disaster. In addition, the monsignor travels around the world to disaster sights to assist in relief efforts on each occasion with the help of children. Monsignor Carroll-Abbing's major contribution to the world has been to give opportunity to a group of forgotten children who would have otherwise lacked it. Msgr. John Patrick Carroll-Abbing has served humanity throughout his life; whether they be orphans, delinquents, or children in need. Monsignor Carroll-Abbing is a man who has touched, changed, and saved the lives of thousands of children. For more than 50 years he has dedicated himself to improving the lives of children. Monsignor Carroll-Abbing is a man who should be revered by all, and overlooked by none, as one of the greatest humanitarians in history. This year the Boys' Towns of Italy are honoring two outstanding Italian-Americans for their various achievements and contributions. The Boys' Town Entertainer of the Year Award will go to Mr. Dennis Farina. Mr. Farina has long been acknowledged as one of Hollywood's busiest actors, and has appeared in such hits as ``Get Shorty,'' ``Little Big League,'' and ``Striking Distance.'' The Boys' Town of Italy Man of the Year is Mr. Chuck Curico. Mr. Curico at the age of 17 joined the U.S. Marine Corps where he served for 3 years. He received the Navy Achievement Medal for his service in the Vietnam war. He returned home, married, and graduated from college in 1972, the same year he founded Tire Kingdom with a modest investment of $150. Tire Kingdom is now America's third largest independent tire dealer, and is currently listed as one of Florida's top 50 companies. Believing strongly in giving something back to his community, Mr. Curico has been actively involved in community service projects such as: Homesafe, Junior Achievement, the American Cancer Society, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, the March of Dimes, Boys and Girls Clubs, and many others. Mr. Curico, with his exemplary and tireless dedication to improving the lives of others serves as an illustration of what we all should strive to become.

Mr. DEUTSCH

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, for the last 2 weeks the Taiwanese people have been under siege by Beijing's repeated acts of military intimidation. Beijing has harassed, tormented, and bullied Taiwan in an attempt to break the spirit of the Taiwanese people. These immoral and reckless acts are part of Beijing's carefully crafted strategy designed to suffocate democracy in Taiwan, to intimidate the Taiwanese government, and to influence American foreign policy. Mr. Speaker, Beijing has failed. They have failed to disrupt the presidential elections, they have failed to browbeat Taiwan into submission. They have only lifted the masses in Taiwan to fight harder for democracy and independence. As the deployment of the two aircraft carriers shows, United States resolve on this issue is unwavering. The American people will not tolerate such a grave threat to our own national security. The resolution before us today, written in accordance with the Taiwan Relation Act, will send a clear message to Beijing about our interests in a secure and stable Taiwan. This resolution will affirm the American commitment to the people of Taiwan. I urge Members to vote in favor of this bipartisan resolution which is a continuation of American policy that we cannot, nor can we, accept Taiwan passing the straits, the Chinese passing the Straits of China in an attempt of any type of invasion. (Mr. HAMILTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. DEUTSCH

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, during these political primaries, it is important that the American public has as much information on the candidates as possible. In pursuit of that goal, I am submitting for the Congressional Record an article written for the Jerusalem Post on past statements made by Pat Buchanan. [From The Jerusalem Post, Feb. 23, 1996] Hatred Marks Paper Trail Pat Buchanan has toned down his comments, but hasn't backed down, Elli Wohlgelernter reports. Pat Buchanan's upset victory in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday has once again focused heightened attention on the man and his words, and on the people surrounding him in his campaign. When two staffers in two days last week had to step down for questions that were raised over their ties to white supremacists, it came as no surprise to Jews here and in the US who remembered what Buchanan used to say and write, before he toned down his rhetoric when he began running for president in 1992. It goes back to the 1970s, when what began as a trickle--a snide comment here, a hard-line position advocated there-- soon started snowballing until, on the eve of the Gulf war in 1990, a mini-war broke out over flagrant and vicious antisemitic comments made by Buchanan. To recap a few: In 1976, when the Ford administration proposed selling arms to Egypt, Buchanan urged Congress not to ``hearken * * * to the counsel of the Jewish lobby and its Washington representative Henry Jackson.'' In 1977, when president Jimmy Carter endorsed legislation against the Arab boycott of Israel, Buchanan objected and warned that Israel would be blamed as a result when Americans lost their jobs. He later maintained that Americans were asking ``why the U.S. is siding with three million Israelis instead of 100 million Arabs who have oil.'' In 1981, he wrote, ``Many Americans are growing bone-weary with carrying the diplomatic, economic and military cost of underwriting Menachem Begin's policies.'' Throughout the 1980s, Buchanan exhibited a fiery and indignant pose in a campaign to defend former Nazis, whomever they were and however evil their prior deeds. As early as 1977 he wrote of Hitler: ``Though Hitler was indeed racist and antisemitic to the core, a man who without compunction could commit murder and genocide, he was also an individual of great courage, a soldier's soldier in the Great War, a political organizer of the first rank, a leader steeped in the history of Europe, who possessed oratorical powers that could awe even those who despised him.'' From this followed his strong defense of Nazi criminals, and his denunciation of the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations, which pursues Nazi criminals: ``You've got a great atrocity that occurred 35, 40 years ago * * * Why put millions of dollars [into] investigating that?'' There were other remarks he made about targets of war- crimes allegations, including: When the U.S. apologized to France for sheltering Klaus Barbie, the ``Butcher of Lyon,'' Buchanan complained: ``To what end all this wallowing in the atrocities of a dead regime.'' He campaigned against the deportation to the Soviet Union of Karl Linnas, who ran a Nazi death camp in Estonia, when the US Court of Appeals ruled that there was overwhelming evidence of his guilt. On the isolating of Kurt Waldheim: ``The ostracism of Kurt Waldheim [has] an aspect of moral bullying and the singular stench of selective indignation.'' And of course, there was his spirited defense of Ivan Demjanjuk and his statement that he could never get a fair trial in Israel. Alan Ryan Jr., former head of OSI at the Justice Department, said then that ``Pat Buchanan is going to bat for any Nazi war criminal in the US,'' and called him ``the spokesman for Nazi war criminals in America. His campaign on behalf of these people is so infused with distortions and misrepresentations of the facts that it's almost impossible to engage in any sort of response. He simply piles lie upon inaccuracy upon surmise up personal attack.'' Not content to defend Nazis, Buchanan shifted to questioning aspects of the Holocaust. Gas chambers could not have killed human beings, he wrote, because ``in 1988, 97 kids, trapped 400 feet underground in a Washington, DC, tunnel while two locomotives spewed diesel exhaust into the car, emerged unharmed.'' And finally, an attempt was made to discredit survivors themselves. ``Since the war, 1,600 medical papers have been written on `The Psychological and Medical Effects of the Concentration Camps on Holocaust Survivors.' This so-called `Holocaust Survivor Syndrome' involves `group fantasies of martyrdom and heroics.' '' Writing in the January 1991 issue of Commentary, Joshua Muravchik responded: ``What can Buchanan possibly be talking about here? Can be furnish a bibliography of, say, the first 100 of these `1,600 medical papers'? And do quotation marks diminish the sewer-level bigotry of the reference to `fantasies and martyrdom'?'' His antisemitic and anti-Israel statements continued to build over the years. He called the Democratic Party the ``diapered poodle of * * * the Israeli lobby''; Called Capitol Hill in Washington ``Israeli-occupied territory''; Called the massacre of Palestinians by Lebanese Christians in Sabra and Shatilla the ``Rosh Hashana Massacre,'' and the ``the Israel army is looking toward a blackening of its name to rival what happened to the French army in the Dreyfus affair''; Said of the Vietnamese ``Boat People'': ``Can one imagine what a cauldron of boiling rage the Senate would be if-- instead of Vietnamese--there were Jews in those boats?'' In protesting the alleged blasphemy of the film ``The Last Temptation of Christ,'' asked: ``Would [Jack] Valenti, [chief executive officer of the Motion Picture Association of America] employ his eloquence to defend a film portraying Anne Frank as an oversexed teenager fantasizing at Auschwitz on romancing some SS guards?'' He also chided the New York Times for not criticizing the film strongly enough: ``We have a `newspaper of record' that can sniff out antisemitism in some guy turning down a kosher hot dog at the ballpark.'' In the protest over the Catholic convent at Auschwitz, Buchanan wrote on September 24, 1989: ``The slumbering giant of Catholicism may be about to awaken. * * * When Cardinal John O'Connor seeks to soothe the always irate Elie Wiesel by reassuring him that `there are many Catholics who are antisemitic. * * * It's deep within them,' when he declares this `is not a fight between Catholics and Jews,' he speaks for himself. But not afraid, your eminence; just steps aside, there are bishops and priests ready to assume the role of defender of the faith.'' When president George Bush asked Congress to delay for four months the $10 billion in loan guarantees, Buchanan wrote on September 18, 1991: ``Even if his veto of the guarantees is overridden, he will have won high marks for courage and exposed Congress for what it has become, a Parliament of Whores incapable of standing up for US national interests, if [the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee] is on the other end of the line.'' Perhaps his most outrageous statement came shortly after Iraq's Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. On the CNN show ``The McLaughlin Group'' of August 26, 1990, two months after he made the comment on the same program about Congress being ``Israeli-occupied territory,'' Buchanan made this infamous remark: ``There are only two groups that are beating the drums for war in the Middle East: the Israeli Defense Ministry and its amen corner in the US.'' The remark generated an outpouring of condemnation from Jewish groups across America. It was a new kind of charge from Buchanan, one that Anti-Defamation League national director Abraham Foxman said lifted Buchanan's ``characteristic anti-Israel rhetoric to new and graver heights.'' Later in the program, Buchanan said: ``The Israelis want this war desperately because they want the US to destroy the Iraq war machine. They want us to finish them off. They don't care about our relationship with the Arab world.'' Refuting the charge of antisemitism, Buchanan said: ``Were I expressing such views * * * I wouldn't have lasted 10 minutes in a profession where I have reveled, on and off, for 30 years. The newspapers that carry the Buchanan column don't print hate literature.'' The charge of antisemitism, he wrote, ``is used to frighten, intimidate, censor and silence; to cut off debate; to so smear men's reputations that no one will listen to them again without saying, `Say, isn't he an antisemite?' '' Buchanan confessed in that column that, ``yes, a change has taken place'' in his attitude toward Israel as compared with the time ``from June of `67 * * * until I went back into the White House in 1985,'' a time he claimed to be ``an uncritical apologist for Israel, a Begin man all the way, defending everything from the attack on the Iraqi reactor to the invasion of Lebanon. I thought they were terrific friends. ``And yes, a change has taken place. For many reasons. ``Among them: The manipulation of the traitor Jonathan Pollard to systematically loot the secrets of the most generous friend Israel will ever have. The gratuitous brutality against Palestinian old men, women, teenagers and children. The Good Friday land grab at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. The shipment of cluster bombs to the Stalinist Mengistu regime in Ethiopia. The caustic cutting cracks about my church and the popes from both Israel and its amen corner in the US.'' Foxman issued a statement saying, ``While Buchanan's attack on Jews and Israel are nothing new, they appear to be an obsession. He is obsessed with Jonathan Pollard, but not with the Walker spy ring. Obsessed with the deaths of Palestinians who are waging war on the Jewish state, but not with the cold-blooded mustard-gas massacre of 5,000 Iraqi Kurds by Saddam Hussein. He dismisses the murder of millions of Jews during the Holocaust but derides the Office of Special Investigations for pursuing Nazi war criminals. ``He claims that the newspapers that carry his column `do not print hate literature.' True, they rarely do. But today, every newspaper which ran Pat Buchanan crossed that boundary.'' Among the papers carrying his column that day was the New York Post. In an unprecedented display of criticism, an editorial by editorial editor Eric Breindel, appearing opposite Buchanan's column, cited his previous antisemitic remarks and innuendos, and explained why the paper felt it had to publicly distance itself from one of its own regular columnists: ``What concerns us is Buchanan's attitude toward Jews as a group. When homosexual activists demonstrated against John Cardinal O'Connor at St. Patrick's Cathedral, desecrating that sacred place, Buchanan wrote a blistering column denouncing the demonstration. Indeed, the condemnation, in this instance, was widespread. ``But only Buchanan managed, somehow, to drag Jews into the discussion. He chided the New York Times for relegating its news story on the St. Patrick's incident to Page B3. And he asked rhetorically whether the Times would have been so restrained `had a synagogue been so desecrated.' ``How did synagogues enter the picture? Was it impossible for Buchanan to write a column about the sacrilege at St. Patrick's Cathedral without a snide reference to synagogues?'' It concluded: ``When it comes to Jews as a group--not Israel, not US-Israeli relations, not individual Jews-- Buchanan betrays an all-too-familiar-hostility.'' A month later on ``the McLaughlin Group,'' Buchanan lashed back at the ADL, saying the organization, in a ``pre-planned, orchestrated smear campaign,'' was calling newspapers around the country and ``threatening them'' if they didn't cease publications of his columns, which was being carried by 180 newspapers. The ADL denied calling ``a single editor to request the removal of Buchanan's column, nor would we. Buchanan knows that, and he knows that league is against censorship of any kind.'' Buchanan, Foxman said, ``employed the same `big lie' tactics perfected by the Nazis during World War II.'' Buchanan continued his Israel-bashing after the Gulf war. On March 13, 1991, he wrote: ``Israel is not Syria, she is not Iraq, she is not Iran. But she is not our `strategic asset' either. ``As the Gulf war demonstrated, she is a strategic albatross draped around the neck of the US.'' The New Republic, on October 15, 1990, wrote: ``The virulence of Buchanan's comments on the Jews, the indifference to evidence, the inflamed rhetoric, the rich conspiratorial imagination, the mystical certainty of rightness, the appetite for enemies, are not characteristic only of his opinions about Israel and the Jews. He is a connoisseur of intolerance. It is proof of the tolerance of America, if proof is needed, that this disgraceful man ranges through the corridors of power and lives in our midst as a star.'' When his campaign for the 1992 election got under way, Buchanan's rhetoric softened, and continued in that manner while he waited to run again this year. ``He's a different person today in terms of what he's saying,'' Foxman said yesterday. ``The language is a lot different. He used to speak of Christian values, Christian America. Now it's Judaio-Christian values. But the baggage of the past is still with him. He has not apologized for his anti-Israel, antisemitic and Holocaust-denial statements, he has not retracted them and he has not repudiated them.'' The Jewish community, Foxman said, ``is concerned, and will be concerned, but there is no panic yet.'' He said he didn't think ``a racist will be able to maintain the support of the mainstream,'' but the problem so far has been that ``the media has not asked the questions yet. He has not been challenged. If he moves into the mainstream, the media will seriously challenge him, and then will see the response of the American public.''

Mr. DEUTSCH

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to be standing in front of this body as we get ready to vote on the Helms-Burton bill. This piece of legislation will send a clear message to Castro and other petty dictators around the world that America will not stand for political persecution. We will not put our heads in the sand while this tyrant, only 90 miles from our shores, oppresses his own innocent citizens. It is a tragedy that it took the recent shooting down of two unarmed, civilian humanitarian planes by Cuban fighters to help bring the Helms- Burton bill to the floor. Fidel Castro has been committing atrocities against the Cuban people for decades and these recent repugnant acts only serve to confirm a conclusion that we already know. Castro will never change. He still has political prisoners, including women and children, languishing in his jails. He still murders his own people as they attempt to flee political persecution. He still is planning to construct a nuclear power plant that can only be considered a humanitarian disaster. There can be no compromise. Castro is an absolute dictator that needs to be taken down absolutely. The Helms-Burton bill will force Castro from power and put an end to these acts of oppression. It will strangle Castro by cutting off a large segment of foreign investment that is currently propping up his regime. Some of my colleagues feel that lessening our grip on Cuba would be the best way to help the Cuban people. I passionately disagree. Castro's acts over the last several weeks only proves the urgent necessity for this bill and the need to strengthen our resolve against this rogue dictator, rather than weaken it. Mr. Castro, we will not compromise on this issue. The U.S. Congress will not lower our support to ending the Castro regime. We will fight to the end to free the noose that currently surrounds the Cuban people, I urge my colleagues to join with me in voting in support of Helms-Burton, in support of freedom and democracy.

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bipartisan effort to change the direction of the dictatorship in Cuba. My district represents the Florida Keys, and when I stand in Key West, FL, I am closer to Havana than I am to Miami. I live about 40 miles north of Miami. This is not an esoteric philosophical issue in south Florida. This truly is a local issue, because we have a better sense, I think, than most of this country, unfortunately, of what is going on in an evil empire 90 miles from our shore, an empire that really is in the world's Hall of Fame of atrocities today, not yesterday, not just killing four Americans and planes, but torturing and killing the civilians that live in their own country. That is the empire that is 90 miles from our shore. What does this bill do? This bill specifically gives a legal right of action to Americans whose property was taken illegally. That is the substance of this bill. The thrust behind it is to prevent other people, other nationals in other countries, from investing in Cuba, to try to end the empire that exists today. The investments of Canadians, of Spaniards, have not changed the empire, the evil empire in Cuba. It goes on today with their investments. What we need to do is we need to strangle those investments. We need to end those investments, and let the people of Cuba know that there is hope, that the dictatorship, that the Castro dictatorship which is holding on by its fingernails is going to end, and that this Congress, the center of hope and democracy and freedom in the world, is part of that effort. Mr. Speaker, I am sure that my colleagues in a short time will join me, both Democrats and Republicans throughout the country, in acknowledging that we want freedom in Cuba, we want a free society, a free economy, a freedom of thought, a freedom of action that this bill will be part of creating. I can think of nothing that I am prouder of as part of my legislative career than to have been part of the adoption, the drafting, and hopefully now, very shortly, the passage of this bill.

Mr. DEUTSCH

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Chairman, the Everglades is a national treasure. In fact, it is an international treasure. This funding is really a small down payment on the Federal Government's share of Everglades restoration. It will help purchase critical land in the Everglades agricultural area. However, it is insufficient for the total restoration, and does not relieve Florida or the industry in Florida of its responsibility. The President has announced the fair share balanced plan to save the Everglades. Mr. Chairman, I include for the Record the President's proposal for Everglades restoration.

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Chairman, I object.

Mr. DEUTSCH

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge my colleagues in the fastest possible time and the quickest possible moment to pass the Helms-Burton bill to bring the end of the Castro dictatorship in Cuba. Just this weekend, we witnessed less than 90 miles from our shore, actually about 85 miles from our shore, 85 miles from my district, an incident that will be remembered throughout American history as one of the most brazen, really cruel, vicious, evil acts in the 20th century. Two aircraft, civilian aircraft, unarmed civilian aircraft, irrefutably over international waters, and again the evidence is irrefutable at this time of where they were, and regardless of where they were, over international waters, shot down by military fighter jets, and all passengers perished. A rogue state, not a country, but the leadership of that country, that just recently in the so-called 13th of March incident of last year killed 40 innocent Cubans, men, women, and children trying to escape persecution. A country and a leader, not a people, but a leader, Castro, who just really immediately before this incident, February 15 of this year, began a nationwide roundup of members of an opposition group called Concilio Cubano, over 100 members of Concilio Cubano were arrested and over 20 members are still missing and presumed in jail. The Clinton administration has offered on the table some things that will be helpful. But what this country needs to do, what we need to do as Americans, is bring the last and only dictator, the last and only Communist ruler in our hemisphere, to an end. We have the power to do that within this building, within this Hall, within this Chamber, with the help of the Chamber on the other side and the support of the President. I point to several of my colleagues who really are still thinking of or fixated in Castro the liberator, Castro the reformist, to think of what he is doing to his own people. I am glad that the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Burton], the chairman of the committee dealing with this issue and the author of this bill is here. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. DEUTSCH. I see my colleague from Florida, the first Cuban- American to be a Member of the U.S. Congress, the gentlewoman from Florida [Ms. Ros-Lehtinen], is on the floor. Another colleague of ours, the gentleman from California [Mr. Lantos], who is actually a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust, who in an official capacity, not spending any money but going through the U.S. intervention, as opposed to other people who visited that country, visited that country and met with dissidents, people tortured. This is a man who lived through the pre- Holocaust and actual Holocaust time, and described in Cuban, what is going on there, as bad as what was going on in Germany before the Holocaust. So that is the reality of the situation on the ground 90 miles from our shore, 90 miles from my district, and we have the ability in this Chamber to change that. Hopefully by the end of this week we will take an important significant step and pass the Helms-Burton bill.

Mr. DEUTSCH

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the conferees. This legislation is as significant as it has been controversial and complex, and it has required a tremendous effort on the part of the conferees to get us to the point where the conference report can be voted on today. This legislation will be a major boom to our economy and our constituents. My constituents, like others around the country, will be the beneficiaries of greater communications choices, lower costs, increased jobs, and economic well-being. The bill represents a substantial step in the right direction, and I believe it will strike a good balance between deregulation and consumer protection. As for the issues that have not been completely nailed down, such as foreign ownership rules and questions of interpretation and implementation, I look forward to working with my colleagues on the Committee on Commerce to ensure that the vision and balance intended in this bill is maintained.

Mr. DEUTSCH

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the flow control legislation before us today. This compromise bill is now limited in scope and duration, a culmination of several months of negotiation between public and private stakeholders. Most importantly, this compromise bill protects local communities and preserves our commitment to free-market competition in the solid waste industry. Like many States, my State of Florida enacted a law requiring communities to manage their own waste, including a goal that 30 percent be recycled. My district, Dade County, invested nearly $200 million so they could meet this challenge. Mr. Speaker, Congress should not break up monopolies, but this legislation will not do that.

Mr. DEUTSCH

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, it is with deep regret and great sadness that I announce the death of Mrs. Isabel Greenwald on January 23, 1996. I join the members of the Greenwald family, Isabel's many friends, and the greater south Florida community in mourning her loss. The passing of this dedicated individual brings to a close a life committed to serving others. I rise in order to share with my colleagues some information regarding this distinguished individual. Isabel was born in New York at the turn of the century. As an early signal of her commitment and drive to the community, she became one of the first female members of the New York State Bar Association. As an attorney in New York, she focused on protecting the rights of the family and preserving social justice. Mr. Speaker, upon moving to south Florida, Isabel immediately undertook a leadership role in her new community. In response to her neighborhood's need, she became president of the Sunrise Lakes Phase III Condominium Association. For 21 years, her immense dedication and hard work paid off and she was able to successfully lead one of largest condominium associations in Fort Lauderdale through the rapidly changing south Florida environment. She became the person everyone went to when they were seeking advice on a troubling issue. Upon her retirement as an attorney, Isabel undertook one of her greatest challenges by focusing her insatiable amounts of energy to helping out the neediest in her community. She began an organization of retired attorneys that provided pro bono legal services to the community and she lobbied Congress to pass legislation that would provide affordable housing for the elderly. This untiring effort just recently came to fruition as the Housing for Older Persons Act of 1995 was recently enacted into law. In all of these endeavors, she approached her goals with the highest level of commitment and dedication. During her lifetime, Isabel Greenwald earned the respect and admiration of her colleagues and others throughout the community. She was a social activist whose stature rests upon a lifetime of commitment to service, social justice, equality, and opportunity for all people. Those of us who knew her loved her deeply. She was a woman of intellect and dignity, a guiding light of the community, and she was very special to all who knew her. She will be impossible to replace and we will miss her very much.

Mr. DEUTSCH

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I come over to the Republican side of the aisle today to speak and to quote Republican leaders. From Bob Dole: Enough is enough. I do not see any sense in what we are doing. I would hope that we would have a quick action in the House. People have been gone from their jobs long enough. Enough is enough. In addition, I quote another great Republican leader, Newt Gingrich: As a former Army brat I believe it is morally wrong and indefensible that Federal workers are in the cross-fire. The reckless Republican right have left their leaders. I say to my colleagues on the Republican side, ``Please, come to your senses. Act like adults. It is indefensible what is going on, and it cannot be defended.'' For those who saw ``Nightline'' last night, shame, shame, shame for those who were trying to defend this position. It is impossible. My colleagues should look at what their leaders are saying. I say to the reckless right, ``Please, for the good of the country, listen to your leaders. End this shutdown today, this afternoon, now.''

Mr. DEUTSCH

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, for those who are listening in this Chamber and in America, let us think about what this proposal does. We have gone from the absurd to the ridiculous. We have had a situation that really has been indefensible. Finally, my Republican colleagues, the radical right, are starting to follow their leadership a little bit, that they had an indefensible position where we furloughed workers but we decided to pay them at the same time. Now what this resolution does is, we are bringing the workers back, but we are telling them, ``There is nothing to do,'' because you do not have to be an MIT economist to understand, as the gentleman from New Mexico [Mr. Richardson] pointed out, you cannot run a hospital without an IV, you cannot be a DEA agent without gasoline for your car. It really is as crazy as it sounds, the proposal. Just as reasoned Americans changed the radical right, they are going to change the radical right on this proposal, too. I would ask people out there to call their Members, 202-224-3121, and let them know.

Mr. DEUTSCH

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, when my Republican colleagues took over the majority of this Chamber, they declared that they were going to run Congress like a business. Now, let us just think about that for a second. If we had a business where the CEO of that business and the board of directors had a disagreement and then what they decided to do was to furlough the workers and pay them, all right, think about that. There is no business in this country where there would be a disagreement between the CEO and the board of directors and they would furlough the workers and then pay them. And if you think about this for a second, if it was a publicly traded company and they decided to do that, what would happen in the market the next day? The value of that company would be destroyed. Well, that is where we are right now. That is what has happened, and what has happened is totally indefensible. I spent almost 3 hours on the floor yesterday evening, really involved in a dialog and debate with my Republican colleagues, and after 3 hours I still did not get an articulate answer, because there really is not. I mean, it is as crazy as it seems to people out there in America. It is as whacked out as it seems. There is no explanation. They can try to come up with an explanation. There is no explanation, except for irresponsibility, for what is going on. And we are starting to see real people and real just outrage at some of the things. I just got a fax from a constituent, Gregory Inch, from Hollywood, FL, and I will read part of it or just summarize part of the letter. He is a double amputee, a veteran. Let me read a little: In February of 1994, I was involved in an accident that resulted in amputation of both my legs above the knee. It took me and my family some time to get through the initial shock. One year later, after a lot of soul-searching, I got in touch with an organization that enabled me to attend college, the department of vocational rehabilitation. This organization helped me get back on my feet. I started Broward Community College with hopes of receiving a preengineering degree so I could transfer to Florida International University and receive my BA. On January 3, 1996, I went through the normal channels in order to continue my education, only to be informed that the Government shutdown caused the funding of the Department of Vocational Rehabilitation to stop, a shock to me and my family that almost equaled my disabling accident. Especially shocked was my wife, who has been working two jobs to pay necessary household bills while still in college. I am a registered Republican, age 27, married, a veteran, one child, who is having second thoughts on the way the government is handling the responsibility to society at large. I could not say it better than he did. Let me also mention another thing, a fax I got in today from my district also. I have two ports in my district. The Consumer Product Safety Commission employees who are at those ports to basically do inspections are not there, so when crayons are coming in from China into Port Everglades in Broward County or Port Miami in Miami are not inspected, the lead content is coming in without inspection. We are going to read about the disasters that occur at a future time. I got a call today from the warden of a Federal correctional institution in my district, and the workers, the prison guards at that facility, are working, about 300 guards at that prison. They are working but not getting paid, and you can imagine the morale situation in a prison, a correctional institution where the guards are not getting paid, but in fact the prisoners are because the prison work program is getting paid. It is an unstable equilibrium. Twenty thousand visas are given to come to the United States a day in our foreign embassies. They have not been given out for the last 20 days; 400,000 visas. Now, I am glad that my colleague from Florida is standing because it affects his district as much as it affects mine. We have the good fortune of living in south Florida, where people from around the country and around the world visit. Every one of those people who is not getting a visa is dollars lost to our communities. The actual out- of-pocket payment that we are losing is over $40 million a day of taxpayers' money of out-of-pocket costs for taxpayers of this country. Over the 20-day period, close to a billion dollars has been lost by taxpayers in this country. In the previous shutdown, about $750 million of outright waste, garbage, a multiplier effect of 4 or 5 times that effect has cost our economy. It really is time for us to act like adults. Adults can disagree on issues and yet they can still have discussions. I hope my Republican colleagues join what everyone in this country out there in America wants us to do, which is to pass a CR and get the Government moving again.

Mr. DEUTSCH

Mr. DEUTSCH. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DEUTSCH

Mr. DEUTSCH. I would be happy, first of all, I have seen a video of his statement. This is a letter from the Speaker to the editor of the Washington Post which does not have the full context of what was said, and it is actually a quote from the transcript of his speech, not a transcription of the speech itself. So, I mean, this is somewhat questionable in terms of its accuracy. As I mentioned to the gentleman from Arizona, I will be happy to supply him with a videotape at that point in time. If we want to spend the next 5 minutes, the next 6 hours, I will be happy to discuss the issue of Medicare with my Republican colleagues because I think that is one of the areas of fundamental disagreement. I think, and the gentleman from Kentucky, I think sincerely stated that he believes that the Republican proposal would save Medicare, and I believe that it would destroy Medicare, and that is a fundamental, 180 degree difference in how we view the specific policies of that, and we can go into it, because I serve on the subcommittee that the bill went through. The trustee report talks about a $90 billion cut. It is a $270 billion cut, and I would just close very quickly on the point of Medicare. It is a $270 billion cut, which, if it really were to save Medicare, and this is a fundamental question, why does it not go into the Medicare trust fund? I mean, how did that $270 billion number, how did it come up?

Mr. DEUTSCH. If the gentleman will yield, I will be happy to respond.

Mr. DEUTSCH. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DEUTSCH

Mr. DEUTSCH. The gentleman does not control the time, so regular order. This is what the Speaker of the House said, and people can read it themselves. We don't get rid of it in round one because we don't think that is politically smart and we don't think that's the right way to go through a transition period, but we believe it's going to wither on the vine because we think people are voluntarily going to leave it. That is not historical revisionism. And some of the statements by the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Armey] in his book and other quotes, that is not historical revisionism. I will respond quickly regarding saving Medicare. Twelve of the 30 years the Medicare Program had left less of an actuarial life than it does today. Some of the tough votes we talked about when I was in Congress the first year, we did one of those adjustments. We cut Medicare $68 billion that I voted for and that my colleagues over there did not choose to do. We do not save Medicare by destroying it. And it is so disingenuous that the $270 billion cuts would not stay in the trust fund. There is no reason not to do a CR in an hour and a half parliamentary inquiry

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, let me take the last minute. This is just a little bit----

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Poshard] to close, and then I will take the last 4 minutes.

Mr. DEUTSCH. There are 8 minutes left, and if we just give ourselves 4 minutes each side to sort of close and J.D. wants to use a minute.

Mr. DEUTSCH. I want to give the gentleman from Illinois a chance [Mr. Poshard], a fresh voice, who maybe will clear everything up.