Jimmy Duncan

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I introduced legislation which will prohibit the Forest Service from charging a fee for special permits issued to churches. Some churches, which were established many years ago, currently fall within the boundaries of National Forests. These churches are now charged, or taxes, by the Forest Service to continue to hold their services or schools on the property that they have traditionally occupied. I do not believe that this is an appropriate practice. Thus, I have introduced this bill which would prohibit this practice by the Forest Service. Most of these churches are small and located in rural area. Unfortunately, they operate on a very limited budget. I do not think that eliminating these fees will hurt the federal government, which currently spends billions of dollars a year. While this will mean very little in terms of the overall federal budget, it will be very important to these small churches in rural America. Mr. Speaker, this legislation is a very modest proposal which I believe just about everyone could endorse. I hope that my colleagues will join me in supporting this bill by cosponsoring it.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, it was an honor to preside over the House during the consideration of a bill naming a Federal building in Austin, TX, after Congressman J.J. (Jake) Pickle. Congressman Pickle served in the House for more than 31 years. For 30 of those years he served with either my father or me. In their service on the Ways and Means Committee, he and my father became the closest of friends. I remember being told that on the plane returning from my father's funeral in Louisville, Congressman Pickle led the plane's passengers in singing some old-time hymns. In fact Congressman Pickle was famous within the Congress for the stories he used to tell about the hymns sung at the Thursday morning House prayer breakfasts. Some people wondered if the stories were totally accurate or were, at least in part, made up by Congressman Pickle as he went along. At any rate, Congressman Jake Pickle was a great and dedicated Member of the House. His love for others and for this institution shown through in everything he did. I join my colleagues in supporting this bill, a very fitting tribute to a very kind man and great American, Congressman Jake Pickle.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for yielding me this time. I wanted to take just a minute to express my appreciation to him and to the Speaker and to others who have brought this bill to the floor of the House here tonight. I had the great privilege of knowing Congressman Natcher personally and working closely with him for several years. What is interesting to me is just this morning I had a group from the First Baptist Church of Athens, Tennessee, on the floor of the House, showing them around the Capitol. I showed them the voting card that we each have and told them how we voted in the names, how they light up on the wall and so forth. One of the women in that group asked me about the man who broke the record, having the most consecutive votes, and so I told them about Congressman Bill Natcher, and that is who they were talking about. Because I know, as has already been mentioned, he did not miss a rollcall vote for more than 40 years. He had a record that will never be broken. It will never be surpassed. He was so dedicated to this institution and so dedicated to this country. He did many, many wonderful things for the District of Columbia during his time that he chaired the D.C. Appropriations Subcommittee. In fact, I think for a while he was called or frequently referred to as the Mayor of the District of Columbia for many years. But he did many, many other things, also, in his work for the Committee on Appropriations. In this time of such big spending on campaigns, I remember that he used to pride himself in the fact that he spent I think only about $10 or $15 or something on some of his campaigns. He would spend a little gas money driving around the district. It was phenomenal what he did in his campaigns and in his voting record, never missing a vote. I remember one time hearing that his wife was sick at home. Maybe somebody has already mentioned this. But his wife was sick in the hospital in Bowling Green. He flew for like 2 straight weeks each night after the House would get out of session. He would fly home to Nashville, drive I think 60 miles or so to Bowling Green or 70 miles, spend the night with her, fly back the next morning, and then do the same thing over again the next day and did that for 2 weeks. The lengths that he went to to keep up this record. He was a great American. I do not think that we really could pay enough honor and tribute to William Natcher, who was the epitome of what a United States Congressman should be. I strongly support this legislation.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, last week it was reported by the Associated Press that an Air Force communications satellite worth $800 million had ended up in the wrong orbit. This was the third failure in a row for the Air Force Titan IV program, at a total loss to the taxpayers of over $3 billion. This latest satellite not only ended up in the wrong orbit, it ended up in a lopsided orbit thousands of miles below its intended orbit. I have taken the floor many times over the years to point out examples of wasteful or exorbitant Federal spending. John Martin has for several years had a segment called It's Your Money on the ABC national television news, pointing out almost every week some example of horrible Federal waste. He has performed a great service to this Nation in bringing this series to the attention of the American people. The examples, unfortunately, are far too easy to find. Examples of ridiculously wasteful Federal spending are everywhere. It has made me wonder if the Federal Government can do anything in an efficient or economical way. But this Titan IV program really takes the cake. Three failures at a cost of $3 billion; $3 billion down the drain. What really adds insult to injury, Mr. Speaker, is that, because this is the Federal Government, no one will really be held accountable for this. In the private sector if a company had three major failures like this, heads would roll in a big way. Of course, in the private sector, no company could afford $3 billion in failures unless possibly it was a big-time Federal contractor subsidized by the taxpayer. The Appropriation Committees of the House and Senate should demand accountability here. They should not stand for $3 billion from three failed launches. But the easiest thing in the world, Mr. Speaker, is to spend other people's money. So what are we going to do? Thursday we are going to give big increases in pay and pensions and funding for the same Air Force that has sat around and allowed this $3 billion in failures to occur. Federal employees are great at rationalizing or justifying even ridiculous losses. I am sure that the Air Force will have some great excuses, and everyone connected with this will be able to explain why it was not their fault. Well, somebody is at fault and probably several people, and they should lose their jobs over this. Even though we talk about a billion dollars up here like it was very little, $3 billion is still an awful lot of money. This satellite, as I said earlier, cost $800 million. Last Friday's mission alone cost $1.23 billion. Just think how much good could have been done with the total $3 billion in losses in this Titan IV Air Force program. Now, I favor a strong military and I believe we should have a strong Air Force, but I do not believe we should just sit back and allow any part of the military to throw away $3 billion. We should not just cavalierly accept this. Several years ago, Edward Rendell, the Democratic Mayor of Philadelphia, said at a congressional hearing, ``Government does not work because it was not designed to. There is no incentive for people to work hard so many do not. There is no incentive for people to save money so much of it is squandered.'' How true this statement was and is. This is why it has been proven over and over and over again all over this world that the more money that can be left in the private sector, the better off everyone is; the lower prices are, the more jobs that are created, the better the economy is. Competitive pressures force the private sector to spend money wisely, to spend it in economical, efficient, conservative, productive ways. Private companies do not have the luxury the government has of being able to waste billions with almost no meaningful repercussions. The Air Force should publicly apologize for dropping this $3 billion down this Titan IV rat hole. The Congress should be assured that nothing like this will ever happen again. It is really sad, Mr. Speaker, to take $3 billion from the families and children of this country, many of whom are barely getting by, to give to highly paid bureaucrats and Air Force officers to just blow in this way. What would be even sadder would be if the Air Force and everyone associated with these failures is not deeply embarrassed and ashamed.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that I be given the time of the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Hulshof) and that he be given my time on the list so that I can resume my place in the chair following the 5-minute special order.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Madam Speaker, I read this weekend an article from The Washington Post that said our bombs have done $50 billion worth of damage to Yugoslavia. Also, the article said that this was more bombing than that country had sustained during all of World War II when it was bombed by both sides, and that unemployment there is now over 50 percent. Yugoslavia is a relatively small country geographically, with a population about equal to that of Tennessee and North Carolina combined. It is obvious that Yugoslavia and especially an economically devastated Yugoslavia cannot hold out much longer against the massive firepower we have unleashed. Then the President will be able to declare a great victory. But what will we have accomplished, really? As I have said before and many syndicated columnists from liberal to conservative have written, we made the situation and especially the refugee crisis many times worse by everything we have done there. I read Friday in the Washington Post that one of our bombs missed and hit a house where 11 children were killed. Also, we hit a bus where even more children were killed. We are making enemies out of friends, creating a reputation around the world for the U.S. as a bully state or, as one person said, the largest rogue nation. All of this at tremendous expense of many billions to the American taxpayer thus far and many billions more to resettle and reconstruct the country after the bombing stops. All of this in a vain and hopeless attempt to stop a civil war where ethnic and religious fighting has gone on for centuries and will come back once again unless we stay there forever at a tremendous cost to our children and grandchildren. I do not agree with Reverend Jessie Jackson on very much, but I commend him for getting our prisoners released, and I join him in urging our leaders to show a little at least humility and attempt to settle this mess and get us out of there, the sooner the better. Madam Speaker, one of the best summaries of this situation came not from a syndicated columnist but from a letter to the editor of the Washington Times by a man named Steven Costello of Lake Jackson, Texas. Mr. Costello wrote, ``it concerns me that the President has ordered U.S. war planes to bomb a sovereign country where we have no national security interest. It concerns me that the President has involved America in a civil war that has lasted for centuries over religious and national disagreements that a few cruise missiles cannot possibly resolve. It concerns me that this bombing is being conducted under the auspices of NATO, even though no member country of the NATO alliance has been attacked. It concerns me that Russia has condemned the NATO attacks against Yugoslavia. ``But what concerns me the most,'' Mr. Costello continued, ``is the real possibility that President Clinton, by misusing his authority as commander in chief in an apparent effort to manipulate media attention away from his shortcomings, is cultivating a generation of America- haters across the globe. By his indiscriminate bombing of Iraq, Afghanistan, the Sudan and Yugoslavia, is there a growing generation of disgruntled fathers, sons and brothers of those killed by our cruise missiles who are vowing to extract vengeance some day by shedding American blood? Are our innocent sons, being raised today on Main Street USA, the future private Ryans who some day will face the disgruntled generation on the battlefield, all because of Mr. Clinton's present and past indiscretions?'' These are good questions and serious questions that need to be asked for as long as we continue to fund and carry out this very unjust war. In a column in last Thursday's USA's Today, Charles Colson gave several reasons why this war could not be called a just war, among which he wrote, quote, the damage inflicted by a just war must be proportionate to the objectives of the war. So far, Mr. Colson said, we are not preventing suffering in proportion to what we are causing. As anyone should have reasonably expected, our attacks only emboldened Milosevic, resulting in more suffering and more ethnic Albanians being driven from their homes, unquote. Mr. Colson is right. No one is defending Milosevic, the Communist dictator, but he never threatened us or any other country in any way. We made everyone worse off by starting this war. If our President and Secretary of State were attempting to improve their legacies as great world leaders, they have not only failed, they have failed miserably.

Mr. DUNCAN

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

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule because it is a fair rule and it allows all views to be heard and will allow far more than 30 minutes that the previous speaker mentioned. We will be debating this for many hours to come today, and on into tonight. However, I rise in strong opposition to this war in the Balkans. First of all, as our colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. Campbell) has pointed out, it is an unconstitutional war because Congress has not and, I assume, will not declare war against Yugoslavia. Secondly, we have made the situation in Kosovo many times worse by our bombings and we cannot hide behind NATO because NATO would never have gone in there if the U.S. had not wanted it done. Ninety percent of the bombings have been paid for and done by the U.S. In fact, if the President is going to send in ground troops, as many people think, let the European members of NATO send them in. We have carried almost the entire financial and air war burden thus far and we should not have to carry the ground war burden too. If we get further into this mess by sending in ground troops, there are estimates that ultimately we will spend $40 billion to $50 billion in air and ground war costs and resettlement and reconstruction costs, money that will have to come from Social Security and many other valuable programs. Pat Holt, a foreign affairs expert writing in the Christian Science Monitor wrote a few days ago, ``The first few days of bombing have led to more atrocities and to more refugees. It will be increasing the instability which the bombing was supposed to prevent.'' Richard Cohen, the very liberal columnist for The Washington Post wrote, ``I believe, though, that the NATO bombings have escalated and accelerated the process. For some Kosovars, NATO has made things worse.'' Philip Gourevitch, writing in the April 12 New Yorker Magazine said, ``Yet so far the air war against Yugoslavia has accomplished exactly what the American-led alliance flew into combat to prevent: Our bombs unified the Serbs in Yugoslavia, as never before, behind the defiance of Milosevic; they spurred to a frenzy the `cleansing' of Kosovo's ethnic Albanians by Milosevic's forces'', and on and on. A.M. Rosenthal writing in The New York Times a few days ago asked this question: ``Would we again bomb, bomb, bomb the capital of the Serbs, who thought of themselves as far more our friends than his,'' meaning Milosevic. ``So far this has produced three major results: humiliating Serbs forever, turning friendship into enmity, and persuading many to rally around a man they detest and fear.'' All we have done, Mr. Speaker, is turn friends into enemies and waste billions and billions of dollars. We have gone into an area where there is absolutely no threat to our national security and no vital U.S. interest, and we should negotiate a settlement and get out of there as soon as we possibly can.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Madam Speaker, Michael Kelly, the editor of the National Journal, said, ``It is not too much to ask that the planners (of the war) do not lie, to themselves and to the public, about how their plans are faring. And what is going on with the plan in Yugoslavia is that it is failing, catastrophically.'' He added that: ``We started a war to protect a people, and we know that, far from being protected, the people are being slaughtered and driven destitute from their homes to starve in the hills.'' Columnist Doug Bandow, in yesterday's Washington Times, wrote: ``. . . NATO's blundering assault on Yugoslavia has created every condition it was supposed to prevent.'' Even Senator John McCain said yesterday, ``The NATO bombing was intended to bring Milosevic to the bargaining table. Most evidence indicates this has had the opposite effect. Apparently, he has greater support than he had before.'' We have made things many times worse by our bombings. I doubt, though, that our leaders are big enough to admit that they made a horrible mistake and that we should get out of this war as soon as we possibly can.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, everyone was horrified by these terrible shootings in Littleton, Colorado yesterday. This is one of the worst tragedies that has ever occurred in this Nation. There is nothing worse that can happen to parents than to outlive one of their children, and certainly, the sympathies of all of us go out to the families who lost loved ones in Colorado yesterday. Many years ago I taught American government and journalism at T.C. Williams High School here in Alexandria, Virginia. I go to 75 or 80 schools each year and have 15 or 20 school groups visit me here in Washington, as well as speaking to many, many youth groups through the year. I am around thousands of teenagers each year. So this tragedy has really been on my mind last night and today. I remember several months ago, after one of these other school shootings, I was driving to the airport here in Washington to go home to Tennessee. The national head of the YMCA was on the CBS national radio news. He said something that I have never forgotten. He said that our children are being neglected today in this country as never before in our history. I am a father too. In our quest to get ahead, almost all of us in our quest to get ahead and to make more money and really to feel better about ourselves, we are not spending nearly enough time with our children. No one can ever fully explain these shootings that occurred yesterday. I am sure there are many reasons for these horrible events. There is far too much violence on television and in the movies. There is too much warped, weird stuff on the Internet. I know we are supposed to worship the computer today, but much of what is on the Internet is harmful, especially to children, and parents should realize that. But probably the thing that concerns me the most is the trend toward mega schools, bigger and bigger schools. I read not long ago that the largest high school in New York City had 3,500 students, and then they broke it up or divided it up into 5 different high schools and most of the drug and discipline problems became much, much better. When students have to go to huge high schools such as the one in Littleton yesterday, most young people are not able to make a sports team or be a cheerleader or be president of a group. Most students are just numbers and feel anonymous. Most can handle this okay, but some unfortunately resort to weird, warped or at times even criminal behavior to get noticed or a desperate cry for attention. Young people who feel good about themselves would never do anything even remotely close to the horrible events that occurred in Littleton yesterday. I think another thing that has caused many serious problems is the breakup of the family. Before coming to Congress, I spent 7\1/2\ years as a criminal court judge in Tennessee, trying felony criminal cases. I have always remembered that the first day I was judge they told me that 98 percent of the defendants in felony cases came from broken homes. I know that many, many wonderful people, many successful people have come from broken homes. But I read thousands of reports over those years which said, the defendant's father left home when defendant was two and never returned; defendant's father left home to get pack of cigarettes and never came back. Then, after I came to Congress, I remember reading in one of the Washington papers a few years ago that two leading criminologists have studied 11,000 felony cases from across the country and they found that the biggest single factor in serious crime, bar none, nothing else was even close, was father-absent households. So I rise today to make a plea for fathers to stay with their children. This is so very important, and there are so many young people growing up in this country today without the love or the discipline or the encouragement or the support or the combination of all of those things that they really need. If the families keep breaking up at such a tremendous rate in this country, we are going to see problems continue to grow and grow and horrible events such as we saw in Littleton yesterday. Yet, there is a government role, because in 1950 the government at all levels, the Federal Government took about 4 percent of the income of the average family, the State and local governments took another 4 percent, and many mothers had the privilege of staying home with their children. And now, government at all levels takes about 40 percent of the income of the average family and regulatory costs take another 10 percent, and so many, as Fred Thompson said one time, Senator Fred Thompson said, one spouse works to support the family while the other spouse works to support the government. Many mothers who would like to stay home with their children do not have that choice or that option. So if we could decrease the cost and size of our government, it would help more families stay together because most families break up in arguments over finances. When we put all of this together, it is hard to explain, but we need to have a national discussion, Mr. Speaker, about the causes of events such as what happened in Littleton yesterday, and we need to do everything we possibly can to see that nothing like that ever happens again in this country.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, some of the finest and most patriotic people that we have in this Nation today are naturalized citizens who came from other countries. This is true in Knoxville, TN where we have many leading citizens who have come from other nations. We have a exceptional strong Greek Community and one of the finest of that group is a man named George Consin. He and other members of the Knoxville Greek Community have contributed in too many ways to list at this time, however, the Knoxville News Sentinel recently published an article telling the story of how Mr. Consin and his wife, Mary, adopted a small boy from Greece many years ago. This is a touching human interest story that I would like to call to the attention of my fellow Members and other readers of the Congressional Record. [From the Knoxville News-Sentinel, Apr. 11, 1999] Gifts From Two Fathers (By Kristi L. Nelson) In 1958, in the small town of Volos, Greece, the young wife of 27-year-old Soterios Kalliakoudas gave birth to a boy, their first child. The mother died of complications a few weeks after the birth, and Kalliakoudas, a shepherd and himself the oldest of six children, didn't feel he could raise the boy himself or burden his parents with another child. After the baby was christened--the mother's dying wish--he was placed with a foster family in Greece and put up for adoption. About a year later, Kalliakoudas married his second wife, Meropi. After learning her husband had a son, she told him, ``You go and find that baby. I will raise him as my own.'' The family gathered at the Kalliakoudas' home to welcome George, who was named, in the Greek tradition, after his paternal grandfather. But Kalliakoudas returned home empty-handed to face the disappointed family. Upon arriving at the foster home, he was told George had already been adopted and taken to America. Afterward he always spoke with regret of losing his first son and told people he had four children, including the son who had gone to America. Soterios and Meropi had two sons--the first again named George in Greek tradition and the second named Dimitri--and a daughter, Viriana. As they grew, they would see men in town who resembled them and wonder if the mystery brother might not be in America after all. As adults, they made an unsuccessful attempt to locate George in America. ``They knew I was in the United States, but the United States is a very big place,'' Consin Jr. said. ``They didn't know where to look.'' George and Mary Consin Sr. were born in Greece but met in America. George Sr. came to America with his family in 1933. Mary came to America in 1946, after World War II. After marrying, the couple tried for a decade--without success--to bear a child. A relative who was a congressman in Athens, Greece, arranged for the Consins to adopt 20-month-old George. Although American adoption agencies considered George Sr. and Mary old to be adoptive parents, Greek adoption agencies preferred older couples, whom they considered more stable. The Consins were thrilled, but a trip to Greece would be expensive. They asked for help from longtime family friends Jim and Jenny Peroulas, who were planning a family vacation to Greece with their children, Maria and Johnny. ``They were very close friends,'' said Jim Peroulas, former owner of a Market Square restaurant and now a bailiff for Sessions Judge Brenda Waggoner. ``They were depending on us to bring the baby up here.'' The Peroulases picked up the boy and kept him with them in Greece for a few weeks before boarding a 12 hour flight to the United States. The Peroulases then stayed with the Consins for a few days, until George Jr. was used to his new home. ``He was a very nice boy,'' Jim Peroulas said. ``They took care of the boy and brought him up right. They told him that and was involved in (the adoption), and George asked me several times to tell him those tales.'' George Jr. grew up in Knoxville, fully aware that the was adopted. ``It was never an issue or a secret,'' he said, Being an only child, he was ``spoiled rotten,'' he said. His parents, like many other Greeks, emphasized the importance of family, hospitality and church. George Jr. grew up close to aunts, uncles and cousins as well as the extended ``family'' of St. George Greek Orthodox Church, where he was an altar boy and attended church school. In public school, he learned English. As a child, George Jr. Was regaled with his father's stories of a childhood in Greece and his mother's stories of Greece during the war. Though he was interested in the Greek culture, growing up in America suited George Jr. fine. ``I'm sure that I was afforded opportunities I wouldn't have had there,'' he said. When he was 20, George Jr. met 17-year-old Angela Barkas on a vacation in Myrtle Beach, where her father owned a restaurant. Twelve years ago--after his graduation from the University of Tennessee and her graduation from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro--they were married. Now George Jr. is vice president of retail sales at First American National Bank and Angela's an interior designer. They have two sons--Alex, 8, and Nicholas, 6. George Jr.'s parents told Angela of his background, and from time to time the couple would discuss the possibility of finding his birth father. ``Because he was adopted in Greece, it wasn't like we ever thought a reunion would be possible.'' Angela said ``It's so far away, and there's the language barrier. * * * We never thought it would happen.'' In April 1997, a Greek delegation from Larissa, Greece-- about 45 minutes from George Jr's birthplace in Volos-- visited Knoxville. After reading about the delegation's journey in the News-Sentinel, George Sr. approached someone in the group about trying to locate George Jr's birth father, whose last name and first initial he had on a document. George Sr. wasn't sure the other man still lived in Volos, or whether he was even still living, but an attorney in Greece helped him locate the Kalliakoudas family. In October 1997, George Sr. made a phone call to Volov and spoke with Meropi, who told him Soterios had his vocal cords removed as a result of throat cancer and could not speak on the phone. Meropi and Soterios immediately sent letters to George Sr., while George, Dimitri and Viriana each sent family photograph with information written on the back. They were overjoyed to have finally found the ``other brother.'' George Jr. was at work one day when he got a phone call from George Sr., now, 78 and working is the 78 and working in the Knox County property assessors office. ``I've got something for you'' he told him. ``Can you come down to my office?'' The elder Consin presented his son the envelope of letters and photographs. ``He wanted to give me this opportunity while he was still alive,'' George Jr. said. ``He was awaiting for the right time.'' He took the envelope home to Angela. Together they pored over the first letter which took George Jr. two hours to read because his knowledge of the Greek language was rusty. That weekend, apprehensive of the language barrier, they placed a long-distance call to Viriana. ``We didn't want to shock his father, and we knew he couldn't speak,'' Angela said. The phone call cost $80--and countless tears of joy. ``We started getting calls from Greece almost immediately-- aunts, uncles, cousins and siblings,'' said George Jr., who said Soterios at first was afraid his son would be angry at him for giving him up. George Jr. quickly made it clear that wasn't the case and now talks to his Greek relatives at least twice a month. The Consins had been saving money for living room furniture and a family trip to Disney World. ``George came in and said, `Forget the furniture! Forget Disney! We're going to Greece!''' Angela said. In May 1998, the couple went, taking along their sons to meet a ``new'' grandfather. About 30 relatives met them at the airport. ``We were all crying,'' Angela said. ``It was very exciting.'' The Consins stayed in Greece for three weeks. ``It was very comfortable,'' George said. ``It was like we had known them all our lives.'' Because both George Jr. and Angela had grown up only children, their sons met their only first cousins. Four of Soterios' five brothers as well as all their children and their families lived within three blocks of Soterios and Meropi. ``My children didn't speak Greek, and the cousins didn't speak English, but they played together all the time.'' Angela said. Nor did his inability to speak English keep Soterios from bonding with his new grandsons. ``He spent a lot of time with (Alex and Nicholas), taking them for walks and out for ice cream,'' George Jr. said. ``If they were doing something wrong, he'd whistle to let them know.'' George Jr. got to meet his own paternal grandparents, now in their 90s, as well as his godfather--who was present at his christening--and countless other relatives. ``We probably met 100 people while we were there,'' Angela said. Moreover, Meropi tracked down the family of George's biological mother--of whom she was a friend--and invited them over for a meal, an unselfish gesture that stunned the Consins. ``Here she was, the second wife, having to deal with the first wife's child,'' Angela said, ``and she invited the first wife's sister over for lunch, having her there in the house crying over the dead wife's picture. She was so gracious.'' This meeting with the mother's sister led to a trip to her house in Trikala, an hour-and-a-half drive from Volos. Three of George Jr.'s mother's four sisters and their families-- about 30 people in all--attended a luncheon to welcome the newfound relatives. Again, the Consins were overwhelmed by hospitality. ``They slaughtered a pig for us,'' Angela said. ``They even made their own feta cheese--they even made their own wine! Even the salad we ate was from their own garden.'' The Consins were ``treated like kings and queens'' throughout their stay, they said. They would admire an object in town, only to find it on their bed the next day. They had to buy two extra suitcases in Greece to bring home all their gifts. The Consins also brought American gifts for their new Greek family--perfume for the women, jewelry for the girls, Beanie Babies and Legos for the children. But it was a gift sent the previous Christmas that was most precious to Soterios and Meropi. Angela had made the Kalliakoudases a photo album of George growing up, using two photographs from each year of his life, and had a friend fluent in Greek write captions underneath. She ended the photo album with photos of Alex and Nicholas and left blank pages for future pictures of the family's times together. ``When we went to visit, that album was on their coffee table with the photo albums of the other children,'' Angela said. ``Meropi said (Soterios) showed it to everyone who came over.'' They hope to fill the album to overflowing. George Jr. will leave for another trip to Greece later this month--Angela and the children will join him for another trip next year--and the Consins hope their Greek relatives will be able to visit them in America. George Jr. said his adoptive parents and newfound biological parents get along well. Meropi calls George and Mary Consin, he said, and the Kalliakoudases always ask about the Consins and refer to them to George Jr. as ``your parents.'' And they all realize their debt to George Consin Sr., who gave his son a second father--and Soterios back his son.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I have spoken several times over the last few days about the situation in Kosovo. Unfortunately, as a former editor of Foreign Affairs magazine wrote recently in the Washington Times, the President has put us in an impossible situation. There is no good answer. As Henry Kissinger said, ``Ethnic and religious fighting is endemic to the Balkans and has been going on there for hundreds of years.'' We cannot stop it unless we stay there forever at unbelievable costs to our taxpayers. Do we mortgage the futures of our children and grandchildren to temporarily make things a little bit better in Kosovo? Everyone agrees that Milosevic is a tyrant. He is a communist dictator. I am certainly not defending him in any way. In fact, I went to Yugoslavia 2 years ago with the National Defense Council. While in Belgrade, I, along with three other Members of this body, appeared on radio station B-92, which was the main opposition station to Milosevic. But as many columnists and commentators have pointed out, our bombings have basically created the refugee situation and have strengthen Milosevic. Everyone has tremendous sympathy for the refugees. But several hundred thousand Serbians were forced out of Croatia not long ago. They were victims of ethnic cleansing then, and we did nothing about it. And as many people have pointed out, there are small wars or fighting going on in 30 or 40 different places around this world right now. Several of those situations were far worse than in Kosovo before we started the bombing. There apparently is little disagreement with the description that the Kosovar Liberation Army is a terrorist organization and one that has been funded primarily by illegal drugs. On MSNBC this past Saturday night, the question was asked about the refugee crisis, whether it was created by NATO bombs or Serbian troops. Sixty-five percent of the many thousands of callers said NATO bombing was mainly at fault. NATO is getting ready to hold one of the biggest parties this city has ever seen here this weekend. I believe NATO and our President thought Milosevic would cave after just a few days of bombing and that they could then toast each other in a great victory celebration for the 50th anniversary party of NATO this weekend. What a miscalculation. That was certainly one of the greatest miscalculations in American history and, unfortunately, one that is costing American taxpayers $46,000 a minute and many, many, many billions before it is all over. We are about to be asked to appropriate $6 billion in emergency funding. And if we go into a ground war, they estimate that is going to be $10 or $15 billion and that before it is all over, if this thing drags out, we could spend $40 or $50 billion that would have to be taken from other programs or from the Social Security fund. All of this that I am saying today was said much more eloquently in a column written by A.M. Rosenthal of the New York Times which ran in the Knoxville News Sentinel this morning. Mr. Rosenthal wrote this. He said, ``The way adults of any intelligence can find out how well they are dealing with a crisis, personal or national, is to ask themselves two questions: Would we do the same things again if we had a chance? If not, what do we now do to get out of this mess?'' Then Mr. Rosenthal asked these questions: ``Would the United States again decide that to help Kosovo's Albanians we would give Slobodan Milosevic what he wanted most, the cover to drive a million of them into foreign exile or become displaced persons at home, wandering their roads in terror? Would we spray bombs at a dictator without it occurring to our leaders he would immediately drive out or slaughter the people we were supposed to save? Were our leaders fools?'' ``Yes'' Mr. Rosenthal says. Would the U.S. President again decide that before going to war he would guarantee not to send ground troops so Milosevic need not get all worried? ``Would we again bomb-bomb-bomb the capital of the Serbs, who thought of themselves as far more our friends than his? So far this has produced three major results: humiliating Serbs forever, turning friendship into enmity, and persuading many to rally around a man they detest and fear. ``Would we be roaming around again with a diplomatic begging cup asking Russia, the same addled country that we pity, or any other country that will answer the phone, to find a way out for us? ``Would we again allow Washington to weaken the world's human rights movements by arousing fears that they will one day mean more bombing assignments for America?'' Mr. Speaker, just to sum up what we really have done, we have turned friends into enemies at great cost to this country. And I think that, unfortunately, we have gotten into one of the biggest messes we have ever gotten into in this country, and we need to negotiate and get out of this mess as soon as we possibly can.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, last night on the CNN national news the anchor woman said that Congress did not question the costs of the Kosovo-Serbia bombings, implying total support. That very morning, however, the Congressional Quarterly had a headline that said, ``Congress Eyes Cost of U.S. Role in Kosovo.'' There probably is no question that this money will be approved. However, it is simply wrong to imply that no Members of Congress question these costs. We are now being told that we will soon be asked to approve $4 billion for the costs of our air war. One estimate is that ground troops and reconstruction costs could soon total $10 billion. This is money that will have to be taken from other programs and from American taxpayers, and if we have to stay in there to preserve the peace for many years to come, the costs could just become unbelievable. Many Members of Congress feel it was a horrible mistake to get into this mess in the first place and that our bombings have made a bad situation many times worse than if we had simply offered humanitarian aid. CNN and much of our liberal national media may want a much bigger role. The American people want out of there, the sooner the better. Yesterday a Democratic Member of the House sat down next to me and said, ``I don't know who these people are polling. Everyone in my district is strongly opposed to this war.'' In just the past couple of days, Mr. Speaker, I have had similar comments made to me from both Democratic and Republican Members of the House from Missouri, Virginia, New York, Kentucky, Arizona, Maryland, Alabama, California, North Carolina and Florida. I have not been seeking these comments. I have been taking no formal survey. But Members of the House have been telling me that their constituents are almost totally opposed to this war in Serbia and Kosovo. Our colleague, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Ganske) was on the C-Span Washington Journal yesterday morning. He said he had had over 1,000 people in town meetings over the recess and that when he asked how many favored ground troops in Kosovo, only 10 people raised their hands. Last Thursday morning this same question was asked on the leading talk radio show in Knoxville. Only one call came in in favor of ground troops, yet the national media has this drumbeat going for a bigger, longer, more expensive war. Heaven help us if part of this is about ratings, or so some of our leaders can prove how powerful they are, or to leave some great legacy as world statesman. I believe this is going to go down as one of the great miscalculations in American history and certainly one of the most expensive. We have turned NATO from a purely defensive organization into an aggressor force for the first time in history, and one that has attacked a sovereign nation for the first time in history. With our bombings in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Sudan and now Serbia and Kosovo, we are bombing nations which have not threatened us in any way, which have not jeopardized our national security and where we have no vital U.S. interests, and we are quickly turning people who would like to be our friends into bitter enemies of the United States. We have taken a bad situation and made it many times worse by our bombings and have created a huge refugee crisis in the process, and all of this was done by the President apparently against the advice of his top military advisers and against the advice of the head of the CIA. The Christian Science Monitor, the National Journal and many other leading publications and columnists have pointed out that there are at least 30 or 40 other conflicts, small wars, going on all over this world right now, several far worse than Kosovo before we started bombing. Our policy should have been, Mr. Speaker, and should be now: humanitarian aid, yes; bombings and ground troops, no. The U.S. was doing 68 percent of the bombing before General Clark requested 300 more planes. If the majority in Congress wants to send ground troops in and, I think, ignore their constituents in the process, then let the Europeans lead for once. We do not have to carry the entire burden. Those who wanted to expand NATO membership a few months ago to bring in Poland and Czechoslovakia and Hungary should call on those countries to supply troops. They have done nothing so far, and it is obvious that NATO would not be doing all of this or any of this were it not for U.S. insistence. One of our leading columnists, Mr. Speaker, wrote a couple of days ago these words: ``Three weeks into Bill Clinton's Balkan adventure, and America risks a debacle. The human rights crisis in Kosovo has exploded into a catastrophe. Slobodan Milosevic is being rallied around like some Serbian Churchill, Montenegro and Macedonia are destabilized, Russia is being swept by anti-American jingoism, and U.S. troops may have to go marching into the big muddy. Such are the fruits of Utopian crusades for global democracy.'' Mr. Speaker, several times over the last few days I have heard reports on national networks saying that Members of Congress were getting ``antsy'' about not committing ground troops to Kosovo. The implication is that all of the Members of Congress want ground troops in there immediately. I believe it was a terrible mistake to start bombing in the first place, and it certainly would be compounding a huge error to place many thousands of ground troops in there now. As many columnists have pointed out, the NATO bombings have made this situation much worse than it ever would have been if we had simply stayed out. The very liberal Washington Post Columnist, Richard Cohen, wrote, ``I believe, though, that the NATO bombings have escalated and accelerated the process. For some Kosovars, NATO has made things worse.'' Pat M. Holt, a foreign affairs expert writing in the Christian Science Monitor, wrote, ``The first few days of bombing have led to more atrocities and to more refugees. It will be increasing the instability which the bombing was supposed to prevent.'' Philip Gourevitch, writing in the April 12 New Yorker Magazine, said: ``Yet so far the air war against Yugoslavia has accomplished exactly what the American-led alliance flew into combat to prevent: Our bombs unified the Serbs in Yugoslavia, as never before, behind the defiance of Milosevic; they spurred to a frenzy the `cleansing' of Kosovo's ethnic Albanians by Milosevic's forces; they increased the likelihood of the conflict's spilling over into Yugoslavia's south-Balkan neighbors; and they hardened the hearts of much of the non-Western World against us--not least in Russia, where passionate anti- Americanism is increasing the prospects for the right-wing nationalists of the Communist Party to win control of the Kremlin and its nuclear arsenal in coming elections.'' Many conservative analysts have been very critical. Thomas Sowell wrote: ``Already our military actions are being justified by the argument that we are in there now and cannot pull out without a devastating loss of credibility and influence in NATO and around the world. In other words, we cannot get out because we have gotten in. That kind of argument will be heard more and more if we get in deeper. ``Is the Vietnam War so long ago that no one remembers? We eventually pulled out of Vietnam,'' Mr. Sowell wrote, ``under humiliating conditions with a tarnished reputation around the world and with internal divisiveness and bitterness that took years to heal. Bad as this was, we could have pulled out earlier with no worse consequences and with thousands more Americans coming back alive.'' Mr. Sowell asks, ``Why are we in the Balkans in the first place? There seems to be no clear-cut answer.'' William Hyland, a former editor of Foreign Affairs Magazine, writing in the Washington Post said, ``The President has put the country in a virtually impossible position. We cannot escalate without grave risks. If the President and NATO truly want to halt ethnic cleansing, then the alliance will have to put in a large ground force or, at a minimum, mount a credible threat to do so. A conventional war in the mountains of Albania and Kosovo will quickly degenerate into a quagmire. On the other hand, the United States and NATO cannot retreat without suffering a national and international humiliation. * * * the only alternative is to revive international diplomacy.'' Mr. Hyland is correct, but unfortunately I am afraid that ground troops in Kosovo would be much worse than a quagmire. Former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleberger was quoted on a national network last week as saying that the Bush administration had closely analyzed the situation in the Balkans in the early 1990s and had decided it was a ``swamp'' into which we should not go. NATO was established as a purely defensive organization, not an aggressor force. With the decreased threat from the former Soviet Union, was NATO simply searching for a mission? Were some national officials simply trying to prove that they are world statesmen or trying to leave a legacy? The United States has done 68 percent of the bombing thus far. This whole episode, counting reconstruction and resettlement costs after we bring Milosevic down, will cost us many billions. IIf there have to be ground troops, let the Europeans take the lead. Do not commit United States ground troops. Let the Europeans do something. The U.S. has done too much already. Humanitarian aid, yes; bombs and ground troops, no. [From the Washington Post, Feb. 13, 1999] The Mess They've Made (By Patrick J. Buchanan) Three weeks into Bill Clinton's Balkan adventure and America risks a debacle. The human rights crisis in Kosovo has exploded into a catastrophe. Slobodan Milosevic is being rallied around like some Serbian Churchill. Montenegro and Macedonia are destabilized; Russia is being swept by anti- American jingoism; and U.S. troops may have to go marching into the Big Muddy. Such are the fruits of Utopian crusades for global democracy. The great lesson of Vietnam was: Before you commit the army, commit the nation. Clinton and Madeleine Albright launched a war against Yugoslavia with the support of neither. Yet this debacle is not their doing alone. It is a product of the hubris of a foreign policy elite that has for too long imbibed of its own moonshine about America being the ``world's last superpower'' and ``indispensable nation.'' Even as we slashed our defenses to the smallest fraction of GDP since before Pearl Harbor, the rhetoric has remained triumphalist, and the commitments have kept on coming. Responsibility must be shared by Congress, for Clinton's intent to launch this Balkan war was long apparent. Yet Congress failed either to authorize war or deny the president the right to attack. With Milosevic still defying NATO, we are admonished that ``failure is not an option.'' the United States must do ``whatever is necessary to win.'' Otherwise, NATO's credibility will be destroyed. But this is mindlessness. If the war was a folly to begin with, surely, the answer is to cut our losses and let the idiot-adventurers who urged the attack resign to write their memoirs, rather than send 100,000 U.S. troops crashing into the Balkans to save the faces and careers of our blundering strategists. Only a fanatic redoubles his energy when he has lost sight of his goal. After the Gallipolli disaster, Churchill went; after Suez, Eden went; after the Bay of Pigs, Allen Dulles departed the CIA. Surely, this is a wiser, more honorable, course than a ground war in Kosovo. Moreover, Americans will not support ``whatever is necessary to win.'' We are not going to turn Belgrade into Hamburg. As one recalls the horror at Nixon's ``Christmas Bombing'' that freed our POWs at a cost of 1,400 dead in Hanoi, all but surgical bombing is out. And if we send in the troops, what do we ``win''? The right to say that NATO defeated Serbia? The right to occupy Kosovo? If, after we take Kosovo, the Serbs conduct a guerrilla war against our troops, and the KLA begins a war of liberation to kick NATO out, annex western Macedonia and unite with Tirana, our ``victory'' will have produced the very disaster we wish to avoid. ``It is unworthy of a great state to dispute over something that does not concern its own interests,'' and Bismarck, who called the entire Balkans ``not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier.'' When did that peninsula become so critical to the United States that we would go to war over whose flag flew over Pristina? ``Arm the Kosovars!'' urge other armchair strategists. But do we really want another Afghanistan--in the underbelly of Europe? What a mess the interventionists have made of it. Because the NATO expansionists could not keep their hands off the alliance, they have shattered the myth of its invincibility and may have called into being a Moscow-Minsk-Beijing- Belgrade-Baghdad axis. But maybe the foreign policy establishment needed a second Cold War, as anything is preferable to irrelevance. Out of this disaster, what lessons may be learned? First, America cannot police the planet on a defense budget of 3 percent of GDP. Our dearth of air-launched cruise missiles, the need to shift carriers from the gulf, the delay in deploying the Apaches, the calling up of the reserves--all point to a military that is dangerously inadequate to the global tasks we have added since the Cold War. Unless America is prepared to restore Ronald Reagan's Army, Navy and Air Force, we cannot stop a rearmed Russia in East Europe, police the Balkans, roll back a second Iraqi attack on Kuwait, contain North Korea and prevent another of Beijing's bullying assaults on Taipei. Should one or two of these emergencies occur at once, we will be suddenly face to face with foreign policy bankruptcy. America must retrench and rearm. What the United States needs today in the Balkans is a least-bad peace, patrolled by Europeans, where Serbs rule Serbs, Croats Croats and Albanians Albanians. And if, in the negotiations to end this tragedy, Belgrade cries, ``No American troops in Kosovo!'' let us insist upon it, and bring our soldiers home from Europe, as Ike told JFK to do nearly 40 years ago.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, last night the Fox Network reported costs of $3 billion for the air war against Yugoslavia, and that was before it was reported that General Clark has now asked for several hundred more U.S. aircraft. Yesterday, in The Washington Post, Columnist Robert Novak reported that we had bought Russia's neutrality with another $4.6 billion IMF loan. We will spend many billions in addition more on ground troops and reconstruction costs after Milosevic comes down. All of this against a tiny country that was no threat whatsoever to us, and where we made things many times worse by our bombings. Last week the largest talk radio program in Knoxville asked if we should send ground troops into Kosovo. Only one caller was in favor. Everyone else was strongly opposed. Our very liberal national media is doing everything it possibly can to escalate this war, so the true story will probably never be adequately reported, and that is that this war is a great miscalculation being carried out at almost obscene expense to the American people.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Madam Speaker, several times over the last few days I have heard reports on national networks saying that Members of Congress were getting ``antsy'' about not committing ground troops to Kosovo. The implication is that all of the Members of Congress want ground troops in there immediately. I believe it was a terrible mistake to start bombing in the first place, and it certainly would be compounding a huge error to place many thousands of ground troops in there now. As many columnists have pointed out, the NATO bombings have made this situation much worse than it ever would have been if we had simply stayed out. The very liberal Washington Post columnist, Richard Cohen, wrote, ``I believe, though, that the NATO bombings have escalated and accelerated the process. For some Kosovars, NATO has made things worse.'' Pat M. Holt, a foreign affairs expert writing in the Christian Science Monitor, wrote, ``The first few days of bombing have led to more atrocities and to more refugees. It will be increasing the instability which the bombing was supposed to prevent.'' Philip Gourevitch, writing in the April 12 New Yorker Magazine, said: ``Yet so far the air war against Yugoslavia has accomplished exactly what the American-led alliance flew into combat to prevent: Our bombs unified the Serbs in Yugoslavia, as never before, behind the defiance of Milosevic; they spurred to a frenzy the `cleansing' of Kosovo's ethnic Albanians by Milosevic's forces; they increased the likelihood of the conflict's spilling over into Yugoslavia's south-Balkan neighbors; and they hardened the hearts of much of the non-Western world against us--not least in Russia, where passionate anti- Americanism is increasing the prospects for the right-wing nationalists or the Communist Party to win control of the Kremlin and its nuclear arsenal in coming elections.'' Many conservative analysts have been very critical. Thomas Sowell wrote: ``Already our military actions are being justified by the argument that we are in there now and cannot pull out without a devastating loss of credibility and influence in NATO and around the world. In other words, we cannot get out because we have gotten in. That kind of argument will be heard more and more if we get in deeper. ``Is the Vietnam War so long ago that no one remembers? We eventually pulled out of Vietnam,'' Mr. Sowell wrote, ``under humiliating conditions with a tarnished reputation around the world and with internal divisiveness and bitterness that took years to heal. Bad as this was, we could have pulled out earlier with no worse consequences and with thousands more Americans coming back alive.'' Mr. Sowell asks, ``Why are we in the Balkans in the first place? There seems to be no clear-cut answer.'' William Hyland, a former editor of Foreign Affairs Magazine, writing in the Washington Post said, ``The President has put the country in a virtually impossible position. We cannot escalate without grave risks. If the President and NATO truly want to halt ethnic cleansing, then the alliance will have to put in a large ground force or, at a minimum, mount a credible threat to do so. A conventional war in the mountains of Albania and Kosovo will quickly degenerate into a quagmire. On the other hand, the United States and NATO cannot retreat without suffering a national and international humiliation. * * * The only alternative is to revive international diplomacy.'' Mr. Hyland is correct, but unfortunately I am afraid that ground troops in Kosovo would be much worse than a quagmire. Former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleberger was quoted on a national network last week as saying that the Bush administration had closely analyzed the situation in the Balkans in the early 1990s and had decided it was a ``swamp'' into which we should not go. NATO was established as a purely defensive organization, not an aggressor force. With the decreased threat from the former Soviet Union, was NATO simply searching for a mission? Were some national officials simply trying to prove that they are world statesmen or trying to leave a legacy? The U.S. has done 68 percent of the bombing thus far. This whole episode, counting reconstruction and resettlement costs after we bring Milosevic down, will cost us many billions. If there have to be ground troops, let the Europeans take the lead. Do not commit U.S. ground troops. Let the Europeans do something. The U.S. has done too much already. Humanitarian aid, yes; bombs and ground troops, no.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this legislation. On March 31, 1999, funding for the FAA Airport Improvement Program will be cut off. Last year, we attempted to pass a comprehensive long- term bill that would have extended AIP and FAA funding. However, due to a breakdown in conference negotiations, only a short- term 6-month extension for the AIP was passed as part of the Omnibus appropriations bill. In February of this year, the House passed H.R. 99, a six-month bill to extend AIP and fund FAA's operations and facilities and equipment programs through the end of FY 99. H.R. 99 was passed so that AIP funding would not run out while we attempted to pass our long-term aviation reauthorization bill, AIR-21. H.R. 99 was passed out of the House and sent to the Senate on February 3, two months prior to the expiration of AIP funding on March 31st. In the shadow of this imminent deadline, last week the Senate passed a two-month extension bill that would fund AIP only through May 31st of this year. The Senate bill also includes technical changes for the Military Airport Program and the small airport fund within AIP to allow them to work under the limited extension. In addition, the Senate bill extends the War risk Insurance program for two additional months. Its funding is also set to expire on March 31st. This is an important issue, especially in light of current events. The House passed H.R. 98 in February, which extended the War Risk Insurance Program through 2004. If the Senate should pass H.R. 98, it is our intention that that bill extension for 5 years should take precedence over this two-month provision. Finally, the Senate bill allows the FAA to consider a PFC application from Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority up to a limit of $30 million. Under current law, FAA is not allowed to consider a PFC application from MWAA. Although this bill only extends the programs for two months instead of the House-passed six month bill, it is important that this bill pass so that funding for AIP does not lapse. I urge you all to support this bill so that this short term measure is in place and funding for your local airports will remain in effect while we attempt to pass a long-term FAA reauthorization bill. (Mr. OBERSTAR asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, last August we bombed Afghanistan and Sudan, in bombing raids that most Americans have already forgotten. We rushed into that bombing without informing even the full Joint Chiefs of Staff and without congressional approval, and later found we had even bombed a medicine factory. Last December we started bombing Iraq, once again bombing people that our own leaders tell us are not our enemies. Many press reports since then have confirmed that the White House rigged the UNSCOM report in a lame attempt to justify the Iraqi bombing. Now we are going to drop bombs on Kosovo. We are spending billions and billions of hard-earned tax dollars in all these bombing campaigns. Yesterday I had a group of people in my office requesting $100 million more for Alzheimer's research. I told those people to just try to get the President to stop bombing for part of one day. We are dropping bombs and making enemies out of people who want to be our friends. And we are doing all this in places where there is absolutely no threat to our national security and no vital U.S. interest at stake. The Christian Science Monitor said a few weeks ago that there are wars or military conflicts going on right now in 46 different places around the world. Many of these situations are just as bad or worse than Kosovo right now. There have been 2,000 people killed in Kosovo in the last year. As bad as this is, columnist Charles Krauthammer pointed out on television Sunday that more people were killed recently in Ethiopia in just one day. If we intervene in every place where there are human rights violations, we will have to go into even more places than the 46 where the Christian Science Monitor found military conflicts. We seem to be following a CNN foreign policy, going heavily into whatever situation is being emphasized on the national news at the moment. We should try to be friends with all nations. But we do not have the resources to become the world's policeman, and we will make more enemies than friends if we become the world's bully. And we cannot hide behind NATO. Everyone knows that this bombing in Kosovo would not be done if the U.S. did not insist on it. NATO was set up as a defensive organization. Now it is being turned into an offensive one, attacking a non-member nation that has not threatened us or any other country. We are intervening in a civil war. It is as if one of our own States was attempting to secede and our military attempted to keep it in and some other country started bombing us. The Kosovo bombings have been attempted to be justified on the basis that the fighting will spread. This is ridiculous. Milosevic may be a tyrant, but he is not attempting to nor does he have the resources to spread worldwide. It is ridiculous to try to equate this situation to when we were fighting world communism. There is no similarity to Russia under Khruschev or China under Mao Tse-Tung. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote a few days ago that U.S. intervention in Kosovo is a mistake. He said, ``The proposed deployment in Kosovo does not deal with any threat to U.S. security as this concept has been traditionally conceived.'' He pointed out that ``ethnic conflict has been endemic in the Balkans for centuries.'' David Broder wrote in the Washington Post last week, ``Sending in the military to impose a peace on people who have not settled ancient quarrels has to be the last resort, not the standard way of doing business.'' This is a religious or ethnic conflict that we cannot resolve unless we stay for a very long time at a cost of many, many billions. The President promised we would be out of Bosnia by the end of 1996. This is now March of 1999, and we are still there. I was told by another Member of the House recently that we have now spent $20 billion in Bosnia. We are about to get into a very dangerous situation. This is an European problem. It is not something that we should risk American lives over. Young Americans may be killed. We should not be so eager or willing to send our troops into this situation. We cannot afford to spend all these billions just to show that the President is a great world statesman or to make sure that he goes down in history as a great world leader. Finally, Mr. Speaker, Thomas Friedman wrote recently in the New York Times these words: Stop. Before we dive into sending American troops to sort out the Serbian-Albanian civil war in Kosovo, could we talk about this for a second? If ever there was a time for an honest reassessment of U.S. policy towards Bosnia and Kosovo, it is now. And what that reassessment would conclude is that we should redo the Dayton Accords, otherwise we are going to end up with U.S. troops in Bosnia and Kosovo forever, without solving either problem. Mr. Friedman is right. We are embarking on a very dangerous and very wrong course.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, today, I introduced the National Parks Check-off Act because of my concern about the condition of our national parks. This same legislation was reported out of the Resources Committee during the 105th Congress with bipartisan support having 80 cosponsors. The National Parks Check-off Act will amend the Internal Revenue Code and require that Federal income tax forms contain a line which will allow taxpayers to donate one or more dollars to the National Park Service. This legislation will provide more money for the care of our national parks and there will be no cost to the federal government. A study released by the National Parks and Conservation Association found that 8 out of 10 people surveyed would be willing to increase their tax contribution by $1 to benefit the National Park System. During a House Resources Committee hearing during the 105th Congress Allan Howe, from the National Park Hospitality Association, testified that: Over the last three years the Presidential Check-Off has raised over $200 million. While there is considerable interest in presidential elections every four years, there is a continued and sustained interest in our National Parks, which should yield even more support. I agree, and I believe if this bill is passed millions of dollars could be raised to address the $4-$6 billion backlog that our parks current face. During the 105th Congress, this legislation was supported by organizations such as the National Park and Conservation Association, America Outdoors, the American Hiking Society, the Friends of the Great Smoky Mountains, the National Tour Association and many others. I hope my colleagues will join me by cosponsoring this most important legislation which will help preserve our national treasures for future generations.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, one of the most solemn duties an Army Soldier can perform is to protect the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery. Those soldiers fortunate enough to serve as honor guards at the Tomb of the Unknowns refer to their watch simply as ``the walk.'' Recently one of my constituents, Staff Sgt. James T. Taylor, completed his 785th walk, thus concluding his memorable service as a sentinel at the Tomb of the Unknowns. Mr. Speaker, I know that I speak for the entire Congress when I say that our fallen soldiers, both identified and unknown, deserve this fitting tribute and recognition at Arlington National Cemetery. They also deserve to be guarded by soldiers like Staff Sgt. James T. Taylor and other members of the ``Old Guard,'' who are prepared to maker personal sacrifices in order to preserve the sanctity and memory of their fallen comrades. Mr. Speaker, I would like to personally commend Staff Sgt. Taylor on his dedicated and meritorious service to this grateful Nation. Our country is a better place because of his service. Finally Mr. Speaker, I have attached a copy of an article from the Pentagram that honors the ``last walk'' of Staff Sgt. Taylor and would like to call it to the attention of my colleagues and other readers of the Record. [From the Pentagram, Jan. 22, 1999] Tomb of the Unknowns Sentinel Makes His Last Walk, Pays His Final Respects (By Renee McElveen) An ice storm the night before left everything encased in crystal, creating a surreal atmosphere. The only sounds at that hour were the popping sounds of tree branches breaking off under the weight of the ice, and the measured clicks of metal on marble as Staff Sgt. James T. Taylor's boots traced a precise pattern. It was 6:45 a.m. on Jan. 15 in Arlington National Cemetery. Taylor was making his final preparations for what would be his 785th walk, his final walk, as a sentinel. He had a chance to prepare now, before the cemetery opened to the public, and run through one time with others the last-walk ceremony that would mark the end of his tour as an honor guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns. This day was a long time coming for the 32-year-old Tennessee native. He was a materiel storage and handling specialist attending Advanced Individual Training in 1986 at Fort Lee, Va., when his platoon traveled to Washington, D.C., to see the guard-change ceremony at The Tomb of the Unknowns. He was so impressed by the ceremony, he asked his platoon sergeant how he could go about becoming a sentinel. At that time, the duty Military Occupational Speciality was limited to Infantrymen. Taylor did not think he could ever become a sentinel since he was serving in a logistics MOS. He completed his enlistment in 1988 and left active duty to join the Tennessee National Guard back home. Taylor attended college in Berea, Ky., then transferred to Middle Tennessee State in Murfreesboro, where he earned a bachelor of arts degree in special education in 1993. He re-enlisted that same year as an infantryman. Taylor said he decided to go back on active duty because he missed the Army and the camaraderie of military service. ``You don't get that anywhere else,'' he explained. Taylor was assigned to the 3rd Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) in the Military District of Washington in 1994 and spent a year in Delta Company performing ceremonial duties in the cemetery. He volunteered to become a sentinel for The Tomb of the Unknowns, and was transferred to Hotel Company. Taylor then entered an intensive training program for his new assignment. The train-up period for a sentinel is about six months. ``It just depends on how quickly a soldier grasps the knowledge and progresses,'' Taylor explained. Not only does the sentinel have to learn ``the walk,'' he must become proficient in the manual of arms for the M-14 rifle, prepare his uniform to standard, learn a seven-page history of The Tomb of the Unknowns, memorize 150 locations of headstones as well as pages upon pages of facts about the cemetery in ``The Knowledge Book.'' Some of the facts about the cemetery which the sentinels must memorize are: 1. Name the caparisoned horse for the funeral of President John F. Kennedy. Answer--Black Jack. 2. How many POWs are buried in Arlington National Cemetery? Answer--Three (2 Italian and 1 German). 3. What is a cenotaph? Answer--A headstone erected in memory of someone whose remains are not recoverable. The purpose of learning all of these facts about the cemetery is for the sentinel to be able to answer questions during the frequent visitor tours of their quarters below the amphitheater, Taylor said. Also, the sentinels are often stopped on their way to their cars by the tourists and asked about locations of burial sites of famous individuals. The Knowledge Book also contains the mission statement of the sentinel, the ``guard of honor'' for the Tomb of the Unknowns. The sentinel is to be responsible ``for maintaining the highest standards and traditions of the U.S. Army and this nation while keeping a constant vigil at this national shrine.'' The sentinels' ``special duty is to prevent any desecration or disrespect directed toward The Tomb of the Unknowns.'' Sentinels are tested periodically throughout their training, according to Master Sgt. Richard K. Cline, sergeant of the guard for the sentinels. Oral exams are administered at the three-, six-, nine-, and 12-week intervals. Cline said a timed performance exam accompanies these tests. Sentinels must take the test administrator to the headstones of persons named by the administrator and give biographical sketches on the notables within the time allotted. In order to ``graduate'' and qualify to wear the Tomb Badge, sentinels must take and pass a written exam, pass a uniform inspection, and demonstrate proficiency in the time- honored ritual of maintaining the guard sentinel, referred to simply as ``the walk.'' Taylor said that he had to learn how to eliminate any bounce whatsoever in his walk, which translates to a technique of rolling the feet in a particular manner. His trainer told him the walk should make people think of the way a ghost might move, drifting along smoothly with no up and down movement. In addition, the sentinel's arms must not bend at the elbows during the walk, but instead swing in a straight line like a pendulum on a grandfather clock. The eyes must stay focused straight ahead, ignoring the crowds of tourists, which can number up to 2,000 at a single changing of the guard ceremony during the summer months, Cline said. Taylor said it irritates him when soldiers outside The Old Guard tell him he has ``easy duty'' because all he does is ``walk back and forth.'' He says they have no idea of the intensive training involved, the performance standard required in all weather conditions, and the level of commitment sentinels have to their job. ``This is probably the greatest honor I ever will have,'' he said. Taylor said he has performed his sentinel duty under all types of weather conditions. Snow, sleet, rain, heat, or even thunderstorms do not deter the sentinels from guarding The Tomb of the Unknowns. A poem submitted by a visitor (known only as Simon) to The Tomb of the Unknowns in 1971 has since been adopted as ``The Sentinel's Creed.'' ``My dedication to this sacred duty is total and wholehearted. In the responsibility bestowed on me never will I falter, and with dignity and perseverance my standard will remain perfection. Through the years of diligence and praise and the discomfort of the element, I will walk my tour in humble reverence to the best of my ability. It is he who commands the respect I protect his bravery that made us so proud. Surrounded by well-meaning crowds by day, alone in the thoughtful peace of night this soldier will in honored glory rest under my eternal vigilance.'' Sentinels are on duty for 24 hours, then off for 24 hours. During the winter months, sentinels perform two of three hour-long walks each 24-hour period and two hour-long night shifts. During the summer months, sentinels perform six or seven 30-minute walks, and two night shifts. Cline said the walks are shortened to 30 minutes during the summer months to accommodate the large number of tourists visiting the MDW area. Shorter walks result in more changing- of-the-guard ceremonies, which are a popular tourist attraction at the cemetery. Taylor said he has had many memorable moments as a sentinel. Two moments, one very public and one very private, stand out in particular. In 1997, he was selected as the presidential wreath bearer for President Bill Clinton during the Veterans Day Ceremony at The Tomb of the Unknowns. Taylor admits he was nervous, but once the National Anthem started playing, he said, ``I felt like a giant out there.'' The private moment occurred during one of his early morning walks. The only visitor at the cemetery at that hour was a man wearing uniform items from the Vietnam War era. Taylor said the man stood at attention at the end of the plaza near the guard booth, saluting him. The man watched him for the entire hour and appeared to be very emotional, watching him perform his duty. ``It was a real moving experience for me,'' Taylor said. He said he changed his uniform after his tour, then went back up to the amphitheater to try to find the man so that he could speak with him, but he was already gone. While assigned to Hotel Company, Taylor held five positions at The Tomb of the Unknowns. He was a sentinel, an assistant relief commander, a relief commander, an assistant sergeant of the guard and a trainer. One of the sentinels he trained, William Q. Hanna, returned for Taylor's last walk. Hanna completed his enlistment in the Army in December. He said he served with Taylor for more than two years, and wanted to be present for his ``special moment.'' Hanna explained that the last walk is a ``rite of passage'' and an extremely emotional event for a sentinel as he pays his final respects to The Tomb of the Unknowns. ``I could hardly get through mine,'' he recalled. At 10:45 a.m., Taylor asked Hanna to drive to the Vistors Center to pick up his family and bring them back to the amphitheater. His mother, Sandra S. Taylor of Knoxville, Tenn., had driven 10 hours through the ice storm so that she could be there for his last walk. His father, James L. Taylor, and step-mother, Linda Taylor, of Middlesboro, Ky., had spent nine hours on the road as well. While waiting for his final hour-long walk as a sentinel, Taylor made, adjustments to his uniform. He pulled the brim of his Dress Blues service cap down and adjusted it over his eyes, checking his reflection in the mirror. Pfc. Daniel Baccus took a large piece of masking tape and blotted up any stray lint on Taylor's raincoat. Taylor then went to the water fountain and ran water over his white gloves and rubbed them together. The water provides a better grip on the wooden stock of the M-14 rifle. At 11 a.m., the bells toiled the hour and Taylor made his way down the marble sidewalk to take his place on the plaza for the last time. Cline inspected his uniform and weapon. The guards were changed, and Taylor spent the next hour guarding the Tomb of the Unknowns. At noon, the bells toiled the hour again, Taylor walked to the center of the plaza to retrieve four red roses from his fiancee, standing at the base of the steps. He placed one red rose at the base of each of the three crypts, and the fourth rose at the base of the marble tomb. A bugler played ``Taps.'' Taylor saluted. His last walk as a sentinel at The Tomb of the Unknowns was over.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I believe that one of the most serious problems facing our country today is wasteful Government spending. Each year our Government spends billions of taxpayer dollars on things which are ineffective and simply unnecessary. I have heard many stories from Federal employees about the pressure to spend all of the money they have been appropriated for a given fiscal year. Agency administrators know that if they have a surplus at the end of the fiscal year, it is likely that their budgets will be cut the following year. That is why I have decided to introduce legislation to address this problem. This bill will allow Government agencies to keep half of any unspent administrative funds. This money can then be used to pay for employee bonuses. The remaining half would be returned to the Treasury for the purpose of reducing the national debt. My bill rewards fiscal responsibility by giving employees a direct benefit for saving taxpayer dollars. At the same time, it will address one of the biggest problems facing our country--the national debt. I think this is an important step toward restoring the financial security of our Nation.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Shuster) for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this legislation which was introduced by the very distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Sherwood). Let me just say that this legislation, I think, shows that the gentleman from Pennsylvania really cares about his constituents and is willing to try to help them in any way he can. This legislation is an example of that, because many young people from the gentleman's district in Montoursville, Pennsylvania, died tragically in the TWA 800 crash. But this legislation will help people all over the Nation and it could help families years from now if, God forbid, we have another similar crash in the ocean. Mr. Chairman, this legislation is designed simply to clarify the application of the Death on the High Seas Act to aviation accidents. This issue arises because, in 1996, the Supreme Court really surprised everyone in deciding the case of Zickerman versus Korean Airlines in holding that the Death on the High Seas Act applies to lawsuits that arise out of an aircraft crash in the ocean that occurs more than 3 miles from land. The effect of this decision is to treat families differently depending on whether their relative died in an aircraft that crashed into the ocean or one that crashed on land. I think it is fair to say that almost no one in the aviation or legal communities believe that this Death on the High Seas Act would apply to the TWA crash until the recent decision in the Zickerman case. Moreover, as a matter of simple fairness and equity, a 1920 maritime shipping law should not apply to the victims of the TWA crash, and this is the injustice that this legislation will correct if we pass this bill. As of now, if we do not enact the bill of the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Sherwood), if a plane crashes into the ocean, the Death on the High Seas Act applies. This Act denies families the ability to seek compensation in a court of law for the loss of companionship of a loved one, their relatives' pain and suffering, or punitive damages. Basically, these people are limited to recovering only lost wages. Because of the Zickerman decision and this law, it means that parents will receive almost no compensation in the death of a child. On the other hand, if a plane crashes on land, State tort laws apply. These would permit the award of nonpecuniary damages such as loss of companionship and pain and suffering. Simply put, Mr. Chairman, H.R. 603 amends the Federal Aviation Act so that the Death on the High Seas Act does not apply to airline crashes. It would accomplish this by specifically stating that the Death on the High Seas Act is one of the navigation and shipping laws that do not apply to aircraft. With this legislation, we will ensure that all families will be treated the same, regardless of whether a plane crashes into the ocean or on land. Again, Mr. Chairman, let me thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Sherwood) for introducing this legislation, which will help a number of constituents in his district and others across the Nation who were devastated by the loss of their loved ones in the TWA Flight 800 tragedy. As the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski) noted, this bill passed the House last year overwhelmingly. Unfortunately, we did not get it worked out in the Senate and in conference, and we need to do that this year. I think we can very quickly. Let me also thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Shuster), the very distinguished chairman of the full committee, for his support on this legislation, as well as the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar), the ranking member, and especially my good friend, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Aviation. This is a good bill, and I urge all Members to support it.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for yielding me this time, and I rise in strong support of this bill by one of the great aviation experts, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar). I am proud to be a cosponsor of this bill. H.R. 661, Mr. Chairman, would prohibit the commercial operation of supersonic transport aircraft if the European Union adopts a rule that would prohibit operation of U.S. aircraft that have been modified with hushkits or fitted with new engines. The Europeans contend that their regulation is merely intended to improve the environment by reducing aircraft noise, but this is really ridiculous. The European Union, if they adopt this rule, would be asking us to allow one of the noisiest airplanes in the world into the U.S., the Concorde, which does not even meet Stage 2 noise standards, while banning some of the quietest airplanes in the world, planes that meet the more advanced Stage 3 noise requirements. These would be banned only because they come from the United States. This is not an environmental issue. This is a trade issue. What the EU is proposing goes against every principle of free trade and open skies and in fact would be very unfair trade. In fact what the Europeans are trying to do is to keep U.S. aircraft out of their market. The regulation in question would prevent U.S. airlines from selling their aircraft to European airlines if those aircraft have been modified with these more advanced hushkits or new engines. But the regulation would not prevent European airlines from selling their hushkit modified aircraft to other European airlines. This is blatant discrimination, Mr. Chairman. There is no reason that U.S. hushkitted aircraft should be treated differently from European ones. Moreover, aircraft with a hushkit or a new engine are environmentally friendly. As I have noted, they meet the Stage 3 standards established by our own FAA and the Chapter 3 standards established by the International Civil Aviation Organization, ICAO. In many cases, these aircraft are quieter than aircraft that the Europeans would continue to allow. The gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar) has acted quickly in addressing this issue and he and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Shuster) are both to be commended for moving this bill so quickly. I know that there is some concern regarding the speed with which we are moving. Some people really wanted us to go much further. But this bill is an appropriate and I think measured response to the European action. It would target the commercial flights of the Concorde which meet neither the Stage 3 nor Chapter 3 standards for noise. In fact, as I noted earlier, they do not even meet Stage 2 noise standards. They make much more noise than the hushkitted aircraft that the Europeans want to ban. The EU refused to enter into consultations regarding its measure until this bill was introduced. It is important that we move ahead with this bill to keep up the pressure on the EU. This approach will give our State Department added leverage in its consultations and negotiations on this matter. This is a very good bill, Mr. Chairman. I urge my fellow Members to support it.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I would also like to comment about the last comments of the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth) who mentioned the some 80 new programs that the President proposed in his State of the Union address. The National Taxpayers Union put out a report saying that those programs if all were enacted would cost us $288.4 billion in the first year. Newsweek had an even more interesting table a few weeks ago and had a chart which showed that if we enacted all of those programs that the President proposed, that it would lead to a $2.3 trillion shortfall in the first 15 years. We have a good economy now but if we do something like that and allow at least a $2.3 trillion shortfall to accumulate over these next 15 years, we could not pay the Medicare bills, we could not pay the Social Security bills, we could not do many of the most important things that the people of this country want us to do. I rise though, Mr. Speaker, today to speak on several unrelated but very important issues facing this Nation right at this time. First, we are bombing Iraq and sending troops to Kosovo without votes by the Congress to do so. We still have troops in Bosnia in 1999 even though the President originally promised that they would stay in Bosnia no longer than the end of 1996. Yes, 1996. A few years ago, as I have mentioned before on this floor, the front page of the Washington Post had a story reporting that our troops in Haiti were picking up garbage and settling domestic disputes. Then about a year ago, I heard another Member of this body say that we had our troops in Bosnia, among other things, giving rabies shots to dogs. Certainly none of us have anything against the Haitians or the Bosnians. We want to try to help them, but I believe, Mr. Speaker, that most Americans believe that the Haitians should pick up their own garbage and the Bosnians should give their own rabies shots. We have spent billions and billions of hard-earned tax dollars in recent years in Haiti, Rwanda, Bosnia and Somalia, and now in Kosovo we are going to be spending more, trying to settle or end ethnic or religious conflicts that have gone on in many cases for hundreds of years. We have spent several billions, and I am saying billions with a B, over the last few months in Iraq bombing people that our leaders tell us are not our enemies. Saddam Hussein is a ruthless, mentally ill dictator who apparently has killed many people in order to stay in power. I would agree with any bad thing you wanted to say about Hussein. In fact, I voted for the bill at the end of the last Congress to spend $100 million to try to help remove him. Eight years ago I voted for the original Gulf War. But at that time Hussein had moved against another country, Kuwait, and he was threatening others. He had what at that time was considered to be the most powerful military in the Middle East, although we now know that his military strength had been greatly exaggerated or overestimated. But we had to stop Hussein from moving throughout the Middle East and taking over several other countries. Now, though, his military was almost wiped out by the earlier war. He had been greatly weakened even further by the years of economic embargoes and sanctions since then. Hussein did not move against us or anyone else this time or even threaten to do so. We justify this bombing by alleging that Iraq had weapons or has weapons of mass destruction but they were weapons that U.N. inspectors did not find. Also, several countries have weapons of mass destruction, including us and most of our strongest allies. We cannot bomb everyone or every nation which has a weapon of mass destruction. Robert Novak, the nationally syndicated columnist, called this war against Iraq a phony war. He is correct, but unfortunately it is a phony war that is costing U.S. taxpayers billions, billions that we could be using for many better purposes. Former Congressman and Cabinet Secretary Jack Kemp said this: ``The bombing is wrong, it's unjustified, and it must stop. The Iraqi people have done nothing to America or Great Britain to warrant the dropping of bombs in Baghdad.'' U.S. News & World Report said: ``Displays of American military might often leave the rest of the world puzzled, and this one was particularly discomfiting to both the usual carpers and friends. People spread around the world were left to wonder, like many Americans, whether this was a justified attack, or just a tack, by an American President desperate to forestall impeachment.'' We are basically bombing a defenseless nation, and most Americans do not even feel like we are at war. It is unbelievable that we are dropping bombs on people and not even giving it a second thought. After the President's apology last August was such a monumental flop, he then ordered bombs to be dropped on Afghanistan and the Sudan, some people felt, to draw attention away from his personal problems. We now know from national press reports that we bombed a medicine factory and other civilian locations. Also, we know that the President rushed into that bombing without notifying the Joint Chiefs of Staff or even the head of the FBI who is usually notified of actions against terrorists. Also, the Sudan and Afghanistan bombings were done over the objections of the Attorney General. Now most people do not even remember that we did those bombings last August. Now we are bombing once again a country that cannot take one hostile or overt step against us and did not even threaten to do so. We are making enemies all over this world out of people who want to be our friends. We started this latest Iraqi bombing on the eve of impeachment proceedings in the House, once again very questionable timing. We found out later from U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter that the UNSCOM report had been rigged with the White House in a lame attempt to try to justify the bombing. The Christian Science Monitor, one of our leading national newspapers, and a newspaper, I might say, that usually supports the President, reported a few days ago that there are conflicts, fighting going on right now in 46 different locations around the world. Are we going to send troops to all 46? Are we going to send troops into every country? Obviously we cannot do this. It would cost far too many billions, and even our wasteful Federal Government does have some limits. Right now our young people and many others are concerned about the future of Social Security. We really do not know how we will pay the staggering medical bills of the future. At a time when both air passenger traffic and air cargo traffic are shooting way up and all economic development is so tied into aviation, the President's budget is cutting aviation spending by several billion by reducing the Airport Improvement Program and eliminating the general fund contribution to the FAA. Yet we are spending billions to turn our military into international social workers. We should try to be friends with every nation in the world, but we should not mortgage our own future in the process. We should send advisers in every field to help other nations which want us to do that. But we cannot continue sending billions and billions every time some other nation has a serious problem. Also, where there is an international tragedy of some sort, we need to quickly convene a meeting and ask Sweden and Germany and France and Japan and all other nations how much they will contribute. Right now we are carrying far too much of these burdens on our shoulders alone. And we basically are following a CNN foreign policy. We seem to get involved in a big way in whichever situation is being given the most prominence at the moment on the national news. Now we are going into Kosovo against the recommendations of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, columnist Charles Krauthammer and many, many others. George Washington in his farewell address warned us against entangling ourselves in the affairs of other nations. Dwight Eisenhower, a career military man, warned us against the military- industrial complex. Why are we doing these things? Why are we attempting to be the world's policeman? Why are we so eager to drop bombs and doing so in such a cavalier, even careless manner? Part of it involves money, the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us about. Eisenhower believed, and I believe, that national defense is one of the most important and most legitimate functions of our national government. But some leaders of the military, now that most Cold War threats have diminished, are desperately searching for military missions so that their appropriations will not be cut. How else can you explain such eagerness to send troops or to drop bombs on countries which are no threat whatsoever to our national security and where no vital U.S. interest is at stake? Those should be the key tests, whether our national security or whether a vital U.S. interest is at stake. Certainly that is not present in Kosovo or many of these other places where we have gone and where we have spent so many billions in recent years. Then, too, I think we are doing it in part because of the psychology of power and of human beings. Most men when they are running for President want that position more than anything they have ever wanted. But I think they soon become dissatisfied with running only the United States and then start wanting more. They want to be seen as world statesmen, great leaders of the world, not simply just a great leader of the U.S. alone. It seems to be human nature to always want more or something different, and this is especially true of hard-charging, ambitious, driven people. And these desires, these ambitions are always encouraged and supported by companies which benefit from billions in military expenditures, the military-industrial complex about which Eisenhower warned us. Many liberals and big-government types, even some big-government conservatives, resort to name calling and childish sarcasm against anyone who opposes spending all these billions overseas. They will not discuss these issues on the merits but simply dismiss as isolationist anyone who speaks out against any foreign adventure that they dream up. Our first obligation though, Mr. Speaker, as the Congress of the United States, should be to the citizens and taxpayers of the United States. It should not be to take billions and billions of their money and spend it on problems in Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, and on, and on, and on. What we need are foreign policies that put this Nation and its people first for a change. What we need is an American-first foreign policy, even if it is not politically correct or fashionable to say so. Apparently, many people accept wasting all these billions today because they think our economy is stronger than it really is. Well, I might just say a few things about that. Levi Strauss has just announced that it is moving 6,000 more jobs to other countries. Last year, that company closed its largest facility in my hometown of Knoxville; and 2,200 people lost their jobs. Last year was a record layoff in this country, a record year in this country for layoffs. Personal bankruptcies are at an all-time high, 1.4 million this past year alone. Our trade deficit hit a record 170 billion which means conservatively, according to the economists, we lose at least 20,000 jobs per billion, 3.4 million jobs, 3,400,000 jobs to other countries. Many college graduates today cannot find jobs except in restaurants, and certainly there is nothing wrong with working in a restaurant, but you hope that people who get bachelors and masters degrees from colleges can find something a little better than that. Our trade deficit with Japan reached 64 billion. The deficit with China was 57 billion, 57 billion. This is the same China that funneled millions in campaign contributions to influence the last presidential election. The President has done several things, this administration has done several things, that will be very harmful for this Nation for many years long after he has left office and the administration has left office, when the problems that have been caused will be blamed on someone else. One involves the Chinese. The President ordered the sale of missile technology to the Chinese unbelievably over the objections of the State Department, the Defense Department and the Justice Department. Now the Chinese have, according to our intelligence reports, at least 13 nuclear warheads aimed at the U.S., missiles they could not have gotten here without the technology that millions of campaign contributions apparently got for them. Some apparently came from top executives of the Hughes Electronic Corporation, which sold some of this technology to the Chinese. Now the Chinese have missiles pointed at Taiwan, our ally that we have a legal obligation to defend. We will now have to spend billions, extra billions, in the years ahead to defend against this Chinese threat, the same Chinese who are eating our lunch in trade to the tune of a $57 billion trade deficit with that country alone last year. Nations like China at 57 billion, I might repeat, would be 1.4 million jobs, 1,400,000 jobs lost from this country to China last year because of that trade deficit. Nations like China, like Japan, nations all over this world need access to our markets far more than we need theirs. We need free trade, but it needs to be free in both directions, and we have economic leverage that we have not used in recent years because we have not put our own country first. We need trade policies that put America and its workers first even if our President and the national media and multinational businesses do not agree. Another example of how the President's policy will hurt people for many years to come is the decision to lock up the largest low-sulfur coal deposit in the world in Utah, once again apparently in return for hundreds of thousands or possibly millions in campaign contributions from the Riady family of Indonesia, the owners of the second-largest low-sulfur coal deposit. Because our utilities are required to buy mostly low-sulfur coal, people all over this Nation will have to pay higher utility bills for years because of a political decision done in secret which had the double whammy effect of gaining huge campaign contributions and pleasing environmental extremists. That brings me to another but related point. Environmental extremists are the new radicals, the new socialists, the new leftists in this country today. Many people do not realize how extreme many of them have become. They almost always, these environmental extremists almost always come from wealthy or upper middle income backgrounds and usually have sufficient wealth to insulate themselves from the harm they do to the poor and working people of this country. Everyone wants clean air and clean water, but some of these environmental extremists are not satisfied that we have the toughest clean air and clean water laws and other tough environmental laws, the toughest in the world. They constantly demand more, often supported by large contributions from many of our biggest corporations. And I might say that the administration is trying to convince us to enter into the Kyoto agreement. Well, the Kyoto agreement is really just an attempt by some people that are upset that we have only 4 percent, a little over 4 percent of the world's population, yet we have about 25 percent of the world's wealth, and they want do a massive transfer of that wealth to other less developed countries. And so there is something like 125 less developed countries who do not have to participate and abide by the Kyoto agreement, but we have to. And if we go through with that, if the Senate was to ratify that or if we try to go through the back door and enact all the Kyoto protocols in appropriations bills and in various other ways through regulations, we will destroy so many thousands of jobs in this country and drive up prices, and once again the people that will be hurt the most will be the poor and working people of this country. I mentioned that many of these environmental extremists are supported by some of our biggest corporations. The big corporations can comply with all the rules and regulations and red tape. They have the money and the staff and the lobbyists and the political connections to do so. And what happens? The big keep getting bigger and the small and now even the medium-sized business struggle to survive or go by the wayside. When I was growing up, a poor man could start a gas station. Now, primarily due to all the environmental and governmental regulatory overkill, only the wealthy or big corporations can do it. Environmental extremists destroy jobs and opportunities, drive up prices and in the process become the best friends extremely big businesses have ever had. There is a big move now to cut down on agricultural run-off or spill- off. Here again the regulations are making it even harder for small farmers to survive while big corporate farms, agra-business really, can benefit by seeing much of their competition with small farmers removed. Big government in the end, Mr. Speaker, has really helped primarily extremely big businesses and the bureaucrats who work for the Federal Government, and that is really all they have. The poor and the working people in this country and the small business people and the small farmers get the shaft. Everyone else gets the shaft. The intended beneficiaries get a few crumbs from most programs, but more jobs would be created and prices would be lower if more government money was left in the private sector. In fact, government money does create jobs, but money left in the private sector creates on the average about two and one half times as many jobs. Why? The private sector, especially small business, is simply less wasteful and more efficient in their spending. They have to be to survive. Edward Rendell, the Democratic mayor of Philadelphia, said in a congressional hearing a few years ago, quote: Government does not work because there is no incentive for people to work hard, so many do not. There is no incentive for people to save money, so much of it is squandered. How true that statement is. The easiest thing in the world, Mr. Speaker, is to spend other people's money. Also, when it comes to politicians, usually those who proclaim their compassion the loudest usually have the least with their own personal money. Talk about the efficiency of the private sector. I had the privilege of meeting a few days ago with the head of Embraer, a Brazilian company that produces regional jets. He said that when Embraer was a government corporation in late 1994, it was producing $40,000 of product per employee. The company privatized in December of 1994 and now produces $240,000 per employee, six times as much in just a little over 4 years. When speaking of the great benefits of a private, free-enterprise economy, we should remember that private property is one of the keys, one of the foundation stones of prosperity. Today, however, the Federal Government owns over 30 percent of the land in this country, and State and local governments and quasi-governmental units own another 20 percent. Approximately half the land today is in some type of government control, and the really worrisome thing is the rapid rate at which governments at all levels are taking on even more. In addition, governments are putting more and more restrictions on what private land owners can do with their own land, taking away or putting limitations on a very important part of our freedom. They also, if they take over much more land, will drive out of reach for many young Americans a big part of the American dream, and that is to own their own homes. Once again, much of this is done or accepted in this misguided worship of the environment, leading to a very great expansion of government control over our lives. Some environmental extremists even advocate something called the Wildlands Project, which has the goal of turning 50 percent of the United States into wilderness where it is not already designated that way. This may sound good on the surface, but it would require moving millions of people out of their homes and off of land that they presently own. People take better care of land they personally own than they do of property that is publicly owned. Look at the big city housing projects that have had to be blown up after just 15 or 20 years because no one felt the pride of ownership, and the properties deteriorated unbelievably fast. We would be better off and could sustain a good economy far longer if we had more land in private ownership and less in public or government control. Yet we are going very rapidly in the opposite direction, and our wonderful environmental extremists fight the Federal government giving up even one acre of land. They want more and more and more. What an environmentalist should realize is that the socialist and communist nations have been the worst polluters in the world. Their economic systems did not give people incentives or put pressure on them to conserve and instead really encouraged or at least did not prevent wasteful use of resources. Also, our environmentalist should realize that only capitalist free market economies can produce the excess funds necessary to do the good things for the environment that we all want done. Environmental extremists have done such a good job in recent years brainwashing young people that I bet very few even realize that we have far more land in forests in the U.S. today than we did 50 years ago or that forests, to remain healthy, some trees need to be cut. When control of Congress changed, and I will talk about the economy again for a minute, when control of the Congress changed hands in November of 1994, the stock market was at 3800. Today, the Dow Jones average is almost at 9400. The economy has done well for several reasons, among which are we reformed the welfare system against two presidential vetoes and several million people are now contributing and paying in rather than taking out. Also, the Congress brought Federal spending under control by passing a balanced budget, once again against three presidential vetoes, but at least we brought Federal spending under control. There is a misunderstanding or misimpression among some that we have cut Federal spending. Federal spending has gone up each year. It is just that instead of giving, as we routinely were, just 8 or 10 years ago giving 10 and 12 and 15 and 18 percent increases to almost every department and agency, we are now giving 2 or 3 percent increases. We have Federal spending under control. Also the Federal Reserve has acted in a very conservative manner, and we have reduced the capital gains tax and stopped the trend towards higher and higher Federal taxes. However, Federal taxes are still far too high. They are taking more of our GDP than at any time in the last 55 years since World War II. As I mentioned a few minutes ago in the colloquy with some of my colleagues on the Floor, today the average person, not the wealthy but the average person, is paying about 40 percent of his or her income in taxes of all types, Federal, State, and local, and at least another 10 percent in government regulatory costs. One member of the other body said not too long ago that one spouse works to support government while the other spouse works to support the family. Yet, the President said in Buffalo recently, as we quoted here earlier, that we cannot give the people a tax cut because they would not spend it wisely. They would do a far better job, Mr. Speaker, spending it than our wasteful, inefficient Federal Government would. One example, and I could give many today, the Federal Government spends about $26,000 per year per student in the Job Corps program. Most of this money goes to fat cat government contractors and bureaucrats, so these students would be shocked to know that we are spending this much on them each year. But we could give each of these students a $1,000 a month allowance, send them to some expensive private school, and still save money, and the young people involved would probably feel like they had won the lottery. Finally, Mr. Speaker, let me spend a few minutes discussing one topic of great importance. Before I get into this final topic, let me just give another example of how harmful all of this overtaxation and over government spending has hurt the American people, and particularly, American families. Before I came to Congress I spent 7\1/2\ years as a criminal court judge trying felony criminal cases. About 96 or 97 percent of those people plead guilty in the criminal courts throughout the country. Then they apply for probation. So I received, in that 7\1/2\ years, several thousand reports going into the backgrounds of all of these defendants. The first day I was judge, Gary Tulick, the chief probation counselor for East Tennessee, told me that 98 percent of the defendants in felony cases came from broken homes. I would read over and over and over and over again reports like, defendant's father left home to get pack of cigarettes and never came back. Defendant's father left home when defendant was 2 and never returned. I know that many wonderful people have come from broken homes, but I also know that, particularly with young boys, that the breakup of a home has had an extremely harmful effect on many young boys. I saw a report in the Washington Times a few years ago in which two leading criminologists had studied 11,000 felony cases from around the country. They said the biggest single factor in serious crime, bar none, nothing else was even close, was father-absent households. How true that is. In 1950 the Federal Government was taking about 4 percent from the average family, and State and local governments were taking another 4 percent, roughly. Many women had the choice of staying at home to raise their children, and many families were able to stay together, because most marriages--I saw one study which showed that 59 percent of all marriages break up in arguments over finances. That is the biggest single factor, disagreements about money. But today, and for many years, the government at all levels has been taking so much money from the families of America that I think it has caused many serious problems. Many families I think have not been able to stay together or have ended up getting in serious disputes that have led to divorces and the breakup of families because government at all levels has been taking so much money from them. I believe that the best thing we could do to lower the incidence of serious crime in this country would be to greatly decrease the size and cost of the government at all levels, so that the families of this country could keep more of their own money to spend on their children in the ways that they see fit and that they know are best for them and their children. Finally, Mr. Speaker, let me talk on one last topic for a few minutes, discussing something that is of great importance to everyone. That is health care. Today health care is the only thing all of us pay for through a third-party payer system. If we bought food through a third-party payer system, millions would be starving. If we bought cars through a third- party payer system, a Yugo probably would have cost us $300,000. Before the Federal Government got into medical care in a big way in the mid sixties, medical costs were low and flat for many years. A lot of young people ought to look at that, and look back and see how low and flat medical costs were for all those years that the Federal Government stayed out of it. But when the Federal Government got into it in a big way in the mid sixties, we took what was a very minor problem for a very few people and turned it into a major problem for everyone. I remember in the late seventies when the liberals were saying Medicaid would save the medical system. Four or five years ago the Washington Post ran a series of front page stories about Medicaid. A member of the other body, Senator Rockefeller, who I think was one of the people who helped found the Medicaid system, was quoted as saying about Medicaid, ``It is a horrible system, a vile system, and it ought to be abolished.'' A scholar from the Brookings Institution said about it, ``It is a success story of the American political system. We create a system so horrible that we are forced to go to total reform.'' I was told yesterday by one of the leaders of the Tennessee legislature that TennCare, our replacement or reform of Medicaid, will go up 12 percent this year, and maybe as much as 15 or 20 percent a year in future years. If it does, we would be in a catastrophic situation. Third-party payer systems are inevitably doomed to failure. They will never work. In any politicized medical system, those who are the best organized or most politically powerful get rich, but it is a disaster for everyone else. In recent years we have seen some doctors, nursing home operators, big home health care operators, and big hospital chain owners get rich, but we have turned health care into a major problem for everyone except possibly Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. In a private free market system, we get much more fairness and we do not have the big winners and even bigger losers that we have in a politicized big government medical system. In fact, the main point of what I have been saying here tonight is just that. Poor and working people can get lower prices and many more job opportunities and have much better lives in a true free market system than in any other way. If Members do not believe that, all they have to do is look around the world. I remember in the former Soviet Union the leaders of the former Soviet Union had, before their total collapse that they are undergoing right now, they had their dachas by the sea and their limousines and their special department stores. Other people, which was the great, great majority, 99-plus percent of the people, had to line up for hours to buy, say, a pound of sausage, or something that we run into a store for and take for granted as being able to purchase. Every place in the world where the people have let the government get too big, people have ended up starving. It really is pretty simple, Mr. Speaker. Big government means a very small elite upper class, a huge underclass, and almost no middle class. A very small government means a very small elite, a huge middle class, and very few at the bottom. We really should pay for medical care the same way that we pay for food. Then it would be cheap. If we could get the government and the insurance companies out of medical care, medical costs probably would not even be 5 percent of what they are. However, too many doctors and nursing home owners and health care providers are getting rich off the system the way it is today to get the government and the insurance companies out. So since we cannot realistically do that, the only real hope is to go to a medical savings account or medical voucher system to get the consumer involved once again, to give people some incentives to shop around for medical care. Right now we are distorting the law of supply and demand, because the number of doctors is going way up but so are the costs. We need to get at least some free market incentives into the system, because we are headed for a collapse within our medical system if we do not. Then the people will start demanding, if we let it collapse, they will start demanding national government-run health care, which is the worst of all worlds, as has been shown in country after country all over this world. Then we would end up with shortages, waiting periods, rationing, the closing of many small and rural hospitals, people having to go further and further distances for health care, a rapid decline in the quality of care, and on and on. If the government had not gotten into medical care to the extent it already has, we never would have had HMOs and people being kicked out of hospitals way too early, or denied treatment in the first place. We need major reform in medical care, Mr. Speaker, but if we give even more government control and involvement, the system will become even more expensive as it grows worse and worse. The few will get rich and the many will suffer, as with any and every big government program.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DUNCAN. I would like to mention when the gentleman talks about the issue of tax reform and going to a simpler and fairer tax system, Newsweek Magazine a few months ago on its cover had a story, a cover story about the IRS; and it said, The IRS: Lawless, Abusive, Out of Control. When any major department or agency of the Federal Government can be described by a mainstream magazine like Newsweek as lawless, abusive and out of control, things have gotten to a pretty sad state. It is especially sad when an agency as intrusive as the Internal Revenue Service can be accurately described in that way. So I think we basically should just take the Internal Revenue Code that we have now and junk it and start over again. I think about 85 or 90 percent of the American people feel that way.