Jimmy Duncan

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2476) to amend title 49, United States Code, to require the National Transportation Safety Board and individual foreign air carriers to address the needs of families of passengers involved in aircraft accidents involving foreign air carriers, as amended.

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I also would like to once again thank the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Lipinski] and say maybe if they want to pass some of this controversial legislation, they should just turn it over to the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Shuster] and me.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I would like at this time to announce the following additional suspension: H.R. 765.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the Senate bill just passed.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2626, as amended, was approved by the Subcommittee on Aviation on October 23 and by the full Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure on October 29. This bill was introduced on October 7 by myself; the chairman of the full Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Shuster]; the ranking member of the full committee, the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Oberstar]; and the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Aviation, the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Lipinski]. We also have many additional cosponsors representing all areas of the country. Last year this subcommittee and the Congress passed legislation, H.R. 3536, requiring airlines to check a pilot's performance records before hiring them. In fact, the House approved the bill by a vote of 401 to 0. This legislation followed seven fatal accidents involving commuter airlines in which pilot error was to blame. The pilot had a record of poor performance at his previous employer, and the record of that poor performance was not checked before the airline hired him. The Subcommittee on Aviation held 2 days of hearings on this subject in December 1995 before passing H.R. 3536 in July of last year. H.R. 3556 was eventually incorporated into the FAA Reauthorization Act, which the President signed in October of last year. This law currently requires airlines and the FAA to share a pilot's performance record with the prospective employer within 30 days of a request from that employer. The problem is that the FAA is not meeting the 30-day deadline. This creates problems for many small aviation businesses that need to hire pilots quickly. In fact, I have heard from several of these small businesses from all across the Nation. As a result, H.R. 2626 was introduced with bipartisan support, as I have previously mentioned. The bill would first allow all airlines to hire and train pilots, but not actually fly passengers while waiting to receive the pilot's records; and, secondly, allow small air taxis, those that one can charter, but that do not fly scheduled service, to hire and train and also to fly passengers for 90 days while waiting to receive the pilot's records. Finally, Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2626, as amended, would also require an airline to provide a pilot with his or her records as requested within 30 days. This was based on a recommendation from the Air Line Pilots Association and is consistent with other sections of the law. H.R. 2626 is a good bill, a bipartisan bill, and enjoys support from all sectors of the aviation industry. I urge its adoption. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2626) to make clarifications to the Pilot Records Improvement Act of 1996, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I, too, yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. LaTourette].

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this legislation. S. 1347 simply expedites the conveyance of land from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport to the city of Brook Park, OH. The Cleveland Airport has a major capacity expansion program that includes the construction of a new runway and the extension of an existing runway. It is my understanding that this important project is the result of many years of negotiations between the cities of Cleveland and Brook Park. This project cannot go forward unless the current deed restrictions are waived. Mr. Speaker, this legislation will ensure that the city of Cleveland shall receive fair market value for this parcel, and the city will be required to use any and all of the funds for the development, improvement of operations or maintenance of the Cleveland Airport. I want to commend the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. LaTourette] for his leadership and strong support for this legislation and his willingness to answer the call of his constituents on this very important matter. Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to support S. 1347. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the Senate bill (S. 1347) to permit the city of Cleveland, Ohio, to convey certain lands that the United States conveyed to the city.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. H.R. 1502 designates the United States courthouse located in Benton, Illinois as the James L. Foreman United States Courthouse. Judge Foreman was appointed to the Federal bench in 1972 and became Chief Judge in 1978, continuing in this position until 1992, when he assumed senior status. As Chief Judge, Judge Foreman initiated the efforts to redesignate the judicial districts for the State of Illinois. Judge Foreman also was instrumental in instituting a formal case management system for the Federal courts and establishing court facilities at the United States Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois. Additionally, Judge Foreman served on the Judicial Resource Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States. On several occasions he has been appointed to sit by designation in cases before the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and in the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky. Judge Foreman has served with honor and distinction during his tenure on the Federal bench, and this is a fitting tribute for his service. I support the bill and urge my colleagues to support the bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1502) to designate the U.S. Courthouse located at 301 West Main Street in Benton, IL, as the ``James L. Foreman United States Courthouse''.

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, the land and water conservation fund [LWCF] was established in 1964 to increase recreational opportunities. It does this by using money, collected mainly from oil and gas leases, to purchase Federal lands and to give matching grants to State and local governments for the development of parks and open spaces. While this fund continues to be used for Federal land purchases, very little money has been given to States to assist their efforts in preserving natural areas. That is why I have introduced the Community Recreation and Conservation Endowment Act of 1997 today. This bill will provide funding for grants to State and local governments to develop, repair, and create new parks and preserve open spaces. This bill will create a $1.6 billion permanent endowment to provide LWCF matching grants to local governments. Interest from that account will help provide funding for parks, campgrounds, trails, and recreation facilities for millions of Americans. Where does this money come from? On June 19, 1997, the Supreme Court ruled that the Federal Government retains title to lands underlying tidal waters off Alaska's North Slope. As a result, the Government will receive $1.6 billion in escrowed oil and gas lease revenues. When the land and water conservation fund was established the Federal Government promised to assist State and local governments with preserving natural areas. This legislation will make sure that the Federal Government follows through on that promise. In addition, this bill will ensure that each State receives its fair share of these funds by providing a more balanced distribution of this money between the States. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in this effort which will help preserve natural areas all across this country.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 2626, as amended.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a few moments to honor a man who has devoted his life to serving the people of Bradley County, Judge Earle Murphy. Through more than 50 years of service, Judge Murphy has become one of the most respected judges in East Tennessee. He is known not only for his knowledge of the law, but also for his common sense approach to the law. But Judge Murphy's contributions to the people of Bradley County reach far beyond his legal career. In every aspect of his life, he dedicated himself to improving the world in which he lived. Judge Murphy was recently honored by the Bradley County Bar Association for his many achievements and his years of service to the people of Bradley County. I am deeply saddened to say that Judge Murphy passed away recently. Judge Murphy was an exemplary man, who made the most of his life. He will be missed by the many people who knew and loved him. I would like to call attention to the attached editorial which was printed in the Cleveland Daily Banner Newspaper shortly before Judge Murphy's death: Murphy's Contributions Should Be Recognized On Tuesday Judge Earle G. Murphy will be honored by the Bradley County Bar Association for his more than 50 years of service to the community. It is, undoubtedly, a celebration of a man who has not only devoted himself to his job, but has given time and talent to countless community service agencies, and we, as citizens of Cleveland and Bradley County, owe him a debt of gratitude. Murphy began his life in the Bradley County Courthouse at age 12. His father, James, served as county register of deeds, and, when he was old enough, Murphy went with his dad to help proofread deeds of trust and chattle mortgages each day. He attended local schools, working after class. Before long he formed relationships with attorneys in the area and a craving for the study of the law. Lucky for us he did. His service as General Sessions, Circuit Court, and Cleveland City judge over the years has proven to be balanced and fair. Even in times when one party or another didn't agree with Murphy's ruling, you could rest assured that the decision was made with much thought and great consideration for the law. Murphy's devotion to what is fair and legal in his courtroom is apparent above all else. In addition, Murphy has proven to be a kind friend, a sincere Christian, a loving family man, and a servant of the public. He has worked, as president of both the Cleveland Lions Club and of the Bar Association. He also gave eight years to the Cleveland Board of Education. Most anyone in town will tell you that Murphy and other community leaders work during that period was greatly responsible for getting Cleveland High School built when it was so desperately needed. His personal love remains his wife, Norma, who he has been devoted to for nearly 54 years. Murphy's children and grandchildren are sparkles in his eyes, and though the children are grown, the family remains close. Murphy has served in almost every capacity at his church, First United Methodist. He has been a chairman of the building committee, a member of the choir, a Sunday School teacher, and he's given the occasional sermon. As scoutmaster of that church's Boy Scout troop, he touched the lives of many of the boys of Bradley County. Those boys are men today, and no doubt they still have enormous respect for their leader. Murphy's experience as a judge stayed with him in his friendships. He was often a voice of mediation in times of dissension, a compassionate listener other times. He helped numerous young attorneys in Bradley County get their feet planted; he acted as a guide and counselor, just as the older attorneys he met in his youth did for him. The golf course was a place of escape for Murphy. He turned his love of sports into energy which helped found the Bradley Sports Foundation and Sports for Youth. It seems that in every area of his life, Murphy looked beyond himself to the greater good. We encourage everyone to take part in the ceremony lauding the achievements of this man. He truly is the epitome of home folk achieving greatness, and as a community we should be very proud and grateful.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, sometime in the next couple of weeks, the Food and Drug Administration has told my office that it will make a decision about the drug called myotrophin. This is the only drug currently available that gives some hope to the victims in the advanced stages of the deadly illness we all know as Lou Gehrig's disease. As almost everyone knows, this is a horrible nerve disorder that slowly robs victims of their ability to walk, talk, move freely, and eventually even to eat, swallow, and breathe on their own. There is no cure. The disease has always been fatal. But now, finally, there is a drug, myotrophin, that gives victims of Lou Gehrig's disease some small sliver of hope. Unfortunately, this drug has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. There is no question that this drug is absolutely safe, but the FDA questions if it actually improves quality of life. The patients and doctors who have worked in the experimental trials are convinced it does improve and extend the lives of these victims. Demonstrating that improvement to an absolute mathematical statistical certainty is going to be a very long, arduous task. Thousands of people will be robbed of their only hope in the meantime. An advisory committee of the FDA voted to reject final approval of the drug until more evidence is gathered. Sometime in the next couple of weeks the FDA will make the final decision on whether these sufferers will be allowed to use this drug. The drug is safe, Mr. Speaker. There is some disagreement about its effectiveness, but many doctors and patients believe in myotrophin and want to use it. They should be allowed to do so. The FDA should not play God. They should not take away the last hope these people have. If this is still a free country, these victims of Lou Gehrig's disease should be allowed to use this drug if they and their doctors feel that they should. Mr. Speaker, I want to move to an unrelated but also very important subject. Last week, last Friday, on the ABC program ``20/20,'' Barbara Walters helped present what she described as the most important hour ever shown on national television. This was a program attempting to alert parents to the horrible, sick, warped things that millions of children are being exposed to on the Internet. There are all types of pornography which cannot be totally effectively blocked, and, even worse, sexual predators preying on children over the Internet. I know that for some reason there are some people who worship computers today and are greatly offended if anyone even implies that anyone or anything should restrict their use in even the slightest way. I also know that computers do wonderful and miraculous things and have greatly enhanced our quality of life. But I also know there is a down side to becoming totally, completely dependent on and controlled by computers and the Internet. We started out controlling the computers, and now they seemingly control us. Mr. Speaker, I simply happen to believe that we should worship God, not Bill Gates. We have allowed far too much power to be concentrated in the hands of one man and one company, so I applaud the Justice Department for taking on Mr. Gates and Microsoft, although probably the government will lose in the end. I heard on the national news a few months ago that the Massachusetts Division of Motor Vehicles was going totally online and hoped that they didn't have to see a live customer 10 years from now. I heard a leading Washington sports columnist on the radio a few days ago say that when people called him to get his e-mail address and found out they were talking to him in person, they frequently, quickly hung up. The Washington Post this week had a story about how the Internet was drawing some families closer together, because college students would have conversations over their computers that they would never have in person. I read an article recently by a Harvard professor who said, we are allowing the electronic media to isolate us from each other, and that membership in all sorts of organizations, good organizations, is rapidly declining. We worried about our children spending too many hours in front of television screens, so now we have placed them in front of computer screens that oftentimes have things on them far worse than what is on television. With each passing year we seem to be talking less and less with each other. People do not know their next-door neighbors. They tell us that more and more people are working out of their homes. We are spending less and less time with our fellow live human beings, and more and more time in front of television and computer screens. I sometimes wonder how much human contact there will be 50 or 100 years from now. On the 20/20 program they reported about the 11-year- old boy in New Hampshire who was murdered while selling door to door for his school. He was killed by a 15-year-old boy whose mind was warped and filled with rage after a homosexual relationship with an adult he met over the Internet. And then we have the year 2000 problem which Newsweek said is going to cost us $1 trillion in litigations and software costs and other expenses simply because these computers cannot realize that we will change from 1999 to the year 2000. This is crazy. It will cause everything to cost more. I am not saying that we should do away with computers. I know that frequently, when someone disagrees, they resort to childish sarcasm because that is easier and simpler than arguing on the merits. I know that some will be sarcastic about what I have said tonight. Again, Mr. Speaker, I am not saying, throw out our computers, but I am saying, do not get addicted to them, either. Do not go crazy over them. Do not let them get out of control and destroy the lives of innocent children. Be alert that there are dangers, and spend less time in front of screens and more time talking to and helping each other.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I have lived in east Tennessee all my life. It is one of the most beautiful parts of our country, but what makes it really special is the people who live there. We now have many thousands of wonderful people who have moved in from other parts of Tennessee, other States, and even many from other countries. Most of them love east Tennessee, too. But I have to say that to me, native east Tennesseans are pretty special, unique people. Our part of the country was settled primarily by poor Scotch-Irish mountain farmers. They and their descendants have always been proud, thrifty, hard- working, neighborly kind of people. They have always been fiercely patriotic in time of war, but fiercely independent in times of peace. They have never really liked big government or having distant bureaucrats tell them what to do. Maybe it has something to do with a heritage of moonshine whiskey, but they have never cared much for Federal revenue agents, and I once was told that the Federal court for east Tennessee had the lowest conviction rate in IRS cases in the entire country. For many years I have been teased about my east Tennessee accent. Sometimes people have called us hicks and hillbillies. Once, when I was in college, a man in New York said to me in much amazement: ``Your're from Tennessse, and you're wearing shoes?'' Perhaps because we have been teased and ridiculed and made fun of, we have been a little defensive at times. But I also think this has made us a little bit more loyal to each other. At any rate, we have now become a secret that has been discovered. East Tennessee has become one of the most popular places to move to in the whole country. Invariably, the people who have moved in tell that it was not only the beauty of our area that attracts them, but also the kindness of the people, their friendliness, their honesty, their work ethic, and so on. I could say much more, because I am very proud of east Tennessee. It is home to me. It means family and friends and everything that is important and good to me. I am just a visitor in Washington and even if someday I had to move to another part of our great Nation on a full-time basis, I would still tell people I was from east Tennessee. I could go on and on, but what really prompted all this was a letter I read today in the Knoxville News-Sentinel from one of my constituents, and friend, John Mark Hancock. In this letter, Mark, a seventh-generation east Tennessean, expresses far better than I have some of the great things about living where we do. Because I was so touched by what he wrote, I wanted to call it to the attention of my colleagues and other readers of the Record. Editor, the News-Sentinel: I am blessed. As a seventh- generation native East Tennessean on both sides of my family, I am truly blessed for having had the opportunity to live and grow up in this area. Many times in life we find ourselves chasing after things that are fleeting in both our personal and professional relationships, namely love and money. In doing so, we take for granted all the little things that are so much more important--like walking, talking, seeing, hearing, touching, smelling and moving about this wonderful region of our planet. I had the distinct pleasure and the wonderful opportunity to take my 3-year-old niece, Katie, to the Museum of Appalachia's Fall Homecoming this year. As most of us know, it is a celebration of the fierce determination and independence of our ancestors who settled this area. It was satisfying to see the wonderment in the eyes of a new generation as we enjoyed the day together. Listening to the strains of ``Orange Blossom Special'' wafting over the serene countryside, having traveled and lived all over the United States, I got a tear in my eye and a lump in my throat. My heart and soul filled with pride upon hearing those sweet melodious tunes. They are from deep within our culture, and we should never forget what they mean to us. That same weekend, I was privileged to witness another big University of Tennessee Volunteer football victory at the largest stadium in America. The pride in excellence of achievement, both athletically and academically, that my alma mater represents, is another part of our tremendous heritage. The next day, I attended the harvest celebration at Dollywood and was again reminded of the bluegrass and gospel music that was born in these hills, mountains and valleys. Lyrics from ``Will the Circle be Unbroken?'' and ``Wildwood Flower'' pierced the crisp air. It is truly a time for thanksgiving and prayerful reflection to know that there are some things in life that money cannot buy, like peace of mind and security. We race through life so rapidly oftentimes that we don't give ourselves the chance to take inventory. The lessons our forefathers taught us in not ever giving up our faith in God and in ourselves are ones to be cherished and preserved. In trusting love more than fear, we can love both ourselves and our neighbors. The people who settled this land knew what a great legacy they were leaving to us. The great English bard, Shakespeare, said that love looks with the heart and not with the eyes. We must take to heart our beautiful ability to blend with nature and fulfill the dreams of those who have gone before us. Be appreciative of living and working in the richest area of the world, rich in resources and lore, for this is worth more than anything else. Living in East Tennessee, we are all truly blessed. John Mark Hancock, Knoxville.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this legislation, and I would like to commend the gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman] for his hard work on this and all of these so-called China bills. We should not be providing travel grants to any Chinese officials, and especially not to those who are repressing religious freedom in that country. Religious freedom is one of the most basic human rights that any individual can have. This Congress should encourage the Clinton administration to make ending religious persecution the most important part of its policy toward China. The Chinese are committing horrible persecution, even as we speak. Nina Shea said in her recent book, ``Lion's Den,'' Millions of American Christians pray in their churches each week, oblivious to the fact that Christians in many parts of the world suffer brutal torture, arrest, imprisonment, and even death--their homes and communities laid waste--for no other reasons than that they are Christians. The shocking untold story of our time is that more Christians have died in this century simply for being Christians than from the first 19 centuries after the birth of Christ. Mr. Speaker, I think this is simply deplorable. In addition, Michael Horowitz, a leader in speaking out against this persecution, who happens to be Jewish, said in a recent interview, I am speaking out on behalf of persecuted Christians precisely because I am a Jew in the most deeply rooted sense. I see eerie parallels between the way the elites of the world are dealing with Christians, who have become the scapegoats of choice for thug regimes around the world, and the way the elites dealt with the Jews when Hitler came to power. Another parallel, Mr. Horowitz continued, is the tongue-tied silence of the Christian community in the face of this persecution. A similar silence was evident in the years leading to the Holocaust. Silence, anybody's silence, in the face of persecution is deadly. So, for me, Mr. Horowitz said, sparking our campaign for awareness and action is the most important thing I expect to do. What thugs did to Jews, they are now doing to Christians. Christians are becoming the Jews of the 21st century. Again, Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman] for not remaining silent on this issue. I hope the administration will follow his lead and end its silence on this most important issue. I think this is very important legislation, very valuable legislation, and I urge my colleagues to support this bill and pass it by a very large margin.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, last Thursday in one of our Nation's leading daily newspapers, the Christian Science Monitor, was this paragraph: ``The ACLU is at it again. The organization that opposes school uniforms, obstructs teen curfews, fights metal detectors at airports, and challenges restrictions on child pornography is now turning its legal firepower against single-sex public schools.'' As the headline in the Monitor said, ``Single-sex schools are a form of diversity.'' The Christian Science Monitor is not a conservative publication. Also, even many liberals like columnist William Raspberry and others have praised single-sex schools. People should be free to go to any type of school they want to go to or their parents want them to go to. But everyone should realize how elitist and left wing the ACLU has become, how out of step with the American people it is. It basically has become an organization that is supported by rich socialists. They fight against school prayer and in favor of child pornography. What a group. Then they try to portray themselves as a pro bono public interest group and then demand $6.7 million, $450 an hour, for legal work in their suit against the Citadel. The ACLU charged $105,000 just to prepare the bill in that case, so now all the students at the Citadel will have to pay higher fees for their college education, thanks to the ACLU. While I am speaking about the type of education our children receive and the choices or options they have, let me also mention last week's White House Conference on Day Care. Columnists Linda Chavez and Mona Charen both wrote about this conference and the harmful effects of placing small children into institutional day care. Linda Chavez wrote, ``From everything we know about child development, it's a good thing more children, especially infants, are not being cared for in institutional settings. Babies and very young children need the kind of personal attention and care giving that is impossible to find in a day care center no matter how well-intentioned or well-meaning the staff.'' She quoted Dr. Stanley Greenspan, a professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at George Washington University, who wrote recently in the Washington Post, ``In the rush to improve and increase child care, we are ignoring a more fundamental reality: Much of the child care available for infants and toddlers in this country simply isn't good for them.'' Among his reasons were a lack of continuity with one care giver and lack of prolonged interactions between child and adult. In other words, babies and small children need, desperately need and desperately want, much more individualized attention than is possible even in the best, most expensive day care center. Mona Charen went on to write: ``American families are creative. Though we hear endless calls for more and better child care, 66.7 percent of mothers with children under age 6 are full-time mothers or are employed part-time. They are not crying out for more institutional child care. What they do need are tax breaks, flex-time, work-at-home options, telecommuting and job sharing.'' She goes on to say this: ``The notion of a child care crisis is a myth. We now have expert testimony like that of Dr. Greenspan and other experts cited by the Clintons themselves to bolster the common-sense intuition that parents are the best guardians of young children. The goal of public policy ought to be to ensure that as many parents as possible are free to make that choice.'' The thing that would help children the most, Mr. Speaker, would be to drastically decrease the cost of government. Today the average person is paying almost half of his or her income in taxes of all types, Federal, State and local. Thus, as several commentators have noted, today one spouse has to work to support the government while the other spouse works to support the family. Many families who would like to spend more time with their children simply do not have the option because of our big government, the Nanny State we have created. Our children would be far better off today, Mr. Speaker, if we drastically downsized our government and drastically decreased its cost and left more money for parents to spend on their own children and less on government bureaucrats. Our children will be far better off with less government and more time with and attention from their parents.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I have just introduced H.R. 2748, the Air Service Improvement Act. This is a bill which could help bring down the cost of air travel for small- or medium-sized airports. Today it costs people in cities likes Knoxville, Syracuse, and many other places much more to fly a couple of hundred miles than it does for people in many large cities to fly to Europe or across the entire country. This bill would open up new slots for airlines to serve underserved cities. It would provide a special grant program to help airports attract low-cost airlines to help bring down ticket costs. It would set up new, faster procedures for handling anticompetitive predatory pricing complaints against some airlines. The bill would set up a loan guarantee program to help airlines purchase commuter planes if they agree to serve underserved airports for at least 1 year. The Air Service Improvement Act, if passed, could be a major step in helping to end the great unfairness that exists today in the price of airline tickets. I urge my colleagues to join me in bringing this much needed relief for air travelers in our small- and medium-sized cities.

Mr. DUNCAN

Mr. DUNCAN. Third and last, Mr. Speaker, is something that makes almost everyone in this country feel underpaid, and that is the scandal of ridiculously lavish sports salaries. The sports world quite simply has gone berserk. A 21-year-old basketball player that very few people have even heard of signed a contract a few days ago for $123 million over the next 6 years. A couple of years ago my two sons and I were driving along and we heard that a baseball pitcher signed for $18 million for 3 years. I asked my sons, ``Do you know how much $6 million a year is?'' The average person in my district makes between $21,000 and $22,000 a year. If a person averaged $25,000 a year for 40 years he would make $1 million. If a person is way above average and making $50,000 a year he would make $2 million over a 40-year career. A person would have to average $150,000 a year for 40 years to make the $6 million this pitcher now makes pitching a baseball one day out of every four. This is totally out of whack, Mr. Speaker. An earlier speaker tonight discussed what he called a matter of fairness. Americans pride themselves on being fair. This is not fair at all, to pay even mediocre athletes several million dollars a year. No one can really earn or deserve some of these salaries, yet we are all helping pay these salaries through higher prices for everything. I have always fought against higher taxes, but we really should greatly increase the taxes on all of these athletes, movie stars and CEO's who make over $1 million a year, and lower taxes on middle-income people, even if only as a simple matter of fairness. We also should begin a boycott of all of these major league sports teams who are paying these ridiculous salaries, and especially a boycott of all products with their nicknames on them because they take in so much money in this way. I know we will not do this, Mr. Speaker, but if these salaries continue to escalate in such a crazy manner, the Congress should at least take action on the tax front. Already, mainly thanks to big government, the gap between the rich and the poor is growing rapidly. We need to recognize this problem and do everything we can to make sure that America once again becomes the fair Nation that it was in the past.

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to speak briefly about three very important, but unrelated, topics. First, it has now been more than 1 year since the President promised he would have our troops out of Bosnia. There is no vital U.S. interest there. There is no threat to our national security there. We should not send young American men and women to overseas battlefields unless there is a definite threat to our national security or a vital U.S. interest. The American people do not want us there. I remember reading 3 or 4 years ago on the front page of the Washington Post that we had our troops in Haiti picking up garbage and settling domestic disputes. Now we have our military doing social work in Bosnia. U.S. soldiers should not be turned into international social workers. We have spent many billions in Rwanda, Somalia, Haiti, and now Bosnia, trying to settle disputes that we cannot solve unless we continue pouring billions and billions and billions of dollars into those countries. These are billions that some day we will very much wish that we had back to help our own people. Increase in Funding for IRS is Unfounded

Mr. DUNCAN. Second, Mr. Speaker, a few days ago on the floor, I criticized on this floor as strongly as I could the Treasury-Postal appropriations bill for giving the Internal Revenue Service a $538 million increase in funding. What I did not know then and could hardly believe when I found it out later was that in conference $120 million more was added. Many of us voted against this, but the Congress passed a $650 million increase for the IRS just at the conclusion of hearings on the IRS showing horrible abuse of the American people by that agency. The cover of this week's Newsweek Magazine really says it all: ``Inside the IRS: Lawless, Abusive, and Out of Control.'' Those are not my words, Mr. Speaker, those are the words of Newsweek magazine. Newsweek says the IRS is lawless, abusive, and out of control. Mr. Speaker, the people want us to do away with the IRS, or at least drastically simplify the Tax Code. They especially do not want us giving the IRS huge increases in funding. If this is done next year, there is at least a small but fast-growing group of us that will attempt as hard as we can to defeat any increase in funding for the IRS. Sports Salaries Have Gone Berserk