Eliot Engel

Mr. ENGEL

Mr. ENGEL. The amendment has been filed. I do not know what the number is, but it has been filed, and it is in title IV, not in title VI.

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

Mr. ENGEL

Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, I object.

Mr. ENGEL. Will there be time? With amendments that the gentleman mentioned, will there be time at the end of those amendments for other amendments to be submitted?

Mr. ENGEL

Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Chairman, this is a terrible bill, my colleagues. We are moving here toward a dangerous isolationism. Some of my friends think, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, America need not remain engaged in the world. I believe America needs to remain more engaged now than ever before. If we have quarrels with the United Nations, we ought to fix them. Certainly now, as Ambassador Albright said, we ought to use the United Nations for U.S. purposes. Is that not what President Bush did in the Persian Gulf war? With this bill, the President has two choices: move alone, or do not move at all. I do not think that is the kind of era we ought to be in. If we deduct the cost of our voluntary actions against U.N. dues, the United Nations would wind up owing us money, and other nations would surely do the same, leading to the collapse of the U.N. U.S. troops. My colleagues, the President never relinquishes command. The issue is operational control. This bill would not even allow someone from our NATO allies to command U.S. troops. With that twisted thinking, D-day could not have been possible. Field Marshal Montgomery could not have commanded our troops. Let us take down all the statutes of General Lafayette, because he could not have helped us fight the Revolutionary War. World War I and World War II could not have been possible, and Desert Storm, which I supported, remember when President Bush mobilized the U.N. and nations for Desert Storm; Desert Storm could not have been fought under the constraints of this bill. Right now in Korea the Second Infantry Division is currently under operational control of a Korean commander. Should that not be allowed? No NATO commander of our troops at a time when we say we want to expand NATO? What is the sense of expanding the alliance if we are not going to trust the alliance? Star wars, Mr. Chairman, we need defense dollars in the area of theater missile defense, not in the area of star wars. We cannot retreat to a dangerous isolationism. The United States must remain engaged. Mr. Chairman, if this bill passes, President Clinton ought to veto it the way Secretary Christopher and Secretary Perry said they recommend him to veto it.

Mr. ENGEL

Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I am still objecting. I would like to know that I can get some definite time for my amendment.

Mr. ENGEL

Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, when I hear the attacks being made against the President's nominee fro Surgeon General, Dr. Henry Foster, I must say that I have never seen such a vicious and mean-spirited mood in this town. This really has to stop. We have to return some civility to the process of confirming nominees. Mr. Speaker, why would any professional subject themselves to be nominated to serve here in Washington when, by doing so, they know they will be ripped from pillar to post? It is the right of a President to select nominees, and it is the right of that nominee to get a fair hearing before Congress. Dr. Foster should have an opportunity to lay his record before the Congress and before the American people. I think it is an impressive record that, once aired, will impress many people. The so-called controversy over Dr. Foster has been fueled by a discussion over one single issue--an issue, I might add, that should not be used as a litmus test. We have hardly heard a word about the decades of caring service Dr. Foster has provided. Yes, Dr. Foster performed abortions. The last time I looked, Mr. Speaker, abortion was not illegal in the United States. There may be some who do not like the fact that abortion is legal in this country, but Dr. Foster should not be held hostage to their views. Mr. Speaker, Dr. Foster ran a program called I Have a Future, which urges teenagers to practice abstinence. The program was honored as a Point of Light by President Bush. Why are we not focusing on the positive message that is the heart of Dr. Foster's work? It is most disturbing that some Members of Congress are looking to score political points on this issue. It appears that they are willing to put their own personal ambitions ahead of the well-being of the American people, especially our teenagers. I have not seen any evidence that disqualifies Dr. Foster for the post of Surgeon General. In fact, he is eminently qualified for the job. I urge my colleagues to step back and allow the process to proceed. Let Dr. Foster have a fair hearing before Congress. If he has a fair hearing, I have no doubt that he will be confirmed. Mr. Speaker, I now yield to my colleague and good friend, the gentlewoman from New York [Mrs. Lowey].

Mr. ENGEL

Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to recognize the efforts of Orna Siegel, a woman whom I admire greatly. Orna currently serves as the Outreach Chair of the Los Angeles chapter of AIPAC, however her community activities do not start and end with that organization. Orna is deeply committed to the security of the State of Israel but she is equally committed to making a difference in her community and in the lives of individuals. For years, Orna has been actively involved in Yad B'Yad (``hand in hand''), an organization that takes critically ill people from Israel to any place in the world where they can get the medical care they need--be it transplants, surgeries, or emergency treatment. She has also been an active fundraiser for many other worthy causes in her community. Although Orna's public service technically began in 1967, when she began a 3-year stint in the Israeli Defense Forces, her personal turning point came in 1990, years after she had married and moved to the United States. Orna witnessed the molestation of a 5-year-old boy in the darkness of a movie theater and followed the criminal out of the building until the police responded to her calls for assistance. She later testified against the culprit, who turned out to be a registered sex offender. I would like to submit into the Record a magazine article detailing Orna Siegel's courageous act. Her story demonstrates that ordinary citizens can affect the lives of their neighbors in a positive way if they only take the time to get involved. Essentially, that is the story of Orna Siegel's life; she is a person who has chosen to become involved. Her actions have literally saved the lives of people in desperate need of help. It is a story worthy of commendation by this House, and a lesson worth sharing with the American people. The article follows: [From the Moxie magazine, September 1990] Just a Housewife, Until She Had To Be a Heroine (By Mary Ellen Strote) The 11-year-old boy sitting next to Orna Siegel in the movie theater just wouldn't sit still. He kicked, he jostled, he wriggled. Annoyed, she glanced sideways and saw that the blond, blue-eyed youngster was grimacing. Then she looked down and gasped. The boy's companion, a man in his middle sixties, had his hand inside the boy's shorts. Orna had brought her children to last summer's opening of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. The theater was crowded, but she had found a couple of seats five rows from the front. Holding Jonathan, 7, in her lap, and with daughter Shana, 10, on the seat to her left, she had looked forward to the comedy. But the minute the movie had begun, the boy had started with his wriggling. Now she left her children and sought out the manager, ``I told him, `Please call the police. A child is being molested in Row 5,''' Orna remembers. ``He promised to call.'' Orna bought a cup of soda so her kids wouldn't suspect anything, went back to her seat, and took her son in her lap again. Then she waited for the police. And waited. And waited. All the while the boy kept kicking her. ``I watched him, not the movie,'' Orna says. ``the man was molesting him the whole time. And I watched what that son of a bitch was doing. ``Maybe I was in shock,'' she goes on. ``It was a funny movie and everyone was laughing. It was so noisy and Jonathan was heavy on my lap and we were too close to the screen and the lights were changing so fast. I got such a big headache. I was very nervous, not knowing what to do, just waiting for a policeman to come with a flashlight, for someone to get me out of this ordeal.'' But suddenly the movie was over. ``The crowds were leaving,'' she says. ``I hadn't made up my mind to follow them, but I knew at that moment: If I don't make a move now, it's all over. I told my kids, `Please be quiet,' and I grabbed their hands and held tight, looking with my eyes straight after the guy. I would let him out of my sight. On the way out the door, I saw the manger. He looked at me and shrugged, as if to say, `No one showed up * * *.''' Until that day, Orna, 41, would have described herself as a housewife. More likely, she would have used the words just a housewife. She cooked. She lunched with her friends. She waited for her kids to come home from school. She dressed up to go out with her husband, a successful businessman. She was such a relentlessly traditional wife and mother that except for the fact that she had been born Orna Tieb in Tunisia, the seventh of eight children in a family that just four * * * and the fact that she'd joined the Israeli army in 1967, right after the Six Day War, when she was 18 * * * except for that history, she could have passed for June Cleaver. A pretty, perfectly coiffed redhead with an manicure to match her meticulous makeup, and color-coordinated down to her very toes, Orna at first glance seems too perfect to be real. Indeed, she has lived a Cinderella life: The poverty and hardship of her childhood vanished virtually overnight when she met tall, blond American Saul Siegel. She was 22, a student at a university in Tel Aviv. He asked her to marry him the day they met, and a couple of days later she was on a plane to America. Today she keeps house in an airy French Normandy-style home that would be called a mansion almost anywhere in the world, although in the guard-gated, upper-class neighborhood in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley where she lives, it seems almost average. She receives a guest with the gracious ritual that is common in her homeland: cake on the table and an offer of tea. A few minutes sitting at the table in her immaculate kitchen, listening as she fields phone calls from her husband's clients in her rapid-fire Israeli-accented speech, however, less even a casual observer see the rock-hard substance beneath her polished, feminine exterior. But until that day at the theatre, Orna herself had no idea of her own strength. ``I thought I would go after the molester, follow him to his car, get his license number,'' she remembers, ``but instead, the man took the boy next door to the magic store. Now, this happens to be a wonderful store, and my children love it. So we went inside, and I told them to go wander around by themselves.'' Orna approached the store manager and asked to use the phone. ``I need to call the police,'' she whispered. ``That child was abused,'' and she nodded toward the boy. But the manager refused. ``I didn't see it happen,'' she told Orna. ``What is the matter with you people in America?'' Orna asked in despair, and she started crying. ``Why won't you get involved? I saw it happen! Look at that man! That's not a father-son hug.'' And it wasn't. The man was buying presents for the boy and kept his arm around the child all the time. ``The manager realized that if I was going to be that upset, she didn't want the trouble, so she told me to go into her office and use the phone there,'' says Orna. She called 911, and the operator seemed to ask a hundred questions. What does he look like? What color are his eyes? Orna covered her mouth and the receiver with her hand: ``He's only 10 feet away; I can't talk loud.'' By the time Orna got off the phone, even the manager had noticed that the man was behaving oddly. He was about to buy an Indiana Jones hat and whip for the boy, so Orna suggested to the manager that she try to get a name when he paid. The manager asked, ``May I have your name and phone number?'' Before the man could stop him, the boy gave a name--Richard--and a number. ``What do you want that for?'' the man asked suspiciously. The manager was very clever. ``You are buying a whip,'' she replied. ``It's like a weapon, so we need a name and number for our records.'' Now Orna felt some relief; at least she had a name and a phone number. When the pair left the store, she suggested that the manager follow and get a car license number too, which the woman did. Then Orna went into the back office and called the number the boy had given her. A woman answered. ``I was very emotional,'' Orna says. ``My hands were trembling. I was crying. I didn't want to scare her; I didn't want her to misunderstand and think her son was dead or something, so I said, `I'm, sorry, but I was at the movies. Do you have a son named Richard?'--I gave the name the boy had said.'' The woman replied no, that her son was named ----. Orna was confused--whose name had the boy given?--but she went on: ``I was at the movies, and your son was molested throughout the movie.'' The woman became very upset and asked Orna a string of questions: ``Where is he now? Can I see you? Can I talk to you?'' Orna just repeated, ``I wanted you to know that I was there and I saw it.'' The mother protested, ``But that man is his Uncle Richard.'' (Aha, Orna realized, the boy had given the man's name.* * *) He took my son to the movies for his eleventh birthday.* * *'' Just then, at long last, the police walked into the magic store. Orna was finally able to make her report, and the police told her the man would be apprehended when he took the boy home. ``I was still so upset,'' she remembers. I couldn't breathe properly, I couldn't take a regular breath. I was in the army for three years, but nothing had ever been this hard for me. Oh, it was a terrible thing to see,'' she says, closing her eyes at the memory. But now it was over. She had gone as far as she could go. She had told the police. She had told the mother, Now no one could say it wasn't true. ``Then I took my two babies and went to my car,'' she says. ``I couldn't wait to get there. I just wanted to sit in my car with them for a while.'' Her children were frightened; they had thought she was crying because their car had been stolen. ``I had to tell them what had happened,'' says Orna. ``They wouldn't let go of me until I did, I reminded them of what they'd been told at school: that no one else was supposed to touch their privates. Then I told them what the man had done.'' The children were shocked. Her daughter asked what would happen to the man. ``He will probably go to jail,'' Orna said. ``Isn't that sad?'' asked Shana. ``No,'' Orna reassured her, ``they will help him there.'' When Orna returned home, there was a message from the police on her answering machine. The message was very short. It went: ``Thanks to your efforts, you've saved the life of a little boy. The man has been arrested.'' Orna remembers feeling very high, but also scared. ``It wasn't that I had done all that and nothing came of it--the man had been arrested. But I started having flashbacks, and in my mind I saw my own son having that happen to him.'' She agreed to testify against ``Uncle'' Richard, a registered sex offender, now charged with nine new counts of child molestation. In court, she met the boy's parents and learned that Richard had been a trusted family friend who helped with carpools and babysitting. He had been molesting the boy and his older brother for about three years. She was told that the boys had been placed in therapy immediately. She also learned that the movie theater manager never had called the police. ``The manager had a theater full of customers,'' say Orna, still angry at the thought. ``He didn't want a scene.'' (The theater management later sent her some complimentary tickets, but she returned them.) The boy's mother invited Orna to come home for lunch during the court's noon break. Once there, the woman called to her younger son, ``Come meet the lady who saved your life * * *.'' ``The whole family was very open about it,'' says Orna. ``I admired them; they were so honest. They appreciated what I did * * *. Instead of just sending me a bouquet of flowers, the mother wanted to be close. We still call each other.'' So. What started out as a horror story had a true happy ending. But for Orna, this story provided not just an ending, but a beginning. Aside from five years as a part time volunteer at a local hospital, Orna had never done anything outside her home. Even after 18 years in America, she didn't feel comfortable expressing herself in English her second language. ``I never worked since I married my prince; I never got myself out of this package deal I got myself into,'' she says. Needless to say, she never did public speaking. Whenever she even thought about speaking in front of people she didn't know, she blushed so red she glowed. But now, suddenly, this quiet little housewife was famous. A heroine! The police department honored her with a citizen's recognition award. This led to publicity, newspaper articles, and an invitation to address the Julia Ann Singer Center, a community treatment center for children and families in Los Angeles. ``There I was,'' says Orna, talking in front of all the therapists and Ph.D.s.'' She was terrified. ``Who the hell am I?'' she wondered. ``I'm nobody with the authority to speak. But I just told them what happened, and they gave me a standing ovation.'' The talk at the Singer Center was important, but it was the day that Orna received the award from the chief of police that permanently changed her view of herself. ``All of a sudden I wasn't just a wife, a mother, a friend,'' she says. ``I had done something that outsiders noticed. I was recognized! I felt taller, bigger, stronger than I thought I ever could be. ``People called, they sent notes. I have been thanked by everybody: the police, the county supervisors, the city council, the state assembly, the district attorney, the district this, the district that. . . .'' She pulls the awards down from the shelves in her den--the plaques, certificates, framed letters, and laminated newspaper clippings, all adorned with brass and seals and calligraphy and fancy signatures, and lines them up on a seven-foot sofa until they cover the cushions. What the awards said to her, Siegel realizes now, was: You are capable. You can do something. You can save a life. ``I grabbed these awards,'' she says with a smile. ``I said thank you, and I just grabbed them.'' Then she went out and started doing things; the awards had triggered more than feelings, they had triggered action. She helps with fund raising for the charity Yad Byad (``hand in hand''), an organization that takes sick people from Israel to wherever in the world they can get the medical care they need--transplants, surgeries, emergency treatment. ``With 24 hours' notice, we can organize a dinner, a luncheon, an auction * * * whatever it takes to get the money to handle the emergency,'' she says proudly. Her other new activities also revolve around charitable fund raising, and they all require that she speak up and speak out. It is so easy to make a difference in the lives of others, Orna says in amazement. She often wonders why she had never done anything like this before. ``I was not involved,'' she says. ``I was nothing. I was blah. Now I'm someone who changes things for the better. Sure, the changes are tiny in the larger scheme of things, but it feels so good.'' At a recent Yad Byad fundraiser dinner for which Orna was a primary organizer, an 11- marrow transplant paid for by Yad Byad had cured his leukemia. ``He got up in front of the 350 guests,'' Siegel recalls, ``and we were all crying. And he said. * * *'' Siegel stops and looks away in an attempt to compose herself, but her eyes fill with tears anyway. ``And he said to us, `You saved my life'''

Mr. ENGEL

Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, we've heard a lot about the tough decisions that need to be made in order to clean up the welfare system and put our economy back on track. Cutting off payments to families or putting funding into State block grants are not the tough solution to our welfare problems. I often make note of the fact that, as a State legislator I had to deal with block grant issues. Most often, it is only a way of moving the responsibility for painful cuts to the States. The block grants proposed by the Republicans drastically reduce funding for these programs but these proposals over-simplify a very complex problem and do not sufficiently address the factors that contribute to unemployment and welfare dependency. Yes, we should cut the waste and abuse in the system. I agree that we should root out the fraud in our welfare programs. But, the fact is that real welfare reform must also address job creation, job training, and an increase in the minimum wage. I'm very glad to be participating in this special order this evening, organized by Mr. Sanders and Mr. Owens. These are issues that must be addressed in any welfare reform bill and they must be addressed by any government that hopes to lower its unemployment level while raising the standard of living of its people. I do not know anyone in this House, Republican or Democrat, who would argue with the premise that our ultimate goal in welfare reform is to move people off of the welfare roles and into jobs. We must, however, make sure that people are getting good jobs that provide a livable wage. I believe that the majority of people on welfare right now would jump at the opportunity to work and provide for themselves and their families. What, then, is preventing a welfare recipient from finding a decent job? Those jobs that are within a person's grasp do not pay enough to sustain a family and due to lack of training, higher paying jobs are also not within their reach. Earlier this week, I spoke on the House floor about the choices a single mother on welfare would face. If she goes on welfare, she can get comprehensive health care and a monthly check from the Government. If she goes to work at a minimum wage job she earns only $8,800 a year, and her family loses their health coverage. She must find a way to care for her children while she is at work. That is not much of a choice. Throwing these women off the welfare roles will not erase these problems. That is a smoke and mirrors reform. The Republican approach to welfare reform limits benefits to 2 years, and only 2 years. I have no problem with moving people into the work force as soon as possible, but we must face the fact that, if the jobs are not there, no punitive measure will change the welfare recipient's behavior. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that there are over 12 million unemployed people in this country. These people must be trained for jobs which will raise them up out of poverty and give them stable income. Today's minimum wage is worth 30 percent less than what it was worth in the 1970's. An increase in the minimum wage is a necessary step in providing people with the tools they need to bringing themselves out of poverty. We cannot move welfare recipients into a position where they join the growing number of working poor. Of all poor children, 38 percent under 6 years old have parents who work full or part time. They are working to support their families but cannot make enough money to live above the poverty line. In 1992, a full-time worker only grossed $8,800, that is $3,500 below the poverty line for a family of three: $11,186. How can we expect to move welfare recipients into this subsistence level of employment with no health care and no job training? We must create a system that rewards work and does not punish someone for trying to be independent. We must make the tough decisions. We must say that job creation, training and an increased wages are national priorities. We must commit to programs that will help us reach a goal of a stable, self-sufficient employment for all Americans.

Mr. ENGEL

Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, our Republican friends support a tax cut for wealthy Americans earning more than $200,000 a year, but they will not support a raise in the minimum wage for people who want to work and not collect welfare. If we truly want to move people off public assistance, we must make work more attractive than welfare. We ought not be deceived by those who say the minimum wage is only being paid to teenagers from well-off families. Two-thirds of minimum wage workers are adults over the age of 21, many of whom bring home at least half their family's income. Let us look at the choices faced by a single mother living at the poverty level. If she goes on welfare, she can get comprehensive health care and a monthly check from the government. If she goes to work at a minimum wage job, she earns only $8,500 a year, and her family loses her health coverage. She must find a way to care for her children while she is at work. That is not much of a choice. Mark my words, Mr. Speaker, tossing people off welfare will not make these dilemmas magically disappear. The minimum wage is an important piece of the effort to raise the living standards for all Americans. We started on the right path last year when we voted to expand the earned income tax credit. Let us raise the minimum wage.

Mr. ENGEL

Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, during the debate earlier today on the line- item veto, Members were not permitted to strike the requisite number of words and speak before the vote. And therefore I want to take this opportunity to put my thoughts out in terms of the vote that just happened. I voted against the line-item veto. I must say, Mr. Speaker, that I believe we in this Congress are going to rue the day that we voted for the line-item veto, and as was said many times by many colleagues, this line-item veto, in my opinion, is nothing more than an unconstitutional ceding of power to the executive branch. I believe that in order for a line-item veto to be put forward we need a constitutional change, and therefore, a constitutional amendment, and surely when there is a legal challenge to the line-item veto I believe it will ultimately be declared unconstitutional without a constitutional amendment. Congress is granted the power of the purse. I do not believe Congress has the right to cede that power to the Executive. This to me has nothing to do with partisan politics, it has nothing to do with Congress being controlled by the Democrats or the Republicans or the President being a Democrat or a Republican. It simply to me reflects the very serious nature that I feel about our Constitution. I feel it is a very sacred document and I do not think any vote of Congress ought to be allowed to alter that. Much is said today about this being President Reagan's birthday and the gesture of passing this on his birthday, but I must say with all due respect to President Reagan, he was President for 8 years, and while he talked about the importance of a line-item veto in terms of bringing the budget deficit down, he never once in his 8 years as President submitted a balanced budget to Congress. President Bush in 4 years in the Presidency never submitted a balanced budget to Congress. So I think this fervor that people are rushing toward in terms of both the balanced budget amendment and the line-item veto is a bit misplaced. What also scares me, Mr. Speaker, is that now if this becomes law, and the Senate concurs, two-thirds will have to pass something to override the President's veto. I think that is very, very dangerous. It means simply that the President, plus one-third, plus one, of either House, would have control not just over entire spending bills, but each detail within them. To me that is a huge increase in Presidential power, and an increase in Presidential power, I might add, not just to affect the composition of spending, but also to punish and reward. Simply put, the President might send to the Senate certain nominees to be confirmed and might make it very, very clear that unless his putting forth the line-item veto was sustained, that Congress would be in big trouble in terms of the confirmation. In other words, unless the Senate confirmed the Presidential appointments, the President might line-item veto certain appropriations. So the President could use the line-item veto not only to stop spending, but can use it as a wedge over the heads of Congress to say if you do not do what I want, I am going to line-item veto what you want. When there are negotiations between the executive branch and the legislative branch, Mr. Speaker, everyone knows how negotiations go, be they labor-management negotiations or any other kind. Baseball is now on strike and owners and players in negotiations whenever there is a settlement there is give and take on each side, each side gives a little, each side accepts a little bit of the other person's side, and they come out with a final document that may not be to everyone's liking, but it is a compromise document. Now if the President has a line-item veto, what will happen I fear is when Congress and the President sit down and each gives a little, the little that the Congress gives to the President will be sustained, and the little that the President gives to the Congress will be line-item vetoed, altering the balance. I want to just read in conclusion the first paragraph from the editorial of the Washington Post last week entitled ``Disenfranchising Congress,'' and I will put the entire editorial in the Record, but I want to just conclude by reading this first paragraph. It says, The version of the line-item veto now on the floor of the House is dangerous legislation. Too little attention has been paid to what it would do. It would likely do very little to reduce unnecessary spending and the deficit, the stated purpose. It would, however, transfer an enormous amount of power from Congress to the President, which the President could use for other purposes. It would also greatly strengthen congressional minorities at the expense of majority rule. That threatens to become a pattern; the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution that the House approved last week would also disenfranchise the majority. I am sorry to say, Mr. Speaker I think with the passage of this, it is a very sad day for out country and I believe that those of us who voted no will be proven right in the future.

Mr. ENGEL

Mr. ENGEL. Can I ask the gentleman why then he does not embrace the Moran bill, because I think what the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Moran] is doing is frankly giving you everything that you feel needs to be done.

Mr. ENGEL. The options may be there, but the threshold is much more difficult than what the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Moran] is proposing. That is why I think what he is saying is to give us maximum flexibility. Frankly, I do not understand why we are not all rallying around the Moran proposal.

Mr. ENGEL. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the substitute of the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Moran]. Having served in the New York State Assembly for 12 years, I am opposed to unfunded mandates. However, I think that what we need to do in this Congress is not be blind, not pass laws which blanketly prohibit Congress from exercising the flexibility that it may need to exercise from time to time. The substitute offered by the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Moran] simply says that Congress can consider legislation containing unfunded mandates. It does not mean Congress has to consider it. It does not mean that Congress will consider it. However, frankly, it means that Congress in the future can consider it. What are we afraid of? Each of us comes here to represent our constituents, about 600,000 people. It seems to me that under the system we have in this country, the majority ought to rule. Prohibitions, blanket prohibitions that we try to shackle on future Congresses it seems to me are very, very dangerous precedents. Yes, we must have mandates and we must be very careful that we fund these mandates. However, some future Congresses may look at this in another light. At a time when we are talking here of passing a balanced budget amendment, and at a time we are talking here coupling with it unfunded mandates, a complete prohibition on any kind of mandates, unless they are totally funded, the gentleman from Montana [Mr. Williams] is quite right. What we are really seeing here is a total prohibition on any kind of mandates from the Federal Government, because frankly, there will not be any money to do the kinds of things that some people know need to be done. When we combine the two, it really brings us paralysis in terms of saying that the Federal Government needs to have a uniform policy throughout the country. I do not think it is so terrible to have clean air and clean water and other things. My State of New York has a problem with acid rain. We cannot handle the problem ourselves. We need, frankly, a universal taking care of this New York, we cannot do it ourselves, so we need the Federal Government to intervene. What really frightens me, Mr. Chairman, is that under the guise of unfunded mandates and under the guise of a balanced budget and under the guise of all these things we are rushing toward, we are going to give our children a dirtier environment, dirtier air, dirtier water. All the kinds of things that the Federal Government has done for so many years the Federal Government will not be able to do. In the abstract, Mr. Chairman, of course we need to say that if we are going to mandate something, things ought to be paid for. However, let us not tie the hands of future Congresses to give them the flexibility to pass the programs that they see fit without being tied up in a straitjacket. I want to commend the gentleman from Virginia. This is something that he has pushed for a long, long time. It adheres to the principle the fact that we ought to not have unfunded mandates, but it allows the future Congresses to have the flexibility that they need. One person-- one vote. If a future Congress wants to mandate something, they can. If they do not want to, they do not have to. What are we afraid of? Let us have the flexibility. The Moran amendment, as far as I am concerned, is the best of both worlds, and that is why I believe we ought to pass it.

Mr. ENGEL. But, I think what this legislation also does is, if something is not fully funded, it makes it very, very hard to do. Frankly, I am not afraid of unfunded mandates. I am afraid that the ruse of unfunded mandates is going to be used to prevent Federal action on clean water, clean air, the environment, and all the things that I know we need. And that is why I think the gentleman's proposal makes infinite sense.

Mr. ENGEL

Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I take this opportunity to honor my constituent, Abraham Grabowski, who is being honored this week by the RAIN Eastchester Senior Center. Mr. Grabowski, who is 98 years young, is one of the few living veterans of World War I. Through his long and productive life, he has seen many changes and performed many good deeds. Perhaps the greatest of those deeds is his service in defense of freedom. This service took him from his home in New York to Canada, England, Egypt, and Palestine. He even returned to Israel is 1967 for the 50th anniversary of the Allenby Brigade, an all-Jewish unit that fought under British command to free Palestine from Turkish rule. Mr. Grabowski eventually settled in Co-op City, where he was an original tenant of building 21. His interesting stories have been a source of pride among his neighbors and fellow senior citizens. Mr. Grabowski has said he would like to return to Israel for his 100th birthday. I am confident he will be able to make that trip, and I extend my best wishes and congratulations to him on behalf of my constituents.

Mr. ENGEL

Mr. ENGEL. I thank my friend for yielding this time to me. My colleagues, in the rush to pass a constitutional amendment and tamper with the Constitution to do something that we do not have the guts to do ourselves, let us tell the American people what we are really doing. Let us be honest with the American people. If the American people knew what this balanced budget amendment would do, there would be a hue and cry in the land. We are exempting social security. I agree. We are telling our senior citizens that by exempting social security, they will be all right. Who is kidding whom? Do you know the Medicare cuts that will come as a result of this balanced budget amendment? My senior citizens and senior citizens across this country that are on Medicare and cannot make ends meet now will face cuts of 20, 30, 35 percent. They cannot get money to pay for prescription drugs or the health services they need now. Forget it after the balanced budget amendment. Medicaid, decimated; veterans benefits, decimated. You veterans who think you will continue to get outpatient services under a balanced budget amendment, outpatient health services, forget it. That will be gone. Education, school lunches, magnet school programs, forget it. Tremendous cuts. Our children are going to suffer in future years. Mass transit, Meals on Wheels, the environment, forget about clean water and clean air, there will not be money for that. More cops on the beat, housing, health research. Federal pensions, we can forget about all the things the American people have come to expect. Wake up, America. If we do not have the guts here to do what we have to do, a balanced budget amendment is not going to do it for us. All it is going to do is impose terrible hardships on the American people, senior citizens, and our young people. If Congress declares war, we have to have a separate vote on a military action and then a second vote to decide to unbalance the budget. This is unworkable. It is a disaster for America, and I will vote ``no.''