Barney Frank

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I was until the game started.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased with this legislation and, frankly, with the cooperative spirit that has brought it before us as a suspension. Members may note, there was a change in plans. Originally, we had a unanimous consent agreement to bring this up as a bill with an amendment. We have had conversations. As a result, we have an agreement to go forward with this bill with an amendment. It is a modification that will make the impact a little easier on some people in some areas of the country and will make it in part something of an experiment because we will have to revisit it after a few years, but it will change the essence of the bill. Our hope is, as a result of the spirit of compromise and flexibility that was shown on this side, when the bill goes elsewhere in this Capitol, there will be a hospitable attitude. There was, frankly, the prospect before that of a possible deadlock between the branches. We believe we have taken a step, well, more than a step, to help avoid that. The substance is very important, and I want to pay particular tribute to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter) and the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer). One is a member of the committee, the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter); and one is not, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), because they took the initiative. Yes, people who have built in areas that are likely to flood should get some help from the Federal Government. The poor old Federal Government gets denounced a lot in general; but in particular, almost everybody finds some reason to want to substitute it for the pure market forces in some cases. There is a consensus here that the market does not work for some people with regard to flood insurance. Our position was, however, that we were too little reliant on economic factors. That is, we have had a situation where people could build, be flooded, get compensated through a Federal program; build, get flooded, and get compensated through a Federal program indefinitely. Neither in fiscal terms nor from an environmental standpoint was that a good idea. This bill is an effort, without cutting people off, to reform that situation. It is widely supported by virtually all of the taxpayer groups that worry about what they think is excessive spending, and it is supported by environmentalists. It is something of a compromise. I hope we can go forward with it and see it adopted. I should note, this program, the Federal Flood Insurance Program, expired last year. The gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Ney) and I collaborated earlier this year and retroactively extended it. I believe it was the first act this Congress took, was to make sure people were protected. No one is indifferent to the fate of these people. We did, however, say, and I thank the gentleman for his leadership, that we could not simply continue to extend this program. It had to be reformed. The gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter) and the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) did us a great service by taking the initiative there. It was supported by the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Ney) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters), who is the ranking member; and that is where we are. We have now got a further compromise. I understand that is not yet something they have had a chance to review in the Senate. My hope is what we will do, and I believe there is agreement on this, is to pass a 3-month extension in an appropriate vehicle here, which would then be accepted in the Senate. That would give us until March 31 of next year with the program fully in effect to be able to work out in the Senate what we believe we have successfully worked out here, namely, a reasonable compromise. It is in that spirit that I go forward with this. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, the first group the gentleman read, the Heritage Foundation and that group, would you send them a note reminding them where I was on this bill, that I helped on this bill?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Hooley).

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I did want to enter my Russian grandparents in the ``they got run out'' contest, but I will do that later. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), one of the main coauthors.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green), who came to us earlier and mentioned a particular problem affecting his State and is responsible, with the support of others from Texas, for a very constructive change in this program.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Thompson). (Mr. THOMPSON of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentlewoman. Let me say, first of all, she talked about encouraging thinking outside the traditional. For me she has picked a good week in which to do this. I have been spending a lot of time talking about some nontraditional thinking this week in my State Supreme Court on Tuesday. But in the particular issue that she mentioned, that she has alerted us to it, she is absolutely right. The people in her district were hit by some natural disaster that no one could have predicted. We need to have a capacity to help communities respond to the unpredictable as well as the predictable. And I would assure her that it is my intention, now that she has brought this to our attention, to see that the committee addresses that to the extent that we can next year. I also just want to say in closing, Mr. Speaker, that I am very pleased that we are where we are, but I should reiterate, we are at a point where we are, I believe, going to agree to a 3-month extension of this program. I hope no one thinks that simply by inaction, they are going to be able to coerce us, and I do not mean anybody in this room or who votes in this room; I just do not want anyone to think that inaction will force us to continue to do year-by-year extensions that the chairman had talked about. We made a serious, good-faith compromise here. I believe it ought to be generally acceptable. I hope that early next year, when Congress reconvenes after our recess, we will be able to come forward with this bill with maybe some minor changes and get some further study, and it will become law. I hope that everyone understands that this is our chance to put this on the kind of indefinite footing it ought to be on.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the remainder of my time. Mr. Speaker, I want to again express my appreciation to the people working on this, and I should acknowledge, as others have, we do recognize that Louisiana, because of geography and history, has different problems and I am pleased that we were able, and I understand we were not able to get everybody together, but I think it was a good thing that because of the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Baker) and the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), the bill is different than it would have been. They did call to our attention special problems that they have; we cannot always resolve everything. But I appreciate that we were able to move in that spirit. I also wanted at this point, Mr. Speaker, to say that I know the gentlewoman from California who has been working on this from my subcommittee as well as others has some concerns, and I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters).

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kanjorski) has played a very important role in this. I am glad to be here in support of his efforts. I agree that this is a bill that is a good set of steps forward, it is more than a first step, but it is not everything that we should be doing. It is useful to do it now. I have spoken with the Attorney General of New York, Mr. Spitzer, the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Mr. Galvin. They have further ideas about how we can improve the protection of the investing public. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kanjorski) himself has some ideas. So I am glad we are moving. And I appreciate the fact we do not end when we adjourn for the year this legislative process; we will resume it next year and be in conference with the Senate bill, and maybe even ourselves pass some other legislation in this regard. But I want to address two other aspects of this issue. It is important that we legislate. It is also important that we fully empower those who are charged with investigation and enforcement. We are the legislative branch. We set the policy. But we are not able to carry it out. What is important is that those entities that are empowered to carry it out be allowed to do that. Now, a number of people have noted today on that. We have learned recently some disturbing facts about the mutual fund industry. It should be clear that we learned them primarily from two State regulators, the Attorney General of New York and the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. And I am proud to say, Mr. Speaker, that on our side of the aisle we take pride in that because there were efforts to impinge on their ability to do this work. And I am very pleased that our resistance to any effort to diminish the role played by State regulators in the securities field has been vindicated. If, in fact, the Attorney General of New York, the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and some other regulators did not have the incentive, the tools, the ability fully to investigate, we would not know today what we know. In addition, we have had the problem that the SEC has said, well, there were some limits in terms of funding. A year ago back to 2001, my predecessor as ranking member, the very able gentleman from New York, Mr. John LaFalce, when we were asked to raise SEC fees, he led our side in saying, let us make sure a lot of that goes to the SEC to increase their budget. And there was resistance. Even after the corporate reform bill last year, the Sarbanes-Oxley bill, was passed, we as a Congress did not initially give the SEC the money they needed to enforce that. Now, my colleague, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kanjorski), has correctly pointed out we regret the fact that we have not also passed 2179, the SEC enforcement bill, giving the SEC more powers that they have asked for, including some that would specifically enhance their ability to levy fines against mutual fund companies. Parts of that bill specifically deal with the power to penalize mutual fund companies under those acts. But in addition to the additional powers, we need to give them more people. And we did fight, beginning late last year on into early this year; finally the Congress agreed to give the SEC the amount of money that they needed for Sarbanes-Oxley, but there is, of course, a time lag between getting the money and being able to spend it. Now, both sides agreed to give the SEC flexibility in hiring, and we gave them that. But we ought to note that by the time we were to persuade this Congress to give the SEC adequate funds, they tell us they did not have time to spend it. So, ironically, the SEC had to give back some money this year, over $100 million. But they have told us that that does not mean that that level was too high, only that they did not get it in time to spend it, over our objections. We now, I think, should go forward and have a situation where State regulators and the SEC are fully funded and fully empowered to do their job.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I just want to say that this unanimous-consent agreement reflects a very cooperative agreement between the majority and the minority. We have had a chance to go over all this. It is an agreed upon procedure. We have even had a chance to read the bill. And so because this is such a contrast to the Medicare bill and the way it has been handled, I do not object. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I should inform the membership that it is the earnest hope and, indeed, intention of the gentleman from Ohio and myself to control most of those 30 minutes apiece somewhere else other than on the floor of this House. I very much appreciated the ability to work with the chairman. We had a difficult issue, the fair credit bill. It is not everything I would have liked to have seen. It is different than it would have been if our side was in the majority. But nevertheless it was a genuinely legislated bill. There was give and take. It is, I think, an improvement over current law. The other body has also passed a bill which has similar characteristics. It is an eminently conferencable bill because both Houses have legislated on similar subjects not in diametrically opposite ways, but in similar ways. This instruction motion, and we have discussed this with the majority side, has been cut down, as a clever deduction would lead you to believe, since if you read the instruction motion, it consists of a paragraph numbered 1. Ordinarily one does not number a paragraph 1 unless one has a 2. We did have a 2; it has gone in the interest of conciliation and compromise, so we now have one. And it is that the House stick by its position on a very important subject, and I appreciate the gentleman from Ohio's support on this. What we have done in this bill, in both bodies, is to increase the information to consumers about credit reports. We have in various ways, by increasing the flow of information, given the consumers a better chance to know what is being said about them. But there was one flaw that came to me as I read the volumes of testimony that we got, namely, there was a problem with the input of the information at the outset, the accuracy. What we have is, in the law, a very low standard of care that the initial furnishers of the information have to have. I understand they are having problems. We are not trying to overburden them. Indeed, I have talked to the gentleman from California (Mr. Royce) about some ways later on to modify this to keep people from being flooded; but essentially what the motion says is that we stick by the language in our bill that makes it easier, if you get this information and it tells you that there was some inaccuracy about you, this bill, this language, makes it easier for you to get that corrected. It means that you are entitled to more cooperation than under current law to get inaccurate information about you corrected. That is what we do. I appreciate the gentleman from Ohio's support.

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, often in institutions unwritten rules get more obedience than written rules. One of the unwritten rules that is quite generally followed around here is that when one Member begins a set of remarks by speaking highly of another Member, the first Member is about to disagree with the second Member. So let me adhere to that rule. I have enormous respect for the work done by the gentleman from Virginia who is leading the opposition to this bill. He is in many ways, particularly in criminal justice, the conscience of this House. And so I feel it is particularly important to explain why we disagree, and I appreciate the comments made by the gentleman from Georgia. This is not a debate about whether or not prisoners ought to be given work to do which will be socially productive and rehabilitative. The question is how will we pay for that work. That is the issue. The current system in effect pays for prison rehabilitation by putting hardworking, low-wage citizens at a disadvantage and exacerbates their problem. What we now have is a subsidized form of competition between the prisoners and garment workers, textile workers and furniture workers. That is why the AFL-CIO so strongly supports our bill. That is why unions, the UAW, UNITE, unions which have been in the forefront of the battle for social justice support this bill, because it is not a case of saying prisoners should not be given useful, rehabilitative work. It is an effort to change the way it is financed. Right now a vulnerable section of our population, people who work in the textile industry, people who work in the garment industry, people who work in the furniture industry, they are the ones who have to bear the brunt of financing prison rehabilitation. We believe through this bill, that like any other important public purpose, we should fund it in a general way with everybody who will benefit participating, and that we do not single out not just a segment but an economically vulnerable segment, people who are already hurt disproportionately by trade policies, people who are already in difficulty because of a variety of other factors. This bill includes provisions to say that the prisoners can do work, make products, but simply not compete commercially. There are plenty of these institutions in this society, Habitat for Humanity was mentioned, homeless shelters, day-care centers, there are plenty of places that have a need for clothing and furniture, draperies, they can be given this. What is at issue is not whether or not prisoners do work, but what is the socially fair and responsible way to pay for it. It is true there will be a difference. If we go the way those of us who support this bill want, Prison Industries will not be doing much marketing, but I would hope marketing is not one of the things that we are not getting the prisoners into right away. They do the physical work, they learn the vocational skills. The marketing is not something that we ought to be introducing them to. This bill is a way to continue rehabilitative work for the prisoners in a socially fair manner.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise to speak against the amendment. I am always a little puzzled when we get amendments that would substitute a study for the bill. It seems to me it would ease the strain on the GAO if we just killed the bill. Since the purpose of this study is to stop the bill from going forward, why drag the poor GAO into it? Why do we not let them go about their business and not have them do a study when the only purpose of the study is to kill the bill? I say that because I do not remember any call for a GAO study before we came forward with this bill. On the merits, I want to express my disagreement with the former chairman of this committee. I appreciate very much his concern for prison reform, and there are a number of things I think we ought to be doing to reform the prisons. For one thing, we ought to be dealing with overcrowding by not locking up as many wholly nonviolent prisoners as we do for things that in some cases ought not to be offenses. But I have to disagree with him when he says this does not cost anything. It extracts a cost, and it extracts it in an unfair way. Obviously, somebody has to pay for this. It is now paid for not by the tax system in general but by those people who work in a couple of industries, industries that are already under economic attack. This takes the cost and takes it out of the hides of workers in the garment and textile industries. That is why UNITE!, the union of garment and textile workers, is so strongly for this bill. It takes it away from small businesspeople who would be getting the work otherwise. I want to say particularly to many of my friends on the liberal side who have a concern for the welfare of prisoners not based on any kind of view that the prisoners are such wonderful people who happened to fall into prison by accident, but on the perfectly sensible notion that most prisoners will someday be out of prison and back in society and it is in society's self-interest to help them become the kind of people who will not do bad things when they come out. But here is what you have to look at this Federal Prison Industries system as. It is a way for the prison system of the United States Government to escape public judgments and public supervision. It is self-financing. Why should it be? What other aspects of the prison system do we want to exempt from the appropriations process, do we want to exempt from Congress being in control? What this does is to say to the prisons, the Bureau of Prisons in our government, you get this source of income over which we have no control, and I must say I think we have a problem with not just prison overcrowding but what is the cause of prison overcrowding. In my view, too many people are in prison who should not be there. People who are violent towards other people or people who steal from other people ought to be in prison. But we have got people who are there for nonviolent drug possession offenses and others whom I think should not be in prison. I do not understand why some of my liberal friends think we ought to be subsidizing prison expansion. That is what you are doing here. When you leave this in place, Federal Prison Industries, as this self- financing entity, you are giving the people in the Bureau of Prisons a source of income so that they can do something that everybody agrees is important. No one is for having the prisoners be without this kind of rehabilitative work. The question is, how do you finance it? I am not for allowing that to be self-financed in a way that deprives us of the right as elected officials to make choices about what the resources ought to be. That is particularly the case because, as I said, it is not cost-free. We are losing jobs in the garment and textile area. Obviously when we subsidize prisoners to produce jeans, to produce clothing, to produce draperies, jobs are lost by people in the private sector who would be doing that. It is simply inappropriate to say to hardworking, low-wage people, you know what, you are going to lose your job because there are prisoners we want to rehabilitate. I want to rehabilitate the prisoners, but not by taking jobs away from people who have stayed out of prison. On the whole, they are better at what they are doing. That is the nub of this. We have a very large budget. I think that the gentleman from Illinois is right about what we ought to be doing. The question is not what we should be doing with regard to prisoners but how do you pay for it, how do you finance it. Do you do it by taking work away from people in the private sector? They are not taking away high-level jobs. They are not taking away those jobs where America is expanding. They are not doing things that take away from the strengths in the American economy. They exacerbate the problem we already have in industries that are already under pressure, and that is wholly inappropriate. I believe that there are in this society day care centers, homeless shelters, and other institutions with a great need for these products. Let us in an intelligent and humane way have the prisoners produce for that sector and pay for it in a legitimate way, not by taking it out of the hides of the weakest and most vulnerable people in the private sector.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I respect the principled opposition of the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) to this bill. It is in this context we should see his amendment. He argues that he has a better transition, but it is a transition to a goal which he opposes. So I would ask Members to consider if you are trying to find a path to a certain destination, whose guidance will you select: the people who are trying to get to the destination or the people who think that destination would be a terrible thing? The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) has said this accurately, that this is a second chance to vote ``yes'' or ``no'' on the bill. I want to reiterate I will be strongly supportive of efforts to continue giving prisoners the work. There are specific sections in this bill that we are bringing forward that talk about donation programs, that say that we want the inmates to be making things for daycare centers, for homeless shelters, for drug rehab clinics. All of us know in every one of our districts there are very worthy facilities that provide services to people in great need, and they do not have enough of a budget to buy what they need. Let us give them the furniture. Let us give them the clothing. Let us give them the drapery. Let us give them the other things that can be made. The issue is not whether or not the prisoners should be engaged in rehabilitative work; it is whether rehabilitative work should be financed by the whole society or whether it should be financed by competing with the most economically vulnerable sectors of our society. The bill says the former; the opposition to the bill and the amendment essentially say the latter. The amendment says a while longer, a vote against the bill says never, but they came to the same result.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, we do not have the usual situation here where there are Democratic and Republican managers who might come to an agreement on this one. I would say, though, that as one of the Democrats who has been supportive of this bill, I certainly would concur with what the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) has said and would also urge its acceptance.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the work that my colleague from Texas does on this and other issues, but in this case we disagree. I think it would be a grave error to sunset. Sunset is a legitimate tool, but when we adopt a sunset, I think we need to calculate what incentive we are setting in motion. For example, the gentleman from Wisconsin played a very useful role here. We in the House Committee on the Judiciary, on which I then served, insisted on a sunset to the Patriot Act because a lot of new powers were being granted affirmatively, and we felt that it was important that, as we started these brand new powers, the people exercising the powers should know that they would have to come and get them renewed. There was an incentive in that sunset to the people given the grant of new authority to exercise it in a reasonable way. Here, though, a sunset would create, I believe, perverse incentives. We know on good faith people in the Bureau of Prisons do not like this bill. The people in the Federal Prison Industries do not like the bill. The people who are now working to provide rehabilitative employment efforts to inmates, which all of us support, like the current system and do not want to have to go to a new system. For the new system to work well, we have provisions in this bill that say there will be additional training for the inmates, there will be donation programs, and that is being strengthened, there will not programs whereby we in this bill mandate the people who run the Federal prisons to find alternatives to the sale of these products. We want them to continue working, but we want a variety of things to be done so that there can be donations to charitable groups, et cetera. It is going to be more work for the people who now run the prisons. It will be the course of least resistance for them to go with the status quo. That is why, I think, a sunset creates a perverse incentive, because the people who do not want this program to work are the people who are in charge of making it work, and if they know that if we have not been able to find other work, if they can simply sit and let some of these provisions for alternative sources of employment go unused, they will make their case for getting rid of this. So it is one thing if we give a grant of power to people and tell them, look, go use these powers wisely because they have to come back to us. It is another thing to say to a group of people who do not like what we are doing, if, in fact, the efforts to make work what they do not want to work are not very effective, then they will have achieved their goal. So I really believe that a sunset goes in the wrong direction here. I think we need to give the Federal Prison Industries every incentive to make this work. I do not want them to have the benefit of saying we cannot find 100 day-care centers and shelters; if we cannot set up these alternatives, if we cannot do all these new jobs that have been put on us, then we will have a good argument to the Attorney General to abolish it. I also agree with the argument made by the chairman, who is a very strong and thoughtful defender of the role of elected Representatives in our democracy. He is quite right to object to this on separation of powers grounds. This is far too great a delegation of power to the Attorney General. But there is also, I think, what I believe to be a perverse incentive. So for both reasons, because I believe we should go to a new system in which the inmates are given work but we finance that work differently, and that is going to be a complicated task to put on people in the prisons. I do not want the bureaucrats, the administrators of this, to have any incentive not to do their very best.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, from time to time I have used this medium to share with my colleagues the important work being done by the Citizen's Scholarship Foundation of Fall River, Massachusetts, the organization created and run--with the help of many, many others in increasing numbers--by Dr. Irving Fradkin. I do so not simply to give well deserved recognition to the tireless efforts of Dr. Fradkin on behalf of young people who might not get to benefit from a college education without his work, but more importantly to give an example to others of what can be done in this regard. Of course it is important that we in the Congress continue to provide public funds to help provide the equality of opportunity to higher education, which we all want to be a part of the American experience. A sufficient level of public support is indispensable. But this does not mean that volunteer efforts of the sort that Dr. Fradkin encourages are irrelevant or insignificant. We need both. Mr. Speaker, as an indication of the continued importance of Dr. Fradkin's work in helping gather funds to provide higher education to people who would otherwise be unable to afford it, I ask that the following documents be printed here. They include a Proclamation from the North Dakota Dollars for Scholars Governing Board, and several letters from young people who have been the beneficiaries of the scholarships generated by Dr. Fradkin's work. Proclamation To Honor Dr. Irving Fradkin issued this fourth day of June, 2003, by the North Dakota Dollars for Scholars Governing Board Whereas, North Dakota citizens value education and are supportive of young people pursuing postsecondary education plans; and Whereas, North Dakota Dollars for Scholars has grown to having 69 chapters impacting 129 communities at the close of FY 03; and Whereas, North Dakota has Initiated a state level organization, led by a voluntary group of state Governing Board members, to continue its rich history of scholarship support for postsecondary education; and Whereas, all chapters in North Dakota to date have raised $9.4 million for local awards and endowment building; and Whereas, all chapters in North Dakota to date have awarded scholarships to 8,454 students why also receive a key message of encouragement and pride from their community in addition to the monetary award; and Whereas, all programs of Scholarship America helped to bring over $965,000 to North Dakota postsecondary education institutions, and Whereas, the Dollars for Scholars program would not have been possible without the determination and vision of one man named Irving Fradkin; Now, Therefore, Be It Resolved By The North Dakota Dollars for Scholars Governing Board: That our deep gratitude is extended to Irving Fradkin for making Dollars for Scholars possible in North Dakota and around the United States; and Be It Further Resolved, that the North Dakota Dollars for Scholars Governing Board presents this resolution and plaque to Dr. Irving Fradkin to honor all he has done and accomplished for youth and education in America. Charles Stroup, Hazen, ND, NDDFS Governing Board Chair.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, one of the most relevant facts about this debate was in The New York Times a couple of days ago. The Republicans, who are putting together a prescription drug bill, plan to institute a copayment for people receiving home health care. The frailest and the poorest in our society, elderly people who are unable to perform basic functions and stay in their own homes, and who get help from very low-paid workers, will now, according to the Republican plan, if it becomes law, be forced to pay out of their meager incomes hundreds of dollars a year for this basic service. The gentleman from Pennsylvania who spoke before said that during the Clinton administration, he made a rather partisan speech, but he said during the Clinton administration we also had to make some payments. Yes, but at that time we were not trying to cut taxes for millionaires. When the Committee on Rules refused to allow the amendment of the gentleman from Wisconsin, which would have paid for this by undoing the great tax relief that is coming to a handful of very wealthy people in this country, they posed a very stark choice to this House: vote the $87 billion and have it come out of home health care for the elderly; have it come out of the Environmental Protection Administration. I have a Superfund site in the district I represent where EPA has shut down the work because they cannot afford it. So, yes, there are plenty of us prepared to meet our obligations, but not by either adding to the hundreds of billions of debt we already face or by cutting back on basic needs. So if this leadership in the House would allow this House to vote to assess a fair taxation on the richest people in this country instead of promising them additional hundreds of billions of tax relief, we would avoid the terrible choices they have forced the House to make.