Barney Frank

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. What about church arson? What is the Federal nexus in the Church Arson Act? What is the Federal nexus in church arson? There is not any. I thank the gentleman for his shrug. What is the Federal nexus for church arson?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Not until I finish. I urge the gentleman to have a little patience. He has asked the question; it is a little complicated. The answer will take awhile. There was a situation in Pennsylvania, where a particular bar was the subject of a great deal of violence, and I believe there was initially an insufficient response. The point is that this legislation is written to take into account the fact that most crimes of violence are, in fact, prosecuted at the State and local level. Part of what it does is to offer aid to people at the State level and that, by the way, we have had people, for instance, the local law enforcement officials in Wyoming who prosecuted the Matthew Shepherd murder, welcomed that, because they can be overburdened by it. They can have hate groups that show up; and they can overburden, in some areas, the local resources. But we are saying there will be some cases in this vast country where a particular group will be subject to a particular prejudice, and in those exceptional cases the Federal Government can intervene. So I can think of a couple right recently that we have had. There was some others, I do not remember exactly which came up in the hearing. But, yes, there are cases where there are particular prejudices against particular groups. Transgendered people happen to be in many cases the objects of violence. And in many cases, they are protected; but in some cases, because of the prejudice that they face, they have not been protected. This is a standby authority for the Attorney General to step in, if she finds that there is this pattern of nonenforcement.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I want to finish the answer. We had a hearing before the Committee on the Judiciary last year and several people came forward, including one particular case in Oklahoma where people were beaten and were not given any prosectorial defense.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. When I yield to the gentleman that means the gentleman asks the question and I get to answer. Okay. I will yield again in a minute.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, not throughout the country, but in some places in the country, in fact, I believe, just as there was strong support for lynch laws.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I begin, Mr. Speaker, by congratulating my friend, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), from untrapping himself. He had originally filed two potential instructions. At some point, he must have figured out, with or without help, that they contradicted each other. So he dropped the one.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Well, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Graham) filed them both so apparently he tells us now that he filed one knowing that it contradicted the other. I will say this, and let me point out that the contradiction is not simply a minor thing. The one he filed and decided not to offer deals with hate crimes of the sort that the second one says are unconstitutional. So the gentleman filed two instructions. One he was reserving the right to instruct the House to do something which he has now decided is unconstitutional. That is a reversal. I have seen the Supreme Court reverse itself on constitutional issues, but it usually takes them more than 12 hours. Now, it is not simply the gentleman's first instruction that would be repudiated here. What it says, and this is particularly relevant to section 2, he says here that it is a denial of equal protection under the law if prosecution of certain offenses is conditioned on the race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, or disability of the victim. First, let us be very clear. This does not say if one is black they are protected and if one is white they are not; if one is gay they are protected and if one is straight they are not; if one is disabled they are protected and if one is able-bodied they are not. What it says is that if someone goes after someone else on any of those grounds, if a racial minority attacks someone who is white for these hate crime reasons, that is protected. So it is not giving one set of groups protection against another. It is saying, equally, anyone who is attacked because someone objects to his or her membership in a group that is defined by race, color, religion, national origin, that is the majority, the minority of religions, there is no one majority so it is any group, they are all protected. Christians are protected, Jews are protected, Hindus are protected, atheists are protected, if the motive is based on their religion. Now we have had laws like this on the books for a very long time. We begin with the Civil Rights Act in the 1860s right after the Civil War. We had House-passed lynch laws, which Republicans used to be for, which dealt with this. We have on the books some hate crimes statutes. We have in some anti-discrimination statutes, I believe, some criminal provisions. There was some anti-discrimination statutes which if they are violated blatantly one can have criminal provisions. According to this resolution, all of those would be wrong because there are a series of statutes on the book that trigger prosecution based on the race, color, religion, et cetera, of the victim. Now, why did this all of a sudden become controversial? Why did the Civil Rights Act of 1868 and the Church Arson Act that my colleague from Michigan mentioned and others, why did they suddenly become controversial? I guess I ought to apologize. It is because of us. By us, I refer to those of us who are gay or lesbian or bisexual. This whole notion of prosecuting people who singled out vulnerable minorities or who, as a member of a minority acted against the majority based on this, the Church Arson Act, the anti-lynch laws, et cetera, it was never all that controversial and then people said among the people who are often assaulted because of their identity are gay and lesbian and bisexual, particularly transgender people who have been the victims of a lot of violence, and all of a sudden it became controversial. That is why the gentleman first had an instruction and it is one that many in the other body on the Republican side were in favor of; it was one that said we will do hate crimes, but we will stick with good old- fashioned categories like race and religion; but let us not get into sexual orientation. So some inconsistencies have arisen because of sexual orientation. Now among the inconsistencies is the notion that my friends on the other side are opposed to federalizing State crimes. I mean, they should write for some situation comedies with that kind of material. The House Committee on the Judiciary has consistently federalized crimes. Carjacking we federalized; in the abortion area, the late-term abortion bill. States had the same powers as the Federal Government, whether there is or is not a constitutional problem. It was a Nebraska statute that went to the Supreme Court. We also passed a Federal statute. The House Committee on the Judiciary and the Congress, for the past 6 years, has federalized a number of crimes without any particular Federal nexus. Indeed, the Supreme Court struck down some of these because they said there was not enough of a Federal nexus, but our committee has gone forward with others. So there has never previously been an objection to saying that we are going to punish someone in some cases if they have committed bad acts against people, not thoughts but if one has committed bad acts against other people because of their membership in a group, that was not until recently controversial. In fact, as I said, in the gentleman's first instruction it was not controversial at 6:00 last night. That one got a bad reputation very quickly. It is when sexual orientation entered into it that all of these objections came up. Now there is a red herring here and that is the death penalty issue. The fact is that, as the gentleman has acknowledged, if some Attorney General preempted a murder case under the hate crimes statute, it would still be prosecutable by the State. He says that is unlikely. What is even less likely is that the Attorney General, absent any real showing of a hate motive, would reach down and take it up. It does say the Attorney General can do these in cases where the Federal interest in prosecuting was not being vindicated. Mr. Speaker, the notion that a State prosecutor was about to bring a capital charge against someone and threaten that person with a death penalty and the Attorney General would say, wait a minute, you are not vindicating the Federal interests, it is nonexistent. That is not really an argument that I think is a major part of this. Mr. Speaker, I think what we have here is this resistance on the part of some people on the other side to anything that deals with sexual orientation. We just voted on something with the Boy Scouts. I regretted that that came up. I thought that bill should not be filed. I thought it should not be brought up. I think the Boy Scouts do a lot of good work. I regret the fact that they discriminate. I do not think the appropriate way to try to deal with it was the way here.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Well, the gentleman acknowledges without my yielding to him, but I am a generous kind of guy so I will acknowledge his acknowledgment. The gentleman acknowledges that he filed two instructions yesterday, on the spur of the moment, which contradicted each other, and then he prayed over it overnight and figured out that they contradicted each other. We were not told until shortly before we began which one he was going to do. So apparently the gentleman first figured out they contradicted each other and then decided which one.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 7(c) of rule XX, I announce my intention to offer a motion to instruct conferees on H.R. 4205. I do this, I should say, in consultation with the Democratic leader, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), and the ranking Democratic member of the Committee on the Judiciary, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior). The motion is as follows: I move that the managers on the part of the House at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 4205 be instructed to agree to the provisions contained in title XV of the Senate amendment. If I might briefly, Mr. Speaker, explain. That is the defense bill and this is an instruction dealing with the Hate Crimes section, which was adopted in the other body to that bill. This would have the House concur with the Senate's adoption of the Hate Crimes section.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I was shocked today to come in and hear about the death of our colleague, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Bateman). He was for many years my colleague, for the last 2 years my office mate and neighbor; and I spent many times walking to and from this Chamber with him. He was a gentle and kind man, and all of us are diminished by his death. I want to express my deep sense of grief and extend my sympathies to his family and those who have worked with him.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, one of the outstanding public servants with whom I have worked, and from whom I have learned a great deal, is Elmer C. Bartels, the Commissioner of the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission. Elmer Bartels has an extraordinary record of effective advocacy on behalf of people with disabilities, and has done a great deal to educate the rest of us as to the terrible error we have made in failing to help them work to their full potential. Recently Elmer Bartels wrote an excellent article on this subject, drawing on his own expertise in the field, and because it is so relevant to the public policy considerations we will be dealing with as we reconvene, I submit Elmer Bartels' article on the importance of workers with disabilities in the American economy. Employers With Labor Shortages Should Look To Vocational Rehabilitation (By Elmer C. Bartels) It is a fact that today more individuals with disabilities are in the workplace earning real wages than ever before. Certainly the booming economy has a lot to do with it, but there is much more to the story than just that. The unsung hero in the struggle to enhance employment opportunities for people with disabilities is the Federal/ State Public Vocational Rehabilitation Program, authorized and funded under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. For nearly 80 years, and against great odds and prejudices, the State Public Vocational Rehabilitation Program has helped people with disabilities prepare to enter the workplace. Every state has a vocational rehabilitation agency whose sole purpose is to assist people with disabilities obtain the skills, training and confidence necessary to enable them to take their rightful place in the economy. However, until the passage of Sec. 504 of the Rehabilitation Act in 1975 and later the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, opportunities in the workplace were limited and often resulted in placement in sheltered workshops. mainstream opportunities However, with advances in technology and the shortage of qualified workers, new mainstream work opportunities are becoming more available for persons with disabilities. When the Work Incentives Improvement Act (WIIA) was signed into law on Dec. 17, another impediment was removed in addressing the nation's efforts to encourage people with severe disabilities to go to work. Nationally, there are, according to the General Accounting Office, about 2.5 million people with disabilities receiving Social Security benefits under both Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) who could possibly benefit from WIIA. (This population represents about 27 percent of the total number of individuals who are eligible to access the Public Vocational Rehabilitation Program.) WIIA's assurance of the continued availability of health insurance, under both Medicaid and Medicare, for SSI and SSDI recipients, will remove a formidable barrier to their employment. Public vocational rehabilitation counselors assess the skills and interests of people with disabilities, help them develop individualized plans for employment, and purchase or arrange for the services or training they need to become qualified for jobs. 225,000 people helped This program can provide any reasonable and necessary services to help individuals with disabilities get ready for real work. Last year, the Public Vocational Rehabilitation Program helped 225,000 people with disabilities across America enter the work force. In Massachusetts, the Public Vocational Rehabilitation Program, through the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission, helped 4,800 individuals with disabilities go to work in 1999. Federal funding for vocational rehabilitation was $2.4 billion in 1999. The states matched those federal funds with $600 million of their own, resulting in a $3 billion national Public Vocational Rehabilitation Program. The distribution formula of federal funds to the states is based upon the population and per capita income of each state. The $3 billion spent nationally on vocational rehabilitation services produces $2.6 billion in employee earnings and $850 million in state and federal revenues during a single year of employment alone. This is an incredible return-on-investment in light of the fact that those earnings continue for years without the expenditure of additional vocational rehabilitation dollars. a 5-to-1 return on the dollar The Social Security Administration reports that each dollar spent for the vocational rehabilitation of SSA recipients results in $5 in savings to the Trust Fund and treasury. The 225,000 individuals with disabilities employed last year will continue to earn real wages and pay state and federal taxes far in excess of the investment made in their employment future by the Public Vocational Rehabilitation Program. Despite the extraordinary success of the Public Vocational Rehabilitation Program, half of the states restrict the number of people with disabilities served due to a lack of funds. It is estimated that an additional $600 million in federal monies, plus the state match of $120 million, would eliminate waiting lists in every state and help another 54,000 people with disabilities go to work. Additional public vocational rehabilitation services and the guarantee of medical coverage under the WIIA would significantly reduce the unacceptably high rate of unemployment among people with disabilities. According to statistics compiled by the GAO, it is estimated that between 15 million and 20 million Americans have health-related work limitations. Each year the Public Vocational Rehabilitation Program serves 1.2 million people with disabilities who want to work. High unemployment rate A recent Harris survey indicates that 71 percent of working-age Americans with disabilities are unemployed and of that number, 72 percent want to work. However, 42 percent of working-age Americans with disabilities believe that they are too disabled to work. The highly qualified, professional vocational rehabilitation counselors of the Public Vocational Rehabilitation Program work with individuals with significant disabilities to help them recognize that it is possible for even the most significantly disabled individuals to increase their economic and personal independence through work. The passage of WIIA and the guarantee of continued health insurance coverage for Social Security recipients makes work a realistic goal for many more people with significant disabilities. A recently completed seven-year study by the Research Triangle Institute, confirmed once again the success of the Public Vocational Rehabilitation Program by showing that it is highly effective in placing people with disabilities into productive jobs. No other federal or state program has received this type of scrutiny and measured up to such a high level of successful outcomes. independent lives It proved once again that the federal/state effort to improve the lives of persons with disabilities by allowing them to live independent and productive lives is on the right track. In particular, the study shows that: Graduates of Public VR worked an average of 35 hours per week and earned an average of $7.35 per hour; 37.5 percent of the graduates earned more than $7 per hour; 78.4 percent of graduates work in professional, managerial, technical, clerical, sales or service jobs; 85 percent of graduates were working in the same or other job one year after graduation; 67.6 percent of graduates were satisfied or very satisfied with their jobs; 67.1 percent of graduates were satisfied or very satisfied the opportunity for advancement with their jobs; 61.5 percent of graduates were satisfied with fringe benefits with their jobs. The number of hours worked by consumers, the wages they earned, and their satisfaction with jobs and working conditions are all strong endorsements of the efficacy of the Public Vocational Rehabilitation Program. Clearly, the Rehabilitation Act, and the ADA have helped to create a societal expectation that people with disabilities can and should have the opportunity to work. Now, WIIA provides for the health care supports essential to individuals with disabilities who want to work. Adequate funding of the public vocational Rehabilitation Program will help thousands more people with disabilities obtain good jobs. The administration and Congress will demonstrate fiscal responsibility and a wise investment in the human resources of our nation by adequately funding Public Vocational Rehabilitation in the federal year 2001. The American economy needs workers, people with disabilities need work opportunities, and the federal treasury needs more taxpayers. The Public Vocational Rehabilitation Program pays for itself many times over in taxes and human potential realized.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be speaking right after the delegate from Guam, because I very much agree with the points he made. As I read the resolution, I do not disagree with much of what it says, but I am troubled by the climate that brought it forward and by the climate I think it will exacerbate. First, I believe there has been a substantial exaggeration of the threat to national security that has so far occurred from mistakes made at Los Alamos. I do not believe that we have any showing that America's security has been, in fact, jeopardized by the errors that have happened. I also think that we are likely to see our security jeopardized if we overreact in a way that drives first-rate scientists away from participating in the national security enterprise, and I fear we are coming close to that point. There is, after all, a tension between security and the kind of intellectual freedom and creativity that is necessary for science to flourish. Of course, we must not sacrifice security, but neither can we focus only on security and disregard the negative impact an excessively harsh and rigid regime can have on those scientists who especially today have many other choices. They do not have to come to work for the Federal Government. They do not have to come to work in these laboratories. If we make the mistake of treating them as perspective spies and criminals, we drive them away. I must say I am especially concerned about the anti-Asian-American impact of some of these efforts. I, like the gentleman from Guam, was disturbed to read in The New York Times, in effect, admissions by some of those concerned with security that there was, in fact, an anti-Asian bias. Indeed, I was interested to see when the Federal Government was forced to produce its potential list of countries with whom Wen Ho Lee may have dealt that it was clear that his own ethnicity was irrelevant to this. Even in the allegations, it was not a case of some idealogical or homeland betrayal; the allegation is that Dr. Lee was a man afraid of losing his job and he may have behaved improperly in pursuit of another job with a range of countries. I have no knowledge of these accusations, and I obviously should not and would not talk about them. But it is interesting to say that even in this most prominent case, no allegation that his ethnicity and his being of Chinese ancestry was at all relevant. Yes, it is important for us to preserve security. It is also important for us not to exaggerate and promote fear because there has not been any showing that our security has, in fact, been damaged; and it is especially important to avoid even the hint of prejudice against our Asian-American fellow citizens. We have had too many cases in American history in which Asian-Americans have been singled out and in every single one of them they have been shown to be unfair. So if this resolution goes forward, it in and of itself does no harm. But the climate that brought it forward and the climate it may produce must be resisted.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I hope people approaching the Capitol will be careful because they might stumble on the increasingly growing pile of discarded Republican ideas. In Sunday's Washington Post, there was an excellent article by Stephen Moore of the Cato Institute documenting the extent to which the Republican Party in the House has abandoned its notion of controlling spending. I recommend people read Mr. Moore's article. He used to be a consultant to the Republicans on the Committee on the Budget. He said the Republicans have given up really on controlling spending. They spend it wrong, in some ways; but they spend a lot of it. In this morning's Washington Post, we have another Republican idea of yore biting the dust: term limits. Some people with very long memories, inconvenient ones, will remember term limits. It used to be part of the Contract With America. Some people do not remember the Contract With America, or the contract of Mr. Gingrich; but term limits has also been discarded. It cited cases of the Republican leadership urging Members to break their pledge with regard to term limits. Well, today two more old Republican principles bite the dust. One was not that old, because the Internet is not that old. But we used to hear about freedom of the Internet. We used to hear how important it was that people be allowed to do what they want on the Internet. Now we understand the true principle. It is important that people be able to do what the Republican Party wants them to do on the Internet. If the Republican Party has no objection, then they can do it. But if the Republican Party thinks there are pictures they should not look at, or perhaps booze they should not buy, or bets they should not make, then freedom for the Internet goes away. This is a very intrusive regulation of the Internet. This notion that citizens ought to be able to make their own decisions about what to do over the Web now stands revealed as a very insufficient idea. In fact, we were told we must protect children against this because children live in houses with parents with computers, and we must not allow the parents to be the ones who decide what their children do. We, the Federal Government, will step in and we will protect children from that Internet, which will reach out and grab them when their parents are not looking. Another principle that appears to be on its last legs that the Republican Party sometimes professes support for is that of States' rights. I understand the governor of Florida has said that was not an accurate letter from him. I also understand that we would need subpoena power to get the governor of Florida to tell us what he really thinks about this. And since I, at least, do not have that vote, I cannot tell. The governor of Florida has said he will not tell us his position, but most of the governors are against it. And I was particularly struck when my friend from Florida said, well, parimutuel betting should be an exemption, although it is an exemption that the author of the bill says does not exist. But the gentleman from Florida, defending that nonexistent exemption, says, well, parimutuel betting is controlled by the States and Jai-Alai is controlled by the States. Well, are lotteries run by the States not controlled by the States? This bill makes it illegal for States to decide that they wish to use the Internet for their lotteries. Now, remember, the State would have a decision to stay off the Internet if it want wanted to. So here we have a bill that says to the States that we will tell them, the States, that they may not use the Internet for their lottery distribution. What a two-fer: two great principles with one stone. First of all, freedom of the Internet; secondly, States' rights. Bang, they both go with this bill. Here we say to the States we will let parimutuel gambling go on, because that is a closed loop, and that is okay because States have regulated that. And my friend from Florida said the State lottery in Florida has not given Florida enough money for education, has not given them any money for education. I am sorry about that, but I will tell my colleague that in the State of Massachusetts the lottery has, I think, been very helpful for education. I do not understand why this Congress ought to interfere with the decision by the people of Massachusetts and the governor and the legislature of Massachusetts to use the Internet. Now, understand what we have been told. If the States want to act to make sure that retailers in a downtown are not disadvantaged in the collection of sales taxes, we will get in their way. But if the States want to put their lottery on the Internet, we, the Federal Government, will interfere, if this bill passes; and we will tell them to forget all that stuff they read about Internet freedom because if the Federal Government does not like what the States are doing on the Internet, to use a technical parliamentary term ``freedom schmeedom.'' We will interpose our superior morality and tell the States that gambling is not right; and, therefore, while the State may choose to have a lottery, and individuals may choose to use the Internet for that lottery, we, the Federal Government, know better than the States and we know better than the individuals. I do not think that I have seen in one piece of legislation a more stunning repudiation of principles.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, from time to time I insert articles into the Congressional Record which seem to make important points that my colleagues should read. Usually I accompany them with some explanation of why I think they are important. In the case of Michael Kinsley's superb article on Kenneth Starr's press secretary, the New York Times, and the ethics of leaking, no such commentary is necessary. I submit the article here. [From the Washington Post, July 11, 2000] I Did Not Have Leaks With that Newspaper It's not about sex (By Michael Kinsley) No, no, it really isn't about sex this time. No one has even suggested that Charles Bakaly, former deputy to independent counsel Kenneth Starr, had sexual relations with New York Times reporter Don Van Natta. The accusation is that Bakaly leaked a story to Van Natta back in January 1999. Other than that small difference, though, the parallels are pretty tasty. Bakaly was--according to informed sources--a promiscuous leaker who just got caught this time. As with Starr's main target, there is speculation whether he was hoodwinking the boss or had an ``understanding.'' And Bakaly is in legal trouble not for the initial sin but for lying about it in the subsequent investigation. His trial starts Thursday. Oddly, Bakaly's defenders seem unable on this occasion to keep the original behavior and the subsequent denials distinct in their minds. Because they feel there was nothing wrong with the leaking (and indeed a circuit court panel held as much last September), they feel it is unfiar to punish Bakaly for the attempted coverup. The purity of obstruction of justice--the principle that it is wrong to give false answers in the criminal justice system, even to questions that never should have been asked--no longer beguiles them. Don't try to tell them it's not about leaks, it's about lying. They don't buy it. This time. The New York Times, at least, is consistent. It opposed the impeachment of President Clinton and it opposes the prosecution of Charles Bakaly (in which the Times itself plays the role of Monica). ``Ill-considered,'' thundered the Times editorial page July 8. ``A regrettable denouement,'' it roared. Actually, that's more like a meow than a roar, isn't it? But then the whole world of leaks puts news media in a comically difficult position. A friend of mine defends dishonest adulterous politicians on the grounds that (a) adultery should not be a public issue; (b) lying is inherent to adultery; therefore (c) lying about adultery should not be a public issue. Something similar might be said in defense of dishonest talkative public officials; (a) Leaking serves the public interest; (b) lying is essential to leaking, and therefore (c) lying about leaking serves the public interest. This might be said but never is said because it is too embarrassing. How can professional truth-tellers defend lying? So instead we deny step (b): that leaking and lying are inseparable. The New York Times story that led to the Bakaly prosecution reported that ``several associates of Mr. Starr'' had said that Starr believed he had constitutional authority to indict a sitting president. As the story ran on, these unnamed associates chatted away about sundry implications of this factoid. But not Charles Bakaly! ``Charles G. Bakaly 3d, the spokesman for Mr. Starr, declined to discuss the matter. `We will not discuss the plans of this office or the plans of the grand jury in any way, shape, or form,' he said.'' Thus the Times not only allowed Bakaly to tell what the reporter knew to be a lie in its press, but it told a knowing lie itself. Bakaly did not ``decline to discuss the matter.'' Unless Bakaly actually wasn't the leaker, as he still maintains. This is pretty unlikely, unless Starr--who defended him for a while, then fired him after a supposed investigation--is a total dastard. But suppose Bakaly actually did not have leakual relations with that newspaper. In that case the Times has been reporting on the criminal prosecution of a man it knows to be innocent, while failing to report that rather pertinent bit of information. The media also tend to be disingenuous, at least, about the general function of leaks. In this case, whether or not Bakaly was the leaker, and whether or not Starr was in on the plot, it was a strategic leak, intended to unnerve the Clinton forces during the impeachment proceedings. Most leaks are like this: not courageous acts of dissent from the organization but part of the organization's game plan. And thus leaks often suck the media into a conspiracy of hype. Was the fact that Starr thought a sitting president could be indicted really so new, so important, so surprising? (He never actually tried it, so intentionally or not, the leak turned out to be misleading.) In what the Times may have regarded as a somewhat backhanded defense of its scoop. The Washington Post editorialized that ``this information was not really even news at all.'' The Times itself took the opposite approach, declaring that the story ``was obviously of great national moment.'' Too small to matter? Too big to stop? Each is a plausible defense, but both can't be true. The point here is not to pick on the Times. (Is that true? Sources inside my head, who spoke on the condition they not be identified, say it's hard to tell.) Let's say the point is that even the New York Times has leak fever. Its editorial last week, just after declaring that the Starr story was ``of great national moment,'' suddenly pooh-poohed this historic scoop as merely ``discussion Mr. Starr and his aides may have had with reporters about [their] deliberations.'' May have had? The story was what anonymous Starr aides had told the Times about their deliberations! In its pious agnosticism regarding matters it must know the truth about, the Times seems to be raising the possibility that it made the whole thing up. Now that I wouldn't believe. Even if it said so in the New York Times.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I have for some time felt that we have overemphasized the importance of holding down the cost of medical care as a general principle. The notion that if the total amount we spend on medical care in all of its facets as a percentage of the gross domestic product exceeds some arbitrary figure we will be damaged economically is demonstrably false. A dozen years ago or so, people were convinced that America's economic performance was being retarded because we spent too much on medical care. No one can now make that argument, given the strength of our economy, and the continued high percentage that medical care absorbs of our gross domestic product compared to many other countries. Indeed, I believe this notion that medical care costs must be held down despite the good that is accomplished by medical care expenditures has caused us serious problems in recent years. The ill-advised, ill- named Balanced Budget Act of 1997 inflicted serious cuts on the Medicare program from which health care providers and patients are still suffering, and undoing this terrible mistake is long overdue. Because I feel this very strongly, I was especially pleased in a conversation with journalist Jonathan Cohn to learn that he had written on the subject, and I asked him to send me a copy of the article. Having read it, I am delighted to share it with my colleagues. It is a year old, but it is not old in any other sense. Mr. Cohn's arguments are cogent and supported by our experience. As Mr. Cohn notes, ``among all of the things a nation's wealth could buy, surely the health of its citizens is near the top.'' I am very pleased that Mr. Cohn has set forward the argument for adequately funding our medical care needs in so a persuasive a fashion, and because this continues to be a matter of some debate in the Congress, I submit his article from the June 7 New Republic on this topic to be reprinted here. [From The New Republic, June 7, 1999] Live a Little (Jonathan Cohn) My grandfather survived three heart attacks and a stroke over the course of his lifetime. And he did so thanks to some of the best medicine that insurance could buy: a heart bypass operation, extensive hospitalization, plus literally thousands of hours of one-on-one nursing care after the stroke left him partially paralyzed. I remember when the stroke hit: the doctors predicted he'd live maybe nine more months. That was in 1986. He passed away last year. It would be near impossible to add up my grandfather's medical bills, but I'm sure they totaled hundreds of thousands of dollars. He benefited from a wide range of pharmaceutical products, the most advanced medical technology in the world, and care from highly trained specialists. Above all, he benefited from a health care financing system willing to subsidize such extravagance at every level--from the training of the surgeons to the research that invented blood- thinners to the salary of the worker who lifted him in and out of his wheelchair every day. I thought about that last week when I read an article on rising health insurance premiums. It was merely the latest confirmation of a trend many economists have long predicted: that, after years of stability, the real price of health care in America is about to start climbing again. According to a study published last fall in the journal Health Affairs, the nation's total health care bill will likely go up by 3.4 percent annually over the next four years--compared with a rate of just 1.5 percent in the period from 1993 to 1996. By 2007, the study predicted, health care will soak up 16 percent of the gross domestic product. That would be quite a lot of money, particularly when you consider that we already sink more than 13 percent of GDP into health care--more than any other nation and well more than we spent in 1970, when health care was just seven percent of GDP. The predictions are probably right. Today, about 85 percent of Americans who hold private insurance are enrolled in health maintenance organizations or other forms of managed care, which hold down costs by emphasizing preventive medicine; controlling access to tests treatments, and specialists; and simply bidding down the services of doctors and hospitals. Most of the people in these plans shifted over from costly fee-for-service insurance only in the past few years, and that transformation is the primary reason health care spending has remained stable during that time. But the cost containment from HMOs seems to have been a onetime phenomenon. Now expenditures on health care are going back up, if at a somewhat reduced clip, in part because people are starting to demand some of the things HMOs have been denying them, in part because the population is living longer, and in part because researchers continue to come up with expensive new technological innovations that patients want, from Viagra to the protease inhibitors that keep HIV in check. Once the bill for all of this spending comes due, in the form of higher insurance premiums and more government spending, you can bet that a chorus of experts and high- minded officials will start insisting that we're spending too much. Some will do what former Colorado Governor Richard Lamm did back in 1992: they'll come right out and say we need to stop coddling the elderly with the kind of ``long-shot medicine'' that sustained my grandfather and made him more comfortable in his final years. Others will strike more cautious tones, preaching the need to be more efficient in our outlays, but the end result will be much the same: less generous care particularly at the margins. In a sense, we're already hearing early versions of this argument in the ongoing debate over Social Security and Medicare--two programs in which the current level of expenditures is widely believed to be unsustainable over the long run. But this may be a case where the average citizen, who intuitively wants to keep spending that money, knows more than the average expert, who insists it's not possible. After all, we spend far more on computers than we did 20 years ago, but nobody makes a fuss about that. The reason is that computers have made economy stronger and our lives discernibly easier. Well, the same logic ought to apply to health care. Among all of the things a nation's wealth could buy, surely the health of its citizens is near the top. And, while some critics might carp about inefficiency in the system, that inefficiency keeps a good chunk of our country employed--while enabling the population as a whole to work longer and harder. To be sure, many critics question whether our robust health care spending really translates into robust health. They argue that, even though European nations spend less on health care, the differences in health care ``outcomes'' and life expectancy are minimal. But it is notoriously difficult to measure the impact of health care spending. For one thing, those comparatively frugal counties benefit from the pharmaceuticals and treatments largely subsidized by big spending in the United States. What's more, the benefit of more health care spending may be simply to provide a few more weeks here and there, or to make life just a little more comfortable for some of the nation's sickest people. This is not the kind of thing that makes a big difference statistically, but it is the kind of thing a society might rightly deem important. After all, this is what usually happens in societies as they progress economically: the percentage of labor time spent on producing bare necessities--food, shelter, and clothing--shrinks, freeing up greater resources for making life more pleasant. This isn't to say we parcel out all of our health care dollars wisely. Among other things, we currently subsidize emergency care for the uninsured, which is at once very expensive and not terribly efficient at keeping people healthy, while denying them the basic care most other nations offer as a privilege of citizenship. But the solution to this problem is not to worry excessively about how big the bill has gotten; if anything, we should be making the case for spending even more money and them making sure it's meted out on a more egalitarian basis. (Sound crazy? No less a sober mind than MIT economist Paul Krugman once made a similar argument, speculating that spending as much as 30 percent of GDP on health care might not be unreasonable.) Yes, there is one catch. If you want to spend that much money on health care, you have to find the money to spend. But that's not a problem--or, at least, it shouldn't be. We have enjoyed enormous gains in productivity over the past few years, which means as a nation we are creating more wealth-- wealth that can easily be directed to health care rather than to, say, sport utility vehicles, either in the form of higher insurance premiums or (heaven forbid!) higher taxes. ``The alternatives uses of our resources are not necessarily more noble,'' Mickey Kaus once wrote in this space. He's right. There are a lot of things we could have bought my grandfather in his final months. But none was as valuable as the time itself.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding time to me and for doing such a great job. The gentleman from Michigan made it very clear that when the chairman of the subcommittee quoted the GAO report, he got it exactly backwards. I guess to just stick with the theological tone that has occasionally intruded here, we now know that the devil may quote Scripture and the chairman of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs may quote the GAO report, but neither one of them can be trusted on the interpretation. The GAO says that debt relief is not enough. It does not say, do not give them debt relief, it says debt relief is not enough to do poverty reduction. So the notion that because debt relief is not enough to accomplish the ideal, we should therefore do less, makes sense only to the chairman of the subcommittee. I also want to talk about the Pope. Obviously, we all have agreements and disagreements with the Pope, although respect for him, as the gentlewoman from California said. But the Pope is not speaking here ex cathedra. This is not primarily a theological exposition. The Pope heads the most extensive anti- poverty organization in the world. Priests and nuns and church workers are the most sustained group of anti-poverty workers all over the world. The Pope's recommendations in this public policy come to us better grounded, I must say, than the off-the-cuff observations of the chairman of the subcommittee. The Pope is reporting based on information he gets from people who are the on-the-ground poverty workers. Here is the issue. This analogy to a credit card is, as the gentleman from California said, to use a technical parliamentary term, silly. We are talking not about an individual with a credit card, we are talking about, in many cases, regimes that borrowed and in many cases were overthrown with our help because they were corrupt and brutal. New governments are in power. The question is whether the people who are now living in those countries should be bled, should be denied basic food and medicine, to pay off old debts. The gentleman has said, Well, it is to bail out the multinational banks. No, the multinational banks, and let us make this point, when the bill came to us last year from the administration it did have provisions so some of the funds could have, after debt relief, continued to fund some of the activities of the multinational financial institutions. We stopped that. The bill that passed says the funds generated, whether from gold sales or from appropriations, go only for debt relief and nothing else. Now, to say to these countries, by the way, we will give you debt relief but you cannot then ever borrow for anything else, is a very cruel approach. What about a country that has instituted democracy, that has instituted some reforms and gets the debt relief, and then wants to deal in a responsible way with its economic development? No entity finances all economic developments on a cash basis. People do not buy homes that way, businesses do not grow that way, and countries require some investments. Investment means, give us some money now and we will pay you back later, maybe through equity, maybe through debt. I have to say, and I am glad the gentleman from Alabama is back here now, because I want to express my disagreement with one of his constant premises, he keeps telling us that we agree on the goal. I must tell the gentleman that I see no evidence of that. I see no evidence that the gentleman from Alabama has been strongly moved to try to alleviate poverty. Indeed, we heard the gentleman from California previously say the taxpayers do not want us using their money this way. I am very proud to be able to say that I believe that the people I represent, the people in my congressional district, on the whole want me to vote to use this relatively small amount of money to stop children from starving to death and to prevent disease from ravaging innocent people. I really believe that. If they do not, they can find another representative. I do not believe that the people I represent do not want me to do that. The gentleman from Alabama said before, well, he set up this children's survival fund. The problem there is that money is not leaking but rushing out of these countries, on the one hand. It does not do much to put money in on one end if it just goes out in the other. We need both. They are not alternatives. The gentleman said the problem is the allocation. But the gentleman voted for the budget that set up the allocation. The allocation is an artificial fact which everybody knows is not going to hold up anyway. The fact is this: Virtually every organization in the world, religious and nonreligious, Catholic, Protestant, secular, has come together to lobby the American government for this. This is not some construct of the Clinton administration or the Blair administration or the Jospin administration, this is a response by governments to the overwhelming demand of nongovernmental organizations, religious and nonreligious, based on their experience. They say, look, the very least you can do is to go to the poorest countries in the world and do not make them continue to pay out the money. There is no blank check here. There is a requirement that the countries follow some basic responsible positions. They will not do it perfectly. If the rule was that money does not go to anybody who did not spend it perfectly, we would have no CIA, we would have no HUD, we would have no Pentagon. But here is the issue. Overwhelmingly, not just the Pope but the people the Pope supervises and all the Protestant churches and all of the non-governmental organizations and environmental organizations and poverty organizations that deal with international human concerns came to the governments and said, do this, and our government has been willing to do this. There is an obstruction. The obstruction is the budget that has been brought forward which does not fund it in anything like the adequate amounts. The GAO report in fact, read correctly and fairly and in context, says do this, but this in and of itself is not enough.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to point out that the gold revaluation in which we got a lesson from the gentleman from California (Mr. Ose) is completely and entirely irrelevant to this bill. We did authorize gold revaluation last year with regard to the IMF debt. This is a bill which appropriates money for the development banks, so the gold revaluation issue, whether we like it or not, is not involved in this bill. This is a bill that appropriates dollars to deal with the development banks, not with the IMF which had the gold revaluation, but it is still more relevant than the reading of the GAO report of the chairman, the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan).

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I would simply say to the gentleman that debt relief is an important part of that because otherwise the money goes in one pot and out the other. For all of the volunteer organizations which the gentleman cites and which I am glad he is working with, for all of them, their highest priority is the debt relief, which is unfunded in this bill.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I must say, I differ with the gentleman in his interpretation of the GAO report; but if he is right, I am not that much of a theologian, but I notice that he corrected the Pope with the GAO. Are we hearing today the doctrine of GAO infallibility being promulgated on the floor of the House?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I am enormously proud as a Jew at this moment of the government of Israel and Ehud Barak. We are seeing on the part of the government of Israel an enormous outreach unlike what any victor in a war has ever done towards those it was forced to fight. I am therefore pleased that this bill funds at the requested level money for those who are trying to make peace in the Middle East. Precisely for that reason, I am very sad that I must morally vote against the bill. I am confident that in the end a bill will pass which will fund fully the needs of those in the Middle East, including Israel and this enormously courageous leadership of Ehud Barak. But I do not see how we can be asked to vote for a bill which at this point condemns countless hundreds of thousands of innocent children to death by starvation and disease which is avoidable. We debate often in this Chamber about measures, the outcomes of which we cannot be sure. We debate about things which can be uncertain, things which are complex. Sometimes things are simple and important. Millions of children and other vulnerable people in Africa and Latin America and in Asia, in the poorest countries in the world, literally the poorest countries in the world, go without food, go without sanitation, go without basic medical costs, partly because of policies for which we are responsible, because in the exigencies of the Cold War we lent money to thugs and crooks, unconcerned about how they spent it. Now the poorest people in the world, poor children and poor elderly and sick people, are being made to pay that back. The price of their paying it back is absolute, unremitting, degrading poverty leading to death. In this Nation, the wealthiest Nation in the history of the world, we are creating wealth at a pace unparalleled in the history of the world. A relatively small amount of money in terms of this budget, several hundred million dollars, could alleviate untold sufferings. For this House, with the money we spend in so many other places, for us to deny to the poorest people in the world the debt relief which the administration has asked for and which has been worked out is the cruelest single act of public policy I can recall in 20 years. I implore the House not to ratify this most callous refusal to alleviate untold sufferings, which we could do.

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

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, from time to time I have expressed here my great admiration for the American Dream Challenge, a very creative effort to help raise funds for young people to pay for college. This program was originated by Dr. Irving Fradkin of Fall River, Massachusetts, and he continues after many years of hard work to be a dedicated parent to this program. Long before it became fashionable, Dr. Fradkin understood the importance of trying to make sure that every young person had the financial means to pursue a college education, and he is justly and widely respected in the Greater Fall River community for this commitment. Dr. Fradkin understands that it is important to instill the desire for higher education early, and so his program begins with students in the fourth grade, and works at various points throughout their education in this regard. Mr. Speaker, I submit two articles which testify to the power of Dr. Fradkin's ideas and of his work to be printed here, so that other communities may benefit from knowing of this example and, I hope, emulate it. The first document is a letter from Susan Lanyon who teaches fourth grade at the Wiley School. The second is an excellent article from the Durfee Hilltop, by Renee Tessier. The Durfee Hilltop is the newspaper of Durfee High School, the public high school in Fall River. American Dream Challenge Is Inspiring (By Susan Lanyon, fourth-grade teacher, Wiley School, Fall River) Twenty-seven years ago I had three reasons for entering the teaching profession: I loved learning and longed to share that joy, I had a deep love for children, and I wanted to make a difference in the lives of young people. I still feel the same way today, but now there's a program that helps me to make that difference. It started in 1994 and it's called the American Dream Challenge. Thanks to Dr. Irving Fradkin, I now have the pleasure of including this scholarship program in my fourth-grade agenda. I have learned that its benefits are immeasurable; it not only affects the scholarship winners, it also has an effect on every child, as together we take a special moment to share deep thoughts about the future benefits of a sound education. I have become deeply aware that 9 and 10-year-olds do have high hopes and dreams that are worthy and sincere. This has become one of my many regards of teaching, the joy of listening to their ideas The American Dream Challenge begins when I take a minute to share my thoughts with my students about how special my college education is to me. They catch my enthusiasm and the dreams begin! Then Dr. Fradkin and the Rev. Robert Lawrence, another true friend of education, often make a visit, and speak further with them, telling these precious fourth-graders exactly how special they are. They also convince them that they can become anything their hearts desire with only two things needed--the right attitude and a proper education. Their eyes light up, and the seeds are planted! Next, we return to our writing class and brainstorm as a team. Now we have to decide exactly what is meant by titles such as these: ``Education--Key to My Future,'' or ``How My Education can Help Me Become a Better American Citizen.'' ``The ideas flow! Let me share with you just a few of the thoughts that have developed: ``I can learn more about other cultures so I can learn to respect others better.'' ``I can discover cures for diseases that have taken away those that I love.'' ``I can learn more about how to resolve conflicts in a peaceful way.'' ``I can become a teacher so I can teach others to learn the importance of being educated.'' As you can see, there are no losers in this essay contest. The writing alone of this essay produces thoughts never shared before. The next step is the judging--a difficult task. My principal and I choose and submit the three best essays and the three finalists anxiously await the results. In April, the winner is declared. The culmination is an awards ceremony in May, where at least 50 delighted students and their families arrive in their Sunday best, glowing in the aura of success. These children will never be the same after this day! They have become special young ladies and gentlemen, filled with hope and promise. I have now had six scholarship winners and I only wish you could see what this award has done for each of them. I have seen shyness replaced by confidence, academic potential replaced by academic success, and apathy replaced by a desire to learn. Of course there have also been the students that were already on the right path, who now have an incentive to remain there. An added gift is the endless support given the recipients from their schools, families, friends and community leaders. There's nothing more beneficial to a child than knowing that people are proud of them. It is so true that it ``takes a village'' to properly raise a child. A Wall of Fame now exists in my classroom. It lists the names of all my American Dream Challenge Scholarship winners. These students serve as role models to my present students, thus continuing the cycle of hopes and dreams for all. Who would have believed that children so young could dream such dreams? I can assure you that they do, and they need us to help make them come true.