Barney Frank

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, first, I would say that 25 years ago I was opposed to that highway construction project. I thought it was not a good use of money. Secondly, I would say this. Even at my most critical, I have never suggested that we should have the free market build a highway. If we are going to build a highway, then the Government has to do it. But I would say that I was against building the highway.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for Iowa (Mr. Latham) for his indulgence; and I want to express my admiration for the diligent crusade the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Miller) has been conducting on behalf of consumers, taxpayers, and other farmers. In support of the gentleman from Florida's amendment, I want to address its negative impact on other hard-working honest unsubsidized farmers. I agree with what the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Miller) has said about the taxpayers and about the consumers. I represent a large number of people who are in the cranberry business. They grow cranberries. Cranberries have been a non-program crop, that is, unsubsidized. As my colleagues know, this Chamber is full of people who are the world's most ardent advocates of free enterprise, of standing on your own two feet, of not having the government get involved, except it turns out that in all of the great conservative economic texts, there is a footnote that is written that says, except agriculture. Members have to come from a farm State to be able to read it. It is in invisible ink and one has to apply certain substances garnered on farms to be able to bring out that footnote so we can read it, because the part of the American economy which is the most heavily subsidized, the most heavily regulated, the most anti free market is, in fact, agriculture. I represent some people who are in agriculture without much of that. The cranberry growers do a very good job of producing a very important crop, until recently, without any kind of government entanglement. They are trying to continue that. But they find themselves in a great dilemma. Cranberries are very tart. They are nourishing. They are tasty, but they require sugar in many of the forms in which they are prepared. If Members want to come by my office, we have some very good dried cranberries, a very healthy snack, but they have a high percentage of sugar. The problem is that because of the sugar program, American cranberry growers and processors are at a significant competitive disadvantage vis-a-vis Canada. Thanks to NAFTA, we now have one market embracing both Canada and the United States for cranberries. Cranberries are grown in both places. American processors are significantly disadvantaged because of the price of the sugar they must use to deal with their cranberry products is so much higher than the price that our Canadian competitors pay. This is a case where the unsubsidized farmers and the cranberries farmers are seeking some help. They are seeking the one thing that I most support, a government purchase of surplus cranberries for use in various programs; but their dilemma has been exacerbated by the sugar program. The cranberry growers come to the government for help, because the government has helped cause their problem; and it has helped cause their problem by putting them at a significant competitive disadvantage in some respects because of the high price of sugar they have to pay compared to the price of sugar paid by the Canadians. I have, I guess, a very novel question, maybe it is naivete on my part. If we can, in fact, rely on a free market in oil, and we are told that the oil prices go up, well, that is tough, that is the free market. If we can have a free market in the most sophisticated telecommunications equipment, if we can have a free market in automobiles, in legal services, in shoe repair, in virtually every other commodity, what is it about the growing of sugar that repels the free market ethic? What is it about sugar growing that makes it entitled to be an exception from the free market principles to which so many of my colleagues, especially on that side of the aisle, profess allegiance? Is sugar some alien substance that repels the concepts of demand and supply? Are the people who grow sugar somehow mutants who are not subject to the same economic incentives and disincentives as others. So the sugar program is, of course, one of the great violations of principle that many on the other side profess, but we get used to a little principle slippage particularly late in the year when election time is coming up. But it hurts consumers, and sugar is consumed by lower-income people. It hurts the taxpayer considerably, the millions that we spent on sugar could well be used for other purposes; and, in particular, thought I want to stress here, it even hurts other parts of agriculture. That is one of the things about the free market, once we begin to tinker with it in such a substantial form, the effects of that tinkering cannot be confined, and the aid that is given by the taxpayers at the expense of consumers to sugar growers redounds to the significant disadvantage of people who grow cranberries. I would hope that we would adopt the gentleman's amendment and proceed in the earliest time frame next year to abolish the program and bring that radical subversive unknown doctrine known as free enterprise into another area of the American economy.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Regular order.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the right to object.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Yes, I did, Mr. Speaker. Motion to Table Offered By Mr. Goss

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, in the interest of bipartisanship and a better debate, I know last night there were obviously some constraints which kept some Members of the Republican side, including the leadership, from participating in the debate. In case the same constraints are applied today, if there are Republican Members, particularly in the leadership, who have doubts about this bill that they have been asked not to express we are available. If they send them to us, we would be glad once again to put them into the Record so that there is a fuller debate than apparently otherwise we are going to have. We are available for those Republicans suffering from that kind of floor censorship to get their message out.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, we all understand electoral pressures. None of us parachuted in here without getting votes. But I have never seen people react so badly to electoral pressures as we are now seeing on the part of the majority. The legislative process is becoming a total shambles. Last night, at midnight, we debated on suspension of the rules, without any chance of amendment, on important campaign reform. It was one where there were constitutional objections. The majority whip said it was unconstitutional. Unfortunately, he must have got stuck in the elevator and could not be here to talk about it. Now we have a complex bill addressing one of the most important problems in this country, that of older people who cannot afford to pay for their prescription drugs; and, once again, we are dealing with a travesty of the legislative process. The Committee on Rules met. First of all, we do major campaign reform at midnight. Then they get to the Committee on Rules and the Committee on Rules waives points of order. On the one hand, of course, it could not possibly take any of the increased revenues that are available to try to help middle income, older people. On the other hand, the unfunded mandate issue, to which Members on the other side intermittently profess great support, suddenly goes out the window. Why? Because a pollster said, you guys better move in a hurry. This is the most policy driven, ill-advised overly hasty piece of legislation on a major issue I have ever seen. I do not know, because I have been skeptical of some of the unfunded mandate talk, whether there is a problem or not. I do know that because in carrying out their pollsters instructions to move quickly so they seem to be doing something, they did not allow adequate consideration of this. Most of their own Members do not know, Mr. Speaker, what the unfunded mandates are or are not. Perhaps we should use some of the extra revenue the Federal Government is getting to alleviate this impact on the States. They will never know. They will just vote yes because their pollster said, hey, the House may be at stake. So a month ago the majority obediently votes against a campaign reform bill which last night the majority of them obediently voted for, one of the great convergences in history. Today the party that says, leave the Government out of it, the private sector will do it, decides it better try to show that it does think a Government response is there. Now, I will once again congratulate the majority on its flexibility. This is an expansion of the Federal Government's role. But they have done it too hastily, maybe because the whole notion of expanding the Government's role so bothers Members of the majority that they have to get it over with in a hurry, they cannot stand to think about it. But when they do it this hastily, when they do not allow adequate consideration in the Committee on Ways and Means, when they rush this thing through the Committee on Rules, when they do not allow the other side, ourselves, give an alternative that is well thought out, they make mistakes. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) has been a model of consistency and fiscal integrity; and when he invokes a point of order against unfunded mandates, he is speaking from a demonstrated history of this House of concern. Their legislative procedure has made a travesty of the House and of their own professed principles.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, first, I join in the deserved accolades for Cindy Blackstone for her work, because there was a little glitch that she helped iron out. And I note that the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Udall) had intended to make a statement. He was called to a committee vote, and I know under General Leave he will be submitting a statement. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I appreciate his solicitude; but I do not have subpoena power and there is nobody here. There are some people who are going to submit statements. There were people who wanted to come, but they were called to votes elsewhere.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, just to once again agree with the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Cannon), and I can attest to Mr. Stewart Udall's continued vigor and use of the telephone from personal experience.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, as is often the case, I find myself in substantial agreement with what my colleague had just said. And in what is not often enough the case, for that reason I do not intend to repeat any of it. I realize this is a violation, if not of the rules of the House, of its norms. But I will nonetheless carry that out. Mr. Speaker, I was particularly pleased that the committee agreed to a modification of the language involving legal fees. We have all agreed to try and send this back over to the other body and work together to get it enacted. The gentleman is correct that further work needs to be done, but this is a great improvement. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let me just note, Mr. Speaker, that I am here at the request of the ranking minority member. This particular resolution, while it was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, was not acted on by the committee. I am here in the absence of the ranking minority member to express the fact that he has no objection to the bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Hall).

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Traficant).

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, because this resolution had not come through the Committee on the Judiciary process, I am at what I feel to be a disadvantage in commenting on the court opinion, since I have not read it. That may appear to me to be more of a disadvantage than some of my colleagues think it is. As I said, not having read the opinion, I am somewhat reluctant to discuss it at great length, but I did want to say that I would disagree with my colleague, the gentleman from Ohio, in the suggestion that there is some danger that references to God will be removed from television. People would be understandably very unhappy about that. I want to allay their fears. The likelihood that there would be any governmental action removing references to God from television is zero. It would not be constitutional. It would not be constitutional; it would not be appropriate. No official body is talking about it, whether that is people conducting the services on television or programs. So I do hope people will not unduly fear that. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I feel that I may be betraying the Constitution. The Supreme Court just decided that a party has a right to settle its own disputes and non-members should not interfere. I find myself in the midst of an internal Republican dispute here tonight, but I have no choice, because that is the way the majority chose to bring it up. I congratulate my Republican friends who have brought this bill forward. For those who think it is being brought up without adequate notice, they should know that it is essentially the bill they voted down when we had a motion to recommit a while ago, so this is not the first time Members are seeing this bill. It does, I think, give some confidence in the political process because there has been a great transmogrification on the other side from people who did not like this bill a couple of weeks ago who have now found some merit in it. I think it is a good idea. I am delighted to see the wheel reinvented and campaign finance reform passed. I would agree with the gentlemen who have complained about the procedure. We of course had no say in this procedure: bringing this bill up in a fashion that it cannot be amended, it has not had a chance to be studied, and at midnight, that was their choice. I do think that the debate has been a little one-sided. For people who think I may be being too partisan, I would say that we on our side deserve a lot of credit for the bill. Let me quote a congressional leader: ``This bill is in reality nothing more than a last-ditch effort by the Democrats,'' and I am quoting the majority whip, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), who put out a statement giving us credit for the bill, although not too cheerfully. Under the general leave, I do think that in the interests of full disclosure and full debate, and I do not see the majority Whip, he was apparently tied up somewhere, I knew he was eager to be here, but under the general leave that was gotten by the gentleman from New York, I include the majority whip's statement into the Congressional Record.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I urge adoption of the amendment offered by the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Coble). The Patent Office is a little different than some other agencies in that what we are talking about here are fees that are generated by the Patent Office and we are talking about not diverting fees generated by the Patent Office. Now, that is not an imputable principle. There are times when fees that are generated ought to be spent elsewhere. But I think it is inappropriate to suggest that the Patent Office is showing a lack of discipline when they seek simply to expend the funds that are generated as a direct result of their own efforts. This House and the Congress as a whole increased patent fees recently. We did it as part of an overhaul of patent legislation, and one part of that was a promise that the fee increases would go for the Patent Office. In terms of the economy, getting patents done quickly is essential. There is no good reason for delay in any Government agency, but delays in the granting of patents have a particular negative impact by the nature of the case. Uncertainty as to what is or is not patentable is not just a bad thing for individuals, it has negative effects on the whole economy. Now, I join, I think, virtually everyone here, including the author of this bill, in not liking these offsets. I know, because I have been working with the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Coble) on this, that he has tried very hard to deal with this offset issue. But I am going to vote for this amendment confident that the offsets will themselves be offset. We have borrowed a concept from the British parliament. They have a shadow cabinet, the people who would take over the Government if the parties change hands. We have a shadow budget. Thanks to the majority, we adopt a budget early in the year in the House that no one thinks is going to be paid serious attention to. We are going through an exercise now. We have to vote this thing out so we can get into a House-Senate conference and a negotiation with the President so the real budget will be adopted. Now, if this were the real budget, I would not want to see these offsets. But, in the shadow budget, it does not bother me because the sun will come out when we go into the conference and these shadows will go away. But they will go away, I hope, with this House having sent a strong statement that the Patent Office should be fully funded. That is what we are talking about here. This is not a vote, in my judgment, on the Fullbright program or other worthy programs or economic statistics. Actually, we probably ought to give more to economic statistics so the people who make these foolish budgets will be better informed and would not come up with a budget that is so inadequate. But that is not something we can address here. What we are addressing here, I think, is a vote on whether or not the House believes that fees generated by the Patent Office's activity, fees that are necessary to keep a cutting-edge office for technology at its best level, fees that are necessary to avoid delays in this critical question of what is and is not patentable. We have all these problems about, well, does the patent take effect right away. People should go back to the debate and remember how much controversy was generated in this House because of delays in the Patent Office. And we said at the time, if we could eliminate delays in the processing of patents, we would do away with most of the controversies that roiled this House and roiled the Senate for years. So we have a chance to do that with a relatively small amount of money in the overall budget and its revenues generated by the Patent Office. So I hope that we adopt the amendment. I hope when the real budget process starts, we will restore the offsets that this amendment is forced to make by an unrealistic budget and we will both in real terms and in a very important symbolic way signify to the inventors of the United States, the most creative part of the intellectual community, that we are fully supportive of their efforts. I thank the gentleman from North Carolina for offering the amendment.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I would have to say to the gentleman if that was the point he was trying to make, I do not understand why he made a totally different one. I was quoting him when he said, if a Republican President did this, we would have an outcry. A Republican President did much worse. In fact, I think the current administration of HUD is doing a very good job in difficult circumstances. I think there is a misperception about the section 8 program. The section 8 program is not one undifferentiated pile here in Washington that is doled out from Washington. It is broken up, it is allocated among thousands of jurisdictions, and the rate at which section 8 is utilized depends on the jurisdictions, the administrative efficiency in the jurisdictions, the rents that go up in the jurisdictions, the difficulty that people have in those jurisdictions of finding housing. I know of section 8 vouchers that have gone unused in my own district because the rents have been so high. Indeed, there is probably a logic in linking this to the Space Station, because pretty soon it is going to be as about as expensive to live in parts of Boston and San Francisco as it is to get them up there in the Space Station. The section 8 program is a decentralized program in its administration, and the failure to have a 100 percent utilization rate is inherent in the program. There are also, of course, situations where people's incomes go up and there is more money, so we do not use as much money for that; but there is a pattern with the distribution which leads, in many cases, to vouchers not being used. I do not believe it is possible to get 100 percent utilization. It is possible to get a high rate, and the more vouchers we vote, the more vouchers we will get in the hands of the people, given that there is an inevitable slippage in a program administered in this fashion.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, the ranking minority member of the subcommittee has quite cogently pointed out the fundamental problem with this budget. I would say to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh), although I am about to disagree with his most recent arguments, that none of us have any criticism to make of the very good job he did in a very bad situation. We believe he did the best he could with what he was handed. What he was handed, probably the EPA should not let anyone hand him, but he did not have any choice about that. Now, the one thing that I disagree with that he said, suppose a Republican President had a Secretary of HUD; can we imagine a Republican President having a Secretary of HUD who handled the program so badly. I do not have to imagine it. I remember Sam Pierce in the golden days of Ronald Reagan, when Sam Pierce was the Secretary of HUD for 8 years. Ronald Reagan thought he was a mayor, the only time he apparently ever met him; and Sam Pierce was, to use a technical term, disgraceful. He was incompetent, he enabled corruption. More people from that administration went to prison for misuse of HUD. So the notion that somehow we want to get back to the golden days of the Republican administration of HUD is not persuasive.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about internationalism. Many of us who have been critical of some aspects of the World Trade Organization and in particular have been critical of an international economic policy which consists entirely of freeing restraints on capital and paying no attention to the problems it can calls for worker rights and for environmental problems, we have been accused sometimes of not caring enough about poor people overseas. Well, I think it is time to focus on the question of who is trying to alleviate poverty overseas in its fullest, because, without question, the single most important thing that this Congress will consider, dealing with poverty overseas, grinding, abject, life-threatening poverty, is international debt relief. Last year the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services, on which I serve in a bipartisan way, brought forward legislation that created a framework within which the United States could grant debt relief to the poorest countries in the world, countries, in some cases, that had been run by thugs and crooks who had indebted their countries, and these are now countries where people are going without the basic necessities of life because of the need to make debt payments. So a very impressive coalition of religious and charitable and welfare- oriented and private sector groups have come together to press for international debt relief. Unfortunately, the Committee on Appropriations last year grudgingly voted only some the money that was necessary. This year we were hoping that we could, within the legislative authorization that is already there, get enough money to complete debt relief, debt relief that is being urged by the Pope, by every major religious organization, by every group internationally that cares about alleviation of poverty and fighting disease. What have we gotten from the majority party? Basically, not very much. The appropriations process is going forward, and so far the result has been an unwillingness to vote the funds for debt relief. So we ought to be clear. We have people among us, and I am not saying I have not heard from the business community, from all the internationalists, who wanted the World Trade Organization, who wanted permanent trade with China, I have not heard from them. So I have to ask the question, do we have people for whom internationalism and concern for others means a chance to make some money? Now, making money is a good thing. It helps the people who make it and it helps the rest of us. But when people are internationalists only because they are looking for a chance to increase their profit margins by trade with China, and they are silent when debt relief for desperately poor people in Africa and Asia and elsewhere is denied, I have to say that my guess is we are talking about self-interest, rather than internationalism and concern for the poor. Self-interest is not a bad thing. What is bad here is not the actual motive, but the pretense. So I would hope that in the spirit of internationalism, I would hope that this spirit of internationalism turns out to be more than a license to make some more money in China. I would hope that the spirit of internationalism does not turn out to be an understanding of the attractiveness of low-wage, non-environmental, no-OSHA type activities as a place to invest. I would hope it would show as a genuine concern for sharing the vast resources of this country and other wealthy countries with poor people. But so far that is not what is happening. So far, the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations just voted, and essentially voted virtually nothing, I think 20 percent of what was needed for debt relief. Now, this is poverty alleviation. This is a case of people who are desperately hungry, children who do not have food or medical care, people who do not have shelter; and if the majority party's appropriation goes forward, what little revenue these people are able to get will be extracted for debt payments, debts contracted in many cases by thugs working with irresponsible financial institutions. So we will have a test over the next month of internationalism. Right now we have a very incomplete internationalism. The rest of the world, poor countries as a venue in which to make money, then we are all for it. And as I said, I think in and of itself making money is a good thing. But when a request for relieving these people of debts, which are grinding them into poverty, debts which are dysfunctional in their impact on these economies, when every significant religious leader, every international-oriented organization, every group concerned with health care and child welfare and food says our highest priority is debt relief, and the majority party responds by saying, Oh, sorry, not this year, then internationalism does not look very good.