Barney Frank

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Campbell).

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, how much time remains?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Might I make a parliamentary inquiry. Do I correctly assume the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Ewing) plans to close with his 45 seconds and not divide it?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, we have just seen a demonstration that while proximity may breed contempt, it can also breed familiarity because my ally on this issue, the gentleman from California (Mr. Campbell), anticipated the argument we just heard and refuted it before it was made; a very impressive feat. As he pointed out, this is not at all analogous to the 1974 act because it is not meant to be interlocking, and that is why this is a sham amendment. The gentleman says well, if we think it is all constitutional what are we worried about? Well, I do not know what the Supreme Court will do and no one else does. It is entirely possible they will find some parts constitutional. It is clear that other parts will not be found constitutional. The gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas), who just spoke, said they have different standards for contribution limits and expenditure limits. When we are talking about soft money, we are talking about contributions and that would clearly be constitutional. This is an effort to try to kill the whole thing, if any part of it fails, by people who are against it. By the way, if we adopted this principle that we do not have severability clauses, guess what we would not have? The Telecommunications Act of 1996. We passed the Telecommunications Act. Maybe some people who voted for it wish we did not have it, but we have it. Part of it was found unconstitutional, the Communications Decency Act. We would not have a Brady bill. Now, that may make some people happy, although probably fewer than would have said they were happy a couple of months ago, but the Brady bill was found partly unconstitutional, the part that mandated that local officials go ahead with it. It was only because there was a severability clause that we still have handgun checks, because if we followed this notion that it all has to be balanced and of a piece and it is either all constitutional or all unconstitutional there would be no handgun checks now. We would not have a privacy right for children because when my colleague, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey), offered a privacy right to children, which was just done last year, it was merged with another obscenity bill, which has already been found unconstitutional at the district court level by a Reagan appointee. So this notion that it all hangs or falls together is simply a way to try to hang this whole bill by people who are against it. The gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas), who just spoke, said we all have to come to an agreement. Let us be honest. We are not coming to an agreement. The gentleman happens to be in disagreement with the majority on this bill. He is entitled to that, but he is not entitled to twist our normal constitutional doctrines around so that if the Supreme Court found any one piece of this unconstitutional, maybe the Supreme Court will find that there is a constitutional right of noncitizens to contribute, so maybe the majority that voted for the amendment will have then succeeded in killing the whole thing. That is a nice way to go; there is a nonseverability clause, put through an amendment of dubious constitutionality, and then kill the whole bill. The fact is that we are not sure what will happen, but the key point was made by the gentleman from California. This is not an interlocking piece of jigsaw. It is a bill with several distinct provisions. If some part of the independent expenditure is held unconstitutional, that in no way makes it wrong to try to ban soft money, in no way. It in no way undercuts it. So, please, reject this silly notion that it is all constitutional or not and save Shays- Meehan.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo) for yielding. He and I were privileged to meet today with an all-party parliamentary delegation from Portugal. The people of Portugal ought to be commended for taking such a strong moral lead in trying to prevent the continued mass slaughter of innocent people in East Timor, and I wish our Government and other governments would follow that strong moral lead. So I am delighted to join with the gentleman in introducing this unanimous strong resolution, and I hope that this is something that is going to lead the way for our own Government and other governments. One point ought to be clear. People say we cannot intervene in another country's affairs, but the world has never recognized Indonesia's grab of East Timor. We have more legal right internationally to intervene in East Timor than ever existed in Kosovo, because the nations of the world, the United Nations and others, never recognized Indonesia's grab of East Timor. So it is time for the world resolutely to act, and I appreciate the initiative of the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo), and I am glad to join with him in introducing this very well-done resolution. Resolution of the Assembleia da Republica on the Situation in East Timor Whereas the people of East Timor accepted in good faith the tripartite (UN, Portugal, and Indonesia) project of consultation of the people of the territory via a referendum ensuring self-determination of the territory's future; The voting process was carried out with remarkable civility and represented a rate of participation of approximately 100 percent of the registered voters; Approximately 80 percent of the voters expressed their clear and unequivocal desire for independence; the voters' freedom and the honesty of the voting process were recognized by the Secretary-General of the UN and by the President of Indonesia; The Indonesian authorities demanded that maintenance of order during the following the referendum would be solely their responsibility; The Indonesian authorities, having at their disposal significant military and police forces both inside and outside the territory, were capable of ensuring maintenance of order if they had the political will to do so; Indonesia, to the surprise and indignation of the international community, provided arms to civilian militias which, following the referendum, launched an operation of terror and death in East Timor; and sent to the territory additional military and police elements which not only did nothing to stop the atrocities but also abetted and took part in them; With the passing of time the situation has deteriorated dramatically, as evidenced by the attacks on and destruction of both the home of the Bishop of Dili who had departed the territory in fear for his life and the compounds of the International Red Cross and the UN itself; The Indonesian military and police forces are deliberately creating an information gap by expelling journalists and television news personnel with the clear objective of returning to domination of the territory and enabling themselves to launch a second genocide which is indeed already underway; It is solely the opposition of the Indonesian authorities to entry into East Timor of a multinational peacekeeping force for maintaining order and respect for human rights--a force ready to go in immediately--that has allowed the chaos raging in the territory to continue; It is impossible for the international community, and particularly for the UN, to allow this steadily worsening situation to continue for one more day without jeopardizing their own credibility and their capacity to prevent the massacre of a heroic and defenseless people being cruelly punished for the simple fact of having exercised their right to self-determination and their desire for independence; and It is clearly evident that the Indonesian authorities are unable or unwilling to guarantee peace and order in East Timor by the means available to them, and that, on the contrary, their military and civilian forces are sowing the seeds of terror and conflict; The Comissao Permanente of the Assembleia da Republica, at their meeting of September 7, 1999, after having heard the Primeiro Ministro and the Ministro dos Negocios Estrangeiros, has unanimously approved the following resolution In concert with the Presidente da Republica and the Government, the Assembleia da Republica is resolved. 1. To intensify political and diplomatic efforts toward making the international community, and in particular the UN and its Security Council, aware of the necessity for the immediate organization, under the aegis of the Secretary- General of the UN, of a multinational peacekeeping force whose purpose will be to put an end to the atrocities occurring in East Timor, to guarantee the peace, and to uphold the rights of the Timorese with respect to their freely-expressed wishes; and toward effecting the immediate dispatch of such a force to East Timor, with the consent of the Indonesian Government to the extent possible; 2. To approve any future decision of the Portuguese Government to authorize inclusion of a Portuguese military contingent in the aforementioned peacekeeping force; 3. To send immediately to the United States a delegation from the Assembleia da Republica, to include a representative of each party holding seats in the Assembleia, for the purpose of making the President of the UN Security Council, the US Congress, and world public opinion, aware of the clearly inevitable and urgent requirement for organization and deployment of the aforementioned peacekeeping force; 4. To appeal to the conscience of the world that a second genocide of the heroic and martyred people of East Timor be resisted by every means possible, since with their death all confidence in the liberating force of human rights and in the international bodies entrusted with safeguarding security and peace in the world would die also; 5. To condemn in the strongest terms possible the behavior of Indonesian Government, which has refused to fully comply with the New York Accord to which it has subscribed, and which in recent days, in a totally unacceptable manner, has neglected its responsibility to guarantee the security of the Timorese and respect for their will as legitimately expressed in the referendum of August 30; 6. To appeal forcefully to the Secretary-General and the Security Council of the UN, to the Indonesian authorities, and to those elements of Indonesian society who sincerely support aspirations for democracy and peace, reminding them that this critical moment for East Timor represents for them the essence of their historic responsibilities; 7. To applaud the release of Xanana Gusmao, historic leader of the people of East Timor, whose voice, finally free, will undoubtedly strengthen both the efforts underway to ensure peace in the territory and the independence of its people, and his own commitment to reconciliation.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me, because I know how important the space station is to him and to his district. I would say to my friend from New York if he heard somebody mention the President during my speech he must have been listening to the radio. I would agree with him. The President's budget is inadequate. I hold no grief for the President's budget. I think the President has made a grave error. All I am saying is the gentleman has made bad worse. I do not care whose gimmick was what gimmick. I do not want to go to a bunch of 5-year-old children and tell them the reason they are living in squalor is not so much the 1997 budget did not give us enough money and we gave it to the space station, it is the President's gimmick. I do not care about either one of those. I am talking about inadequacy. And the failure of the President to adequately do the job is no justification for our failure also to adequately do the job.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I congratulate the previous speaker on the intellectual honesty of his statement when he noted that many who voted for the 1997 Balanced Budget Act will now be standing up here on both sides disclaiming any responsibility for its consequences. It is, in fact, inconsistent to maintain those caps but then go home and tell people how much you love community development, block grants and want to do more, and want to be for more of this or more of that. To some extent, what we are dealing with here is a matter of intellectual honesty. I believe the intellectually honest thing to do is to admit a mistake. I think what we have here is a little infallible envy. Virtually every Member understands in his heart of hearts or her heart of hearts that the 1997 Balanced Budget Act was based on inaccurate information. I must say I thought it was wrong at the time. As I get older, I learn that one of the few pleasures that improves with age is saying I told you so. I knew it was dumb then. Some of my colleagues may be later converts to it, but look at the consequences. As I told the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh), I had a little sympathy for him describing this bill. As he explained it, he did a good job as he did, given what he was given to work with. He and the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Mollohan) did their best, but I thought of that story then of I felt sorry because I had no shoes and then I met a man who had no feet. If one feels sorry for the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh), wait until the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter) comes in with his bill. Not only does he have no feet, they cut him off about three ribs short of his shoulders. This House is in a situation where we are providing far too little money for fundamental social purposes that hold this country together, and we are making a grave error. Alan Greenspan in April said he regretted the fact that the international free trade consensus that used to exist in America has fallen apart, and he said I understand some people are getting hurt. We should not, he said, allow our inability to help these people to drive us away from support for internationalism, but it is not an inability. It is not an inability that this bill shows. It is an unwillingness. This very rich country does not have to cut community development block grants and cut housing and put more of a burden on people. We are making a terribly grave social error. As capitalism flourishes and the rich get richer and the stock market approaches levels that make Mr. Greenspan nervous, we come in with a bill that takes away from the poorest of the poor, the neediest and the working poor. Let us send this bill back and do the job right.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, earlier today at a press conference Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Andrew Cuomo made a very forceful and important statement about this particular bill. I thought the Secretary's statement was a very important contribution to the debate, so I am including the statement issued by Secretary Cuomo earlier today at the press conference for the Record, and would request that it be placed at the end of the general debate on the bill that was debated today. The statement referred to follows: Statement of Secretary Cuomo Good afternoon. First I would like to thank Congressman Gephardt not just for his kind words of support today but for the support he has shown for HUD over these many years. I think the great turnout you see here today of Congress people from across the country reflects that leadership--and we need that leadership now. Congressman Gephardt, I want to thank you very much for everything you have done for all of us. We heard a lot of talk about the $800 billion tax cut and how it is bad economic policy and it is risky and it is reckless--and I think it is undeniable. It gets worse when you look at who would get the tax cut and how it is fueled--obviously to the richest of the rich. You make $500,000 you get a $32,000 tax cut; if you make $18,000 you get $22--period. It makes the $800 billion tax cut more repugnant. When you then also consider the cuts to the essential programs that they would do simultaneously without tax cuts, the situations become unbearable and it becomes frankly, in my opinion, repugnant in its clarity. The programs that would be cut would hurt the poor, the working American families and the middle class American families right across the board. HUD is just a good example of it. A $1.6 billion cut which would cut virtually every program in the Department from soup to nuts, virtually every program--there are one or two programs that would not be cut. To give you a couple of examples: at a time when this nation has the highest need for affordable housing in its history, 5.3 million families need affordable housing; waiting lists for affordable housing all across the country are years long and are getting longer. Under their budget, the number of new units that would be produced next year goes to zero--zero-- highest need in history, waiting lists are getting longer across the country--they would produce exactly zero units. Our main economic development programs, when we are trying to get people from welfare to work, when we are trying to do something about income inequality, when we are trying to do something about urban areas that are struggling to catch up-- they would cut the economic development program 90%. At a time when the nation is trying to come together as a community and President Clinton is talking about one America, at a time when we are moving towards a majority minority nation--they would cut the funds to fight racial discrimination. They would cut the funds to combat lead paint removal. Lead paint removal is removing the lead paint from older homes so children don't get poisoned. They would cut those funds. They would then cut the programs as the Congressman mentioned that literally go to house the homeless and house people with AIDS--about 16,000 fewer people would receive that assistance. The cuts will be felt by every city and every county across the states, not just one part of the country, one area, one location: it is not just urban American or suburban or rural, it is all across the country, coast to coast. Places like Boston will lose $15 million, the city of Atlanta will lose $9.5 million, Dallas $8.8 million. Every city, every country. We recently did a report which we have here today called ``Losing Ground'' which details the cuts Congressional District by Congressional District. This budget will pull the rungs out of the ladder of opportunity and cut the safety net. We should expect more people to fall into poverty, more people to be unemployed, more homeless and expect their conditions in those situations to be worse. And as the Congressman pointed out, this country is doing very, very well, and President Clinton is very proud of the economic progress. But there is also no doubt that there are many hard working American families who have not yet shared in that economic progress. And what the HUD budget is all about is bringing them along, bringing all Americans up to share in that opportunity. Now is not the time to cut the rungs on the ladder of opportunity, now is the time we should be doing the exact opposite. I thank Congressman Gephardt once again for his leadership and all the members who are here today for their stand on this proposal.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon) have an additional minute so that I might respond and it would not come out of his time.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I agree with the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh), the subcommittee chairman, that he was given an impossible job, and he did well at the impossible job. But there is a problem. When one is given an impossible job, no matter how well one does, one comes up with an impossible product. The gentleman from New York is a very diligent and able and conscientious Member, but he is not a magician. What we have is a budget which substantially underfunds housing needs. I want to be clear. We had a press conference before, and someone said, ``well, are you not getting into the situation where you are defining as cuts a failure to go up by as much.'' No. In this bill, we are talking, as people have acknowledged, about real cuts. A couple of areas that we are talking about now, we are talking about whether or not we are going to meet a need. Absent this amendment, which authorizes new vouchers, there will be no addition to the number of subsidized housing units available to people in that category. There are no new vouchers. We know that housing needs will grow. Similarly, we have long lamented public housing. Remember, the bad conditions in public housing are not on the whole the fault of the people who live there. They are the fault of we, the society, that did not build adequately. We came up with a formula that is needed to run public housing well, and we shortchanged it. This is an amendment about 3, 4, 5 and 6 year olds and whether or not their housing will have adequate maintenance, adequate operations. I have not liked the Space Station. But even if one does, can one justify morally spending money so a dozen people live in space, and the price of that is hundreds of thousands of people live in squalor? That is what my colleagues are talking about. The Space Station for a few versus a mean and dangerous and unhealthy existence for thousands and thousands of children. It simply is not morally acceptable. I said before I am going to engage in one of the favorite practices of this body, I am going to quote myself. We had a press conference, and I said, ``I am going to acknowledge that I feel overshadowed.'' We do not like to admit that. We do not like to be overshadowed, but we do not like to admit it. I will admit that when I had my heart bypass operation over a month ago, I very much appreciate the colleagues on both sides of the aisle who were generous and thoughtful, and they paid a lot of attention to me. But now I have been left behind. I got a heart bypass operation from a couple of doctors. This bill gives a heart bypass operation to America. I pale into insignificance. What is 5 of my arteries compared to tens of thousands of 5 year-olds who are going to live in squalor? What does this mean when we say no new vouchers? We do not care how badly one is housed today. Let me say to people who talk about in their districts to those in need, ``Oh, I am sorry for you, dear. Yeah, I will try to get you some housing. Oh, I am sorry for you.'' Well, this is the honesty test. Because if this amendment goes down, what my colleagues are saying to people is there will be no new housing. There will be no improvement from public housing. There will be a deterioration. We have imposed on people in public housing a work requirement. We have tried to change the mix of income. But how are we going to carry out the policy of changing the mix of income if these places are badly run? We have an acknowledgment that more money is needed to run public housing than this bill provides, and we are sending it to the space station. Maybe the amendment should have been different. Maybe the gentleman from New York should have sent some public housing tenants into the space program. Maybe we ought to say that instead of living in squalor in some of these places, we will create a kind of public housing unit in the sky. Maybe that is what we should be looking at. HUD housing in the sky would probably do better than public housing on the ground. Because that is where we are. We could not have pie in the sky. Maybe we can get I. M. Pei to be the public architect of public housing and we will have Pei in the sky instead of pie in the sky. It is distressing. It is sad. And I understand the tough choices the gentleman was presented with. It is not his fault. It is the problem with this budget, and it is why I think we ought to send the whole budget back and redo it so that we do not condemn the poorest of the poor to this.

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, the government of Indonesia should be made to understand the terrible consequences it will pay if it continues the barbarous oppression of the people of East Timor. It is simply intolerable for the world to stand by and allow people to be slaughtered wantonly because they express their democratic right to claim their independence. I have spent a great deal of my time as a Member here on matters involving the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. I want to serve notice now, I know I speak for many of my colleagues who have similarly worked on those issues, that if the IMF and the World Bank do not immediately tell the Indonesian government that all aid will be suspended until order and peace are restored to East Timor, then they will have grave difficulty when they come here again for financial assistance. We will not be party to the funding of slaughter. To those who say we must withhold, let us look at Serbia and Kosovo. The moral case for an international force intervening in East Timor is as great as the moral case was in Kosovo, and the legal case is greater. We ignored Serbia's claim of sovereignty over Kosovo and gave in to the moral imperative to save people. In Indonesia, the government in power held a referendum. Overwhelmingly, in the face of great intimidation, the brave people of East Timor voted for independence. That gives us an even stronger right to send a multinational force in there, so the Indonesian government must cease. The international funding agencies must cut off aid if they do not; and, if there is the need, an international force must go in, lest we show the world that we consider human rights to be a matter for Europeans only. The people of East Timor have a strong moral claim on our assistance.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I apologize, I had hoped to do this in a one minute today, but we did not have them. Mr. Speaker, as Members know, I had surgery, and I just did not want to go home without acknowledging the extraordinary service I was the beneficiary of, not just from the medical staff, the attending physician and his people, but in particular the nurses and corpsmen. I will have to confess that under the stress of illness, I slipped a bit from my usual level of congeniality, so I may not have been entirely pleasurable company for the entire stay, and the skill and graciousness with which they ignored that and administered to me deserves some attention. So I want to just thank the attending physician, the cardiologist, Dr. Ferguson, the cardiac surgeon, we are very well served, and the young men and women in uniform who performed extraordinarily well. Finally, I want to thank my colleagues for a degree of graciousness, that probably would come as a surprise to people whose only knowledge of this place comes from the newspapers, but it would not be to any of us. Thank you.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the intellectual honesty from the gentleman from Kansas. He now makes it clear. The purpose and intent of this amendment would be, for instance, to prevent any program which taught evolution as a fact, because evolution is contested. It would prevent, it would appear to me, any program which taught that monogamy was the preferred form of marital relationship since Islam, a very respectable religion, increasingly represented in America, in some of its forms allows polygamy. It is not allowed by American law; but, theoretically, there is strong support for it. There is also of course the position of the black Muslims. So I would hope that we would not do this. I understand the intent, but the effect of this would be very severely to circumscribe the intellectual content of any program that can be offered by the Department of Justice. I do not think we should make that assault in the name of something that is quite valuable, religious liberty. So discriminate against, we should not do that; and denigrate people's religion, we should not do that. But when one prohibits undermining any religious tenant by any program from the Department of Justice, one quite literally would ban the chances of any serious and thoughtful intellectual program and would, in fact, I believe, undercut a number of things. Let me throw in one other. There are important religions in this country which believe that the death penalty is a mistake. These are people who have firm religious convictions that say ``thou shalt not kill'' is absolute. Pass this amendment, and no Justice Department study could, it seems to me, be funded to show the validity and importance of the death penalty.

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. If hope still springs eternal, I yield again to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman.

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, may I split the time and reserve some of it under that yielding?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I understand the thrust of this amendment. Some of it seems to me unobjectionable, but I think it would be a mistake to adopt it. The gentleman did narrow it substantially. There is a mismatch between the description of the amendment and the text. There is less of a mismatch, but there still is one. To the amendment as originally made in order by the Committee on Rules we did not object, because I do think it ought to be able to go forward without objection. But had we objected, it would have covered all programs in the Department of Commerce and the Department of State. It now, however, covers all Justice Department programs, so we are not now just dealing with juvenile justice. To the extent that the Department of Justice funds any law school studies, this would be covered by this amendment. Here are the problems. Discriminate against? No, we should certainly ban discrimination. I believe we already do by statute. Denigrate directly? I think the government should not denigrate. But undermine? What about those who have a religious belief that evolution is a mistake? That would appear to include the majority whip of this House, from our debate on juvenile justice. If adopted, this amendment would prohibit any program funded by the Justice Department to teach evolution. Among the religions, by the way, whose beliefs could not be undermined or denigrated would be the Nation of Islam. I mention that because they appear to me to have a creation theory that is very strange, and I would hope if that came up it could be undermined. This says we cannot fund any program through the Department of Justice, not just in juvenile justice but any program that undermines someone's religious beliefs, no matter how strange their religious beliefs. We cannot, under this bill, undermine beliefs of those in the Church of Scientology. Now, this is not an opt-out. This is not an amendment that said that if you are personally offensive to Scientologists, Nation of Islam, and a few others, they can leave. No one can teach something which undermines the beliefs of those groups. I think our students are of sterner stuff, and not only should not be, but they cannot be protected in a free society from anything which would undermine their religious beliefs. Indeed, we have religions which believe directly contrary things on common facts. There are different religions. We do religion no service if we homogenize it. There are sharply different versions of important fact questions and value questions among certain religions. Do we then say that if we teach monogamy, we are violating the rights of those members of Islam who who believe in polygamy? Polygamy is legal and supported in many Muslim countries. That is the problem. We cannot literally come close to refraining from undermining religious beliefs. So what we are doing here in the guise of protecting liberty is in fact to undermine it. We dumb down educational programs. Again, we are not just talking about violence protection programs, we are talking about anything that the Department of Justice funds. If the Department of Justice wants to fund a study on this or that or the other and wants to bring law schools in, it cannot be involved. I do think it is legitimate to say there are religions of which I do not think a great deal. I do not want the government officially to denigrate them, but I do not think we should say it in that way. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, one of the most important issues we face today is how to adequately meet important social needs at a time when a majority in Congress unfortunately insists on large yearly increases in military spending while also operating under the budget caps of the 1997 budget act. Our national policy continues to mistakenly spend huge amounts of money defending ourselves and the rest of the world from a military threat that has greatly receded, at the expense or a number of other important social and economic goals of our society. I commend Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities for its thoughtful leadership on educating the public about the important of redirecting American resources away from the military in order to appropriately respond to the legitimate needs of Americans. I ask that three sets of recent statements by national security experts Admiral Stansfield Turner (US Navy ret.) and Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan (USN-ret.); social advocacy leaders Marian Wright Edelman, President of the Children's Defense Fund, and Bob Chase, President of the National Education Association; and business leaders Bruce Klatsky, chairman & CEO of Philips--Van Heusen, and Mohammad Akhter, executive director of the American Public Health Association, which appeared in the New York Times under the auspices of Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, be inserted into the Record. These commentaries do a good job outlining how our national security would in no way be endangered by a lower defense budget and the socially constructive ways in which the savings generated by such a reduction could be directed. [From the New York Times, August 1, 1999] If My Business Used Pentagon Accounting Practices, I'd Be Sent to Jail (By Bruce Klatsky) A 1995 General Accounting Office analysis revealed that the Pentagon's financial books can't account for $43 billion in payments made to defense contractors. The New York Times reported two weeks ago that the Pentagon ``defied the law and the Constitution by spending hundreds of millions on military projects that lawmakers never approved.'' The Los Angeles Times reported last month that $5.5 million was diverted from the Pentagon's operating budget to refurnish the residences of Navy brass. If my publicly-traded, SEC-regulated company handled our finances this way I'd be facing jail time. It's not just that taxpayer funds are being wasted, but my business experience in allocating scarce resources tells me that a dollar can only be invested once. Those billions squandered by Pentagon bureaucrats are unavailable for programs that really build national security, and not just appropriate military needs but our education and health care too. The savings from reducing military waste are there. To get a copy of our alternative defense budget, showing how America can trim 15% of the Pentagon budget or $40 billion every year, call us at the number below or download it from our web site.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding to me. I am enlightened here. Apparently I now understand the nature of the emergency. We forgot. This is a very handy thing. From now on whenever we are supposed to have done something and we do not do it, we do not say I forgot, we say, I am sorry, it is an emergency. Because the gentleman said the problem is that in 1997, when some of my colleagues voted for what I think was a pretty stupid agreement, they forgot there was going to be a census. Now, I do not know who withheld this information from those individuals, but now we have an explanation of an emergency. They forgot. I plan to use this. When they say to me, where is that thing the gentleman is supposed to have, I will say, I am sorry, it is an emergency. If they ask somebody on their staff if they wrote the memo that they wanted them to write, they can say, no, it is an emergency. So we now have invented the handiest excuse in human history.

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