Barney Frank

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I would say two things to the gentleman. First of all, I invite him to read the Record. I have poor diction, but I never said indictment. I never used that. I don't know where it came from. That is not what I said. I am talking about someone who would not even be indictable because under the gentleman's innocent owner defense, he is talking about someone, again, and we are making the law for everybody, we are talking about people who are not even accused of a crime. They are accused of, and my friend, the gentleman from New York, cited these people, they own a piece of property that was being used by someone else for a crime, and the people using it might not be the nicest people in the world. They might be people who are a little intimidating. You could lose your property if you were not sufficiently vigorous in trying to stop them. What if you tried to stop them through an anonymous phone call because you did not want to have your name used, and they did not know you made the anonymous phone call? You would then have this difficult situation.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, having consulted with various parties, I ask unanimous consent that debate on this substitute and all amendments thereto end at 4:45 p.m., with the remaining time to be divided equally between the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Hutchinson) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), chairman of the committee.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. He said, and I thank the gentleman for yielding; he said that some of the 85 percent of them were uncontested. Is the gentleman telling us that one could not meet the standard of clear and convincing in an uncontested case?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, the substitute seems to me to be based on one premise which I reject, that is, that having the government take your property but calling it civil somehow is different than if the government takes your property and says it is criminal. In either case, you lost the property. In either case, you are stigmatized. In either case, the reason for the loss of the property is that you are considered to have done something wrong. We have already conceded a great deal, it seems to me, in saying that the government, which must prove beyond a reasonable doubt to fine you criminally, need only meet the lesser standard of clear and convincing evidence to fine you civilly. But to go below that to the preponderance of the evidence is to engage the fiction, indulge the fiction that losing your home because someone did something wrong there, a member of your family, is somehow not as serious a penalty as being fined $10,000. We acknowledge the value of what you are losing through this procedure could far exceed what you might be hit with a criminal fine. Indeed, there is no proportionality here, so that you might lose much more through this civil procedure than through the criminal procedure. If, in fact, your property is taken, it is probably going to be known, so that the obloquy is there, so the question then is, does the legal fiction of calling this a civil asset forfeiture when it looks, smells, talks, acts and operates like a criminal penalty justify making it easier for the government to take it away from you, because that is what we are talking about. The government takes something away from you because you did something wrong. Or because somebody else did something wrong and you did not try hard enough to stop it, in the judgment of the government. Why should the government have a lower standard of proof in that situation than in another situation where the penalty might be less? While imprisonment obviously is more, criminal fines could be less than the amount of the civil forfeiture, but we make it easier for the government to do the one than the other for no good reason. I must say it has been my experience when I meet with people in this regard that when they ask to have this explained, they are incredulous that the government does this. I also want to say, I am a great supporter of law enforcement. In the substitute that the gentleman from Michigan put forward to the juvenile justice bill, there was a bill that I had cosponsored with some of my Massachusetts colleagues to renew the COPS program and to allow law enforcement to continue to pay cops who were originally federally paid. I want to provide more money for law enforcement, but I want to do that through the rational process of appropriations. The notion that we should give law enforcement differential incentives by saying that if they enforce this law they are direct financial beneficiaries but not if they enforce that law seems to me a terrible idea. We should not put our police officers on a bounty system. We ought to fund them better than we now fund them but through the regular process. I congratulate the gentleman from Illinois for the hard work he has done in bringing this forward. He has already, I think, been judicious in his compromises, and there is no reason to indulge the continuing legal fiction that suffering the penalty of the loss of your property through a civil asset forfeiture is somehow less damaging to you than losing it through a criminal conviction. In every real way, the impact is the same on the individual, and thus by dealing with a clear and convincing standard, we have already lowered the bar for government. To lower it further as this substitute requires is to lower too low the protections that a citizen ought to enjoy vis-a-vis the government. I hope that we will proceed to considering defeating the substitute and passing the legislation as proposed by the gentleman from Illinois. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee). (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I agree with the gentleman.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, I urge support of the amendment that has just been offered. The gentleman from North Carolina has, in his service here, distinguished himself by the careful thought he brings to difficult issues, and this amendment today is an example of that. I am one of those who questioned whether there was a need for any amendment at all. I thought there was not. We have had people say, well, but desecrating the flag is not simply an expression of opinion, as crude and as stupid an expression as it is, and, of course, the first amendment protects crudeness and stupidity in expression; but people have said there is something about the desecration which as a physical act could go beyond expression. Well, the amendment of the gentleman from North Carolina is very carefully drawn so as to say, to the extent that one is simply engaging in an expression of opinion by desecrating the flag, one is protected, but if there are elements involved in that desecration that go beyond expression, we will leave that to the courts to decide in the specific circumstances. I think that is a reasonable compromise. I want to address, therefore, the part of the amendment that says, to the extent this desecration is an expression of opinion, we should not make it illegal. I understand, all of us do, the motivation of those who want to make it illegal. The flag is a very powerful symbol. The flag symbolizes the greatness of this country. Yes, there are veterans who saw their comrades lose their lives, who lost their health, who sacrificed years when they could have been with their families, and they did it under a flag which they understandably want to protect. But we have to look at the implications of what we do. In the first place, passing the amendment as originally presented says that there are times when one can express oneself in ways that we find so offensive that we will make it illegal. That is a great breach in a wall that we have had between the rights of individuals and the government. And I am surprised that many of my friends who are conservative, who want to limit government, want to put this forward, because what this amendment says, without the refinement added by the gentleman from North Carolina, is there are things that one does to one's property, we are talking about now people who own a flag; remember, this applies to people who own a flag and who desecrate the flag they have bought, the physical flag; no one owns the symbol, but they have bought the physical material, they have desecrated it by writing outrageous words on it, by physically mistreating it. Remember, desecration covers things one would write on the flag that would be abusive and offensive, and we are saying we are so offended by what you have done to your property, on your property; you can be standing in your yard with a flag you own and desecrate it, we are so offended by that, that we will make that illegal. We will perhaps send you to prison. That is a fundamental line that has been crossed. No one is affecting your property; no one is disrupting your peace of mind; no one is making noise and interfering with your right to privacy. Someone on his or her own property, with his or her own physical property, is doing something you find outrageous. But it does not affect you in any material or physical way. That is a great expansion in the power of government in and of itself. I was very impressed with the Special Order I heard the night before last by our colleague, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul), when he talked about and said correctly, the purpose of a first amendment freedom of speech clause is precisely to protect people's right to be obnoxious and offensive, and we do that not because we think obnoxiousness is a virtue, although sometimes, watching this House, people might fall into the assumption that we do; we do it because we fear government. We do it because there is no neutral, impersonal arbiter that can decide which expressions are so offensive as to ban them and which ones should be allowed. We will do it. Elected officials will do it. Politicians a couple of months before an election will do it. Elected judges will do it. And we have said, we think the danger of discriminatory and arbitrary interference with freedom of expression is so great that we would rather put up with the occasional obnoxious jerk than to empower the government to decide what is acceptable and what is not. Of course, we have not had many flag burnings lately. My guess is that this debate will probably increase the number of flag desecrations, because it will put ideas in people's heads. But the fact is, to most of us, the fact that some fool wants to desecrate the flag as a way to get attention ordinarily would not work. There is one other aspect of this that I want to address. There is no logical way that one can say, if one adopts this principle, that someone who has expressed himself or herself obnoxiously should be banned. How can we limit it to the flag? Because once we have said, look, if we care enough about something, we will make it illegal to desecrate, what are we then saying about people who desecrate venerated religious symbols? What about people who burn crosses? Because the Supreme Court said, and I agree, burning a cross on your own land should not be a crime. This is a principle it is impossible to limit, because if we say burning a flag, desecrating a flag, writing rude words on a flag is so offensive that we are going to make it illegal, then what we are apparently saying is, but it is okay to do this with anything else. I do not think it will stop. We will ratify this amendment, if we do, and we will soon after be asked to protect important religious symbols, the Constitution, other important symbols of our unity. We choose here, if we pass this amendment without the gentleman from North Carolina's proposal, to break a very important line, and we say that we, the government, will say what is too offensive to express, and that is a terrible step to take.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, before the gentleman from Georgia leaves the floor, I just wanted to take this opportunity to express my agreement with the gentleman from Georgia to help advance the legislative process and to satisfy all that hunger for civility out there in the country.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, he had, in fact, been serving as the Secretary of State. I did not say he was in the House or the Senate. I was contradicting the statement of the gentleman from Indiana that he had nothing to do with the ratification of the Bill of Rights because he was in France. As a matter of fact, Thomas Jefferson here in the United States as Secretary of State and James Madison as a Member of Congress talked to each other. It was the gentleman's statement, and, again, I understand the gentleman wanted to change the subject, he said, among his many errors, that Thomas Jefferson was in France during the ratification of the Bill of Rights; and he was wrong by about 4,000 miles which, by his standard, is not so bad.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, we could stress that there are important aspects of this amendment which are not controversial and which will be presented in other forums: the antitrust exception, the health-related study. One of the problems with this amendment is we are not talking here only about fiction or things that people make up. This amendment covers depictions of the truth. This amendment covers depictions of unpleasant events. This amendment does not exempt the news, if it is presented for commercial purposes. What this amendment does is introduce an element of censorship by the Federal Government into the presentation by the media, as long as they are not working for free, and none of them are that I have ever met; it introduces this element of Federal censorship into the media's depiction of unpleasantness. Yes, we should treat 16-year-olds and 15-year-olds seriously. Shielding them, screening them through a Federal process before they hear about some of the terrible things that go on in the world, torture is part of the world. These things are part of what goes on. I do not want people portraying what happened in Kosovo and helping explain why we were in there militarily to have to check with the Federal statutes before they decide how they can present this to 16-year-olds.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, the gentleman from Indiana said he was in France. The gentleman from Indiana needs a lot of explaining. He said that Thomas Jefferson was in France during the ratification of the Bill of Rights. He was not in France during the ratification of the Bill of Rights.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, this has been a hard bill to follow because the majority has been kind of playing a legislative shell game. We started with this bill and that bill, and this bill became part of that bill, and that bill went into that bill, and this amendment was pulled out to be offered by a Member who might have a little political difficulty. So I am not familiar with everything that is in here. But after listening to the majority whip, I have to read it more closely, because I may have missed the part in which we ban the teaching of evolution. I know we have had a lot of discussion of what was causing the problems here, but I just heard the majority whip say it was Charles Darwin's fault. It is apparently evolution. It is teaching children that they are the products of evolution that is the cause of this. So I will have to watch more carefully for the amendments when we get the amendment of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the majority whip, correcting the teaching of evolution. I have to say, as I listened to him, I have not heard such an angry denunciation of the American people since SDS used to pick at me 30 years ago. I guess there is a degree of anti-Americanism here that I had not anticipated. It is the American people's fault. They are involved in family planning. They are teaching evolution. They are doing all these things. Plus, I guess somebody ought to arise to defend the States. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. McCollum) said the States' juvenile justice is broken down. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) is mad at the States. The poor States. I guess the States rights movement we should officially inter today. What we have today is an announcement. Hey, States, you do not know to handle your local criminal business. We, the all-knowing Congress, will take care of it. So we will abolish the teaching of evolution, and we will diminish States rights, and we will solve the problem. I guess I wished they had stopped at that, though, because I am now looking at the amendment that has been made in order by the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), the chairman of the committee, and I must say I am impressed by the gentleman's discretion. I have not seen him here all morning. I am not surprised that he does not want to be associated with all of this. But the gentleman's amendment, I was going to ask, Mr. Chairman, if we could have the debate on the Hyde amendment after 10 o'clock tonight. I know we are going to be in late. As I read this amendment, I do not think it is a fit subject to be discussing when children are listening. There are some graphic physical descriptions here of the human body that I do not know that we will want to talk about. I must say, I think if anybody simply read this bill on the floor of the House during family viewing hours, if it were not for our constitutional immunity of which we have really heard, he or she could be in trouble. But I have some problems. It does say that one cannot show, for instance, and it includes sculpture. One cannot show sculpture of the breast below the top of the nipple. I have seen some statues which I think do that. Now, it says one cannot show them to a minor. So I guess we are going to start having 17 or over only into sculpture gardens. One cannot show other physical parts. I suppose old enough statues to have parts broken off may be okay. But intact statues are probably going to be a problem. We are discriminating against modern sculptures because one can only show these kids a statue that has fallen apart. It says one cannot show to someone under 17 a narrative description of sexual activity. I guess Mr. Starr may be in trouble. I do not know about his prosecutorial immunity. But as I read the Hyde amendment, we will have to stop selling the Starr report. Now, it does say it is okay to sell it if it has serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. I guess in the case of the Starr report, people thought it was going to have some political value for their side. It turned out not to have any. But if someone under 17 read that because of his or her prurient, shameful, or morbid interest, so now we are outlawing shameful interest, it is not shown. I mean, this is really very, very serious. The problem is this, the original version of this sweeping censorship was introduced on June 8. No unit of the House Committee on the Judiciary has been able to vote on it, to amend it, to study it. We now, 8 days later, have a new version. I think it is about the third version. We are no longer going to mandate that every seller of recorded music in America give out copies of the lyrics. Congress is only going to recommend this to every retailer in America in our infinite wisdom and disregard for local autonomy. I do not think we understand this fully. This is a broad assault on the first amendment. We cannot show in here, for instance, physical contact with a person's clothed buttocks. So all those pats of congratulations in athletic contests I guess we will have to avert the cameras for. Now, maybe that is not true, but there is nothing in here that says it is not. Mr. Chairman, I understand the political bind the other side is in, but to use the first amendment to get out of it on 8 days notice is very inappropriate.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, first I want to say that I am sorry that the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) decided not to offer the second amendment he had a right to offer. I think he must have realized that offering that amendment, which he had put in there, to circulate the pamphlet put out by the Department of Education on religious rights would have undercut much of the argument we get from the other side, because we were eagerly looking forward to supporting his amendment. Somebody probably tipped him off and that is why he decided to not to offer it, because that pamphlet from the U.S. Department of Education makes clear how broad the right of children is in the schools to engage in appropriate religious exercise within the framework of the Constitution. So they thought better of it and they must have read the pamphlet and realized that it strengthens the case of the other side. Now I did also want to bring poor Thomas Jefferson back from France, to which he was exiled by the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Hostettler), while he was Secretary of State. The gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Hostettler) said Thomas Jefferson had nothing to do with the ratification of the Bill of Rights because he was serving in France. If he was serving in France during that period, he was serving as Secretary of State because he was not the ambassador to France while he was Secretary of State and that is when they did the Bill of Rights. So the gentleman's history is not much not better than his constitutional law. His constitutional law seems to misunderstand the principle. Yes, we take an oath that we are bound by the Constitution. We should not transgress it. I wish that oath meant more to people around here sometimes. But when there is a decision by the Supreme Court, it is binding on us. The gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Hostettler) appears to want to disregard that. A Supreme Court opinion is binding. Finally, I want to note that the author of this amendment does not appear to have much faith in the amendment before him of the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo). It does exactly the same thing. Now apparently what we have here is the Republican leadership has found a way around the FEC, not the Constitution. They found a way to help people with their campaigns. The gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) offered an amendment, thanks to the Committee on Rules, and it included the very same provision of this amendment, but this gentleman also wanted to offer it. So what is two amendments that say the same thing in a bill that is kind of crazy anyway? Now, of course, if we had a functioning Committee on the Judiciary which could contemplate these issues, we would not have this kind of scramble. That is the final point. Should we or should we not have a situation where public officials deliberately violate the Constitution to have to pay in a lawsuit? Well, maybe they should be allowed not to have to do that, but why pick and choose? The Republican Party controls the Committee on the Judiciary. If the gentleman thinks it is wrong that we have a situation where public officials who have violated the Constitution have to pay the legal fees of those whose constitutional rights they violated, and were so found by the Supreme Court, why did not the gentleman have a hearing, why did not the gentleman have a subcommittee markup, all these exotic things we used to have? This is a politically constructive process that is putting together a Rube Goldberg of a bill.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from Indiana, to bring Thomas Jefferson back.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I hope the standard of completion is better. It is true there was never a vote to reject the rule. That is because prudence being the rule on the rules, they have withdrawn rules before they were voted on. Now, we remember what happened on the Armed Services rule. It came forward, there was some discussion, and it disappeared. So the gentleman is correct, it was not actually defeated. The gentleman ran away before it was defeated.

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

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I think we should congratulate the chairman of the Committee on Rules for his progress in counting. Clearly, what happened was they voted my colleague down last night by a party majority. They then counted and found they did not have enough votes for the rule. And having lost a couple of rules already, they did not want to complete that. So I congratulate the gentleman from California who managed to count enough votes for the rule before this time, reverse himself and then take the amendment only because they have to, and that is why we have this.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, during the Congressional recess, I spent a very useful two hours at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth meeting with a large number of older people at a rally called by the Massachusetts Senior Action Council. One of the very impressive aspects of that rally was a series of short, poignant examples given by members of the Council of the terrible harm that is being done by the cut backs in Medicare that we are now inflicting on older people, most of which are a direct result of the terribly mistaken legislation adopted by Congress and signed by the President in 1997. Younger people reading this might not be aware of a central fact: as currently constituted, Medicare includes no payment for prescription drugs. We in Massachusetts used to have a law which required that HMOs provide prescription drugs, but that was crudely abolished by the 1997 so-called Balanced Budget Act as part of the effort to cut Medicare to make funds available for other purposes. And that bill also required for the same reason severe cut backs in home health care. I ask that these examples of the terrible damage that is being done by the 1997 Act be printed here, in the hopes that it will influence our colleagues to join those of us who are seeking to undo the grave error Congress made in 1997 in cutting Medicare. Testimony given at the Mass. Senior Action Council Rally to Preserve and Protect Medicare and Social Security, June 1, 1999 Armando and Alexandria Demelo live in Fairhaven. They are 75 and 78 years old. They both have life threatening medical conditions. Their prescription drug costs are currently $6,000 per year. William Kirby lives in East Wareham. He is 83 years old. He has emphysema. His prescription drug costs are over $800 per month. Arthur and Mary Travassos live in Fall River. They both have serious health problems and Arthur is currently in the hospital. They were lucky enough to be able to switch out of their HMO in time to another plan which is now closed. Between the two of them they pay over $7,000 yearly in prescription drug costs. Del Silvia worked as a stitcher in the Fall River mills for 37 years. She is 63 years old. She is on nine prescription drug medications in order to keep her lungs functioning. Before Del got out of her Medicare HMO she had over $10,000 in prescription drug costs per year. An 84 year old Portuguese woman who lives in New Bedford was admitted to the hospital in the middle of the night with severe cramping in her abdomen. Thank God she did not have a serious obstruction. Her HMO denied payment for her care in the hospital. An 85 year old woman from Southeastern Mass. was discharged from the hospital after an operation for colon cancer. She had been in the hospital a full month. She was approved by Medicare for only 4 home health visits. A 73 year old woman from Fall River returned from the hospital after knee surgery. She was denied home health services by her HMO. Loretta Lamond from New Bedford passed away last year. She was 85 years old. She was diabetic and blind and could not fill her own insulin needles. Medicare cut off her nurse who came to the house to assist her with the needles. These are only a few of the countless stories we hear every day. The sickest and most vulnerable--those who can not always speak for themselves are hit the hardest. Something must be done!

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Virginia said that he agrees that the Europeans are not doing enough on the ground. There is virtual unanimous agreement here that it is an inappropriate strain on the American taxpayer and the American defense establishment for us to be providing the ground troops that will have to be contributed from America in Kosovo and Bosnia. We are told time and again we should not have to do it, but the Europeans are not capable without us. There is only one way we will reach a situation where the Europeans are able to provide the ground troops for European activity. That is by beginning a 3-year process. This begins a 3-year process of a drawdown in American troops. At the end of the first year, we will still have 85,000 there. Then we will go down to 60,000, then to 25,000. The fact is that the remaining lavish welfare program in the world is the one by which American taxpayers allow our European allies not to bear a fair share of the burden. Members say, oh, we wish the Europeans would do it. We can wish and we can wish and we can wish, and it is not going to happen. It will happen when we bring down our troops. By the way, this amendment leaves the Sixth Fleet in place. We are not abandoning Europe. Members say, well, we need the forward bases. Are they telling us that if we leave the Sixth Fleet and 25,000 troops, our European allies will deny us access to these bases? They will not deny us access to these bases, although there have been times in the past, particularly when the Middle East was involved, when they have restricted our use of those bases. We are not talking about shutting down the bases, necessarily, although I must say, when it comes to shutting down bases, I do not understand why this Congress should always be willing to shut bases in America and never shut bases overseas. The gentleman says, what about the spending? It is also, by the way, one of our major foreign aid programs. I am for more foreign assistance to the poor, but substantial foreign assistance in the billions and billions of dollars to Europe, to Germany, and Italy, does not make sense. As to whether or not it saves defense money, we are not here reducing overall strength. But if they are not pinned down there, if there is more flexibility, and in particular, if this leads the Europeans to have the ground troops, then we could at the end of this period perhaps reduce our troops. Is there a Member of the House who thinks it is legitimate that the United States, that has all the burden in South Korea, most of the burden in the Middle East, that did most of the air war in Kosovo, that we should also have to have thousands of American peacekeeping troops, at the cost of billions, in Bosnia and Kosovo? If Members vote down this amendment, then please do not, in the future, lament the fact that American ground troops were necessary as part of the peacekeeping forces in Kosovo and Bosnia, because as long as we make the Europeans this gift of welfare, they will never have the capacity. Let us do a little capacity-building. Let us follow the principles we have tried in some parts of welfare reform. Let us tell the Europeans that within 3 years, they are going to be on their own and we will stop enabling them not to do their own job.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of our time to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior), the minority whip.

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I thank the ranking member for yielding to me, and I thank him for the great courtesy that he has shown in this debate. I would just point out the amendment that we have offered hardly disengages from Europe. Our amendment would leave in Europe, untouched, the Sixth Fleet, one of the great fighting forces in the history of the world. It would also leave 25,000 troops and a cooperative effort on the bases. The question we have to face is this is, there is virtual unanimity in this Chamber lamenting the need for American ground troops to be part of the ongoing peacekeeping force in Bosnia and Kosovo. By the way, this amendment leaves in place language that allows the President at any time to dispatch troops in an emergency and to waive the restriction. The point we have is this: We believe there ought to be a European capacity not to duplicate the Sixth Fleet, which will be there, not to duplicate our air power, but to provide peacekeeping ground forces. We are convinced that as long as America has 100,000 troops there year in, year out, no matter what, there will never be the capacity in Europe to do it. One of the opponents of our amendment said, well, the Europeans are fully behind us in capacity, do not allow them to fall further behind. Give them a 3-year notice. Three years from now this wealthy concentration of sophisticated industrial nations will be responsible for the ground forces on their own in all but emergency circumstances. We believe in the Sixth Fleet. They will be there if we need them. Otherwise, be prepared to continue American ground forces as part of peacekeeping operations in Kosovo and Bosnia ad infinitum.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Condit), a cosponsor of the amendment. (Mr. Condit asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)