Barney Frank

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, let me say the gentleman noted that the defense budget had gone up to 385, as I understand it, which I thought was too high then, but he said we have cut it $100 billion. That is what; about a 30-percent cut? I would ask the gentleman from Washington this: Given the collapse of the Soviet Union and the switch of sides of so many leading nations in the Warsaw Pact to where they are now about to join NATO, would he say there has been at least a 30 percent reduction in the physical threat faced by the United States since 1985?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Would the gentleman yield, because I want to congratulate him for keeping a straight face?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, to say the gentleman made a very good point. When we find fraud or waste in other programs, our impulse is to cut those programs to penalize them. Where we have found in the intelligence budget, which is part of this appropriation; remember, this includes the intelligence budget, the people who have the disappearing $4 billion that they got to keep. Our approach is when we find a waste in the national security area to give them more money to make up for what they wasted. The incentive for efficiency in this area is zero, the incentive to cut back in overextended interventions is zero, and the incentive this budget gives the administration to make our allies, our wealthy allies, pay a fairer share is also zero. That is what the freeze would accomplish.

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I am deeply grateful, Mr. Speaker, for the ranking minority member's words of praise, because he is among the most consistently thoughtful and serious Members of this body, and praise from him in this area means a great deal to me. I am also grateful to the two chairmen who have spoken, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman], chairman of the Committee on International Relations, and the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spence], chairman of the Committee on National Security. It is appropriate that we be speaking out with virtual unanimity, certainly great consensus. We are not here debating whether or not America ought to join NATO. Indeed, in its specific form, that will not come before us. It will come before the other body as a ratification of a treaty. This House voted on a resolution, a sense of Congress, in favor of the expansion of NATO. That is not at issue. There is a large majority in favor, although some may have questions. The issue is what is an equitable sharing of the costs. I think it is important to note the history here. Fifty-two years ago, at the close of World War II, this Nation undertook as generous an approach to foreign nations as we have seen in the history of the world. From the Marshall plan through a whole range of other activities, the people of the United States went to the aid in particular of people in Europe who had been devastated by the war, in what is really quite an extraordinary example of national generosity and good sense. It was done in a bipartisan way by President Truman and a Republican Congress that came into power in 1946. This country not only went to the aid of its former allies, but in what is really an example of the importance of a generosity of spirit and an appreciation of the value of reconciliation, we went to the aid of our former enemies. This country by the late 1940's was a partner in the rebuilding economically and politically of Germany and Japan. Germany and Japan today and for decades have been functioning democracies, and that is something about which we can be proud, our part in having that reaction. I say that because no one can accuse this country of a lack of appreciation for international responsibilities when we say at this point, dealing with allies that are our equals in wealth, that an element of subsidy from us to them is no longer appropriate. That is what this amendment says. This amendment says that when it comes to the expansion of NATO, which is, after all, primarily about Europe, although it is obviously going to benefit us as well, the wealthy European nations, and this is not an effort to impose more money on the Czech Republic or the people of Hungary or the people of Poland, but we are talking here about our wealthy European allies. The chairman of the Committee on National Security correctly noted, I believe, the quotation from President Chirac of France. Remember, the French have two positions. One, more countries ought to be invited into NATO; two, they should not contribute a franc to that. That is obviously an untenable position. I regard this as strengthening the hands of the administration. The number we have here, $2 billion, is the upper end of the range that the President has told us this will cost. This is not an effort to force the administration to do with less than they have asked for. The President has said over this 12-year period it will cost $1.5 to $2 billion. We say $2 billion. We realize he has got to be negotiating with our allies, allies who have refused to bear a common part of the burden, and questions have legitimately been raised. Why is that important? It is important because if they do too much or we get forced to do too much at the expense of other things, we are about to adopt, not with my vote, but it is going to be adopted, a budget agreement. It will very tightly constrain for the next 5 years at least both domestic and international spending, both military and civilian spending, the military spending itself will be tight according to those in charge of it. And it cannot, I think, sustain additional billions for NATO expansion without taking away from important categories that we need to worry about. So this simply takes the President at his word. I would also point out two things: The chairman of the committee said quite correctly that he, and I appreciated this, agreed in concept but we would work on the wording. Of course, an instruction motion does not tie the hands of our conferees. It does not require them to vote ad infinitum for every word. It, I hope, will send them into negotiation with the other body with a powerful statement that some concern about cost has to be written in. Second, what we are talking about people will say, suppose something unforeseen comes up there 4 or 5 years from now. The answer under the American Constitution is not that the President should have a blank check to deal with that but where we are talking about the spending power, the President should be required to return to the Congress of the United States and say, this has happened. There is this emergency. This threat has turned out to be worse than we thought. This expense is greater than we thought. There has been a collapse in one of our allies and we understand that they cannot bear the strain of that cost. This House and the other body will certainly listen to that. This is not an absolute forever limitation. It is saying to the administration, this is what you say you need now and this is what we are going to give you. If circumstances arise which should require more, then under our Constitution you come back and ask because what we fear, many of us, is that our allies will cheer us on, urge us to expand to even more countries and continue the pattern of refusing to cooperate. I include for the Record, Mr. Speaker, an article which was published in yesterday's Washington Post by two distinguished Republican Members of the other body: [From the Washington Post, July 24, 1997] The Missing NATO Debate (By John Warner and Kay Bailey Hutchison) Going into the NATO summit in Madrid, conventional wisdom had it that expanding the Alliance would be easy. We believe this perception is changing with the realization of what expansion will entail. The plan--which would have Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary come under the American security umbrella in just two years--seems to contradict the reality of declining defense budgets and general post-Cold War retrenchment that is taking place in all of the Western democracies. French President Jacques Chirac admitted as much at the recent NATO summit in Madrid, when he flatly declared that ``France does not intend to raise its contribution to NATO because of the cost of enlargement.'' One indication of this intensified scrutiny is the recent letter from 20 senators to the president outlining those areas that will be debated prior to NATO expansion. Signatories include senators from every region of the country and from across the political spectrum, from Jesse Helms (R- N.C.) to Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.). These members have differing views of NATO expansion, from support to skepticism to outright opposition. But they share one concern: The decision to enter into a mutual defense treaty with three additional countries deserves more debate and inspection than it has thus far received. Under Article 5 of the NATO Charter, the members make a commitment to treat an attack on one member as an attack on all. Are the American people willing to make that same commitment to the three countries in Central Europe being identified for NATO membership, and possibly more in the future? And at what price? The cost of adding at least three members to NATO will entail increased training for the new members, enhanced command and control capabilities, communications and intelligence-gathering improvements, upgrading of facilities and the purchase of weapons that will bring the new members up to NATO standards. The wide variations in the estimates for these improvements are of concern. The independent and respected Rand Corp. in 1995 fixed the cost of NATO expansion at $1 billion to $5 billion a year over 10 years, soaring as high as $10 billion or more should a strong threat to NATO reemerge. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that expanding the alliance (to the three plus Slovakia) would lead to U.S. costs ranging from $5 billion to $19 billion over 15 years. The CBO estimates the total cost of expansion at as much as $125 billion. The cost to the United States assumes, questionably, that the new members of the alliance would increase their own defense spending by 60 percent over the same period. In stark contrast to these staggering cost assessments are the Clinton administration's rather modest estimates for adding three to five unnamed members to the alliance. In a February 1997 report to Congress, the administration concluded that the cost to the United States over 12 years would be just $150 million to $200 million a year, at best only one-fifth of the next highest estimate from an independent source. The same administration estimated the costs of the current U.S. operation in Bosnia at less than $2 billion. The actual cost will be $6.5 billion through June 1998, with that withdrawal date now in question. The administration's February report is further troubling because of its assumptions about burden-sharing, or how much of the total cost of NATO enlargement will be borne by our European allies. According to the administration, the United States will pay just 15 percent or so of the direct enlargement costs. Other members will pay 50 percent, and the new members 35 percent. The recent statement by President Chirac would seem to call this assumption into question. His statement is consistent with the trends of the last several years. Despite cuts in U.S. defense spending since the end of the Cold War, we still spend nearly 4 percent of our total wealth (gross domestic product) on defense. By comparison, France spends just 2.5 percent, Germany 1.5 percent and Poland 2.4 percent. It seems unlikely that these current and future allies will pay proportionately two or three times more than the United States for the costs of NATO expansion when they spend just half of what we do on general defense. NATO expansion may well be a good idea, but the plan to bring it about must be based on hard realities, not feel-good perceptions. A heavy burden falls upon elected leaders to make a convincing argument to the American people that changes we make to the alliance are in our national interest and will strengthen the organization. I cite this because it is, I will tell the Parliamentarian, directly relevant to the legislation under consideration. Under our rules we cannot just idly comment on the other body, but we can talk about things that are relevant. Two Members of the Senate, the Senator from Virginia, who is a senior member of their Committee on Armed Services, and the junior Senator from Texas have an interesting article about this problem. They talk about, for instance, when they list what the President of the United States has said this will cost us, the recent statement by President Chirac of France would seem to call this assumption into question. His statement is consistent with the trends of the last several years. Despite cuts in U.S. defense spending since the end of the cold war, we still spend nearly 4 percent of our total wealth on defense. By comparison France spends just 2.5 percent; Germany, 1.5 percent. It seems unlikely that these current and future allies will pay two or three times more than the United States for the cost of NATO expansion when they spend just half of what we do on general defense. There is one thing we can do about that. We can have this Congress say, yes, the great majority here in this House voted to support the concept of NATO expansion but not in a context in which the U.S. taxpayer has to reduce our contribution. Remember, the European nations have imposed on themselves, the leading NATO European nations are also the leading nations in the European Union. They have impressed on themselves the requirement that they get their budget deficits down to 3 percent of gross domestic product, far higher than ours. They are under pressure to make cuts and their military budgets are going to be cut. Great Britain, another very important NATO member not in the EU currency union, just announced, under the new government, that they would be cutting defense. It is important for us to have a large vote for this so that our administration understands and is strengthened in negotiations with our allies and in insisting that the American taxpayer not be given an open-ended budgetary problem with the expansion of NATO. Therefore, I am very grateful to my friend from California, my friend from South Carolina, the gentleman from New York and the others who I think are strengthening the hand of the U.S. Government in this negotiation.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I want to stress a couple of points of agreement between us. First, I very much have in mind trying to get France and Germany and England and Belgium and Denmark and Norway, quite wealthy countries, to contribute. I agree with the gentleman that we should not be trying to get more out of Hungary and Poland and the Czech Republic. Indeed, I think it is essential for these newer democracies, newer recently, not to put themselves at risk with their own people in terms of excessive demands here. So I am not trying to get more money out of the new members. I believe the problem is with the existing NATO members who have been doing so very well for so long. And that is the key point. The second thing I would say, in agreement with the gentleman from Nebraska, I hope that those figures we have seen are exaggerated. That is why what this says is we will take the administration's figures at its word. And we always have the constitutional right as Congress, if it turns out there is some unforeseen problems, the way this works is we come back here and nobody doubts they would get very rapid consideration. So I am not in dispute with the gentleman's views on the costs. Indeed, it is precisely those more moderate costs he described that are the fundamental premise of this amendment.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I move to reconsider the vote. Motion to Table Offered by Mr. Kingston

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I do want to address this amendment and I want to oppose it. A lot of my good friends are involved. I must say, I think the heat may be penetrating this building. Maybe we ought to check the air-conditioning. Last night by a very large majority we involved ourselves in whether or not there should be a nude beach at a particular location. Prior to that I had always thought the expression a Member ``voting to cover his rear'' was metaphoric. Last night we apparently decided to make that literal. We also passed an amendment yesterday in which I think we voted that the Earth was flat. We told the United Nations to get out of here with this biosphere stuff, and the black helicopter members scored a victory. Today it seems to me we will err again. The proponents have said we should send a message. The message we are sending is that we have run out of things to legislate on that are of serious waste, or that we cannot decide tough issues and we are going to go off into a series of, I think, kind of silly byways. Let me say first with regard to this National Science Foundation amendment, obviously this is involved with a particular project, one where someone presumed to study congressional elections. I must confess that I know one of the authors and think highly of him, and he reminded me that I taught him political science, so perhaps I have a real conflict of interest here. But it was a very long time ago. I say that because, having read the proposal, I think it is a perfectly reasonable one. But that is not the point I want to make. The point I want to make is that judging whether or not particular academic research projects are good or bad is really not one of the things we are best at. The notion that this body should set itself up as a kind of appellate research council is, I think, one of the worst I have heard in a long time. We do some things very well. I think this body serves democracy in a very, very impressive way. I think we meet a pretty strong standard as we deal with the value questions, as we deal with resource allocations. But I do not think that we make a very good set of academic censors.

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Has the subject of nude beaches for Eskimos ever come before the body?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman. The point I want to make is that this is just not something we are good at or should try to do. Even if Members think that in a particular research project they made a mistake, we all understand that we are legitimately motivated by politics and electoral considerations. If we were not, we would not be serving democracy well. That is not a criterion that has any place in the selection of research subjects. I would hope we could maintain a distinction that we would get the best people we can, give them their resources. I can understand an argument that says political science, although it once nurtured me, is not really a suitable subject for the National Science Foundation at all. But once we have put them in that business, for us to say we will pick and choose and if we are offended by a particular subject, even if Members may think it was a poor choice of subjects, I think it is an unwise power for us to get into exercising. We then invite people who disagree with any choice of subject to come to us and set us up, as I said, as a kind of ultimate academic appeal council. I would hope that we would stop telling people what they have to wear when they swim and we would not try to repudiate the roundness of the Earth and that we would also refrain from intervening in the selection of individual research projects. I do believe that on the whole the country will be worse off rather than better if we become the ultimate academic council.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Florida has illuminated the problem. He talks about people who he believes violated the law. He talks about people who mislead the Congress, and he supports an amendment which does not penalize them in the slightest. This does not cut their salary. This does not let the air out of their tires. This does not wake them up with a crank call at 4 o'clock in the morning. It cuts the program so that the intended beneficiaries are denied the funds. That is the illogic in this. In fact, by this reading, the beneficiaries have already been hurt because people running the program ran it badly and we will show those people who ran the program badly, if they cheated the beneficiaries, we will cheat them even more. This is like the parent who tells the teacher, ``You know, my kid is very sensitive. And if he misbehaves, smack the kid next to him. He will get the message.'' This is not hitting the person who misbehaved, this is smacking the person next to them. And we are telling the poor people, who are supposed to be the beneficiaries of this program, that because they have suffered maladministration, we will go after the program. Now, I thought Republicans believed that what we should do was encourage self-help. We have cut housing, we have cut benefit programs, we have cut welfare. Have we no other way to deal with maladministration than to deny to the intended beneficiaries of a program the benefits they are supposed to get? The people who misbehaved will be left whole by this. They will in no way be inconvenienced. Indeed, they will be paid the same amount of money to do less work. Now, I appreciate the gentleman from Alabama, and I mean this seriously, that he said he was not impugning their motives, and I do appreciate that. I did begin to hear some dark plots about Hillary Clinton, and I thought we were going to be told that the documents had been found in Vince Foster's briefcase. But the gentleman correctly said this is a question of how we deal with programs. But the question is how do we deal with inefficiency, corruption, or whatever in a program. Do we punish the intended beneficiaries? Do we hit the innocent victims? Because that is what this amendment does. Or do we say let us prefer charges. I am not familiar with the specifics. But if someone violated the law, we should not take away the program they are administering from the people on whose behalf it was created. Go after them. I am particularly concerned by the double standard. The gentleman from Florida, who spoke just before me, has been very active on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. My recollection is a few years ago we found about $4 billion they had not told us about. They hid $4 billion. And what did we do to them? We said spend that more carefully the next time. The intelligence agency has been plagued with problems, spies, et cetera. We have not cut intelligence because of that. Indeed, I think we could have cut them for other reasons. When we have cost overruns in the Pentagon, when we have other problems, do we penalize the programs' intended beneficiaries' shares? That is the illogic. Have we not done enough to the poor? I mean this. Let us look at the budget. We have said, no, we cannot have welfare, we cannot have food stamps. People can make an individual justification for each of those, although I would disagree. We cut housing. We cut welfare. We cut for the least among us. We did say, OK, here is what we will do. We will fund the program $150 million, not even the margin of error in the average Pentagon program, and we will take that and we will give that to these people for them to engage in self-help. There has been no allegation that the beneficiaries misspent. There has been no allegation, and the gentleman from Alabama quite generously noted some of the beneficiaries had done a good job. Well, who do we think we are punishing? What is the logic of saying to one group of administrators, because you did badly we will, therefore, hurt the people for whom the program was intended? I hope we will reject this amendment because I have not heard any arguments against the nature of the program, against the way the program works out in the street. I have not heard arguments that the program in its execution is flawed. I have heard some people at the top did bad things. Go after them. Do not take the poor people of these cities, who are the intended beneficiaries of this, hostage in our frustration that some high level people did something wrong.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I confess I am eager to get this resolved so that the chairman of the committee and I and a few others may retire to another part of the Capitol complex, having not been able to get there today. The point I want to make is this. I have been persuaded that disciplinary action might well be appropriate. What I worry about is, given constitutional doctrines that apply, if we get too explicit in legislation directing the administration to take either law enforcement or administrative disciplinary action, the potential disciplinee could claim legislative interference. I think it is very clear many of us will urge that appropriate disciplinary action should be taken. But if we start mandating that in legislation, we start doing the potential victim a favor, because we will start seeing due process arguments about inappropriate intervention. So that is another reason I think for going at this in the way that would be suggested, I hope, by the chairman.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, we have recently heard a lot of criticism of judicial activism. People, especially on the conservative side of our spectrum, have denounced justices, Supreme Court Justices and judges, who, with their life-tenured appointments, have stricken laws passed by the elected officials, and there has been a great deal of criticism that this is essentially undemocratic. I disagree with the criticism. I think the role of the judiciary in defending our rights, particularly when legislative majorities err and disregard those rights, is a very important one. I am, therefore, pleased to note that there are high-ranking judicial officials who are not deterred. I am here to congratulate in particular two Justices who have repudiated implicitly this criticism of judicial activism. I am here to call attention to the work of two Justices who have consistently upheld the finest traditions of judicial activism by striking laws, by overruling administrative decisions, even on occasion being in the minority and trying to strike laws. Now, they have been criticized. For instance, in a recent decision, one of the dissenting Justices who sought to uphold an act of Congress said, what basis is there in any of those sources, talking about the majority's history, for concluding that it is the members of this Court, rather than the elected representatives of the people, who should determine whether the Constitution contains the unwritten rule that the Court announces today. In other words, the dissenter says to this majority, what gives you the right in this ambiguous area, because nothing is explicit, to overrule what the elected officials have said? That same dissenting Justice said in a footnote, referring to what he thought was shoddy history and poor logic on the part of the majority, he said, ``If this sort of unexplained congressional action provides sufficient historical evidence to support the fashioning of judge-made rules of constitutional law, the doctrine of judicial restraint has a brief, though probably colorful, life expectancy.'' Here again, the dissenting Justice says to those in the majority, you are making a mockery of judicial restraint. Well, in this particular case I agreed with the dissenting Justice on the substance, I am talking about Justice Stevens, he wrote the dissent, and he was dissenting in the Brady bill case. Justice Stevens wanted to uphold the Brady bill. He wanted to uphold the mandate that we ask local officials to cooperate in a very small way, but he was overruled. And while I disagree with the majority here, I want to pay tribute to Justices Scalia and Thomas for not being in any way deterred by criticism of judicial activism. Indeed, in the past term of the Supreme Court, Justices Scalia and Thomas voted to invalidate more acts of Congress than all but one of the Justices. Justice Kennedy I think tied them. For instance, Justices Scalia and Thomas said, when this Congress passed the Communications Decency Act in an effort to keep indecent material off the Internet, which did seem to me to violate the Constitution. I voted against it. I was one of a small number of Members who voted against it. Over 400 Members of this House voted for that bill. But were Justices Thomas and Scalia deterred from declaring it unconstitutional? No, they were not. Four hundred Members may have said we want to keep indecent material off the Internet. I think they misread the Constitution, and Justices Scalia and Thomas joined in the opinion that invalidated that. When an overwhelming majority of this Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to protect people's religious practices from laws that might unfairly impinge on them, there I was in the majority. I thought the Constitution allowed us to do it. Justices Thomas and Scalia disagreed. Now, I disagree with their disagreement. I think they were wrong on the substance, but I do have to pay tribute to the fact that they said an overwhelming majority of people in Congress think it is protecting people's religions, but when two of the Supreme Court Justices disagree and we will strike that law down and strike it down they did. I disagreed with them also, as I said, on the Brady bill. That was passed by a narrower majority. Very ambiguous language. They were in the majority to strike it down. When the Securities and Exchange Commission, a Federal agency due certain amount of deference from the courts in statutory interpretation, tried to uphold the current practice regarding insider trading, a man who had benefited from insider trading, illegitimately in my opinion, brought a lawsuit and the Court 6 to 3 upheld the Securities and Exchange Commission. But among the three who said no, we the Justices will overrule this Federal agency, we will not show them that deference, were Justices Scalia and Thomas. When Congress passed the must-carry rule as part of the Telecommunications Act, when we mandated that TV stations and cable companies carry broadcast stations, Congress upheld that. So the Court upheld that by 5 to 4. In the minority were Scalia and Thomas. So I simply want to call note to the fact that these two justices have repudiated critics of Judicial activism and have been as active in this past term as any Justices in our past history. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record examples of judicial activism on the part of Justices Scalia and Thomas. Examples of Judicial Activism on the Part of Justices Scalia and Thomas 1. They both voted to declare unconstitutional part of the Brady bill regulating the sale of handguns. 2. They both voted to declare unconstitutional the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which sought to protect the rights of religious people where laws were passed that impinged on their religious practice. 3. They both joined in the decision holding the Communications Decency Act unconstitutional. The CDA sought to ban indecent material from being sent on the Internet. 4. They both voted to declare unconstitutional the federal law requiring cable TV systems to carry the signals broadcast by local over the air stations. The law was upheld, however, because they were part of a four member minority. 5. They were again in the minority in seeking to overrule the decision of the Securities and Exchange Commission as to who is covered by the statute prohibiting insider trading. The SEC has taken a broad view of the coverage of this statute, and Justices Thomas and Scalia were in a 6 to 3 minority in seeking to overrule the SEC. 6. Justices Scalia and Thomas continue to join three others to form a majority holding that the Voting Rights Act has severe constitutional defects and have continued to strike down voting districts created under the Voting Rights Act--at the time often at the urging of the Bush led Justice Department as well as groups representing African Americans.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, earlier this year I had a very useful and enjoyable meeting with an organization newly formed in Southeastern Massachusetts. The meeting took place in Fall River, and the group is the Forum Acoreano U.S.A. The Forum is composed of people who are concerned about issues that are of particular relevance to Azorean Americans, of which I am proud to say there are more in Southeastern Massachusetts than in any other part of the country. The officers of the organization--President Alfredo Alves, Vice President Maria Pinheiro, Secretary Manuel Estrella and Treasurer Arthur Tavares--and their colleagues are thoughtful well informed people who understand both the greatness of America, and the valuable contributions immigration makes to that. I look forward to working with this important organization in achieving the combination of economic growth and social justice which has been the hallmark of Americans at our best, and I ask that the very thoughtful letter that the Forum has addressed to myself and all of my colleagues be printed here. It is particularly relevant that this be printed at this time while conferees are deciding exactly what should be done to correct the serious errors Congress made last year in adopting legislation which so unfairly affected our immigrant population, and their families and friends. Forum Acoreano U.S.A., Fall River, MA, June 24, 1997. To the Honorable Members of Congress: We are a newly created organization formed to promote and give political voice to the concerns and interests of persons in the United States of Acorean origin. All of our members are immigrants of many years duration in the United States and we are saddened and deeply disturbed by legislation passed by Congress this past year which drastically alters the Immigration and Naturalization Act and which curtails disability and other benefits available to legal permanent residents of the United States. Never before have we witnessed a Congress of the United States take such drastic measures as those passed into law in 1996. Never before have we witnessed the passage of legislation so purposefully aimed to undermine the most vulnerable and defenseless in our country: the aged, the afflicted, the infirmed, the physically disabled, the mentally incompetent, the dependent child, the disabled child, as well as the immigrant among us who has no power to vote. We urge you to: Return full disability and other benefits to disabled legal permanent residents; Ensure that student exchange visitor programs can continue to run without mandated agency reimbursement; Ensure special consideration regarding the English language requirement with respect with persons over the age of 65 who are applying for citizenship; Preserve humanitarian relief from deportation for long-term permanent residents and others who have extensive family and community ties in the United States; Hold public meetings to better know the needs and concerns of your constituents, prior to passage of legislation. Please consider and remember during your legislative deliberations that when a long-term permanent resident is deported, we have personally witnessed the following: United States citizen children who are minors have been compelled to accompany a deported parent in order to maintain the family unit; A United States citizen child never has the same opportunities for education and economic well being in his or her parent's home land as he or she would have in the U.S. Families have been irreparably broken up; Youngsters have lost parents and great emotional harm has resulted; Aged parents have lost the solace and company of a son or daughter who is deported and have no hope of seeing that child again; Families have lost their major breadwinner and have been forced to turn to public benefits for relief; We can not imagine why Congress would single out these vulnerable groups among us and tamper with their well being and their family unity. We wonder if the members of Congress spoke with their constituents before passage of such far reaching legislation We wonder if you remembered that we are a nation of immigrants and that it is our diversity which has made us strong? If you doubt the contribution of immigrants to this country, we invite you to visit our communities in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. There you will see how we have transformed run-down urban neighborhoods in Fall River, New Bedford, Cambridge, Somerville, Peabody, and Taunton, as well as Providence, East Providence, Bristol, Tiverton, West Warwick into clean, safe, updated, family neighborhoods. Even though some of us speak with an accent, and have names that may be hard to spell or pronounce, we are nonetheless, voters and tax payers, and we own businesses and property, we are also educators, public officials and public servants, as well as doctors and lawyers and, if you visit the factories in our communities you will see that we are the backbone of the work force. We are also the mothers, fathers, children, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts and cousins of legal permanent residents who have been hurt by the recent legislation and as such, the laws have hurt us as well. We urge you ladies and gentleman of Congress to remember the plight of the immigrant during the deliberations of the 105th Congress and to ameliorate the present legislation. Respectfully submitted, Forum Acoreano--U.S.A. Board of Directors. Alfredo Alves, President. Manuel Estrella, Secretary. Maria Pinheiro, Vice President. Arthur Tavares, Treasurer.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote, and pending that, I make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Washington for his candor. He just said the committee, the infallible, highly respected committee, added money in analysis. So that means we can cut their additions without affecting technical means, without affecting battlefield intelligence. So we are fighting now over the sanctity of the economic and political analysis. I submit to those of us who have seen this that we are not here endangering anybody's security. We are talking about the extent to which we get political judgments made and economic judgments made. That is what is at issue. The gentleman said that the amount has been cut in nominal terms, in dollars, 13 percent. He also used a 21 percent real figure, but I have to tell the gentleman, as he knows, his Republican colleagues with whom he is allied on this measure do not accept that. We have people who say, none of this inflation stuff, a cut is a cut. So the argument that we cut by not meeting inflation, he should understand, is repudiated by the honest gentlemen on the other side. They would certainly never claim that we give an inflation factor for defense and not for Medicare. These are people who repudiate the notion that we fail to keep Medicare up with inflation, you are cutting it, and the gentleman would not want to get them in trouble by arguing contrariwise here. So then the question is, is it outrageous that we reduce in dollars 13 percent from 1992? The 1992 budget formulated in 1991 was still formulated at a time that was the height of the cold war. The Soviet Union was crumbling. We were not sure of that then. I agree that terrorism is a problem, but terrorism is not a new problem. There was terrorism in 1982. There was terrorism in 1989; the bombing in Lebanon; terrible things have happened. Terrorism is not a new problem. Nuclear proliferation is not a new problem. India and Pakistan did not get their nuclear weapons a week ago. All those things were there, and we had the heavily armed Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. So I would submit that there has been a reduction in the physical threat the United States faces of greater than 13 percent. I think the capacity of our enemies, particularly the Soviet Union, to damage us has been more than 13 percent. I think when the Warsaw Pact nations switched sides, when Poland, and Hungary, and the Czech Republic go from being our enemies, as we consider them to be in 1980's and early 1990's to being on our side, that is more than a 13 percent reduction in the real threat. We have a difficult budget situation. We will be underfunding by most measures COPS on the streets. Yes, there are dangers to Americans, but there are dangers to most Americans more immediately, unfortunately, in their own communities from a handful of criminals who terrorize them. We have provided in the past the Federal money to help that. That competes with this. Money for transportation safety competes with this. Money to clean up the environment, to undo Superfund, competes with this. Money to help poor elderly people heat their homes competes with this. The question is not in the abstract, is it a good idea to have an extra couple of hundred million, $300 million, whatever, $150 million, I have to disguise it, million. The question is, do we increase the analysis capacity, the economic analysis capacity of the intelligence community over the recommendation of the administration, and take that money from other programs? If Members vote against this amendment and they vote to give the intelligence community this extra analysis money, I hope Members will be good enough to make that clear when people come to them and say, I would like more money for NIH, more money for cancer research, for COPS on the streets. When Members say to them, I am sorry, I agree but I cannot afford it, have the grace to tell them that one of the reasons we cannot afford it is that we gave this money to the intelligence community over and above what was asked for, because that is what is at issue. We are talking about a zero sum game. If Members vote to give more than was asked to the intelligence community, more than was asked by the enemies community and the President and his national security advisors, explain to people what we are taking that away from.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. The argument for committee infallibility continues to lack any persuasive effect. The gentleman said I am offering an amendment without analysis. I am offering the President's budget. I very much have to disagree that the President and the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Joint Chiefs did no analysis. That simply is not worthy of consideration. The argument is that our committee, which we designated, is infallible, and the administration and all of the people involved in national security did no informational work here at all. The gentleman mentioned that we need to protect private investment. Well, I would disagree that that is an absolute national security priority. I just voted in committee for the Export-Import Bank, to protect it, but the argument that we have got to in a secret budget fund economists and others to analyze economics and that once the committee has put its imprimatur on the figure it is unchallengeable is simply not sensible. I do think we have a right to say given the priorities, given priorities in the environment and law enforcement on the streets and other things, all of which are hurting in this budget, we would rather not put an extra x hundred million dollars into economic analysis by the intelligence people. We may tell people that they can do their own security checking when they are investing. And no, I do not equate terrorism with economic investment, and I insist that the 0.7 percent can come out of areas that have zero, zero to do with physical security, zero to do with the military, zero to do with proliferation. They clearly are doing much more than 0.7 percent in a whole lot of other areas. But I simply have to reject this notion that what the committee did must be accepted and we dismiss as somehow totally improvident and endangering our troops what the administration proposed.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Pelosi], a current member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes. I understand that the chairman, a hardworking diligent chairman of an appropriations subcommittee would argue that we never should change what his committee does. I understand that. I do not think, however, that we should treat every amendment to an appropriations or an authorization bill as a vote of confidence. I have great confidence in the gentleman from Florida and the gentleman from Washington, but the argument of the gentleman from Florida is that once the committee has done the work, in fact, I do not know why we are here, let us just ratify what the committees do. He argues that my amendment would endanger the troops. Apparently General Shalikashvili did not think so. Secretary Cohen did not think so. The Director of the CIA did not think so, assuming we had one at the time. You are never sure over there. The fact is that I am proposing what the administration asks for. As much as I agree that the committee did its work, I am unprepared to conclude that the administration and the National Security Council and the Secretary of Defense and all the others did not do their work. So we are not talking here about blind guesses. We are talking about choosing between the administration's figure and this figure. Second, it is very clear that we could cut 0.7 percent without in any way endangering military intelligence. The intelligence agencies, the CIA in particular, went on a little job hunt after the Soviet Union collapsed. They were a little underemployed, I think. They have now become the source of economic intelligence. I believe we do better with the free market in terms of economic intelligence. This amendment says the President will reduce after reporting to the committees, and I want to make one statement that I promised betrays no national security. We can cut 0.7 percent of this without in any way endangering military intelligence, tactical, strategic battlefield, global, et cetera. The CIA does a number of other things. It does some better than other intelligence agencies do. The President and the national security advisers, I believe, cannot be accused of endangering the troops, and that is what this amendment would carry out.