Barney Frank

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I ask permission to insert into the Record a very powerful letter which I received from Chief Eugene Berry of the police department of the town of Hanson. Chief Berry writes to express his strong support for the 1994 crime bill and the funds that have gone to local communities as the result of this. His letter reinforces the point that it would be great folly for this Congress to disrupt this flow of funds by making drastic changes in this program. Chief Berry notes that his department and the entire State of Massachusetts have benefited from these funds, and as a police chief who is dealing every day with the problem of protecting the public safety in a small community, Chief Berry speaks with great credibility on this subject. As a police chief, and as an instructor for the Massachusetts Criminal Justice Training Council, Chief Berry is very well situated to evaluate this program and his strong testimony in support of it should carry a great deal of weight. I ask that Chief Berry's letter be printed here. Police Department, Town of Hanson, Hanson, MA, January 31, 1996. Hon. Barney Frank, State House, Boston, MA. Dear Representative Frank: I am writing to you to share the success of the 1994 federal Crime Bill, specifically the COPS FAST and COPS MORE projects. The Town of Hanson Police Department counts itself extremely fortunate to be the recipients of both of these grants. The COPS FAST grant has truly allowed this department to address the community concerns. The COPS MORE grant will enable this department to install in-crusier computers which will add the equivalent of 2.8 police officers to the complement of this department. The 1994 federal Crime Bill has reinvigorated the dedication of law enforcement in America through these programs. As an instructor for the Massachusetts Criminal Justice Training Council teaching many of the officers hired as a result of the COPS FAST program, I can attest to the rededication of the police service in preparing our recruits for practicing the community policing philosophy. If the political leaders of our nation are going to play politics with the Community Policing programs in the 1994 federal Crime Bill, it will have a devastating effect on all the positive strides we have made in the last 2 years. I know you will take an active role in the leadership fighting to retain the advances in policing we have made since 1994. Sincerely, E.G. Berry, Chief of Police.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent, because of a typographical error, that the page 9 that I have submitted and shown to the chairman be submitted in lieu of the page 9 of the amendment.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, this simply adds three zeros to the figure for fiscal 1997, putting billions where millions now exist.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I would not want to embarrass the House by talking about millions in an agricultural bill. Obviously, billions are the appropriate figure. What my amendment would do is to replace what seems to me to be one of the most misnamed provisions I have seen here since I have come here, the freedom to farm provision. As I understand it, it ought to be called freedom from farming. What it does is to say that if you are now a farmer and receiving money under various Federal subsidy programs, you will get a declining but still quite significant amount of money over the next 7 years no matter what you do. You do not have to be, as the gentleman from Missouri has pointed out, a farmer anymore. So this is a freedom to farm, which includes within it the freedom not to farm and receive significant funds from the Federal Government. It seems to me to bring home one of the most fundamental inconsistencies in American public policy. It has been an inconsistency, and it is getting worse. We have in this Congress cracked down on AFDC recipients. We have cut back on the Medicare Program. Not all of these things have become law, but these are the legislative vehicles that have passed the House. We have decided that lower-income people are getting too much money. We have decided that free enterprise and standing on your own two feet should be the order of the day, but not for the agricultural segment. It is striking to me how Members can come here, espouse free- enterprise doctrines, many of which I agree with, but then where agriculture is concerned suddenly in their own mind call up the invisible footnote, the footnote written in invisible ink in all of these conservation texts, and exempt agriculture from those rules. Now, there will be specific amendments that will deal with some of the exemptions, apparently the free market works very well for automobiles, and it works very well for the construction industry, and it works very well for the production of sophisticated medical devices or computers. But the free-market system is not quite up to peanuts. Peanuts somehow is too complicated for the free market and sugar and dairy. We can make the most sophisticated biotechnological devices. We can make software. We can make almost anything in America under the principles of the free market, but you cannot grow peanuts that way. You cannot grow tobacco that way. You cannot grow dairy that way. It is the most fundamental intellectual inconsistency in the United States today when people who are the most dedicated advocates of the free-enterprise system and talk about its virtues everywhere else, suddenly decide you cannot do that when talking about peanuts. We compound this because what we have also talked about is the problem of entitlements, and we have heard about the problem of entitlements that are not means tested. That is, people have said, you know, it is one thing when you have an entitlement for the poor. What about entitlements that go to people regardless of income? Agriculture carries that one step further. In agriculture, we have, and had had, anti-means-tested entitlements. In agriculture, that is an entitlement. Whatever you do, you automatically get the money. There is no appropriation that has discretion involved. But the bigger your enterprise, the more money you are making on your own, the more you get. Now they have decided, well, we cannot keep this up so they are going to get rid of it. How are they getting rid of it? By a 7-year transition. Having gotten a lot of Federal money in the past means we have to make sure you do not get cut off too quickly. So, over 7 years, recipients of these billions of dollars of Federal funds will continue to get, according to the numbers I have, a total over the 7 years of $35 billion, over $5 billion a year, and it will go to people whose ability to get this money will be based on the fact that they once got Federal money. This is a very nice program. It says if you once got money, we owe you. Apparently the theory is, we have obligated ourselves to people by paying them and, therefore, as the years go forward, we will give them money and they will get money solely because they used to get money. There will be no obligations on this money. This is not the freedom to farm, but instead the freedom from farming. Those recipients of this money over the next 7 years will get the money, as I understand it, no matter what they do. They do not have to farm. They do not have to live in their area. They do not have to live in this country. All they have to do is to live, and I guess if they do not live, they can pass it on. I did not check the testamentary part. I assume this is something you could pass on; you could inherit, I assume, under this bill the right to get these. You could be somebody who lived in Chicago, and the only grass you saw you had to hide when the cops came. But under this bill, if you were the heir of someone who farmed, I assume you could inherit that.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from Missouri. Mr. VOLKMER Mr. Chairman, the gentleman is more right than wrong. The payments go with the land, and as a result, when the son or daughter inherits the land, they will continue to receive the payments no matter where they live. But the other thing that is necessary to point out under this bill, you know, a lot of this land is investor-owned. They do not live anywhere near the land. They live thousands of miles away from it, and as a result, those people are going to get these big payments, and whether or not that farm is farmed.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. As I understand it, if you happened to be the heir of someone who owns a farm and has been getting Federal funds and that person dies, you then inherit the land. You do not have to go to that land. You do not have to grow anything. You do not have to touch a farm implement. You simply get the money. This is the greatest deal going, and this from the believers in free enterprise, stand on you own two feet, get your nose to the grindstone, your shoulder to the wheel, get the government's hand out of your pockets. Well, the government's hands will not be in your pockets, because there will be too much money in those hands to fit in your pockets. We are talking about $35 billion a year over 7 years that go to citizens of this country, or the owners, wherever they are. I do not know why I said citizens. That go to owners of this land no matter what. I am sure many of these people, most of them, may continue to farm, but that is not here. By the way, it is 7 years. My amendment would say that you continue the current agricultural program, phase them down. I want to get rid of them. I do not like the current programs either, but I would rather get something for the money we are giving these people, and I also decided we should phase it out in 5 years rather then 7, for this reason. I think if we are going to say that 5 years is the outer limit for you to receive Aid to Families with Dependent Children, that that probably ought to serve for the farmers as well. At least in the case of people who get Aid for Families with Dependent Children, as I understand it, there will be a work requirement. There is no work requirement for the farmers. Understand this provision: No work requirement whatsoever. Here is $35 billion the Federal Government will set aside as an entitlement to people, whose requirement will simply be that they have been the owners of the land at a certain period and in the program. I think this makes a mockery of all of what we have heard about sacrifice, of all of what we have heard about free enterprise, of all we have heard about who is going to do what. Many of the recipients of this, and, as I said, this, anti-means tested, many, many very wealthy people will be getting part of this $35 billion. I understand we have gotten ourselves into a hole and we cannot easily get out of it. At the very least, it is right to face this down. But also we should make this clear: We are now passing a law which will guarantee people the $35 billion for the next 7 years. If in fact 3 or 4 years from now we change our minds, they will have gotten the money and we can go back into it. There is no guarantee. One legislature cannot bind future one. So we have got here the welfare program of all welfare programs. It says to some people, many of whom are wealthy, for the next 7 years, your government has a demand to make of you: You must let us give you collectively $35 billion, and in return we will impose upon you the burden of cashing the checks, and that is all. By the way, those of you who are in the wealthiest sector will get more than those who are not. This is the new revolution; and if this is the new revolution, then I would hate to see what reaction would look like.

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, this is the anti-means tested entitlement. It is an entitlement, and the more money you make, the more you get. I thank the gentleman from Missouri for pointing out I understated things. The gentleman from Missouri may be one of the few Members of the House who finds me guilty of understatement. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, if the gentlewoman will allow me, not only is there no means test, there is an antimeans test. The more money you are making under the program generally, the more you will get. So it is the reverse. The wealthier you are, the more prosperous, the bigger your crop certainly, the more money you get. It is an antimeans test.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. My friend from Kansas said this is not freedom from work. Of course, farmers are among the hardest working people in this society. And the majority of people in this program will continue to work hard. But it is uncontestable that this bill will not require them to. If there are people who have decided they have had enough, if there are people who have decided they want to do something differently, they can, and they do not have to do any farming. The owner of the land will get these payments no matter what happens on the land. That is uncontestable. As a matter of fact, let me give you the analogy. Members have said, you have to have a transition. We need to change the existing status quo. It would mean instead of doing term limits, you would do a program called freedom to legislate. And under freedom to legislate, any sitting Member of Congress right now would be entitled to the congressional salary on a slightly declining base for the next 7 years whether you ran or not. You could run for Congress and get your salary, or you could not run for Congress and get your salary. Most Members of Congress would probably want to run, as most farmers would like to farm. But those Members of Congress who would like to use their freedom to legislate to not legislate, sit home and collect the money would be able to do so. The freedom to legislate bill would make exactly as much sense as the freedom to farm bill. It would be a way to transition down, move some Members out and pay them to do absolutely nothing. For those who might be so unkind as to suggest that we are now paying some existing Members to do absolutely nothing, I have nothing to say. But in fact for most Members who work very hard, the prospect of freedom to legislate might be very comfortable. So, yes, many farmers under this bill would be, if they got the money, able to continue, would continue farming. On the other hand, the rationale for the agriculture programs, and this is the heart of this, is pay the farmers to do whatever they would otherwise do. This bill takes $35 billion in Federal money and says to farmers, some of whom are quite wealthy, some of whom are not, Here, do whatever you were going to do anyway. Grow whatever you want to grow; quit, if you want to quit. Whatever it is you with to do, you can do and you get the Federal money in addition. That makes it a welfare program. The original notion in the farm programs, and they became, I think, distorted and should have been done away with, but they were, the Federal Government will pay you in return, in part for your doing certain things. It would supply management. I do not think it worked very well, but at least it was an effort to make it a quid pro quo. What this says it, yes, we made a mistake, the Federal Government. We should not have been telling you what to do. Therefore, we will pay you anyway. This is a mistake. I hope the amendment is passed and, if not, the bill is defeated.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Volkmer].

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Volkmer].

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I acknowledge this is what Ronald Reagan did. I would point out by the standards of the current group, Ronald Reagan was a model of lucidity, reasonableness and logic. That is why I prefer the Reagan program. I look nostalgically back on Ronald Reagan as I contemplate the current policies.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Colorado [Mrs. Schroeder].

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, in passing a Defense authorization bill which includes a cruel and wholly unjustified provision requiring the discharge of all service members who are HIV- positive, Congress served itself and the Nation very badly. Our former colleague, who is now the junior Senator from California [Ms. Boxer] recently illustrated how unwise and unfair this new policy is with an article in the Los Angeles Times for February 6. Because we still have a chance to redeem ourselves by repealing this provision before it goes into effect, it is very important that all Members reflect on the truth of what our former colleague has written and so I ask that the article entitled ``Congress Misses the Magic Show'' by Barbara Boxer, in the February 6, Los Angeles Times be reprinted here. [From the Los Angeles Times, Feb. 6, 1996] Congress Misses the `Magic' Show (By Barbara Boxer) Americans cheered last week as Earvin ``Magic'' Johnson triumphantly returned to the Los Angeles Lakers. In just 27 minutes, he scored 19 points and dispelled any remaining doubt about his ability to compete at the highest level. To their credit, Magic's fans, coaches, teammates and even his NBA opponents welcomed him back with open arms. Imagine how absurd it would be if Congress, just as Magic demonstrated his Hall of Fame talent, passed a law requiring the NBA to fire all basketball players who have the HIV virus. This past week, Congress did something just that absurd. A little-noticed provision of the annual military spending bill requires the Pentagon to fire all soldiers, sailors and Marines who test positive for the HIV virus, even if they perform their duties as skillfully as Magic Johnson makes a no-look pass. The military strongly objected to this provision, but Congress did not care. The president has called the new policy unfair, but because it is part of a larger bill that includes urgently needed funding for our troops in Bosnia, he will sign it into law. Under current policy, military personnel with the HIV virus are permitted to remain in the services as long as they are able to perform their duties. If their health deteriorates, the military initiates separation procedures and provides disability benefits and continued health insurance coverage for them and their dependents. So they can remain near health care providers, military personnel with HIV are placed on ``world-wide nondeployable status,'' which means that they cannot be sent on overseas missions. Soldiers with other serious chronic illnesses, such as severe asthma, cancer and diabetes are also nondeployable. In fact, only about 20% of the more than 5,000 nondeployable personnel are infected with

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I have long felt that the most damaging form of naivete is excessive cynicism. No where is that better illustrated than in the current grossly distorted discussion of the influence of campaign contributions on public policy. The view that campaign contributions dominate most policy outcomes is a dangerously mistaken one. It is a complete lack of sophistication about the political process masquerading as the ultimate tough mindedness. And it is not only gravely wrong to argue that campaign contributions are the major factor in most policy outcomes, it is self-defeating. To the extent that citizens do believe that elected officials care little about votes and public opinion, not to mention the merits of the issues, and instead are driven largely by campaign contributions in making decisions, those citizens will be discouraged from voicing the opinions which are in fact the single greatest influence in our public policy deliberations. In his column in the Washington Post for Wednesday, January 31, David Broder very effectively makes this point with a trenchant and cogent analysis of the recent PBS ``Frontline'' program on campaign financing. That program, entitled ``So You Want To Buy A President'' seems to have perpetuated the mythic view that campaign finance is all important in deciding public policy debates. David Broder who knows better, demonstrates the fallacy of this reasoning in his column. Because it is important that citizens not be encouraged to fall into the trap of believing that their efforts will have no influence in the face of campaign contributions, I ask that David Broder's very important article be printed here. [From the Washington Post, Jan. 31, 1996] ``Frontline's'' Exercise in Exaggeration (By David S. Broder) As if the cynicism about politics were not deep enough already, PBS's ``Frontline'' last night presented a documentary called ``So You Want To Buy A President?''whose thesis seems to be that campaigns are a charade, policy debates are a deceit and only money talks. The narrow point, made by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), an early dropout from the 1996 presidential race, about millionaire publisher Malcolm S. (Steve) Forbes Jr., is that ``somebody is trying to buy the White House, and apparently it is for sale.'' The broader indictment, made by correspondent/narrator Robert Krulwich, is that Washington is gripped by a ``barter culture'' in which politicians are for sale and public policy is purchased by campaign contributions. The program rested heavily on a newly published paperback, ``The Buying of the President.'' Author Charles Lewis, the head of the modestly titled Center for Public Integrity, was a principal witness, and Kevin Phillips, the conservative populist author who wrote the book's introduction, was also a major figure in the documentary. It dramatized the view asserted by Lewis in the conclusion of his book: ``Simply stated, the wealthiest interests bankroll and, in effect, help to preselect the specific major candidates months and months before a single vote is cast anywhere. . . . We the people have become a mere afterthought of those we put in office, a prop in our own play.'' Viewers saw a number of corporate executives--no labor leaders, no religious leaders, no activists of any kind, for some reason--who have raised and contributed money for presidents and presidential candidates and thereafter been given access at dinners, private meetings or overseas trade missions. It is implied--but never shown--that policies changed because of these connections. As Krulwich said in the transcript of a media interview distributed, along with an advance tape, with the publicity kit for the broadcast, ``We don't really know whether these are bad guys or good guys. . . . I'm not really sure we've been able to prove, in too many cases, that a dollar spent bought a particular favor. All we've been able to show is that over and over again, people who do give a lot of money to politicians get a chance to talk to those politicians face to face, at parties, on planes, on missions, in private lunches, and you and I don't.'' If that is the substance of the charge, the innuendo is much heavier. At one point, Krulwich asked Lewis, in his most disingenuous manner, ``Do you come out convinced that elections are in huge part favors for sale, or in tiny part?'' And Lewis replied that while ``there are a lot of wealthy people that do want to express broad philosophical issues,'' the ``vested interests that have very narrow agendas that they want pursued see these candidates as their handmaidens or their puppets. The presidential campaign is not a horse race or a beauty contest. It's a giant auction.'' That is an oversimplified distortion that can do nothing but further alienate a cynical electorate. Of course, money is an important ingredient in our elections and its use deserves scrutiny. But ideas are important too, and grass- roots activism even more so. The Democratic Leadership Council's Al From and the Heritage Foundation's Robert Rector have had more influence in the last decade than any fund- raisers or contributors, because candidates have turned to them for policy advice. John Rother of the American Association of Retired Persons and Ralph Reed of the Christian Coalition work for organizations that are nominally nonpartisan and make no campaign contributions at all. But their membership votes--so they have power. The American political system is much more complex--and more open to influence by any who choose to engage in it-- than the proponents of the ``auction'' theory of democracy understand, or choose to admit. By exaggerating the influence of money, they send a clear message to citizens that the game is rigged, so there's no point in playing. That is deceitful, and it's dangerously wrong to feel that cynicism. Especially when they have nothing to suggest when it comes to changing the rules for the money game. At one point, Phillips said that the post-Watergate reforms succeeded only in having ``forced them [the contributors and politicians] to be more devious.'' That is untrue. Those reforms, which mandated the disclosure of all the financial connections on which the program was based, also created publicity which, even Krulwich and Co. admitted, foiled the ``plots'' of some contributors. And Krulwich, for his part, suggested very helpfully that ``every high-profile politician agrees that some things have got to change. Change the limits. Change the rules. Change the primaries. Change the ads. Change enforcement. You gotta change something.'' How about changing the kind of journalism that tells people that politicians are bought-and-paid-for puppets and you're a sucker if you think there's a damn thing you can do to make your voice heard?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. First, Mr. Speaker, my understanding is that the legislation did say that there should be a separate vote on a private sector unfunded mandate unless the Committee on Rules waived it. I understand the Committee on Rules can waive it. But what the gentleman has now said is people should understand what this great big unfunded mandate bill comes down to. It does not mean there will not be any unfunded mandates on the private sector, apparently. It does not mean we will even have to automatically vote on each unfunded mandate. The great contract reform on unfunded mandates for the private citizens come down to this: We will not do an unfunded mandate on you for several billion dollars unless we put it in the committee report. I am sure the American people will feel very reassured and protected that they know that there will not be any more unfunded mandates unless they are mentioned in a committee report. Congratulations on a great legislative accomplishment.

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I rise in a moment of some solemnity because it is always tragic when something dies young, and the one piece of legislation from the Contract With America, the unfunded mandates bill, it had a very short life because one of the things we heard last year that was very important was to prevent Congress from imposing unfunded mandates on the private sector. This legislation, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and let me read what the Congressional Budget office says: CBO has determined that enacting this bill would impose private sector mandates, as defined in Public Law 104-4, an attachment to proviso analysis. According to CBO, over the life of this bill, $3.6 billion in unfunded mandates are imposed on the private sector. The CBO says some of this increase will be passed on to users of sugar and sugar-containing products in the United States, most of us believe. Another point: ``The bulk of such costs will be passed on to consumers in higher prices for fluid milk.'' So we have a bill that is going to raise sugar products, raise milk prices. It is an unfunded mandate, and the Contract With America that was alluded to, the gentleman from New York said this was just a continuation of the Reagan revolution, which was interpreted, apparently, by George Bush, as I got the chronology. We had the Reagan revolution. George Bush came around, and it got kind of sidetracked, but Mr. Gingrich came out and put it back in. But what did he say? He said that there would be, under the rule, if the Congress passed an unfunded mandate bill on the private sector, as this bill is, according to CBO, then under this scheme any Member could get up on the floor and demand a separate vote on those unfunded mandates. Now CBO says this bill has many unfunded mandates. The unfunded mandate bill we passed last year says if such a bill comes forward, any Member can get up and demand a separate vote. But the Committee on Rules waived it. So the first time the unfunded mandates bill was relevant to legislation, the Committee on Rules made it go away. So the poor Contract With America barely is 2 months old, and out it goes. Apparently, the most important part of the Contract With America was the escape clause because the Republicans have just escaped the rules. It reminds me, actually, the Contract of America, apparently this unfunded mandate business, of Groucho and Chico Marx in ``Coconuts,'' I think it was, where they were going over the contract, where they were going over this clause and that clause, and Chico says to Groucho, ``What's this clause?'' Groucho says that is the sanity clause, and Chico throws it out and says, ``You cannot fool me, there ain't no sanity clause.'' Apparently, there ``ain't'' no unfunded mandates provision either. But there is a sanity clause. As my friend, the once and future chairman of the Committee on Rules, pointed out, this bill has got a lot of sanity clause provisions for farmers. One of the things that continues to impress me is the fact that my conservative colleagues, the believers in the free market, stand on their own two feet, get the government off of people's backs, get the government's hands out of our pockets, let the market govern; somewhere they have found a footnote in all those conservative texts that say, ``But not for agriculture, not for peanuts, not for sugar, not for milk, not for tobacco.'' But that we will get into with the bill. The key point that has to be stressed is this: The one substantive piece of legislation affecting the general public that went through under the Contract of America was the unfunded mandates bill. Under the unfunded mandates bill, which I voted for, we should be having automatically separate votes on the billions of dollars of unfunded mandates this agricultural bill imposes on the private sector of America. And we will not have any such votes because the Committee on Rules waived the provision. So people should understand that the Contract With America, the first time anything was relevant to the Contract With America came before us, the Republican Party decided to break the contract. Maybe the American people ought to respond next November.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman and ranking member, and I plan to vote for this bill. Mr. Speaker, I am a little puzzled why it is a tribute to the importance of Corrections Day that we are now repassing a bill that passed on Corrections Day. It would seem to me if Corrections Day worked, we would not be repassing the bill we passed on Correction Day. Maybe Corrections Day is the spring training of legislative practice. I am, however, in favor of much of what is in this bill, not everything, but I am going to vote for it. I particularly want to celebrate the continuation of tradition. One of the provisions in this bill is to give at least $25 million to Habitat for Humanity, and it is unusual that by name we single out a particular private organization and give them $25 million. Now they do very good work, and not entirely coincidentally, they do that very good work from headquarters in the State of Georgia. Now for many years my district was adjacent to that of Speaker Tip O'Neill, and I am very familiar with this practice. You have got an organization that is near the Speaker, they do some good work, and the Speaker decides they should be rewarded with public money, and Tip O'Neill used to do that, and I am glad to see that some traditions continue because Habitat for Humanity under the speakership of our current Speaker from Georgia is being singled out unusually for this money for their land acquisition costs. I am for it. I voted for it in committee. They were a good organization, and I think it is admirable that the Speaker says you are in my State, you do good work, here is $25 million. I would hope that some who do not recognize that the public sector has a role to play would understand that they should generalize this. Yes, it is important for public funds to be made available for good purposes, and it should not just be for organizations that happen to be in the State of the Speaker, and so I am glad about that. Finally, I also wanted to note what my neighbor and previous speaker said, this bill does go further with the separation of housing, elderly and nonelderly, although we did in 1992 pass legislation that began that process, and the city of Fort River in fact yesterday under the 1992 legislation was given approval by the Federal Department of Housing so that 6 elderly units with 6 elderly buildings with 600 units as of now in Fort River under the 1992 act will be allowed that separation. This bill will make it easier for some other communities to comply with that, and I think it is a useful thing, but there was one particular part of it that is also in this bill that I think is important, and I want to express my sincere appreciation to the chairman for agreeing to it, and I would ask if he would acknowledge this. One of the problems we have is this. There are some younger people who live with the elderly who are disruptive. I think we would all agree that the great majority of the younger people who are disabled, physically and in other ways disabled, who are put up with the elderly are in fact very decent people who cause no one any problem. What we have tried to do is to protect the right of the elderly to live by themselves when they wish to do that, without disadvantaging the great majority of people with disabilities who are in fact well- behaved. I think we are all unanimous on this. One of the things that is in this bill is a provision that authorizes funds to be appropriated, such sums as might be necessary, so if a housing authority which has decided to separate the elderly from the disabled finds that in consequence it has well behaved disabled people who are hurting for housing, it will be able to set section 8 funds to accommodate them. I appreciate the gentleman putting this in. This will become law now, but we will need some help with the Committee on Appropriations. I hope the chairman, along with the work he has already done--I know he intends to work to see that the appropriations are made available if they are needed.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I thank the ranking member of the Committee on the Judiciary for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I agree that this bill is substantially improved from the one that originally came before us, although the notion of passing a bill which has had added to it at a very unusual point in the process, namely, in the conference, language that is explicitly and admittedly unconstitutional because of its restriction on using the word ``abortion'' is an interesting way to legislate, and that is one reason that I do not like the bill. But another, as I said before, is the extent to which it is so unfair to the Republican leadership. It seemed to me that Speaker Gingrich and his arguments against censorship was entitled to more consideration that he got from his side of the aisle. I thought the Speaker was right when he opposed censorship and I am sorry to see that he has given in. But I am even more distressed at the end of my brief alliance with the Senate majority leader. The Senate majority leader had been strongly, in the last few days and few weeks, objecting to giving away access to the TV spectrum, an asset that now belongs to the public and is worth many billions of dollars--we are not sure how much--and he said, ``Don't give it away. Let's auction it off.'' I thought he was right and I was hoping we would get somewhere. Because this bill essentially gives it away. I know we are being told that we should all pretend that the bill does not really do that, just as we should pretend that the bill does not really have some language in there restricting your ability to talk about abortion on the Internet. But the fact is that this legislation was drafted with the intention of giving a substantial public asset to the broadcasters. I believe it is in error. I would hope we would defeat this today, send it back to conference, let them simply put in auction language. Let us auction off this very valuable aspect of the spectrum, have the billions of dollars for the public. It will be billions less than we would have to take out of Medicare or Medicaid or the environment. I am afraid that we are setting the precedent here or confirming the precedent here that free enterprise as the Republicans see it is for the poor. Because today by giving away billions of dollars to the networks, later by making similar presents to wealthy agricultural interests, we will have confirmed that free enterprise and an absence of subsidy are rules by which the poor and the working class should live. But when it comes to substantial and important wealthy economic interests, whether they control the sugar and peanut industry or whether they are networks, they will be treated quite in contradiction to the principles of free enterprise, quite without regard to free market, but instead will be given these kind of subsidies. Giving away this very substantial asset that the unused portions of the spectrum represents for no money and after they use it for a while, maybe they will think about giving it back, I doubt very much that they are going to want to do it, is a very grave error. Auctions of the unused parts of the spectrum have proved very successful, and it is a grave error not to include them here.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

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