Barney Frank

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time to say, ``I'm grateful to all of those who have risen today to say you don't need this because of the great amendment we had last year. I would note that every single one of them that said that voted against it last year, so they voted against it last year and fought it. When we got it done over their objection, they watered it down some. They now welcome it, and that's been the pattern. They said no when we tried to do it to Japan. It's worked well. They said no last year. They are always going to be against it when we try to do it, and then they'll use it only when they can to stop something better from happening.'' Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Luther]. (Mr. LUTHER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Oregon [Ms. Furse], a coauthor of the amendment.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. First, I would note every negative thing you will hear about burdensharing with Europe today, you heard from exactly the same institutional leaders against burdensharing with Japan 5 years ago. The House overrode that, insisted on burdensharing with Japan, and we are several billion dollars less poor and no less safe. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Bryant].

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, President Clinton deserves great credit for his insistence that the Japanese stop being so restrictive regarding products from overseas. The great imbalance in trade between the United States and Japan is significantly exacerbated by restrictive Japanese practices, and President Clinton is to be congratulated for his unwillingness to simply allow business as usual-- which for us in Japan has meant very little business. For most of the post war period, the United States has put our geostrategic interests ahead of our own legitimate economic needs in dealing with our wealthy allies. That was appropriate when these allies where struggling to emerge from the doldrums of the post war period, and when we all confronted a powerful Soviet Union. Today, it is entirely legitimate for the President of the United States to be assertive about legitimate American economic interests vis-a-vis these wealthy nations. The response for many in the foreign policy establishment has been critical of the President for this legitimate defense of America's interest, and many economists have also-- reflexively in my judgment--criticized the President for insisting that Japan follow rules which allow free competition within that country from overseas products. In the New York Times on June 10, Lawrence Chimerine and James Fallows made a very strong case for the kind of action the President has taken. These two distinguished scholars know a great deal about American/Japanese economic relations, and think their strong support for the President's position should be printed here because of the great light it sheds on this controversy. Japan Deserves a Tariff (By Lawrence Chimerine and James Fallows) Washington.--Although European and Asian governments have complained about the Clinton Administration's regrettable but justified proposal to place tariffs of 100 percent on 13 Japanese-made cars, most agree that Japanese trade barriers threaten the world trading system. Debate in America on the issue has been more primitive. Many free-market economists, some pundits and lobbyists for Japanese and for some European interests question whether there is even a problem to be solved. Mercifully, most have spared us the old argument that simply driving down the value of the dollar will eliminate trade imbalances. The dollar has lost two-thirds of its value against the yen in the last decade, yet trade between Japan and the United States has been remarkably unchanged, even though American products are much cheaper. But we are hearing equally tired assertions, which rest on a misleading appearance of economic sophistication. The principal claim is that Americans import too much and save too little and that the Japanese do the reverse. But this supposed insight into the trade imbalance does not tell us which is the cause and which is the effect. Most economists take it for granted that our low savings rate causes chronic, large trade deficits, because when we spend too heavily, we inevitably buy huge quantities of foreign goods. Yet it is just as proper to argue the reverse--that the large trade deficits caused by artificial barriers to American exports help create the low savings rate. This happens because reduced exports to, say, Japan mean smaller payrolls and profits at home. With less money earned, less is saved. And less is paid in taxes, driving up the Federal deficit and further depressing savings (because the Government borrows to finance the deficit). The existence of formidable Japanese trade barriers is indisputable. Studies by the Economic Strategy Institute and other research groups estimate that if Japan's markets behaved like those of other industrialized countries, Japan would import up to $200 billion more in goods each year than it now does; of this, almost $50 billion would come from the United States. The United States should raise its savings rate to limit reliance on foreign capital and to encourage productive investment--the key to vigorous long-term growth. But even if we do, we are likely to have a trade problem with Japan unless Japan changes. South Korea and Singapore, whose savings rates are even higher than Japan's also have large trade deficits with Japan. Another faulty assertion in the debate over imposing a punitive tariff on Japan is that we're only hurting ourselves. Some claim we should keep our markets open regardless of what anyone else does because any other course would hurt American consumers. They ask, Why should we punish ourselves by paying more for a Lexus or an Infiniti? And they say, if the Japanese or other Asians want to penalize their own people by running a closed economy, that's their problem. We'll enjoy the benefit of bargain-priced goods. But Americans need jobs and income to buy even bargain- priced goods. Countries that combine closed markets with aggressive exporting to the United States effectively cut the number of good American jobs and thus consumer income. Closed foreign markets also inhibit our producers from investing, supporting research and development and creating new jobs. A third argument against the tariff on Japanese luxury cars is that American car companies brought their problems on themselves by being lazy and greedy and not making cars suitable for Japan's left-side driving. This is the oldest red herring of all. Our auto producers make millions of right-hand-drive models for other left-side markets like Britain's. The real issue is the cartel-like structure that ties Japanese parts makers, auto companies and dealers together in networks that are hard for outsiders to penetrate, no matter how attractive their products are. In the auto parts business, there is no question of ``wrong side'' spark plugs, microcontrollers or piston rings. At current exchange rates, many American-made auto parts sell for one-third the price of Japanese-made items. American-made parts are of such high quality that the nation has an auto- parts trade surplus with Europe, where they are heavily used by BMW, Mercedes and other demanding manufacturers. Nonetheless, American parts have captured only 2 percent of the Japanese market. And Japanese-owned auto assembly plants in the United States use at most only 50 to 60 percent American-made parts. Finally, the silliest assertion is that the Administration's tariff might lead countries manipulation of international commerce for national advantage. In raising this warning, the Europeans and Japanese are being hypocritical--and they know it. The Europeans know it because their trade with Japan has long been managed in a Draconian way. Ever wonder why there are virtually no Japanese cars in France or Italy? It isn't because the Japanese are not trying hard enough or have the wrong steering wheels. It is because Europeans sharply limit the number of Japanese cars they will let in each year. The Japanese know it because their own diplomats and foreign aid specialists advise the Thais, Russians, Indonesians and anyone else who will listen that careful controls on trade and capital are the best way to preserve an industrial base. America's economy has its own mass of trade regulations and subsidies. But its markets are the most open of all the big industrialized countries. Japan's are the least open. Ever freer trade over the last four decades has helped much of the world prosper. If there is a threat to the continued progress of this movement, it comes from those who pretend that problems with free trade--especially those created by the chronic American-Japanese trade imbalance--do not exist. The Administration is at least trying to deal with this problem, which, if unaddressed, will destroy American support for free trade in general. If those who are most concerned about saving the world trade system don't like the Clinton solution, let them come up with a better and more realistic approach.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, that is because they never counted military spending.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, in this case I would put being taxpayer friendly ahead of being family friendly. I think our families would not mind if we debated some serious issues about defense and you let us talk about cutting $9 billion back to the President's level.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I thank the former chairman of the Committee on Rules for whose regime I have become increasingly nostalgic. It is hard to be vocal when one is gagged. This rule will provide for the least adequate discussion of a defense authorization bill in the 15 years I have been in Congress. There has not, in my time here, been a rule which so severely limited Members' ability to discuss things. Efforts by Members on our side to reduce the overall authorization to the President's number were simply arbitrarily canceled. They were ruled out of order. The chairman said, We tried hard. They tried hard, having first made it clear that they could not succeed. We are in session 3 days this week. Apparently, under the Republican calendar, we only have this week for the defense bill. We did nothing on Monday. We will do nothing on Friday. To cram the entire defense authorization bill, $270 billion, the biggest single discretionary item, into 3 days, with general debate, with the rule, when you then have 2 days in which we do nothing, why were we not meeting on Monday or Friday? Why under this new, hard- working Republican regime would we not be dealing with this bill? We have a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday setting. The Seawolf issue will not be coming up. Burden sharing is up. But burden sharing in the past has had three or four different versions that Members could choose among. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Bryant, had a much more forceful one that I was prepared to support in addition to my own. It is not allowed. The Committee on rules simply has restricted discussion of these issues more than they have ever been. We will not be talking about the single biggest item in the discretionary budget. We will not be talking about Seawolf. We will have one version to choose from. In some cases, important issues will be debated for 20 minutes; in some cases, 40 minutes. But we will be indeed extremely restricted. The Republican party has decided to begin increasing military spending at the expense of health research and Medicare and Head Start and other programs, and we will not allow a serious discussion. This is not a rule brought forward by Members who want a lot of attention to what they are doing. This is a rule that says, We are going to increase military spending significantly, far more than it seems to me needed, and we will have very restricted debate. The notion that efforts to bring the authorization level down to what the President proposed will not be allowed is outrageous. The chairman of the Committee on rules said, Well, we did not do this and we did not do that. I suppose if you were on trial and you were going to be sentenced for some crime, you could plead all the crimes you did not commit. I do not think that would be very persuasive. Frankly, I would rather have some of these issues up, whether it was king of the hill or king of the mountain or queen of the May. We could vote on them. The gentleman said, We will not vote on them at all. We have got nothing. The gentleman has made a mountain into a molehill. A hill would look pretty good to us right now. The single most important issue we have got, and it is the most restricted rule I can imagine.

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, we will do some strange things this year, as legislative bodies often do, but I believe this is the looniest tune that will be sung here. We are simply going to buy 20 new B-2 bombers for a mission that did not exist when the bomber existed. It is truly a plane in search of a mission. We have a rule which insulates more nuclear submarines from even being debated here. People should understand, yes, there are dangerous countries in the world today other than the Soviet Union. There were 10 years ago. The biggest single threat has been defeated, and to have people come and tell us, now the Soviet Union has collapsed, that the world is a more dangerous place simply illustrates how desperately people will flail around for arguments to justify things they must have some other reason for wanting to do. But understand the consequences. We are in a zero-sum situation. Build more nuclear submarines, and you must cut Medicare; build more B- 2 bombers and it comes out of college student aid; give the Pentagon $9 billion more than the President asked for and prevent the House from voting to reduce it to the President's number, and you will cut the National Institutes of Health. Members on the other side have said to the American people, ``Gee, we would like to do more about cancer research. We do not want to make your students pay more in college. We are sorry we are cutting back on Medicare. We wish we could do more about education. We would like to have more help to cities trying to combat water pollution, but we cannot afford it.'' Why can we not afford it? Because we have brought forward a bill today which lavishes money on the Pentagon and restricts amendments that would try to cut it, and understand that we are not simply talking about a dangerous world. We are talking about a world in which people on the other side want the United States disproportionately to bear the burden. They will cut foreign assistance for Africa, hundreds of millions that will go to keep poor children from starving, but then having cut the hundreds of millions from the poorest of the poor in Africa, they will give tens of billions to the Europeans and the wealthy East Asians so they do not have to have military budgets of their own. This is a continued blank check from the United States to the wealthy nations of the world. We do too little to alleviate poverty. We do far too much to support luxury in parts of the world which do not have to spend money because we do. I say to my colleagues, ``Vote for this bill as it is, and you guarantee the kind of painful cuts in education and health and elsewhere that we could avoid.''

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, well, one solution to the problem would be not to build more B-2 bombers that we do not need, not to build more Sea Wolf submarines, not to add billions to the President's budget for defense, and instead put that into Medicare. Medicare does need some help, and if the Republicans would stop increasing military spending beyond what we need and instead use it for Medicare, that would help, in particular. We heard the most astounding thing today. The chairman of the Committee on Rules said that an amendment offered by the second ranking Democrat on the Committee on Armed Services could not be debated, and it would have allowed the House to vote on whether or not we should add $9 billion over the President's request for the military. They want to raise the budget by $9 billion in that regard, and the chairman of the Committee on Rules said, ``Oh, no, it is too delicate. We are negotiating now with the Senate, so we cannot let you vote on it.'' In other words, to preserve their negotiating position with the Senate, apparently knowing that it is a weak one, they will muffle this House, they will stifle this House. And so you want to help Medicare? Do not waste that $9 billion. Use it where it is needed.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I ask unanimous consent to offer some solutions, for 1 minute.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, the city of New Bedford is an ethnically diverse, older industrial city, which is also one of the major fishing ports in the country. Thus, it has had its share of experience with all of the problems that affect modern America. And this has given the New Bedford Standard Times, the newspaper of New Bedford, a very good perspective on versions of these problems, including that of urban crime. It is for this reason that the very thoughtful and cogent editorial which ran in the Standard Times on May 25 seems to me worth sharing here. Too often today, in American journalism, bad news is all that gets attention. And the antidote to this is not factitious and unfounded optimism, but a willingness to look at encouraging trends in a thoughtful way, and to see what we can do to promote these trends. The editorial in the Standards Times which I ask to be printed here does exactly that. The Standard Times quotes New Bedford Police Chief Richard Benoit in strong support of community policing. It points out that ``grassroots policing and community building activities that prevent crime from occurring in the first place, are an essential part of an overall anticrime strategy. No one can accuse the Standard Times of being soft on crime, or unaware of the need for strong law enforcement measures. The balance and thoughtful appraisal it gives of recent crime fighting efforts is all the more valuable for that reason. I ask that the editorial be printed here. [From the New Bedford Standard Times, May 25, 1995] Sunnier Crime Statistics Point the Direction for the Future Life in the community got a lot better in New Bedford in 1994, judging by the crime statistics just released for the state. This city was one of a handful to experience a sharp drop in serious crime--a full 27 percent. Other towns and cities did even better; [[Page E1216]] crime in Plymouth dropped an amazing 67.6 percent, Weymouth 40.2 percent. And in case anyone suspects that all towns and cities had the same results, look at Fall River, where the decline was modest, at 4.4 percent, and at Lowell, where crime rose 44.5 percent. What is going on here? Is this news for New Bedford as good as it seems? Perhaps it is. While it is not safe to make sweeping conclusions based on one year's statistics, something obviously went right in New Bedford last year. It goes against the reputation of this city to learn that there were just three murders here last year; that's fewer than some small towns experience. And it is far cry from such places as gang-infested Gary, Indiana, the per capita murder capital of the country, which can barely keep count. New Bedford Police Chief Richard Benoit's view is that community policing--more uniformed officers working in concert with neighborhood associations--are making a dramatic difference. ``You can put as many undercover officers out there but you wouldn't be having the same effect on someone who sees a uniformed officer,'' he told our reporter. That strikes us as common sense, and it ought to be remembered by those in the state Legislature and in Congress who believe that the most effective way to fight crime is to endlessly build new prisons while starving the grassroots policing and community-building activities that prevent crime from occurring in the first place. It used to be that liberals were routinely mocked for being for all the ``soft'' community programs intended to build character and keep young lives from going the wrong way. Now, the majority in Congress has set its sights on much the same objective, couching it in terms of such things as traditional ``family values'' and the old social structures in which people watched out for each other. It would pay these lawmakers to keep an eye on New Bedford and other places, where such things are being tried with apparent success. It is not that this community has suddenly become an oasis of calm in a crime-ridden America. Heaven knows we still have our problems with drugs and violence. It just pays to remember that it could be far worse, it has been far worse, and our own experience can be our guide.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I want to reinforce what the gentlewoman from Colorado said. It is inconceivable to me that the proposal on the budget made by the President would not come forward. I want to add, I have been disturbed, I had hoped we had had some progress on the rule, but I do not really believe that we have. In the first place, 3 days to do the defense bill is inadequate. Now in fairness to the chairman of the Committee on Rules, given an inadequate amount of time there is not much he can do about that, but I would say to the leadership on the Republican side, 3 days to do the whole defense bill, which I assume includes debating the rule, which includes the general debate, and then amendments on this enormous amount of money which is in fact being increased, is clearly going to be inadequate, and we are seeing a restriction. In particular I would like to urge and I would say to my friend, the chairman of Committee on Rules, if he is going to continue to do these rules that have a 6 hour and 8 hour, in the name of basic fairness, quorum calls should not come out of that time. If there is a debate about someone's words being taken down, it should not come out of that time. The problem now is that you give us the 6 hours and the clock does not stop. It is like a basketball game where the time outs and the fouls and everything else just run the clock, and then obviously allows people to game it, and even if they are not trying to game it, it is a problem. So to them a rule with a hour limit if it does not exclude from that time things like quorum calls, fights over points of order, et cetera, we are clearly making a mockery of the process, and I would hope that that would not continue to happen.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, will the gentlewoman yield further?

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I am glad to hear that from the gentleman. I would hope that in the future if we do have a time certain there would be exclusions, you know, words being taken down or quorum calls, et cetera. The only thing I would like to say though as I am told that in accordance with past practice the minority on the Committee on Rules has been given a tentative list of amendments, and the gentlewoman from Colorado is conspicuous by her absence from that list. I am told that there is a tentative list out and the amendment that the gentlewoman from Colorado is proposing, the President's numbers, was not on that list. I hope that that was very tentative and soon to be corrected, because it does seem to us a major omission for that not to be there.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I just want to hope that the House dining room has got the television on and heard what the gentleman said.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, if the gentlewoman will continue to yield, I do not regard it as an acceptable trade-off that you cut off debate time to have a quorum call. I do not think cutting debate on important amendments is an acceptable defense of a very arbitrary and unfair rule.

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I would just like to note that under this unfair rule we have, the quorum call, a totally unnecessary quorum call came out of the time for amendments. We will probably have one less amendment because for no valid parliamentary reason, we spent about 25 minutes with a quorum call so somebody could get a bigger audience. And under the crazy rule we have, a quorum call comes out of the time and the quorum call has probably eclipsed one amendment.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I am struck by a terrible national epidemic that appears to have settled on the land. Significant numbers of right-wing thinkers, politicians, and advocates appear to all have gone deaf in one ear. Recently, we have heard many of the Republicans leaders and conservatives denounce violence, the advocacy thereof. People have talked about movies and other forms of entertainment in speeches which advocate violence. Strangely, however, they only seem to hear one kind of violence. When Gordon Liddy talks about how to shoot Federal law enforcement officials, he gets an award from some of these people. When entertainers who have Republican leanings make movies in which large numbers of people are shot for no apparent reason, that is apparently good. When people on the left say things that might be equally offensive to many of us, that draws condemnation. Obviously, those who believe in civil liberties, those who believe in free speech, believe in it no matter what the politics of those who say it, so when we have this one- sided effort to criticize people who advocate violence or do not preach family values, but it is only aimed at one side of the spectrum, I am forced to conclude that there is some mysterious ailment in the land which has ended the hearing in the right ear of many of my colleagues. I hope that the National Institutes of Health, if there is any money left in its budget when the Republicans are through cutting taxes, raising defense, and cutting NIH, I hope they will look at this strange disease which makes it impossible for people to hear the advocacy of violence on the right and condemn it only when it comes from people they disagree with.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, one of the areas where we must as a country do a better job is trying to diminish the disparity in respect for the rights of workers that exist between our country and many other countries which would trade with us. There will inevitably be differences in the cost structure of manufacturing in different countries, especially in those that are in different states of development. But any cost disadvantage which we face should not be exacerbated by situations in which workers in less developed countries are deprived of fundamental rights to organize or to advocate for their own legitimate self-interest. We should be insisting as part of our international economic policy that nations which seek favorable treatment from us as recipients of assistance, or as participants in open trade agreements which they will find advantageous, provide a framework in which the legal rights of workers in those countries are fully respected. An example of the relevance of this recently came to my attention in a letter sent by AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland to the co-Prime Minister of the Royal Cambodian Government. In this letter, Mr. Kirkland objects quite legitimately to provisions in the labor law which is about to be promulgated in Cambodia. I ask that Mr. Kirkland's letter to the Cambodian Government be printed here, as an example of the kind of reasonable action we should be taking in the area of international workers rights, both as a matter of fairness, and as a way of preventing undue deterioration through competitive pressures in the rights of workers in America. American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, Washington, DC, May 5, 1995. H.E. Norodom Ranariddh, H.E. Hun Sen, Co-Prime Ministers, Royal Cambodian Government, Council of Ministers, Phnom Penh, Kingdom of Cambodia. Your Excellencies: As the leader of the America's national trade union confederation and its 14 million members, I write to express my concerns about the failure of Cambodia's current draft labor law to meet international labor standards in several key areas. I strongly urge you to take immediate action in the appropriate deliberative body to revise Articles 281, 306, and 377 of the draft to bring them into compliance with the relevant International Labor Organization (ILO) Conventions. The current version of Article 281 clearly fails to comply with ILO Convention 87, which guarantees workers the most fundamental protection, freedom of association. As now written, the draft Article requires all employee associations to affiliate with government-established national federations. We wish to point out to your Excellencies that such a requirement not only violates international standards, but it is also contrary to Articles 36 and 41 of the Cambodia Constitution which guarantee Cambodian citizens the right to freely associate and form employee organizations, including trade unions, of their own choosing. Freedom of association is the most vital component for the establishment of a modern, peaceful, stable, and representative industrial relations system; such a system will put Cambodia on the path to sustainable economic development. By taking a far-sighted view and amending Article 281, Your Excellencies will make a decision that would provide a stable, dynamic environment to help guarantee foreign investment that benefits both the Cambodian people and the investors. Moreover, guaranteeing freedom of association will be praised by the international community and improve Cambodia's chances of meeting requirements for receiving trade benefits from the United States including GSP and OPIC. As you may know, technical assistance in crafting an amended Article 281 provision is available from the Cambodia office of the Asian-American Free Labor Institute (AAFLI), the AFL-CIO's Asia institute. We also urge you to bring Articles 306 and 377, key worker protection provisions in the code, into compliance with international norms. Failing to provide basic worker rights in these areas will not only create difficulties in international fora, like the ILO, but will also endanger the lives and livelihoods of Cambodian workers. We certainly understand the importance of Most Favored Nation (MFN) status, Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), and Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) trade benefits to assist the development of Cambodia, and do not take lightly the needs of your country, which is still suffering the effects of over 20 years of war. As I'm sure you know, we continue to support the provision of international assistance to Cambodia by the U.S. and other countries. However, if the Royal Cambodian Government decides to pass a labor law that fails to guarantee freedom of association in accordance with international standards, the AFL-CIO will oppose the granting of GSP and OPIC benefits to Cambodia and work with the Congress and the Clinton Administration to that end. Furthermore, we would also work with our friends in the international labor movement to consider other actions as necessary. Since there is still time before this draft code comes before you and the Cabinet, I urge Your Excellencies personally intervene to amend Articles 281, 306, and 377 and bring them into compliance with the relevant ILO Conventions. Thank you for your attention to our concerns and I look forward to hearing from you in the near future. Sincerely, Lane Kirkland, President.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, let me make clear we are not talking about abstractions here. Last week, Mr. Speaker, we had in the Committee on Banking and Financial Services the single silliest day in the history, I believe, of the House of Representatives. We voted in the Committee on Banking and Financial Services the week before to pass out a deregulation bill, but while we were having the rollcall on that bill, a rollcall was in progress on the floor of the House, because the committee was meeting simultaneously with the floor proceedings. In fact, the chairman, an honorable man, trying to do his best under a set of silly rules, had called a rollcall on an amendment, and he announced that there would be a rollcall right after that on the bill. Many members, mostly Republicans who voted first on the amendment, did not hear that, so they left. They came to the floor. As a result, last week, all the members of the Committee on Banking and Financial Services interrupted what we were doing, those who had gotten the notice, and we sat in the Committee on Banking and Financial Services and we pretended to vote on the banking bill. The only reason we had that meeting to vote on the banking bill was that the week before we had a simultaneous rollcall in committee and a rollcall on the floor. Some of the Republican Members were distressed because, having left to vote on the floor rollcall, they missed the rollcall in committee. That is what we are inviting when we have simultaneous rollcalls on both levels, we get this kind of problem. Mr. Speaker, it was the Republicans who insisted that the chairman of the committee have this phony meeting. We all sat there, it was like a play, and we all voted. It was the silliest waste of time ever. Why? Because of this kind of tactic. Therefore, what we have here is that the Republicans took power in January and announced this wonderful contract and all these rules changes, but we should have checked the warranty on the contract, because apparently, on the rules changes, it was good only until inconvenient. I have never seen people profess good intentions, as they define them, and so little live up to them as we have seen here. The kind of burlesque that we had in the Committee on Banking and Financial Services last week, where we had a rollcall vote, a solemn rollcall vote solely because some Republican Members had missed the previous rollcall vote because there was another rollcall vote going on was silly, but what the Republican leadership wants to do is to create the circumstances in which that silliness will recur.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I was referring in part to the formulation of homos in the military. The gentleman has been very careful since that time to say homosexuals, but he was not very careful when he got up on the floor, and I took specific offense to the deliberately bigoted and belittling form of words that he chose to use.