Dick Gephardt

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, I rise on this rule today to let the American people know of the subterfuge that is going on in these waning days of the Congress. If this rule passes, we will have a bill which amends the budget law to raise the spending limits that now enforce our discretionary budget to reflect the leadership's wanderlust for spending over the past 2 months. This is the day of reckoning for Republicans to wake up and admit the budget resolution they set forth earlier this year was based on a false premise. But in typical fashion, the leadership has decided to determine unilaterally the fiscal priorities of this Congress without a bipartisan agreement on education funding. No money for new teachers, no money for school repairs or expansion, no money for after-school. I ask Members to support the Democratic effort to defeat the previous question so we can appropriately decide the scope of our education investment and then set the new spending levels accordingly. I deeply regret that we have reached this point in the larger budget process. This is no way to run a budget process, a Congress, or a country. This body does not meet. We do not negotiate. We do not discuss. Republican leaders take off 5 days at a time; and as a result, our basic work is undone because we are not here doing our work. The result is one of the biggest budget disasters that anybody can remember. My colleagues on the other side have been so busy throwing money at projects just to get out of town that we have already spent $11.4 billion over the President's request, $11.4 billion over what the President asked for, and they still have not spent a dime to hire a new teacher or build a new school. They have not spent a dime on quality teaching or after-school programs because they have refused to make education the priority of this Congress. We now pass a new CR every day because we are so far into the fiscal year and so far behind in our work. We should be focused on legislation to lift up every public school. This should be the true focus and passion of this Congress. Instead, just yesterday Republican leaders rejected the bipartisan Johnson-Rangel bill supported by 228 Members, Democrats and Republicans, to help districts with school construction, and they came up with their own plan that is a day late and a dollar short. Their plan creates incentives that delay school construction, and half the benefit does not even go to school districts but to bond holders. Private investors. Not children, not principals, not teachers, but bond holders. We are calling on the leadership to pass the bipartisan school construction measure to help modernize our schools. This bill reduces the burden on local taxpayers struggling to finance new construction for their communities. We urge Republican leaders to set aside their opposition and provide enough funding for teachers, emergency school repairs, after-school programs and teacher training, and to put all these measures into the education bill so the President can sign a bill that improves our schools this year. Let us not block progress on education. Let us impose order on this irresponsible budget process. Let us do the work of the American people on education. Stop the delays, stop the foot dragging, stop the electioneering and accomplish something meaningful for our children. We can still salvage something important from this budget process. Let us get it done, and let us get it done this week.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this Continuing Resolution, the fourth resolution in as many weeks to keep the government open. I call on Republicans to stop the delays, stop the obfuscation, and keep Congress in session so we can finish our work. We must do the people's agenda, and we must do it now. We are now three weeks beyond the start of the fiscal year, and the light at the end of the tunnel is still not shining brightly. We do not meet. We take off days at a time. We spend our time on the floor naming courthouses, voting on suspension bills. And the American people are not seeing any results. Education is America's number one priority. But this Congress has failed to meet the challenge. Republicans have refused to dedicate funding to reduce class size and for school construction. They are unwilling to fund critical priorities so communities can hire more teachers, improve teacher quality, and provide more after-school programs. Instead, they support block grants with no accountability that a single teacher will be hired or a single classroom fixed. They also let the Elementary and Secondary Education Act expire for the first time in 35 years because of their extremism. The time has come to stop the delays, stop the foot-dragging, and act on the education priorities of the American people. We should not neglect the people's agenda for personal politics. This Congress should stay in session and finish our spending work. We should take a first step to make every public school a great public school. Democrats want funding dedicated to emergency school repairs; the bipartisan Johnson-Rangel tax credit to help schools districts on school construction bonds; funding to hire 100,000 highly-qualified teachers to reduce class size, and for teacher training and recruitment and after-school programs that are an essential part of any school reform. We are in an Information Age. Every child needs to know how to read and write. Parents are working more and they are commuting more, and they have less time for children. And our public schools are not equipped to fill the breach. What we are asking for is a sensible, first step toward filling the holes in our education system. And I believe there is still time to work together, in a bipartisan way, to meet this challenge. Let's stop neglecting our work, stop passing these stopgap measures, and do what any sensible legislative body would do: finish our spending bills, fund the priorities of our people, and get away from the special interests.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, events are sometimes so horrible that words alone do not fully describe the pain and sorrow that is in all of our hearts. The tragedy aboard the U.S.S. Cole was just such an event. This act of cowardice and malice against 17 Americans who were simply doing their duty is beyond all reason. These brave soldiers died in the line of duty, and the resolution before us honors those who so valiantly gave their lives in the service of their country. It is a simple gesture, but it is so necessary. Our fallen sailors are the true heroes of our society. They worked day after day and week after week to protect our nation from harm. They spent their time promoting peace in the world. They were symbols of American values--democracy, diversity, human tolerance and understanding, opportunity and freedom. Today, America is stronger because of your brave service overseas-- and the world is a better place because of your sacrifice. We say as a country that we will not let heinous acts of terrorism deter us from our mission of peace in the Middle East and around the world. We will not rest until the people responsible for this crime are brought to justice. And we will not shrink from our duties in the world--we will continue to maintain our presence and promote freedom, democracy, and better relations among all people. I want to extend my deepest sympathies to the victims' families. Our thoughts and prayers are with you. You, too, have made the ultimate sacrifice, and we as a country are forever in your debt. Our hearts and gratitude also go out to the injured and their families who have also suffered from this attack. I salute the brave souls who fought to reclaim their ship--to save their vessel under the most difficult, wrenching circumstances. They are a tribute to our armed forces and they embody the best values in our society. Finally, I want to say, humbly, that America will never forget our fallen heros. We will always honor the sacrifice you have made so that others might live in peace.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, fate seems especially cruel when wonderful people are taken away in the prime of life, and the death of Governor Carnahan is just such a tragedy. Words alone do not fully describe the sorrow Jane and I and all Missourians feel at the loss of our Governor. Mel Carnahan was a good man. He was a decent, caring man. He loved his state, and he fought hard for every person in it. A man who considered public service a high calling, Mel had a quiet, humble demeanor and his commitment to families in Missouri made a difference in the lives of millions of people. A beloved governor, the son of two teachers in the Ozark mountains, Mel worked hard day after day to give every child a chance in life. He was committed to education with a sincere passion. We extend our deepest sympathy to Mel's wife Jean and their three surviving children; our thoughts and prayers are with them at this difficult moment. Missouri has lost a giant, and, humbly, we will work to ensure that Mel's wonderful, positive, humane spirit lives on in all our lives.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, August 8, 2000 was a sad day for the City of St. Louis and our community. On that day, St. Louis Police Officer Robert J. Stanze was killed in the performance of his duty to protect and serve the citizens of St. Louis. Officer Stanze was tragically shot and killed by a suspect in police custody. Bob Stanze was 29 years old, and leaves behind a young son and a wife, who is expecting twins. He was the 151st St. Louis Police Officer killed in the line of duty in the history of the Department. No one becomes a police officer to make money, or to work easy hours. We all know that our officers work long hours, in dangerous situations, for a very modest salary. Nor is it fame that drives citizens to join the force. Rather, they join out of a sense of duty to their community and their unending belief that they can make a difference. Bob Stanze was one who was making a difference. His belief in duty and honor and justice formed his life, and was reflected in the way he conducted himself on and off the job. Mr. Speaker, the loss of this fine young man is a great tragedy. His wife has lost his companionship--his son and unborn children have lost the love, guidance and example of a very special man. The entire St. Louis Community grieves with his family for their loss. Police Officer Robert J. Stanze has left a legacy of decency and bravery that won't be soon forgotten, and we are grateful to have had him among us.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, here we are again on another continuing resolution some 11, 12, or 13 days into the fiscal year; and we have not begun to finish our work. I am very disappointed that we come to the floor again to debate another continuing resolution simply to keep the government going. We should have had all of the appropriation bills done 12 days ago. This Republican Congress has been so busy throwing money at things, helping candidates, and our time and our energy have been so taken up by the contrived 90-10 scheme put out by the other side, that we have been unable to do our most basic work. My biggest fear is that in all of this, education, which is the most important challenge and issue facing our country, is being shortchanged. We should not be taking another full week in which we drift aimlessly and squander, as Republicans would have us do, key opportunities on education. So we are going to vote for this resolution, but we are putting the Republican leadership on notice. Until we have an opportunity to deal with education, this is the end of the line on comfortable stop-gap measures that keep the government open week by week. Democrats believe that education is priority number one, two and three. I know that many of my colleagues believe that we are talking about the bare minimum on education; much more important an agenda than we have had on any other issue. We need to give every child the time and attention they need from adults and the life opportunities they deserve. The three items that Democrats believe are the keys to education are the following: tax cuts for school construction, hiring new teachers and reducing class size, and funding key programs like after-school and Pell Grants. This is the bare minimum of what we need to do. And, unfortunately, while Republicans have been on their spending spree, coming up with false budgets to reduce the debt, education has been shoved to the side by this Congress with a set of priorities that are skewed, to say the least. We want a reasonable, bipartisan tax credit for school construction, and we want funding for emergency repairs. But Republicans are starving that priority because, while they talk about their commitment to education, they do very little to back up that commitment with the proper resources and the proper commitment to those resources. We want in Labor-HHS funding that is dedicated to hiring new qualified teachers and reducing class size. But our friends on the other side have created loopholes in the bill so big that the money could be spent for anything. Finally, as part of this first step this year, we support funding for after-school programs so that our children can get the time and attention they need to become productive, functional law-abiding citizens. Listen to this. We have over 2 million people in jail in this country. They do not pay taxes, they do not vote, they do not raise their families, they do not give to charity. They are not functional citizens. They cost us about $40,000 per person per year to hold them. At the same time, we have 2 million jobs in this country that we cannot fill. We are about to pass an H-1B law that would let more foreign immigrants come into the country to fill these high-tech jobs, and all of us support the legislation because we need to fill the jobs. The answer to those two stark contradictory facts is that we are not doing a good enough job with educating and raising our children so we prevent them from going to jail, so we get them to take these jobs and give them the education and the mental ability that they need to do it. We have to do better and we cannot wait until next year to do better. The opportunity is in front of us now, by giving our public schools and our families the resources and the incentives that they need to lift up every child. So let us stop squandering our opportunities and let us work together in a bipartisan fashion in these next few days on the most important priority for the American people. Let us get our work done, but let us do it in a bipartisan way. Let us stop spending our time on naming post offices and passing resolutions that have little import or meaning. Let us stop spending our time buying another week of time so that we can do work that we should have done 3 months ago. Let us get to work in a bipartisan way and serve the needs of the education of our children in this bill. Democrats will no longer support continuing resolutions to keep the government running for weeks on end. We will support a bipartisan education bill that finally helps the children of this country.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today because once again this Congress has failed the American people and handed the special interests a victory. I am deeply disappointed with this reimportation provision in this bill. There is now widespread agreement that this measure will do next to nothing for the American people. A lobbyist for a major drug company told The New York Times that he doubted ``that anyone will realize a penny of savings from this legislation.'' Last month, Democrats and Republicans were working hard to craft effective importation legislation that contains strong safety standards. Reimportation was on its way to becoming a real achievement for the American consumer. To be sure, reimportation was never a substitute for a Medicare prescription benefit that offered a guaranteed benefit and lower medicine prices for all seniors. But it was a step in the right direction, a rare example of what we as a Congress could do when we set aside our differences and come together to help the people of this country. But a few days ago, just as we were about to move forward, the bipartisan dynamic ran into a brick wall, a brick wall of a leadership unbending to compromise, unwilling to detach itself from special interests to pursue a larger agenda. Operating behind closed doors, after a bipartisan agreement had almost been reached, the Republican leadership torpedoed a sound reimportation measure that could have resulted in lower prices for millions of consumers. Looking for political cover after repeatedly blocking a Medicare prescription benefit, the Republican leadership put out a sham reimportation measure that is not worth the government paper that it is printed on. Riddled with loopholes, this measure allows pharmaceutical companies to circumvent the new law and it sunsets in 5 years. So whatever benefits come from the bill the American people can be sure that they will disappear soon. And we are told that the people in the industry that would do this will not even set it up if there is a 5- year sunset provision. The measure as it now stands is nothing more than a capitulation to the special interests at whose bidding the Republican leadership works. Listen to what people are saying about the watered down measure. The New York Times today reported that ``doubts are growing about legislation to allow imports of low-priced prescription drugs, and no one in the government or the drug industry can say how it will work or even whether it will work.'' The health policy coordinator at the White House said this measure is now ``unworkable.'' What happened to the bipartisan, sensible measure that we should be voting on today? Why did the leadership torpedo that bill and replace it with a meaningless measure that does nothing for real people? The answer lies in a leadership that is so tied to special interests that it blocks major initiatives at the expense of the American people. Congress has wasted 2 years now trying to accomplish something meaningful for the American consumer. But this leadership has been more devoted to the powerful lobbies than to working families. The leadership blocked campaign finance reform, a Patients' Bill of Rights, a Medicare prescription benefit, gun safety legislation, and a modest increase in the minimum wage as favors to HMOs, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, big business, and the NRA. I and many of my colleagues will support this measure because it contains disaster relief and hunger relief for many in our country. But time is running out on this Congress. We have only a few days to do something meaningful for the American people. Reimportation is dead. But I believe with all my heart there is time to do something with the people's agenda. We can still pass the bipartisan bills that majorities in Congress have already supported, that the President says he will sign, and that the American people want. I urge the leadership to stop blocking America's agenda. Let us do what the American people sent us here to do and let us do it in a bipartisan way.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, today, we say goodbye to a good friend and colleague, Bruce Vento. Bruce was a humanitarian in every sense of the word. He called environmental issues his one ``true passion'' and he pursued that passion in a way that lifted up all Americans. He was a strong leader in the Committee on Resources with a keen understanding of environmental issues. He worked to protect and strengthen America's national treasures--our urban parks, our public lands, and other public resources, and he fought for tropical rain forests and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He believed in making our country not just a wealthy country but a beautiful country, marked by forests, rivers, mountains and streams that all American could visit and enjoy. Bruce was `'a hero'' who had ``done more for parks than anyone I know,'' one of his fans said of him. Bruce was also special because he cared so very deeply about all people and the sanctity of the places in which they lived. He earned a reputation as a strong advocate for the homeless, and it was well-deserved. He tried to lift people up through better housing and emergency shelter, a powerful reminder that this country should not leave behind anyone. Bruce spend the last decade working for the Hmong people who fought on the side of the United States in the war in Vietnam, and who were trying to become citizens of our country. He was also a tireless advocate for consumer protections as a senior member of the Banking and Financial Services Committee. A strong voice for his constituents, a beloved son of the state of Minnesota, Bruce represented that state's 4th district with dedication and commitment to his party and to the people he represented. Bruce and I entered Congress in the same year and my journey through this institution is bound with Bruce's journey. I am proud to say that I had a wonderful colleague, a good friend, and a man who will be sorely missed not just by me, but by a nation that prides itself on a commitment to democratic values, a safe environment and humane treatment for every American. We will miss you Bruce.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of re- authorization of the Violence Against Women Act. We passed this act as part of the Democratic Crime bill in 1994 and that was a critical first step in recognizing and addressing the problems of domestic violence. When we passed that act, the statistics on domestic violence were startling: In 1994, 40% of women admitted to the hospital for injuries were there because of violence from a spouse or significant other. Battery was the single major cause of injury to women--more than rape, muggings and auto accidents combined. Even more distressing is the consensus that only a fraction of all incidents of abuse are reported to the police. Research shows that women are being abused not only at home, but at their place of work. This violence is also perpetrated against young women at colleges and universities. In late 1994, I put in place a local domestic violence task force, bringing together community leaders, prosecutors, law enforcement officials, as well as representatives from some of the leading domestic violence organizations in my district in Missouri. So far, my home state has received over $15 million in federal funding as a result of this act. And my constituents have consistently sent a simple message about this law: it works. It works in Missouri because it is making a real difference in the day-to-day struggle to combat domestic violence in St. Louis City, south St. Louis County, Jefferson County, and Ste. Genevieve County. In fact, we have come up with a number of improvements on this measure, improvements that will make it even more effective. I look forward to working in Congress to make these changes next year. I am glad that the Republican party has finally brought this measure to the floor, and that it has done so before the authorization expires later this week. Today's vote, which I urge everyone here to support, reaffirms America's commitment to fighting domestic violence in every community. It sends a message that this society will do everything it can to fight this scourge--to make sure communities have the resources they need--and that women have the protections they deserve.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this bill to keep the government running when the new fiscal year begins on Sunday. But I regret that we are forced to pass such a bill. We never should have reached this point. Instead of doing the important work of the American people, we have spent the last year bringing forward a series of massive tax cuts focused primarily on the wealthiest Americans. This Congress has spent most of the year debating tax cuts for the wealthiest that left no money for debt reduction, basic appropriations, or anything else. We saw this coming a long time ago. This chain of events was set in motion by the Republican-passed tax cuts. It was set in motion by a single-minded devotion, tax breaks for the wealthiest, that has overwhelmed and taken the place of the whole budget process. The result is that we have been unable to accomplish the bare minimum and pass the annual appropriations bills required by law, and still, even at this late hour, 11 of the 13 bills remain to be enacted. We have been prevented from passing a budget that addresses the needs of working families and keeps us on the path of fiscal discipline. And then, 3 weeks before the end of the session, after the Republican tax package did not fly, Republicans abandoned their strategy and shifted to portray themselves as the champions of debt reduction. But the new so-called 90-10 budget was no better than the old budget, because it was only for 1 year. It did not hold the promise of true debt reduction because it allowed Republicans to return next year or the year after and again pass huge tax cuts that would blow a hole in our surpluses. I wrote a letter to the Speaker asking him to come up with a new budget, a new framework, so that we could complete our work and move on with the business of the American people. I have not received a reply. Today, we have before us a stopgap bill that, of course, everyone should support. Nobody wants to repeat the government shutdown. But the issue before us is not just the leadership's inability to enact the critical appropriations bills. The issue is the larger failure of this Congress to act on an agenda that finally, at long last, puts families first; an agenda that I believe a majority of the American people want us to pursue: Tax cuts focused on middle class and working families; a Patients' Bill of Rights to enforceably protect patients from the accountants and HMOs; a real Medicare prescription benefit that guarantees seniors access to affordable medicines; funds dedicated to building new classrooms and hiring additional teachers, so we can finally reduce class size and give children the education they need and deserve; real debt reduction that pays off the debt entirely by 2012 and still leaves enough money for tax cuts for working families. My constituents and Americans throughout the country want us to pursue and realize this agenda. But this agenda has been blocked by special interests. It has been blocked by Republican leaders determined to not do this agenda. A meaningful Patients' Bill of Rights has been blocked to protect HMOs and insurance companies. Middle-class tax cuts were blocked in the name of huge tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. Real serious long- term debt reduction was blocked again in the name of huge tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. The minimum wage has been blocked as a favor to big business. And education incentives to modernize our schools and hire new teachers has been blocked in the name of partisan ideology which tears down schools and takes money from them rather than lifting them up. Hate crimes legislation is still not law, and we have not acted on Latino and immigrant fairness issues. We support strong reimportation of drug legislation with standards, because it will bring prescription prices down for millions of Americans. I am glad that the leadership has said they want to pass such legislation, but we should not let reimportation detract from the more important issue: a Medicare prescription benefit that will be there for seniors when they need it. That has been blocked by the pharmaceutical industry. So I call on our leaders to disassociate themselves from special interests and work with us on a bipartisan basis to accomplish something meaningful for a vast majority of Americans in the days that are left of this session. Let us work together on the issues the American people truly care about and achieve something real for them in the few days that are left.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, I urge all Members to support this Obey motion, and I hope that there will be bipartisan support for this motion. We need to help more local districts deal with their desire to try to get to smaller class sizes. That, I think, is a goal that all of us can agree on. We know that smaller class size yields better academic results. We know why smaller class size works. It works for a simple reason. Parents spend one-third less time with children today than they did 20 years ago. Family life has changed in America. People have more jobs, more hours, more single-parent families, more traffic jams, more time commuting, more time away from home. And even when we are at home with kids, sometimes we do not communicate with them the way we once did. And the one institution in our society that has the ability to help families fill in some of these holes is the schools. Now, we also know that in today's world with children having less time with parents, it means they need more supervision and more attention from teachers. But it is one thing to teach 30 kids or 35 kids when I grew up in the 1950s, and it is a very different thing to be teaching 30 or 35 kids today who have the chance to spend much less time with their parents. Now, frankly, if we could have agreed on putting more dollars into this effort and left it kind of flexible as to what local districts would do, I think we could work that out. But I hope Members on both sides of the aisle in a bipartisan way will vote for this motion. It makes sense, because it is reaching the right goal. The passion of this House must be helping parents carry out their most important responsibility, and that is raising our children to be productive law- abiding citizens. And class size, we know from experience, is the best way to do that. We are willing to talk about other variations on the theme. We are willing to talk about flexibility, but we simply must in this appropriation budget process put the right amount of dollars and the right amount of effort behind America's most pressing and important need, and that is, making sure our classroom size is consistent with every child in this society being a productive law-abiding citizen. Mr. Speaker, I urge Members on both sides of the aisle to vote enthusiastically for the Obey motion.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me, and I thank the gentleman from Vermont for setting up this special order. I am happy to come to the floor today to make a few comments about this reimportation issue and other issues that I think are related to it. Let me first cite the fact that we have not passed in this Congress, and I believe we should have passed, an agenda that really puts families first; an agenda that is supported by the majority of our people; an agenda that includes a patients' bill of rights, which is desperately needed by many families; an agenda that includes reducing class size, as we spoke today on the education bills and hiring for teachers; an agenda that includes a real Medicare prescription medicine benefit, a benefit that will work, a benefit that will be there when people need it, that will make a real difference in the lives of millions of Americans. That agenda, in my view, has been blocked in every way in the name of special interests. The patients' bill of rights, as far as I can tell, has been blocked to protect HMOs and insurance companies. The middle-class tax cuts have been blocked in the name of huge tax cuts to the wealthy. Debt reduction has been blocked in the same name, huge tax cuts for the wealthy. Minimum wage has been blocked as a favor to some businesses that do not want it. Education incentives to modernize our schools and hire new teachers has been blocked for other ideas for private schools. The Medicare drug benefit has been blocked at the behest of the pharmaceutical industry. We need an affordable, meaningful prescription benefit in the reliable world of Medicare, a benefit that guarantees our seniors will have benefits when they need them, and real relief on reducing the cost of drugs. The special interests have frankly stopped a reliable Medicare prescription medicine benefit. We have squandered every opportunity we have had in this Congress to get this done. But right now we have still in this Congress the ability to do something on price for all of our citizens, not just our senior citizens. I want to remind all of us that the reimportation issue has passed both Houses of the Congress. On the Medicare prescription medicine benefit, we did pass something here. It was not the right bill, but at least we passed something. Nothing has even been brought up or passed in the Senate. But on reimportation we have passed something in both Houses. What we passed in both Houses would lower the cost of drugs in the United States by between 30 and 50 percent. This is a dramatic reduction. It could affect every American family right now. It would allow the pharmaceutical industry to buy FDA-approved drugs abroad at reduced rates and consumers could realize the savings, at least with the Senate-passed version of this bill. And, remember, we probably could have passed that better version if the rules here had allowed us to do it, but it did not. But we have in the Senate, in conference, the right provision. It would mean that millions of seniors could buy drugs at a fraction of the current cost. It is sensible, it has bipartisan support in both bodies, it sailed through the Congress, and the American people are for it. It would help seniors and other citizens now, this year. Even the month after we would pass it, people could begin buying drugs at dramatically lower prices. Now, the reality is the leadership has not allowed this measure to go to conference. It is bottled up in the Ag conference committee. It is languishing. It should not be languishing. Now, what are we doing? Why are we waiting until adjournment comes and we cannot take this up? Why has the measure not gone to conference? Why are we not doing something about this? It seems to me, and I address this to the gentleman from Vermont, that we have in these remaining weeks the ability to get this up in conference, to decide this in favor of the Senate provision, which gives people the greatest reduction in price and allows companies to actually reimport these products into the United States and get a broader price reduction for more Americans. I would simply ask the gentleman, and the gentleman from New York, who has sponsored the only thing that he could in the House, which was very positive but not as good as he wanted it to be, what we can do in the remaining days to get this done for the American people?

Mr. GEPHARDT. I thank the gentleman for his eloquent statement, and I hope in a bipartisan way we can do something that will be very, very positive and important for the American people, who are struggling to keep their health and need to have these products at a reasonable price and are happy to pay a reasonable price to be able to get these substances to keep their health. I thank the gentleman for his hard work and the gentleman from New York and the gentlewoman from Connecticut.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the ending of the marriage penalty, to say that the Democratic alternative did that for people that actually have a marriage penalty, and our problem with this bill is that it extends about 60 percent of its benefits to people that earn above the middle class and have many more means than the middle class and, frankly, do not have a marriage penalty. Our problem with the bill, and the President's problem with the bill, and the reason the bill was vetoed, is that it goes ahead and does a lot of things that have nothing to do with the marriage penalty. We are all for getting rid of the marriage penalty. For about $100 billion over 10 years, we could do that for the people that have a problem. We could be carrying on a discussion today about a bill that the President would sign that would end the marriage penalty, but that is not what was chosen to do. So we are wasting time today, again, working on a bill that has been vetoed that will never see the light of day. I go door to door in my district; I went door to door last weekend and people talked to me about all kinds of issues, prescription medicine and Medicare, a Patients' Bill of Rights, helping public education and trying to get smaller classroom sizes. And they talk about tax relief; but they want tax relief that is affordable, reasonable, feasible, and is targeted at the people that really need it. They do not think we need tax relief for people that earn $130,000, $150,000, $200,000 a year. They earn $30,000 a year or $40,000 a year; and they would like the tax relief limited and targeted at them. They also want us to save the vast majority of the surplus to pay down the debt and to take care of Social Security and Medicare. Now yesterday in a meeting in the White House, the Speaker and other Members of the Republican leadership came in with a new budget, and the new budget is that we are going to save 90 percent of the unified surplus to pay down the debt. Now, there are two problems with this. One, we are back to the unified surplus. I thought we were putting Social Security in a lockbox. If we are exposing the unified surplus to some new goal setting, 90/10, it could mean that in some years we would enter the lockbox and start spending Social Security money. I cannot imagine that we would want to do that. The second thing is, here we are on the floor today spending an hour trying to override a veto on a $300 billion tax cut. If you add up all the tax cuts that the leadership has brought to the floor and passed, you are well above 10 percent of the surplus. So the action today is inconsistent with the theory that was propounded just yesterday. We want to do these bills. I say to my friends on the other side, let us stop the posturing. Let us stop the putting out bills that are not going anywhere. People in your districts and in mine want us to do something now, this year, to end the marriage penalty. We can do the marriage penalty before these next 3 or 4 weeks are up, if we will only target it at the people that actually have a marriage penalty. Mr. Speaker, I urge Members to vote to sustain this veto. Let us sit down in a spirit of bipartisanship and let us get the job done for the American people.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Conyers motion, a motion that is in keeping with the best of our national traditions. First, let me say that I am very glad that we are finally at long last having this debate, a debate that allows us to express our feelings, our passion on one of our most important and greatest priorities. Yesterday, I stood outside of this marvelous building on the lawn just a few feet from our rotunda, and I listened to Judy Shepherd talk about the murder of her son Matthew. Judy Shepherd talked about the pain of losing a child to senseless violence and about the ugly, horrible crimes that are committed against people simply because of who they are. Matthew's mother called on our Congress to act. She called on all of us here to take a stand against hate, to renew a few simple principles into our laws, principles that say so much about who we are and what we believe. This bill is critical in so many ways. It gives law enforcement officers at all levels of government the tools they need to deal with horrible acts of hate-based violence. It sends a message to the world that crimes committed against people because of who they are, that these crimes are particularly evil, particularly offensive. It says that these crimes are committed, not just against individuals, not just against a single person, but against our very society, against America. These crimes strike fear into the hearts of others because they are meant to intimidate, to harass, to menace. When an angry man, a troubled man shot up a Jewish community center in Los Angeles, wounding teachers and students in a place that was supposed to be a sanctuary of protection, the man said that he had shot at these children because he wanted to send a message. He wanted to send a wake-up call to America to kill Jews. Today, with this bill, we reject that message in the most powerful, most forceful way that we can. Today, we as a society can say that we will do everything we can to protect people from these heinous acts, that we will not rest until America is free of this violence. This bill honors the victims of hate crimes, and it recalls their memory. It honors the memory of James Byrd who was dragged to death behind the pickup truck because the killers did not like the color of his skin. It honors Matthew Shepherd who was beaten with the butt of a gun and tied to a fence post and left to die in freezing weather because he was gay. It honors Ricky Byrdsong, a former basketball coach at my alma mater, Northwestern, who was gunned down on the street because he was black. It honors not only those victims, not just the high profile crimes, it honors all the people whose lives have been scarred by these acts, the victims who do not always make the headlines. The hate crimes that we do not hear about deserve our strong response today. So today, let us take a stand against violence. We are voting to dedicate our national resource, to bring the strongest laws that we have to bear against the most sinister thing that we know. The Conyers motion is the only motion that will strengthen our existing laws, that will strike a real blow against hate. Let me say this is a bipartisan effort. There is nothing partisan in this effort today. Republicans and Democrats are joining together. This issue transcends politics. It challenges us to look into ourselves, to search our humanity and pass a law that I guarantee my colleagues will go down in the history books. Virtually every major accomplishment that we pass ever in the history of this body has been bipartisan. This law, like the Civil Rights Act of 1965, will be a bipartisan blow against hate and violence. This is a great country. We are so wealthy. But our greatest moments are not when we produce material wealth. Our greatest moments are when we as a people manage in the face of horrible tragedy to rise up to come together to take a simple stand for basic decency. Give us this motion. Give us this law. Bring America up, rising up against hatred and against violence.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the President's veto, a veto that speaks volumes about the differences that divide us, about our competing agendas. This weekend I was back home in my district in St. Louis; and I went door to door, as I always do, and I heard from the working families who live in my district. In all the many conversations I had with my constituents, I did not get one question about what we were going to do to get rid of the estate tax. I did not hear one soul tell me to wipe out taxes for the wealthiest 2 percent of the American people. The people in my district, like I expect the people in my colleagues' districts, are not interested in tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans. They are not interested in going back to the Reagan years, the Bush years of red ink and large deficits and high interest rates and high inflation and high unemployment. Let me tell my colleagues what the people did talk about. They talked about when we are going to get a prescription medicine program for senior citizens in Medicare. They talked about getting protections from HMOs and insurance companies, so that, God forbid, the doctors and nurses were making important medical decisions and not accountants and HMO executives. They talked about education. They talked about school buildings. They talked about teachers. They talked about getting rid of guns in schools. They talked about Social Security and Medicare. They talked about paying down the national debt. They talked about doing something about middle-income tax relief. Please hear this, my colleagues. This bill is a bad bill. It is a reckless bill. It does absolutely nothing for 98 percent of the American people. Now, we proposed an alternative that would get something done if our friends would compromise. We said, let us give immediate relief to more than half the people with the smaller estates. We said, let us cut the estate tax immediately by 20 percent. We said that we can relieve 99 percent of all small businesses and family farmers from paying any estate tax. We could have done that months ago. We can do that today. The President would sign a bill that was our alternative, that would give people immediate needed relief from the estate tax. But we did not do that, because, I guess, we have to spend this precious time on the floor getting this veto sustained. This bill would give the largest 330 estates nationwide more than $10.5 million in tax cuts, on average, every year. These estates are valued at more than $20 million apiece and, meanwhile; 98 percent of our people would not see a dime in tax cuts. Add it up. When we add up all the figures, we are draining our surpluses. This bill in the second 10 years would cost over $750 billion. Let me finally say this. Last year, the Republicans sent us a trillion dollar tax cut. The President vetoed it. They did not even bring it back here for an override. So this year there was a better idea: let us cut it up into little sausage pieces and maybe we can fog one past the American people. People do not want to spend the majority of this surplus on tax cuts, and they sure do not want to spend it on tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. They want us to pay down the national debt. They want us to take care of Social Security and Medicare. They want us to spend these last days that we have on the floor in this session doing prescription medicine for our senior citizens in the Medicare program, getting a patients' bill of rights, and doing something to have better school buildings and more teachers and better education. They want us to have a minimum wage increase. They do not want this bill. I urge Members to sustain the President's veto. Let us come back with the Democratic alternative. Let us get something done for the American people. Let us pay down the debt.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, this is a bad piece of legislation and I hope it is not passed, and I hope that the alternative that we have before the House could be passed in its stead. I think this bill should be renamed. It should be the Savage the Medicare Trust Fund bill, because this bill takes $116 billion out of the Medicare Trust Fund. Now, why is that a concern? We have been worried for months and years about the Medicare Trust Fund. We have been saying how are we going to get enough money into the Medicare Trust Fund to extend its solvency? This bill will cut its solvency by 5 years. Now remember that we are in a time when we have the need to do something to put more money out of the Medicare Trust Fund to take care of problems from the 1997 Balanced Budget Act. We all have nursing home operators coming to see us because they do not have enough reimbursement out of the Medicare Trust Fund. Half the nursing homes in the country are bankrupt today because of the cut in reimbursements from the Medicare Trust Fund. The academic health institutions, I am visited by Washington University and St. Louis University in my town. They have been cut by the Medicare 1997 bill. They want restorations. The home health care people cannot get out to do the home health care visits and so we are probably, before we leave in this Congress, going to restore funding out of the Medicare Trust Fund for them. If we put it altogether, the savings from the 1997 Act over 10 years comes to over $200 billion. If we did half in terms of give-backs, that would be as much as this bill costs. So instead of talking about hitting the trust fund for $100 billion, we are going to hit it for $200 billion. That will cut its solvency 10 years. So this is the Savage the Medicare Trust Fund Act. That is what it is. Now, the Republicans say, well, we will put the money back from general revenue. We will put it back from the surplus, the vaunted surplus. If we look at this chart, we can see that if we just take their trillion dollar tax cut, and I will get back to that in a minute, and put realistic spending projections in debt service, we already are running a deficit even with present projections. Let us remember these are projections. How many have heard of Ed McMahon sending the envelope from Publisher's Clearinghouse saying one may have won $10 million? Has anyone gotten one? If they have, I bet they did not go out and spend the $10 million because it might not show up. Well, these projections may not come true, and then where will we be? That is why our alternative is contingent on the surplus actually being there, so that each and every year we will figure out whether or not what we hope would happen actually happened. Now, the other problem we have here is that this is just one more tax cut in the tax-cut-a-week program, which is really dividing the big chocolate cake we had out here last year from the Republicans. They had a $750 billion tax cut. They passed it, I think, probably about this time last year and they were going to go home in August and excite the American people about the great things about this tax cut. Guess what? The President vetoed it and when they came back they have never tried to override the veto. If it was such a great bill, why did they not try to override the veto? No. Instead, they cut that big cake into pieces and this bill today is one of the pieces. Guess what? The cake is even bigger than it was last year. It is a trillion dollars. Why, in the name of common sense, would we want to go back to the deficits that we suffered in this country from 1981 to 1995, fifteen years of deficits? There were times in this House many Members felt like trustees in bankruptcy, $200 billion, $300 billion a year, and passage of all these tax cuts together will take us right back to the deficit spending and the red ink we had in those years. Finally, let me say we can do tax cuts this year. You bet we can do tax cuts this year, if they are sensible, if they are targeted, if they do not spend so much of the surplus that we get back to deficits. The President talked about expanding educational opportunities by making tuition deductible, tax relief through a for long-term care, a home health care credit, a child care credit, expanding the earned income credit, helping families save for retirement, relief from the marriage penalty and estate tax for family-owned businesses and farms. Under the President's plan, a family of four making $31,000 a year gets over $350 in tax cuts. Under the Republican chocolate cake that cost a trillion dollars, they get $131. Under the President's plan, a family earning over a million dollars gets about $100 in tax cuts but under their plan they get $23,000 in tax cuts. That is the difference. You bet we can do tax cuts. We can even do a big piece of this tax cut if we do not give it to the high rollers, as we do not do in our alternative. You bet we can deliver tax relief to the ordinary families of this country if we were not so obsessed with giving huge amounts of money to the wealthiest families in this country. You bet we can do tax cuts. Finally, let me say this, I say to my friends in the other party we need to do tax cuts this year. This tax cut, if it is passed and sent to the President, will be vetoed. Their marriage tax penalty, which was focused on the wealthy, will be vetoed. Their estate tax relief, again focused on the wealthiest Americans, will be vetoed. If one is a family out there today watching this, an elderly family, a middle income family, an average family, working hard every day, they want tax cuts now that mean something to them. In the name of sense, why can we not sit down at a table and work out all of these tax cuts so that the President will sign them, so they fit in a budget that is sensible and prudent and let us get the tax relief for the American people this year? Vetoes and press releases get us nowhere. Let us pass real tax cuts that will help the hard-pressed working American family.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this conference report. I am for doing something about the marriage penalty, and I very much want us in this Congress to get rid of the marriage penalty. The problem with this conference report is that it does a lot of other things that do not attack the marriage penalty and in its overall it spends too much revenue that could be needed and is needed for other priorities like a Medicare prescription drug program or shoring up Medicare and Social Security. I want to say first that this conference bill is larger than either the House version of this bill or the Senate version and that, worse than that, it is as unfair as these earlier measures were. And we believe, because we cannot get the official estimates, that it is as much as $280 billion over 10 years. This bill is poorly targeted. It is tilted in favor of wealthier couples, and it neglects those Americans who need marriage tax penalty relief the most. Under this bill, about two-thirds of the tax cuts go to couples in the top 30 percent of the income scale while the vast majority of couples, about 70 percent, would receive only one-third of the total tax cuts. This bill gives half of the tax cut to couples who do not even suffer from a marriage penalty. Let me say it again. Half the benefit of this tax cut goes to couples who do not even suffer from a marriage penalty. Now, that is a serious flaw. It is mislabeling. It is misbranding what we are doing. I think this bill is symptomatic, though, of a larger flaw in all of the tax cuts that are being brought through the Congress. I have here a chart, a chart that shows clearly the contrast between the Republican distribution of tax cuts and the alternative proposals that have been offered by Democrats. The contrast between the two plans is stark. If all of the Republican cuts were to become law, Americans in the middle- income range, those making an average of $31,000 a year, would get an average tax cut of $131, because of all the tax cuts that you want to pass. For the top 1 percent, they would get a tax cut of about $23,000. So somebody making $31,000, they get $131 in total tax cuts. Somebody at the top, the top 1 percent, they would get $23,000. Now, if you take our tax cuts and put them together, that person making $31,000 would get $371 and the person in the top 1 percent would get $133. We think we ought to have these tax cuts going to the people who really need them. Now, I have said on all these debates, we still have a chance in this Congress to reach a compromise, a consensus, on not only the tax cuts that we can do but on the other issues that exist within this budget. What are we going to do about a Medicare prescription medicine program? What are we going to do about shoring up Medicare and Social Security so that they have longer life out into the future? What are we going to do about education, trying to make sure that every child in this country gets a strong education and training so they can be productive, law-abiding citizens? The President sent a budget when we did the reestimates. He put about $50 billion aside to be decided by the next Congress and the Congress after that. He put aside a substantial amount for targeted tax cuts, $263 billion. If you agree to that budget, and I am not saying you do, but if we come to an agreement on a budget, the question becomes, where does this piece, the marriage penalty piece, fit into that overall budget? We are proceeding with the pieces of the budget rather than coming to a consensus on the overall budget. And I say to you at the end of the day, I believe all of these tax cut measures are going to be vetoed, because we do not have that consensus. And then at the end of the day, the taxpayer, the citizen out in the field, in the country, is going to say, what has this Congress done for me? Where is my marriage penalty relief? Where is my estate tax relief? Where is my education incentive? Where is my long-term care incentive? Where is my child care incentive? These are the issues that people will ask. It is not enough for us to do a weekly tax bill. It is not enough for us to do two tax bills a week. What matters is not what we pass here. It is what the President will sign that can actually be experienced in the lives of America's families. I plead with my friends in the Republican Party, I respect your views of what you want to do in this budget. I do not know that all of my views are right. But let us sit down in the name of common sense, let us figure out a budget, let us get some of these things done this year. If you are having a marriage tax penalty problem, you want a solution this year. A veto does you no good. So I ask Members to vote down this conference report, let us sit down at a table with everybody at the table, let us work out a budget, let us work out tax cuts that are fair and equitable and make sense in terms of not only the budget but make sense in terms of Medicare, Social Security, a Medicare prescription medicine program, and yes, ending the marriage penalty for America's taxpayers.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, I rise to argue that this reform bill is in many ways a very good example of bipartisan legislation, and all of us I think can agree that tax incentives for retirement savings are needed, warranted, the right thing to do for our workers, and good for our country in general. But as currently written, I think this reform bill is flawed, or not including enough features that should be included, because it targets simply those Americans who need incentives for saving the least: corporate executives, managers, big business owners. This legislation, as the Center on Budget Policy and Priorities wrote recently, ``would substantially expand pension tax preferences for high-income executives, but likely lead to reductions in pension coverage among low- and moderate-income workers and employees of small businesses.'' I am not opposed to helping upper-income Americans by raising the ceilings on their annual IRA contributions. These men and women have worked hard and deserve their piece of the pie. But I am very afraid that with this bill, as with many of the tax-cutting measures that we have seen in this Congress, we have lost sight of our principal challenge and concern. We have lost sight of our goal to provide tax relief for middle-income Americans and very small businesses, the men and women who really deserve a real reduction in their income taxes. The greatest failing of this bill is that it does little to encourage retirement saving by lower- and middle-income workers, those Americans who simply are not saving enough because they do not have enough to save. We have offered an alternative that we think addresses this shortcoming and that rights the playing field so middle-income Americans, not just the well off, receive the lion's share of incentives to boost their retirement accounts. We have offered an amendment, supported by the administration, that will create retirement savings accounts in which the government will give refundable tax credits to the retirement accounts of millions of Americans. Our amendment caps the level at which people can receive the tax cut at $75,000, so that the bulk of the incentives to invest in retirement accounts flow to the middle-income group. Our amendment provides tax credits to small businesses of up to 50 percent of the start-up and initial administration costs to set up businesses. I have said many times in the last several weeks and I will say again, I believe that all of us, Democrats and Republicans, can come together, negotiate on the issues of taxes and spending, hammer out tax cuts that help the vast majority of Americans, while making sure that we address the issues that concern the American people the most: paying down the debt, strengthening social security and Medicare, providing a real prescription medicine reform, and sending the President a total budget that he can sign. I ask all of us to work together to amend this legislation so that it truly benefits Americans most in need of tax relief; that we fashion these other tax bills so that the President will sign them, and the middle-income Americans and Americans trying to get in the middle class will get the bulk of the help; and that we enact these other reforms, like prescription drugs, medicine, a Patients' Bill of Rights, a minimum wage increase, doing something that is sensible about gun safety, trying to get smaller classroom sizes, which are the issues, along with tax cuts, that really have attracted the interest of the American people. So I ask Members to vote for our alternative. Let us get a good piece of legislation done that can get the support of the administration and the bulk of the American people.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) and the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey) and I thank the chairman for allowing this additional debate to go on. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Lowey-Greenwood amendment. The inadequate funding and restrictions on our international family planning assistance in this bill should be rejected. And that is only one of the many glaring flaws in this bill that I hope we can correct this afternoon. As we heard so eloquently last night, the funding in this bill for debt relief is clearly inexcusable. With the funding provided in this bill, governments in developing nations will continue to stagger under huge loads of debt. Millions of people in Africa, South America, Central America will be deprived of much needed education, health care and development. These governments will have to repay loans before addressing the fundamental need of their people. Another outrageous shortcoming in this bill is the cut in funding requested to fight the global HIV/AIDS pandemic. People in America, our constituents, are just in many cases beginning to learn of the tragedy of AIDS in Africa and around the world. This is a crisis that has affected us and people around the world for many years now. But in African nations it reaches alarming proportions. I led a delegation that some of my colleagues accompanied me on in December to Nigeria and Zimbabwe and South Africa. It is one thing to intellectualize and theorize about this problem. It is quite another thing to confront dying humanity by the thousands and thousands. Twenty-two million people in Africa are infected with HIV/AIDS. Many, many more thousands are infected each week, each month. This issue, in my opinion, is the moral imperative of our time. How much longer will we go on and say it does not matter, it does not concern me that 22 million people are probably going to die? I can theorize about it. But when I confront it head on, as we did in a village in Zimbabwe where everyone we met was infected with HIV/AIDS, it is a different matter. There has never in the history of the world been a threat to life like this. If an Army were raging through Africa killing millions of people, we would be mounting armies to go to Africa to save lives. We say we are concerned with life. This is the issue of life in our world today. I beg the Members to vote for these amendments, to move our world in the right direction to provide the assistance and the aid that people are crying out for. Finally, I will say we met the head doctor of the largest hospital in Johannesburg. He is a pediatrician. He said that half the children that are born in the hospital right now are infected with HIV/AIDS and will die within the next year; and we cannot even provide, he said, the medication that we know we can provide that costs about $8 to make sure that the children of HIV-infected AIDS patients will be free of AIDS. And it is 70 percent effective. Eight dollars. Eight dollars to make sure that a child who will be born will not die. This is the moral issue of our time. I pray that this House and all of our great Representatives will stand and deliver on the moral issue, the most important moral issue we will ever face. Vote for these amendments.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, I wish to pay tribute to the Lions Club of Webster Groves, Missouri, celebrating its 75th Anniversary this year. This excellent service organization, from its beginnings, has had at its heart a commitment to the people and the community of Webster Groves. In 1933, the Webster Lions ``established a nutrition project in the schools and helped to form better health measures in the home.'' The City's Health Commissioner at the time viewed the project as being ``of unlimited value to the community and will be felt for many years to come.'' Christmas parties for children and care of orphans, the provision of tennis courts for public use, baseball fields, and support of an ``Old Folks Home'' in a neighboring community are some of the projects they have supported over the years. As federal resources and support were reduced in Webster Groves in the mid-1930s, the Webster Lions increased their participation with the local chapter of the American Red Cross to provide for the welfare needs of the community. Expenditures during 1935 in today's dollars exceeded $60,000 for community welfare alone. Their work with the American Red Cross during the worst days of the Great Depression was just a small portion of the good work in which they were involved. Their involvement and concern for their community continues to this very day, with sons and grandsons of the original members often taking their places in the organization. Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating the Webster Groves Lions Club on its 75th Anniversary.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that today's debate on this bill is a chance for us to begin to talk about a compromise that will achieve a lot of the ends that our friends have on the other side of the aisle and a lot of the ends and goals that people on our side of the aisle have. Our discomfort with their version of the bill is not about the fact that they are trying to deal with the marriage penalty. I think the vast majority of Members believe that we need to do something to fix this problem of the marriage penalty. We think there is a way to do this that costs a good deal less than the bill that they are presenting today. We say that with all respect and humility. We think there is a way to work our way to a common conclusion that will really attack this problem of the marriage penalty and cost about half, maybe a little less than half of what their bill costs. We think that is important because at the end of this year, we are likely to be talking about a number of tax measures, some of which we have already voted on, others which we will vote on in the next weeks. The President sent to us, when he did his reestimate of the budget, this pie chart. This pie chart sets out $500 billion of the surplus in a reserve to frankly be decided by the next Congress and Congresses after that. We think that makes sense. But this budget also puts money into Medicare solvency and debt reduction, money into a Medicare prescription drug benefit plan, a lot like the one we presented 2 weeks ago, and $263 billion for targeted tax cuts. If we do as much as they are asking to do today for the marriage penalty alone, it means other good tax cut ideas that there is a lot of support for will fall by the wayside. So we believe it is important that we try to work together to come to a series of ideas for tax cuts that we all can support that will fit within this budgetary $263 billion. Now, we further think their bill today is not giving the relief on the marriage penalty that we really need and that we hope that we can offer to people. Finally, the President said 2 weeks ago that he understands the requirement and the desire on the part of Republicans to do something about the marriage penalty. He said he is more than happy to sit down and try to work out a marriage penalty reduction that he would sign this year. I think the same holds true of other tax cut ideas that have been presented. But in return for that, he wants to also be able to sit down to be able to get a Medicare prescription drug benefit plan that we all can agree with as part of settling these important issues. Let me finally say that if you are suffering from the marriage penalty, you want relief now, this year, not next year. You do not want just a veto of a bill that results in nothing. If you are on Medicare prescription drugs, and you are having trouble paying for your prescriptions, you want relief now, this year, not next year. My mother is 92 years old. She is doing great by the grace of God, but every time I go home, she says, What are you all doing on that Medicare prescription drug plan? I may not be alive next year. I want to be able to tell her, We're going to get something done this year. Let us work together. Vote for this motion to recommit. Let us work together to get this done for the American people.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, just this past December, I visited Zimbabwe with a bipartisan group of members of Congress that was co-led by Amo Houghton, a long-time friend of the Zimbabwean people, and included Donald Payne, the ranking member of the International Relations Subcommittee on Africa. The purpose of our visit was to examine Zimbabwe's efforts to combat the AIDS pandemic, revitalize economic development and strengthen its democracy. In doing so, we dedicated a U.S. Agency for International Development-funded AIDS clinic in Hwange and met with political leaders including President Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the then-fledgling opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (M.D.C.). Little did we know at the time that Zimbabwe was on the cusp of its most fundamental political change since gaining independence in 1980. I applaud the people of Zimbabwe for their efforts to make the June 25 and 26 parliamentary elections generally peaceful as opposition parties gained an unprecedented 58 seats, 57 of which went to the M.D.C. The relative calm of the election was particularly significant in the wake of the intimidation and violence that preceded the historic vote. The approximately 60 percent turnout of registered voters for the election was a level of participation that we in the United States can envy. Now, with a meaningful opposition party firmly in place, the challenge for President Mugabe will be to work with the new Parliament to solve the social and economic problems that face his nation in a manner that seeks to unite rather than divide. I was pleased to see President Mugabe recognize this challenge in his speech following the election, in which he spoke of his desire to work with the new Parliament. It is my hope that President Mugabe's future actions will mirror this rhetoric. Finally, I would like to recognize the work of American representatives in Zimbabwe--both governmental and nongovernmental-- whose on-the-ground efforts contributed to this important milestone in Zimbabwe's political evolution: the American Embassy, lead by Ambassador Tom McDonald and Political Officer Makila James; the United States Agency for International Development; and the National Democratic Institute and its Zimbabwe-based staff of Peter Manikas, Richard Klein, David Kovick, Dawn Del Rio, Kate Allen and Scott France.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, this process, this rule is an outrage against the American people. It has been said that the Republican plan is a bipartisan plan. It is not a bipartisan plan. There has been no conversation about this plan and the putting together of the plan with the members of our Committee on Ways and Means. There has been no conversation between the leadership on either side about how we could build a bipartisan plan to add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare. This process is a grave disservice to all Americans. The debate is being shut down on the most important issue to American seniors since the creation of Medicare. The decision of the majority does more than deny the view of the Democratic minority to be heard, it denies the American people a vote on a plan that would provide real affordable, definable, and guaranteed prescription medicine benefits for America's seniors. This debate, like so many of the debates we have held in this Congress this year, is always my way or the highway. Bipartisan is defined by: Are you for our partisan bill? Not: Can we work together to find real bipartisanship? I believe the other party is stooping to this level simply for politics. They are intent on passing anything that is called ``prescription coverage'' in order to avoid the issue being raised in the November elections. It is the passage of a press release. It is the passage of a statement of intent. They want to ram through their bill and shut down debate so that the American people will not know what this sham bill really is. Their posters said it best when Glen Bolger told them, and I quote, ``It is more important to communicate that you have a plan than it is to communicate what is in the plan.'' This is a PR effort. It is a sham. It is a hoax. It is public relations. It is electioneering. It is not writing a plan that will help the American people. Mr. Speaker, instead of making prescriptions more affordable for seniors, they want to hand a huge subsidy to the insurance industry, which has said it will not write these plans. The head of the association came and said, we will not write these plans. Why will they not write these plans? They will not write them because this is not what insurance companies do. They underwrite risk. We have fire policies on our houses. Why? Because most houses do not burn down. The lucky people pay for the unlucky people. When we come to prescription drug benefits, everybody makes a claim, because everybody needs prescription drugs. It is a benefit, not an insurance plan. That is why the basic supposition of the Republican plan that they are going to turn this over to insurance companies is completely flawed, and completely wrong. Mr. Speaker, we believe this should be done through Medicare. We believe it should be affordable. We believe it should be definable. We feel it should be equal all over this country. What is really happening today is what really happened 35 years ago. This is the same debate we had over Medicare. The Republicans wanted to privatize Medicare; we wanted to have Medicare run through a Medicare system. They want to set up a new bureaucracy in the Government to run this program; we say we can run it through the Medicare system. Republicans have never believed in Medicare. As former Speaker Gingrich once said, ``Medicare would wither on the vine because we think people are voluntarily going to leave it.'' The majority leader once said, Medicare should not be part of our society. We should not have to be in this program. Mr. Speaker, I say to my friends in the Republican Party, that is an honest debate. If my colleagues want to get rid of Medicare, say so. If they want to privatize it, try to do so. But let us have an honest debate. Let us have real alternatives on the floor. Our plan is a real benefit, it is definable, it is affordable, it is equal for everybody in this country. It would have catastrophic coverage so that people over $4,000 a year of costs would have all of their Medicare costs picked up. I was in a press conference with seniors a few days ago. A woman who had a heart transplant got up and said her costs are $1,300 a month for her drugs. She said her Social Security benefit is $1,300 a month. And then she broke down and cried, because she could not figure out where the money to live on was going to come from. Mr. Speaker, we need a plan that offers a real benefit to people like that who right now in today's world are facing this problem. Vote against this rule, vote to defeat this plan, let us get back to writing a real bipartisan plan that will help the seniors citizens of this country.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Chairman, terrorism is the scourge of the modern world, and we must do everything in our power to deter and punish those who would commit such heinous acts. Our efforts in Congress must include support for all federal agencies and foreign allies who are engaged in the fight against terrorist and their protectors. And we must continuously seek to improve the laws that enable our democracy to effectively counter the threat of terrorism and preserve our freedom. In 1996, Congress enacted the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act in an attempt to further combat terrorism against the United States. It also contained provisions that were intended to balance legitimate national security interests with our desire--and responsibility--to protect individual liberties. Since the enactment of this legislation, it has become evident that the provisions of law designed to protect individual rights in such matters have not been implemented properly. Our government's use of ``secret evidence'' authorities to detain the accused has caused many civil rights advocates to question the constitutionality of these practices and to urge for reform. The questions raised about the current application of secret evidence statutes have been validated recently by four federal courts, which have all ruled the practice unconstitutional. At a recent House Judiciary Committee hearing, both supporters and critics of existing secret evidence statutes recognized the deficiencies of current practices, as well as the need to reform or refine them. There was also agreement that more work is needed to sufficiently balance our national security interests with the need to protect individual rights. The National Commission on Terrorism also concluded earlier this month that the legal protections afforded to the accused in these circumstances are not being used properly, if at all. The Commission further stated that, ``The U.S. Government should not be confronted with the dilemma of unconditionally disclosing classified evidence or allowing a suspected terrorist to remain at liberty in the United States. At the same time, resort to use of secret evidence without disclosure even to cleared counsel should be discontinued, especially when criminal prosecution through an open court proceeding is an option.'' Mr. Chairman, this amendment will not result in the release of suspected terrorists from America's prisons. If it did, I would oppose it vigorously. Instead, my support for this minute reduction in the Justice Department's budget is intended as a call to the relevant committees of Congress to accelerate their deliberations on legislation to refine and improve existing laws. It is also a call to our government--and the Justice Department in particular--to address the legitimate concerns that have been raised about the use of secret evidence without appropriate measures to protect individual rights. Clearly, it would be a serious mistake to unduly restrict our government's ability to protect its citizens against terrorism. At the same time, we must find a way to protect the rights of those whom our legal system deems innocent until proven guilty. And there must be no winners or losers in this debate; otherwise, the critical balance between freedom and security that we cherish will be undone. Instead, we must all work together to forge a consensus that advances both goals in the most effective manner possible.