Dick Gephardt

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, I rise reluctantly to ask Members to vote against this rule. This is a very important day, perhaps the most important day in the Congress that we are involved in. We have a chance now, in a bipartisan way, to pass a very good Patients' Bill of Rights, something that I think is desired by all of the American people. I want to commend the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) and the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood) and the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Ganske) and many others on both sides of the aisle who have worked so hard to get to this point. They have worked together. They have worked admirably on a very tough set of issues. And what I wanted to pass this bill today. Unfortunately the rule, in my view, is lacking in fairness, for two reasons. One, it does not allow an amendment that was desired by both Republicans and Democrats to pay for the patients. Unfortunately, the Congressional Budget Office has said that this bill will cost about $7 billion over 5 years. Members on both sides of the aisle wanted a chance to pay for this so that they were not seen as voting for something that would invade the Social Security Trust Fund and break the caps and causes budgetary problems. But that amendment which was desired by proponents of Dingell-Norwood was not allowed to be made. Secondly, the access bill, which is now going to be taken up even though we did not take it up in committee, does not have pay-fors, as well. So if it passes and becomes part of this bill, we have another section of the bill that costs money in the budget and is not paid for. I just think this is unnecessary. First of all, the Patients' Bill of Rights should be on its own, should not be subsumed under some other bill for access which was not really the subject of this matter to begin with. Second, if it is going to be subsumed under it, we should be allowed to figure out a way to pay for it. Thirdly, we ought to be able to pay for the Patients' Bill of Rights. None of that is allowed in the bill. My fear is that, at the end of the day, even if Dingell-Norwood survives, the votes are not going to be there to pass the bill because of these other matters that were not dealt with properly in the rule. I ask the majority leadership to rethink this matter and to try to get us a rule or a procedure that will allow a fair consideration of patients. I guess I just end with saying, putting all of this procedural wrangle aside, let us all try to remember what this legislation is about. It is about helping people, children, seniors, women, men, who want to have an enforceable right to have the decisions about their health care made by the doctors and them together to be able to do that, to have an enforceable right that they can bring against their health insurance company or their HMO. That is what is at stake here. We have a chance as a House of Representatives, in a bipartisan way, to do something that is deeply desired by the American people. I hope that this rule in its present form will be defeated, and I hope we will find a procedure and a rule that will allow fair consideration of this very, very important legislation.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, this resolution is the equivalent of saying that we are going to quit smoking while we are lighting a cigarette, or saying we are going to quit drinking alcoholic beverages while we pour out a beer, or any other equivalent that you want to talk about. We do not need a nonbinding resolution to tell us that we do not want to spend Social Security money. We just need to do it. It is like the Nike ad, ``just do it.'' We do not need to say what we are going to do; we need to do the right thing, not say the right thing. As the ranking member on the Committee on the Budget, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) has pointed out, we already this year, unfortunately, are spending Social Security money. There is only one way not to spend it, and that is to have a budget that does not invade the Social Security money and uses that money to pay back down debt so we are prepared for the baby boom when they come, which is what the President has been repeatedly asking us to do. We do not have a budget on this floor today, and we are going to later today take up a continuing resolution because the majority in the House does not confront reality. The reality is, the budget that we are operating under spends Social Security money and does things that many in the majority and many on our side say we do not want to do. We need to stop the music, sit down, and figure this out with the executive branch, with the leaders on both sides of the aisle, and come up with a new blueprint, a new budget, that does what a majority of this House wants to do. If we continue to grind our wheels and waste time with resolutions like this, which are totally meaningless and time wasting, we are never going to get the work done of this Congress. I urge the leaders on the other side, let us sit down, let us figure out a budget which is good for the American people, which does pay down the back debt, which does save Social Security, and gets America the budget that we need and want. Let us do it on time. We are going to miss the deadline at the end of this week. We are going to have 3 more weeks. Time is running out. It is time now to get this budget done. As the leader of the minority, I reach out to the majority and say, let us sit down, let us figure out a budget that the President can agree to and let us get it done for the American people.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today first to congratulate the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan) for their excellent across-the-aisle, bipartisan work in bringing about this legislation. I might say that I hope that this bipartisan effort that they have put together with lots of Members from both parties is something that we cannot only win with today, but have repeated with other bills: the patients' bill of rights, education. We ought to be able to find a way to work across party lines to get things done for the American people. I want to congratulate both of them vociferously for the hard work that they have done day in and day out to get us to where we are today. I would also like to recognize the work of our Democratic Blue Dogs and their discharge petition effort which forced the leadership to take our demands for a vote on campaign reform seriously. Because of their work, 202 Members of the House signed the discharge petition, urging the Republican leadership to bring Shays-Meehan to the floor, and we are able to be here today on the floor discussing this because of that discharge petition and the work that was done, again, in a bipartisan way to get this on the floor. The truth is, some of the Republican leaders have done their best to prevent this issue from coming to the floor, despite the fact that a bipartisan majority of the House wants this vote. And they are still trying to kill reform with poison pill amendments and substitute bills. I hope that does not succeed. I hope the bipartisan majority for good campaign reform prevails. This is a very simple issue. A vote for Shays-Meehan today is the best way and, in my view, the only way to begin to roll back the influence of wealthy special interests in government. It is the only way to focus the Congress back to the issues that the people I represent care about; to make our politics more responsive to their needs and not simply listening to wealthy special interests. We have all seen what being bound to big money from special interests has done to our present legislative agenda. Republican leaders put the needs of powerful lobbyists ahead of average families and their needs. They killed gun safety legislation. They have tried to block a real patients' bill of rights, and they have refused to take action to make prescription drugs affordable to every senior. Instead, they have introduced a tax bill which gives a small minority of wealthy Americans and corporations an $8 billion tax break which threatens the economic growth that is the best I have seen in my lifetime. We have gone from a government by the people, for the people to a government of lobbyists and special interests. By passing Shays-Meehan we take the first major step toward restoring the trust of the people in their government, in their House of Representatives, and returning us all to the agenda of ordinary American families. It is time to begin this process. It is time for Shays-Meehan to be the law of the land. I ask every Member, Republican and Democratic, refuse to vote for the amendments designed to kill this reform, reject the Thomas substitute, which will only distract us from what we are supposed to be doing, and stand up today for Shays-Meehan, for real campaign reform. Return the people's Houses to the people of this great country.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, I want to address my comments to American citizens all over the country and to ask them a simple question, and that is, do they do better with the Republican plan that is on the floor today, or would they do better our Democratic plan, which is much less revenue cost, but a tax cut that is more targeted to middle-income families? If one looks at the Republican plan, it offers a family of four earning $50,000 a year about a $278 a year tax cut. In other words, their taxes would be reduced by about, to make it rough, $280 a year. That comes out to about 76 cents a day. That would not even buy a cup of coffee in most of our modern coffee houses. On the other hand, the Democratic tax cut would have had an impact on the real budgets of middle-income families. We wanted to provide a $1,000 credit for a family trying to take care of a disabled parent who they were trying to keep at home or a $500 credit for parents who care for an infant at home. In other words, for ordinary families, we could have done a tax cut today that would really have an impact on their lives, not just 76 cents a day. But it is also worth noting that the real expense cut that we ought to be talking about today is what getting rid of the deficit would do for ordinary American families. The Research Director for the Concord Coalition put it well. He said debt reduction is a tax cut for future generations. We now pay $218 billion a year at the Federal level on interest on the national debt every year. That is $900 for every man, woman, and child who lives in the United States. Eliminating that debt could put that money back in their pockets or certainly allow us to do some things with Medicare and Social Security that would put money into their pockets in the future. This is a fundamental decision we are having to make. If we could get that debt down, it would hold interest rates down. Let us talk about the family out there that has maybe a $100,000 mortgage on their house right now. If we could lower interest rates by 1 percent or, maybe to put it another way, hold them where they are and not let them go up from where they are now, that could be $1,200 a year that goes right into that family's pocket because we have not gone with this risky tax cut that puts in jeopardy the financial wherewithal of that family of four that is trying to pay off that mortgage. This is not even talking about credit card debt and auto loan debt that they have to pay. The big tax cut that we ought to be talking about is holding interest rates down so that family out there does not face higher interest rates. Let me end with a story. When I was a young kid, my mom and dad told me that if I do chores around the house, they would give me an allowance. Usually a quarter or two is what I would earn, carrying out the trash, doing the dishes, cooking dinner, sometimes even cleaning up the basement. My mother used to always say to me, because she would give me the quarters, usually two quarters, 50 cents, she would always say, ``Dick, those quarters are burning a hole in your pocket.'' Because what I loved to do with those quarters was go up to the corner confectionery and buy a Mars Bar. I loved Mars Bars, it had that soft marshmallow center, chocolate; and I loved to buy baseball flip cards. That is what I really wanted to do. Sure enough, whenever I would get those quarters, I would run up to the corner confectionery and blow all my money and get that Mars Bar that had that soft marshmallow center and buy those flip cards. Instant gratification is what I was looking for. She used to always say to me, ``If you would save those quarters, maybe you could buy that ball glove you have been talking about or that bicycle you wanted to buy, and that would even be better, if you would save for the future so you could really do something important.'' This is the very same decision we face today as a country. Do we want instant gratification, do we want to hand out candy bars, make people feel good right now with, again, 76 cents a day for that average family, or do we want to save money, pay down the debt, keep interest rates down, give a targeted tax cut that would really mean something to hard-pressed middle-income families? That is the choice we have today. I urge Members to reject instant gratification and to save this money for the future, pay down the back debt of this country, save Social Security and Medicare, give a targeted tax cut that will really help middle-income families, and do the right thing for the future and future generations of this country.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, I commend the leadership of the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) who has truly been the leader on this issue. I want to commend all of my friends on the other side of the aisle who have also stood and spoken their minds on this issue. I want to commend the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Wu), a new Member of the House who comes from a district that is heavily dependent on trade. I want to commend his courage in making the statement he made today. He obviously did it from his heart and his mind, and I really, really admire the statement that he made. I rise today to ask Members to vote for this resolution. It is clear to me that, on any of the grounds that we must look at, trade, rule of law, human rights, that not only has China not made progress in the last year, in fact, I would say that they are moving in the exact wrong direction that they ought to be moving in. Let us first talk about trade. In 1988, the year before Tiananmen Square, we had a $3.5 billion deficit with China. In 1997, it was $50 billion. This year, it will be $70 billion. In fact, our exports to China in this year will decline to less than $14 billion. We export more to Belgium, a country of 10 million people, than we export to China. Why is this the case? It is the case because we are not allowed to export our items to China. They do not want our goods. They want one- way free trade. They want to support the deficits they have with most every other country in the world with what they can sell to the United States. They want to play us for a sucker because we are willing to let them do it. If we continue to be willing to let them do what they want to do, the trade deficit with China will be $100 billion soon, $140 billion, $200 billion. How much unfair trade do we want to put up with? It makes no sense. The gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier) says we have to maintain commercial relationships. This much? How much is enough commercial relationship to allow them to make so-called progress? This is ridiculous. There is no common sense in it whatsoever. Now let us talk about rule of law. Trade relations depend upon rule of law. Rule of law in China would benefit our businesses. Our business community comes to us and says, when are we going to get intellectual property protected in China? If we do not take a stand ultimately on MFN, how do we expect to get them to accept the rule of law? A country that arrests people for speaking their minds is not about to protect people's property. A country that seizes political dissidents is not about to protect our property. A country that seizes the assets of foreign corporations is not about to protect our property. If we do not take a stand on MFN, ultimately there is no way to get China to ultimately accept a rule of law and protect our property. Finally, let me talk about human rights. Abraham Lincoln said that our Declaration of Independence gave liberty not alone to the people of this country, but hope to all the world for all future time. The issue of human rights is not just an American issue, it is an issue for every human being in this world. And the primary reason to take this stand today against MFN for China is because they refuse, right till today, to give their people basic, decent human rights. We remember Tiananmen Square, but let us fast forward to today. There is a group in China that wants to practice its own form of religious belief, Falun Gong. They are arresting people today who they do not want to express their beliefs. They are arresting people in their own government who are suspected now of allowing the people to carry out these beliefs in China. Tell me if they are making progress. They are making progress in the wrong direction. When will America stand up and finally say that the human rights we enjoy must be enjoyed by every citizen in this world, including the billion people who live in China. Today is the day to take that stand. Vote for this resolution. Let us stand for trade, let us stand for rule of law and let us stand, most importantly, for the human rights of the people in China.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker and Members of the House, I urge Members to vote for the Democratic substitute, or for the Democratic motion to recommit which is very similar, and against this tax bill that is on the floor. I make basically three arguments for doing that. First, I think the Republican bill is risky. I think it is risky with regard to the most important accomplishment that we have had over these last 7 or 8 years, and that is the wonderful economy that we have painstakingly built from where we were in the early part of the 1990s. Let me just read you some facts. Let us remember where we were in 1992. The deficit was $290 billion. We now have the largest surplus in our lifetime. Since 1992, 17.7 million new jobs were created under the economic program of this administration that we have been operating under. In 1992, the unemployment of the country was 7\1/2\ percent. Now it is 4\1/2\ percent, with the lowest inflation that we have had since 1981. Now, we are risking if we pass this huge tax cut, and we are for tax cuts, we think the American people deserve tax cuts out of this surplus. The question is, how much? And what we are saying is, this tax cut the Republicans have brought to us today is way too large and risky and irresponsible. But do not take my word for it. Look at what over 50 economists, six Nobel laureates said yesterday, part of their statement: ``In contrast, a massive tax cut that encourages consumption would not be good economic policy.'' They said, ``Given the uncertainty of longtime budget projections, committing to a large tax cut would create significant risk to our economy and our budget.'' Why would we want to do that? Why in God's name would we risk this tremendous achievement and risk keeping it going? Secondly, this large of a tax cut keeps us from saving two of our most important programs and achievements, Medicare and Social Security. The Democratic tax cut is conditioned--is conditioned--on a solvency statement by the trustees of Social Security and Medicare. The Republican tax cut is not. The Republican tax cut does not allow us to even take care of Medicare and does not allow the money for solvency in Social Security. Why would we want to risk that? Thirdly, what do the tax cuts do? Our tax cut is targeted. We are worried about long-term care; we are worried about many of the problems in the economy with research and development. It is targeted to the things we really need. Their tax cut is all over the lot, and most of it goes to the top 10 percent of earners in the country. It is not focused on the middle class. And worst of all, last night at midnight they made a change in their tax cut; and they now condition it, at least the part that goes to the middle class, on what happens with the deficit. What about capital gains? What about the estate tax? What about the corporate alternative minimum tax? That is not conditioned. Oh, we would not want to hurt the people at the top. The only conditioning, the only trigger, is on the people in the middle and the people at the bottom that might get some benefit from the tax cut. This is a disaster in terms of the middle class of this country. This is risky. It does not take care of Medicare and Social Security, and the only people our colleagues have really ensured will get a huge tax cut are the wealthiest of the wealthy. This is not the right thing for our country. Mr. Speaker, I urge Members to vote for the Democratic substitute, vote for the motion to recommit, vote against this risky, irresponsible, unfair tax cut. Let us not repeat the mistakes of the past.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of the FY 2000 Defense Appropriations bill. This legislation goes a long way in ensuring our country's military air superiority well into the future. An important element of this bill is the $440 million directed for the purchase of eight F-15E strike fighters. As many of us know, the F- 15 was the dominant aircraft in the Persian Gulf and Kosovo conflicts, and remains the most lethal and effective fighter in the world. It has maintained a perfect air combat record of 100 victories and zero losses since its introduction into the fleet. And with the upgrades funded by this legislation, this record can be extended well into the future. I am proud to note that the F-15's record of victory is due in large part to the men and women who build this aircraft for the Boeing Company in my hometown of St. Louis. The F-22, the Air Force's next-generation fighter aircraft that has been in development since the 1980s, has encountered problems in its cost and development schedule. Given these circumstances, it is essential that the Air Force preserve a high quality and robust strike fighter for the foreseeable future. Continued production of the F-15E aircraft is the only way to accomplish this goal. I commend the members of the Appropriations Committee for their responsible actions to ensure that we retain and enhance the capabilities required to protect America's security into the next century. I urge my colleagues to support this decision, and vote for this bill.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Chairman, I rise to support the Gilman/Maloney/ Crowley amendment to HR 2415. We shouldn't jeopardize international family planning efforts because of legitimate concerns about China's family planning policies. We are all against forced abortion. It is wrong, and must be unequivocally condemned. But that is not the issue here today. The issue here is: do we empower women and families across the globe with the ability to plan for the number of children they can have, or do we pull the rug out under these important efforts. For me, the choice is clear. We must continue to work to give every woman the right and educated choices necessary to plan the size of her own family, free of any coercion. I believe that opponents of international family planning efforts are using the issue of forced abortion as a stalking horse for an attack on our support of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). UNFPA funding has nothing to do with Chinese government policy on abortion. First of all, none of the funds that we give to the UNFPA are used in China. Not one cent of US contributions can be used in China. Secondly, the UNFPA does not support abortion in any of its work in China or anywhere else. Its program is specifically based on the premise that abortion is not a method of family planning. And thirdly, the UNFPA program is fully voluntary. Women choose to participate in the program without coercion. Family planning is the best tool to eliminate unplanned pregnancies across the world. Better family planning means fewer abortions-- something that pro-choice and pro-life groups can all support. The UNFPA works in 149 countries. Cutting off US funds will lead to more abortions, not less. Let's work together to reduce the number of abortions. Let's join to support this amendment to help ensure that all women across the globe can receive access to voluntary family planning and allow them to control their own destiny.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, it is my sad duty to inform the Members that we have lost this morning our dear friend from California, George Brown, who died in Washington, D.C. Our prayers and our thoughts are with his family and his friends and neighbors and constituents. He has been a constant friend to all of us on both sides of the aisle. He has been a dedicated public servant and he gave a great, great deal of his life to this body and to his constituents. I would like to ask us now to rise and have a moment of silence in his memory.

Mr. GEPHARDT. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, instead of addressing the crisis of health care in our Nation, we keep finding excuse after excuse to block progress on this issue. Let us stop the delay. We have a road map for reforming HMO care, the Democratic Patients' Bill of Rights. There is not a one of us who would choose an MBA over an M.D. when it comes to our family's medical health, but that is exactly what has happened to our health care system. We have taken the power away from those who know and care about saving lives and we have given it to people whose priority is simply making money. It needs to change, and that change can begin today. I ask every Member on both sides of the aisle to join me in signing this petition to make sure that the needs of America's families are not pushed aside yet again, and to make sure we fulfill our responsibility to working families and prevent them from worrying about whether their children will get the care they need and deserve for another year. Let us stop the obstruction, let us sign the petition, and let us get to work.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Chairman, I rise tonight to urge Members to support the McCarthy amendment that is cosponsored by the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. McCarthy) and the gentlewoman from New Jersey (Ms. Roukema) and the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. Morella) the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Blagojevich) and others. And I recommend it to Members because I think it is the most reasonable and common-sensical approach to this problem. Let me begin the debate tonight by submitting some agreements that I think all of us agree to. I think all of us here believe in the Second Amendment, we believe in the right of American citizens to have, possess, and bear arms. Let me also submit that all of us believe that doing something about the availability of guns to children is not going to solve alone or nearly alone the problem of school violence that we face. There are a lot of other things that, hopefully, will be considered here on the floor of the House in the days to come. We need to address all of the problems of the way children are raised, the way children are taught, so that we can raise law-abiding, productive citizens in the case of every child in our country. But the McCarthy amendment and the amendment presented by the gentleman from Florida (Mr. McCollum), which has many merits about it, are both based on the idea that the Brady bill that we passed in 1993 has been an important change in the law that has brought about an improvement in terms of who is able to buy guns. The Department of Justice today released information that said that in the last 6 months 17,000 criminals, people who had been convicted of crimes, were refused the ability to buy a gun because of the operation of the Brady law. Let me just read some of the cases that were affected under the Brady law. On January 9, 1999, in Texas a convicted murderer was not allowed to buy a weapon. On February 6, 1999, a person under indictment for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon was denied the right to buy a weapon. On February 27 of this year, a person convicted of aggravated kidnapping with intent to rape a child was denied the right to buy a weapon in my own State of Missouri, February 13 of this year, a person wanted for domestic battery in Illinois. February 27, a person convicted of illegal possession of explosives in New Mexico. I could go on and on. I could read 17,000 people in the last 6 months who were refused the right to buy a gun. This law works. We had 70 or so percent of Democrats, 30 percent of Republicans who voted in a bipartisan way for the Brady bill in 1993. It was a good thing to do. It was common sense. And it has worked. The problem is there was a loophole, as often there is in laws that we write, and a lot of people have been driving through that loophole. The loophole is that we have a thing called gun shows and flea sales, flea markets, where people can go and buy weapons today and not have the Brady check. And so, what we are on the floor tonight in part to remedy is that loophole. And I believe that the McCarthy amendment does that the best, for two reasons. One, I think it has the definition of a ``gun show'' that is tight enough to pick up most of the gun shows. And secondly, the time period, and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. McCollum) has talked about this, is longer than in other amendments that will be presented and allows the check to actually take place. Now, in truth, about 90 percent of the people will be able to buy the gun at the gun show because the instant check is working and it will not stop them from being able to buy the gun at the site within the first hour or so after they make the purchase. So this is a reasonable piece of legislation. I had an officer, a police officer, in Chicago the other day come up to me on a plane and he said, ``You know, it is really important that you get rid of this gun show exclusion.'' He said, ``I go into high schools all over Chicago and I ask kids, `Do you have a gun at home?' Everybody raises their hand. I ask, `How many of you know where the gun is right now?' Everybody raises their hand. I ask them, `How many have shot the gun?' Everybody raises their hand.'' He said, ``I grew up in the inner City of Chicago; and I can tell you, when I was a kid,'' and he was not that old, certainly not as old as I am, he said, ``guns were not that available.'' He said, ``When we had a fight in school, maybe it was a fistfight. At worst, it was a knife somebody brandished. But nobody could get to a gun.'' And he said, ``The truth is, and I know this for a fact because I work in this area, the guns that are coming into Chicago now are coming through the gun shows and the flea markets because people that want to sell guns to kids are going there to get out of the Brady law.'' This is a loophole we need to close, and we can close it tonight. Now, let me end with this: I think a lot of Americans are tuning in tonight to hear this debate because I think the American people are looking to us in a bipartisan way to take a small step in the right direction to address a problem that I believe is a national crisis. When we have Littleton and we have Georgia and we have Arkansas and we have Oregon and we have Kentucky and we have kids killing kids in high schools, not just in inner cities but in suburbs all across this country, we have a national crisis. We lost more kids yesterday to school violence than we lost in Kosovo and in Bosnia in the last 3 years put together. This is a national crisis. Thirteen kids a day go down to school violence. The police officer in Chicago said when he was talking to me on the plane, ``It is 9:30 at night. There have already been three funerals in the City of Chicago of children who were killed by children tonight.'' And he said, it is every night, every night, every night, every night. We know this is not going to solve the problem alone. But it is a step in the right direction. I went to Littleton on the Sunday they had the memorial service a week after the children were killed. I met with Colin Powell and the Vice President, the parents of the dead children. They came through one at a time. It took an hour and a half. I hugged them. I cried with them. As I held them in my arms, all I could think of was my kids. One of the mothers had the picture of her child with a frame. She sobbed in my arms for about 2 minutes. I cried with her. When she stepped back, she looked at me and she said, ``Congressman, please go back to the Congress and take some step so that my child did not die in vain.'' That is what we owe the people of this country tonight. This should not be a political issue, a partisan issue, a Democrat- Republican issue. This is an issue of our children, of saving children's lives, of making guns less available to the children of this country. We can do this. We can make America better tonight. I urge Members to search their conscience and their heart, let us not let these children die in vain. Vote for a good, common-sense amendment, the McCarthy amendment.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Chairman, after 78 long days, the United States and its NATO allies have won a major victory over the forces of instability and inhumanity. Today, we are trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. We have won the war. Serbian troops are withdrawing from Kosovo under the exact terms that we have held out since the beginning of this action. We now have an opportunity to win the peace finally in the Balkans. A vote against the Skelton amendment would prevent us from achieving the fruits of our success, restoring peace and stability to Kosovo, returning 1 million refugees to their homeland, and making sure that the bloodshed will finally end. Even if one was against the military action, one should be for the peacekeeping effort. If one cares about the humanitarian catastrophe that has happened in the Balkans, if one cares about the future stability in Europe, the peacekeeping effort is the best way to continue this success. Our heroic young people, men and women, for 74 days led this air campaign against the Serbian military, and therefore, we must be part of the peacekeeping effort. The President has said that the peacekeeping force will be overwhelmingly made up of European troops. We must continue to fulfill our obligation to NATO through our participation in this effort. Turning our backs on this effort now would send a horrible signal to NATO and to the rest of the world that the United States is turning to an isolationist stance. Congress has been criticized for our erratic policy on Kosovo. This is our chance today to be consistent and to be united behind the policy of peace and responsible American leadership in the world. We have a responsibility to our troops, to NATO, and to the refugees to fulfill our role in this peacekeeping effort. I pray that Congress can put aside the actions of the last several months and join together to support this effort. It is the right thing to do, it makes sense, and it is worthy of our bipartisan support. I urge Members on both sides of the aisle to back the Skelton amendment, to back peacekeeping, and to back what is right for the world.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, today, I honor the hundreds, if not thousands of Chinese students that were brutally slain on June 4, 1989, by the Communist Chinese authorities. On that fateful day ten years ago, the best and brighest of a generation perished needlessly and the lives of countless Chinese families were disrupted forever. I commend my colleague Nancy Pelosi for her continuing leadership on China issues and for introducing H. Res. 178, to commemorate the Tenth Anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Her efforts insure that the U.S. House of Representatives and the American people will never forget. To all the activists in China fighting today for the freedom of their country, I vow never to forget Tiananmen Square. I remind you that your allies across the globe continue to fight for your universal cause; to attain freedom, democracy and human rights for the Chinese people. The Chinese leaders say that they want to bring China into the modern world economy. I say to the Chinese leaders, you can't have capitalism without democracy and human rights. Capitalism and democracy go hand in hand, you can't have one without the other. The democratic rights advocated by these slain students ten years ago are universal, not uniquely western values as the Chinese leadership would have us believe. Indeed the blooming of full democracy in Taiwan, Korea, South Africa, Eastern Europe, Russia and many other countries since 1989 proves the universality of democracy and human rights. Ultimately, the values of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will prevail. As that document states, ``All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.'' Until that day I will join Nancy Pelosi, many of my colleagues here in the House, and countless others around the world in fighting for this just cause.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, today is the 1-month anniversary of the tragedy at Littleton, Colorado. I hoped to come to the floor today to speak on what we as a Nation need to begin to do to solve this epidemic of youth violence. I did not expect that we would have had another shooting at another high school, serving as another alarm, as if we needed one, prompting us to act. During the memorial service in Littleton, a singer, Phil Driscoll, sang a song that he wrote for the occasion. In the song, he sang a line that I cannot get out of my mind. The line was, ``This is a wake-up call. How many innocent have to fall.'' Today we received another wake-up call coming from Conyers, Georgia. What a wake-up call it was. But what can be done to solve the problem? What can we do to address the concerns of students and parents? I think there is a lot we must do and a lot that we can do. I refuse to accept the defeatist attitude which says this is a complex problem, and, therefore, there is nothing that Congress can do about it. That is wrong, and that is unacceptable. We have a national security crisis in our schools. We have lost more American children in our schools than American soldiers in Kosovo. This is a national security crisis which requires the same kind of mobilization that we apply to any military threat abroad. Obviously attention must be paid to the accessibility of guns in our society and the frequent and intense images of violence in our mass media. Clearly, we can make guns less accessible to kids. We can try to give parents better tools to supervise what their children are watching or playing on the TV or the Internet. Legislation has been debated and passed on the floor of the Senate over the past week that tried to make progress on limiting the access of kids to guns. I favor effective legislation to keep guns out of the hands of kids and hope the House will take up this legislation before we leave for Memorial Day. This makes sense and should have no impact on law-abiding citizens who want to purchase and own guns for sporting use and their own protection. We are talking about passing common-sense, child-safety legislation to make sure that children cannot get easy access to guns. I hope the House can follow the Senate's lead and move this kind of legislation forward without loopholes. But child-related gun legislation is only one part of the puzzle. There is a lot we must do to make sure that our children are not exposed to inappropriate violent material in the media. The Vice President has begun a discussion with Internet companies to publish the same ratings for on-line gaming that most TV shows have already. The President has called on the movie theaters to better enforce the rating process that is already in place there. Newspapers must also do a better job of making the rating systems clear to parents. Even if we are able to make the progress we hope for in these two areas, we know that these steps alone will not solve the problem. We need to address the broader issue of the quality of our children's education and how to give them the attention they need to grow up to be healthy in both mind and body. At the President's meeting on school violence at the White House, various experts on violence repeatedly made the point that this problem of school violence is a problem with many layers. They also said that such a complicated problem demanded more than single simple solutions. One cause of the problem is that parents spend nearly one-third less time with children than they did a generation ago. With more single- parent families and more parents working more jobs and more hours and spending more time in traffic, there is just a lot less time for parents to be with and communicate with and raise their children. In many families today, the kids are left alone most of the time. And as we all know, kids do not raise themselves. When parents are home, they often do not spend as much time talking with their children. With television, the Internet, pagers, and other distractions, parents communicate less with kids even when they are able to be home. Before television, time around the dinner table was a time for family communication. Now if a family has time for dinner together, many families have the television on during dinner and nobody really talks to one another. Another factor that was mentioned was the amount of domestic violence and child abuse that some young people are exposed to today. We have always had these problems, but the problem is far worse now than it has ever been. It is obvious that children exposed to abuse are much more prone to resort to violence in their own lives. Another factor is the size of high schools. Most of our schools were built after World War II when we were trying to accommodate the baby boom. The schools were built large for economic reasons, and the size did not matter when families were intact and parents could spend more time with children. However, in today's world, it is unwise to have anonymous children in large schools. Another problem is the increasing diagnosis of mental illness among children. One of the experts at the summit said that mental illness is more prevalent than ever but health insurance covers these problems less than ever. Consequently, many kids have problems but cannot get the professional mental help that they need. One expert said that our problems stem from what adults do to children or do not do for children. The answers to our problems lie with adults and what we can do to raise children properly. We spend so much of our debate and our time addressing the symptoms of violence but not the causes of violence. We talk about guns or conflict resolution or school violence programs. And it is right that we do so. But we spend far too little time discussing how we can prevent these problems in the first place. It is obvious that the modern family needs help in filling the time holes that exist. The only institution, in my view, that can possibly fill these holes are our public schools. Schools have complained about the need to fill all these holes. But the truth is that only through the public schools can we achieve the scale that we need to solve these problems with all the children of our country. We need nothing short of a revolution in our public schools to deal with the modern problems that children face in the modern world. Nostalgia for the past, criticism of other institutions for not meeting these challenges, or finger pointing at institutions that are not doing enough will not get us to a solution of these problems. We must really begin to build the public will to do what is necessary to really solve these problems. Raising and educating children correctly is a huge task and will not happen without human will to achieve that goal. In World War II, everyone thought America was way behind and would not win. What critics misunderstood was the will of the American people. Once every American internalized the goal of winning the war, each one of them did what was necessary on a daily basis and the war was won. The same can be achieved with our children, but a similar effort to what took place in World War II must be achieved. All of us, whether we have children or not, has a responsibility to enter into this effort to educate and raise our children. It is in our deep self-interest to do this. Government at all levels must help, and local government has the major responsibility. I hope in the days ahead we will work together to find answers to this crisis. Before the memorial service in Littleton, I went with Colin Powell and Vice President Gore and the gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. DeGette), other members of the Colorado delegation, to meet with the parents of the dead children. We met with them for an hour and a half before the memorial service. We hugged them. We cried with them. I told them that the whole country was there with us standing with them at this time of terror and sorrow. One of the mothers, after sobbing uncontrollably and shaking in my arms, pulled back with a picture of her child and she said, ``Congressman, I hope you will lead in the Congress to make sure that my child did not die in vain.'' I will never get her face out of my mind. And now we have more fathers and mothers in Georgia who today are saying, ``I hope my child was not injured in vain.'' How many more children have to go down for all of us to accept the responsibility that we have to see that children are cared for and loved and respected and disciplined so that this does not happen again? We may not be able to agree on much here, but we owe every parent who has lost a child to violence our best, honest efforts to work together as a Congress to solve some of these problems. I am not so arrogant to think that we have the power to single- handedly solve these problems. But we need to start the process of reaching out to one another for comprehensive, meaningful, effective solutions. We need an honest discussion of the profound changes that are happening in our society and what we can agree will begin to change our culture so that all of our children, every one of them, is raised to be a productive, law-abiding, contributing citizen in this great society. If we cannot somehow do that, we will be consigned to more and more Littletons and more and more Conyers, Georgia. Every day in our country we lose 13 young people to suicide and violence. Every day there is a Littleton. And it has to come to an end. If we cannot act on something as important as our families and our futures, then we will fail in our most basic duty to promote the safety and well-being of all of our people. We must do it now, not a month from now. We must do it before the next breaking news on CNN about another school shooting. We must do it before we see the pictures of children running across the lawns of schools trying to find safety. We must do it before we get another wake-up call and another specter of death among our young people in our schools. We have already waited too long. We have overslept. It is time to wake up. It is time to hear the wake-up call and to say, this must stop, this must end. And as another parent at Littleton told me, ``Surely,'' as tears rolled down his face, ``we can do better.'' This is the greatest country that has ever existed on Earth. We have a national crisis. The crisis is among our young people and it is in our schools. And surely we can summon the goodness and the greatness of our people and all of us to face down this death and to bring it to a final and lasting conclusion.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Chairman, the technology industry has been a prime driver in the robust economic growth that we have seen in the last several years. I think it is our responsibility to see that the Y2K problem does not slow down this engine of growth in our economy. Democrats have put forward a substitute bill cosponsored by the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Zoe Lofgren), the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. John Conyers), and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Rick Boucher) which addresses the Y2K litigation problem in a responsible, sensible, and adequate manner. The Clinton administration supports this substitute. We need to do something but we do not need to take steps that will dismantle key protections for consumers and small businesses that is represented in H.R. 775. The Lofgren- Conyers-Boucher substitute is a responsible alternative that would allow businesses to take the necessary steps to enhance readiness and assist customers to deal with the Y2K bug. The Democratic substitute would create incentives for Y2K compliance, weed out frivolous Y2K claims while allowing meritorious ones to go forward, and encourage alternatives to litigation. I applaud the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Anna Eshoo), who is a key leader on technology issues, who understands that H.R. 775 is not the solution to the problem and who is trying to find a compromise that will provide the protections that both industry and consumers deserve. Some Republicans are using the sledgehammer approach to this issue. Instead of trying to fashion a responsible solution to a real problem, they are trying to create a divisive issue where one need not exist. We do not need a campaign issue, which I am afraid is the way some of my Republican colleagues are approaching the problem. We need a real bipartisan solution that the President will sign. We can come up with a better way than H.R. 775. Let us address the problem, not make it worse. Vote against H.R. 775 and support the common sense Lofgren-Conyers-Boucher substitute.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Chairman, this debate today should not be about politics; it should be about people. The substitute offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) I believe is a better way to go about dealing with the problems that we face. We need to support the troops in the field. However my colleagues feel about the action that is taking place, I think by now we have all come to the conclusion that we got our young people out there. We need to support them. The President asked us for $6 million to support our young men and women in the field. The pay, which the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) puts into his alternative is obviously needed and sends a strong message to our young people that we intend to try to retain people in the service and get people that we are trying to recruit. Mr. Chairman, I think that makes sense, and that is why he put it in the bill. There are a lot of other needs in the military. I do not think the place to address those needs is in this bill. I do not deny that those needs ought to be looked at. Many of them ought to be fulfilled. I simply believe that in an emergency bill that we are trying to get through here in a expeditious manner, it does not do well to raise a lot of issues that are properly raised in the appropriation process. So I think the Obey amendment deals with the military needs that we have got right now in Kosovo in the best way. But further than that, what is also important about the Obey amendment is that it deals with emergencies that we have already spoken to on this floor that we need to include in this legislation. We have thousands of people in Central America who are out of their homes, who are migrating northward, trying to come to Mexico, trying to come to the United States, because we have been here 79 days and we have not dealt with the emergency in Central America. And we have been here 79 days, and we have not dealt with the emergency in middle America with our farmers in agriculture. The Obey amendment, the Obey substitute, deals not only in the most sensible way with Kosovo, he also deals with middle America and agriculture and deals with Central America and Hurricane Mitch and the crisis that is on there. If my colleagues are thinking about people both here in the United States and in other places in the world that need our support, and if my colleagues are thinking about our young people out prosecuting this air war in Kosovo, vote for the Obey amendment. It is more sensible, it is more intelligent, and it better meets the problems that we, as a people, face today.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, I urge all Members, Republican and Democratic, to vote against this resolution, and I urge you to do it for three simple reasons: First, the language in this resolution is unnecessary. I was at a meeting a few minutes ago in the White House. Many of the Members here were in the meeting as well. The President was asked, as I have asked him many times, if as a practical matter he would change the policy and ask for ground troops in this situation without a vote of the Congress. And his unequivocal answer then and every time that I have asked him this was that he would not. He would not as a practical matter ask for an introduction of ground troops without coming here, talking to us and allowing time for a vote. As minority leader I believe strongly that if there is to be a change in the policy by NATO or the United States and we should be seeking ground troops, that it must be debated in the Congress and a vote must be taken in the Congress. I do not know how I would vote. I would want to hear what they have to say, why they want to do it, how it would be done and what the feasibility of it would be. So I would say to all Members in both parties, on both sides of the aisle, you have my pledge that if there is a change in the policy, I will be asking the Speaker to put on the floor an authorization, and we will debate it and decide it and vote on it. Secondly, I think this bill, if it passes, would be harmful to our effort. I say that because you have got to think about who is going to be listening to what we are saying. Mr. Milosevic will be listening carefully to what we say here today. Over the weekend he got a message of unity and resolve by 19 NATO countries. He is probably having to think today, wow, maybe NATO really means this; maybe they really are going to stay with this air campaign; maybe they really do have their act together. Do you really want to say to him today that we do not know what we are doing, we probably will not be for ground troops? Do you want to take that option off the table? I do not think so. Third, and most important, is what the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) said: The language in this resolution is unclear, not as well put as it could be, and it leaves in question what can be done in the prosecution of the air war, which has been going on for 30 days. There are lots of questions about people going across the border to do this, that and the other thing in cooperation with the air war that has nothing to do with the big ground force going over to try to reclaim all or part of Kosovo that I do not think you want to get into. I appreciate tremendously and respect the sentiment of the gentlewoman and the gentleman that brought this resolution. I share their view. I do not think there ought to be a ground war, unless we vote on it and debate it. I totally share their view. But I, with all respect, believe this is not the way to do it. I believe that will happen if that is the decision of NATO. I urge Members to vote against this so that we can send the right message to Mr. Milosevic and to the American public and to the world. I urge Members to vote no on this. Let us keep the right message out there and stand behind our troops, that are out there every day trying to do the right thing to get this done without a ground war.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, I rise to ask each Member to seriously consider voting for this resolution. As I enter this debate, I think it is worthwhile tonight at 7 o'clock here in Washington to take into account the votes that we have taken and the messages that we have sent from this Chamber this afternoon, today. First, we have said that we do not want a general declaration of war against Serbia. Second, we have said that we do not want to withdraw all of our troops out of the region. Third, we have said that if there is to be a ground war, we want the President to come back here and get a vote from this body. If we now vote against what the Senate passed 4 weeks ago in a bipartisan way, a simple authorization of what is now happening on the ground in Kosovo and around Kosovo, we will send a message to our young men and women who are out there trying to carry out this policy that we have conflicting signals on war or withdrawal or what we are going to do about a ground war, but we send the clearest signal of the day that we do not even want to authorize what we are doing. It also will send a message to Mr. Milosevic and his leadership that the House of Representatives of the United States of America is totally confused and certainly is not behind what is happening. I do not think that is the message we want to send. If we learned anything from Vietnam, I think we should have learned that before we commit our troops and put them in the field and leave them out there with ambivalence, that we have to stand finally behind something. I know there are lots of worries by Members here about ground troops. I have worries about ground troops. I have not decided how I would vote on ground troops. But I have decided that what we are doing with 19 other nations of NATO is the right thing for our country to do. If it is to succeed, we must be unified together as a people, behind the effort, and America must be unified with NATO in its first affirmative action in 50 years, since it was conceived, to move forward to try to end this killing and mayhem that is going on and has been going on for weeks now in Kosovo. I urge Members to put aside partisan feelings and political goals and objectives. That can have no place in this consideration. There is not a Republican Army or a Democratic Army or a Republican Air Force or a Democratic Air Force. This is the United States of America. Our young people, our best, are out there tonight doing what we have asked them to do. At the very least, we owe them and NATO an affirmation that we as the representatives of the American people at least support what is happening now, without prejudging or saying what we would do about other propositions that might come later. I urge Members to support this resolution. The Senate passed it 4 weeks ago with a bipartisan vote. Fifty-seven Members of the Senate voted for this resolution. I think it would be a grave error if we would not support it tonight. I urge Members to search their conscience, I urge Members to stand behind this policy for the sake of the United States, for the sake of our young people, for the sake of our future.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Indiana for yielding time to me, and salute her for her work and effort in bringing this matter before the United States House of Representatives. I also appreciate that she called me young. That was very nice; not true, but very nice. Mr. Speaker, in the 105th Congress we honored Nelson Mandela, the father of the struggle for freedom and equality in South Africa, with Congress' highest honor, the Congressional Gold Medal. Now, in the 106th Congress, we have the opportunity to bestow a similar honor on Rosa Parks, the mother of the American struggle for freedom, our civil rights movement. Through the simple act of keeping her seat on a Montgomery bus in 1955, Rosa Parks stood for the hopes of a people and a Nation. In a 1958 speech, Martin Luther King, Jr., said and I quote, ``You would never have heard of Martin Luther King if it had not been for Rosa Parks and the humble people of Montgomery, Alabama, who decided to walk in dignity, rather than ride in disgrace.'' Rosa Parks symbolizes the greatness in all of us and our ability to rise above our circumstances to achieve the extraordinary. One brave act of humble greatness triggered an avalanche of change which helped our country fulfill its commitment to equal rights for all Americans, regardless of race, regardless of anything. For her leadership and her example, Rosa Parks deserves to be honored with this Congressional Gold Medal. I am very proud of all of the Members who cosponsored this resolution. I am very proud of all of the Members in both the Democratic and Republican Party who stood with their names for this resolution. I want to salute my colleague, the gentlewoman from Indiana (Ms. Julia Carson) for her efforts in bringing this matter to the Floor of the Congress. I want to thank the leadership on the Republican side for helping to bring this to the Congress. This act today is in the highest tradition of this great body. We salute together, as one voice, the example, the life, the bravery, the courage, of Rosa Parks, who made this country and everybody in it better.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues in the Blue Dog Caucus, especially the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner), for their leadership in helping to bring campaign finance reform to the forefront of the agenda in this session. I also want to thank the freshman Democrats who have been so helpful with this effort, and I want to thank the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan), who have been the leaders of making this legislation come together. This is a bipartisan issue which demands bipartisan action. Both Democrats and Republicans support the Shays-Meehan reform bill to help restore sanity to our system of political campaigns. It is a first step but we need to start somewhere, and that place is here and that place is now and that time is now. Unfortunately, the Republican leadership of the House for the past 2 years has been dedicated to stifling these bipartisan efforts to clean up political campaigns. First it was death by amendment. Now it is death by delay. Well, it is now or never. In baseball, wait until next year is the perpetual excuse for coming in last. Wait until August is another excuse for why the House will not pass campaign finance reform again this year. If we want to clean up the political campaign system, now is the time and here is the chance. I urge every Member, both Democrat and Republican, to sign this discharge petition. It is a fair petition. It is a fair rule. Let us get campaign reform done now, not later.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, Margrit Beran Krewson has recently retired from the Library of Congress where she has served with great dedication for 30 years. For the past 18 years she was the Library's German/Dutch area specialist in the European Division, and thus the Library's principal liaison with the countries of Austria, Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands, and Switzerland. The author of 18 bibliographic publications, calling to public attention the depth and scope of the Library's Dutch and German-language collections, Mrs. Krewson made one of her responsibilities informing American descendants of European immigrants of their national heritages collected in the Library of Congress. Her bibliographies range from 300 Years of German Immigration to the United States (1983) through The Dutch Collections of the Library of Congress: A Chronology (1990) to German-American Relations: A Selective Bibliography (1995). In addition, she has sponsored over 60 events--lectures, exhibitions, and readings related to the countries for which she is responsible--including in 1996 raising the necessary funds and editing the catalog for the Library's successful exhibition Dresden: Treasures from the Saxon State Library. Her dedicated attention to publications within their countries and her care in maintaining cultural relations has led the governments of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Netherlands, the Republic of Austria, and Belgium to acknowledge her achievements with the award of special decorations--most recently The Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit from Germany in 1996 and the Cross of Honor for Science and Art from Austria in 1997.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Chairman, I rise in favor of the Democratic alternative and against the Republican budget, and I want to say tonight that I think we have to look at this issue from the viewpoint of people sitting around their kitchen table at home tonight looking at the issues that are involved in this budget. It is not about charts, it is not about graphs, it is not about statistics, it is not about numbers. It is about ideas that make sense to ordinary Americans, working families who are sitting around the breakfast table or the dinner table talking about the problems that they face. What would they like to see happen in this budget? First of all, they want Medicare and Social Security stabilized and extended, probably the two most important programs in peoples' lives. They are popular programs, important programs on an everyday basis. The Democratic budget extends the life of Medicare by 12 years and the life of Social Security by 18 years. We have a letter from the actuaries that say that our budget does that. They are not Republican actuaries or Democratic actuaries. They are actuaries, and their job is to give us information about ideas, and the Democratic idea they say extends the life of those two programs; in the one case, by 12; in the other case, by 18 years. The Republican budget does not have that letter from the actuaries, so if our colleagues are worried about Medicare and Social Security, then they ought to vote for the Democratic budget. The second thing people, I think, would like to do is pay down debt, pay down back debt so that we pass along less back debt to our children and grandchildren and we have less carrying cost or interest cost in future budgets. The Democratic budget is much better on that score. The third thing they would like is targeted tax cuts, tax cuts that go to their problems. What are their problems? Long term care for their parents; that is a problem. We can have a targeted tax cut under the Democratic budget for that. They want tax cuts that have to do with U.S.A. accounts. I think the idea of being able to put more savings behind their Social Security so that they can have additional moneys to live on in their retirement is a very attractive idea that is in our budget. The fourth thing that I think they are interested in is being able to have more funds available for education, for smaller class size, for more teachers, for health care, for housing, for the needs that people have on an everyday basis. To me this whole issue is very simple. If we look at it through the eyes of ordinary American families who are out there tonight sitting around a table, if we are looking at the things that they care about, what I call kitchen table, everyday problems, this Democratic budget is far superior to the Republican budget on those issues, on those grounds. This is a simple choice that Members have to make tonight. I urge Members to vote for the Democratic alternative. If we get the votes to pass it tonight, it will be the budget of the United States, and I think it should be the budget of the United States because it is the budget of working families in this country.

Mr. GEPHARDT

Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Chairman, the majority has in my view let down America's farmers because of the way they have responded to the President's request for supplemental aid. The President made this request nearly one month ago, and we are just getting around to it now, a month after the request was made and the need was demonstrated. They put forward a bill which in my view is full of items which will hurt our national security and weaken the international economy. I do not like to say it, but I think the Republican party has given in to isolationist tendencies. By turning our backs on the world, we only hurt the global economy further and hurt exporters like farmers who are getting pummeled by the downturn in Asia and elsewhere. The delay has hurt the financial bottom line for thousands of farmers across America. There is a near depression happening in many parts of our farm economy. Hog farmers in my district cannot even sell hogs at half the break-even price, Mr. Chairman. Let me just mention one young farmer from my district, Mike Kertz of Ste. Genevieve, Missouri. He comes from a farm family, and he wants to carry on the farm tradition. He raises hogs. At today's prices, the prices he was getting for months, he cannot survive, he can not have a future, he can not keep the farm. Missouri's farmers would get over $42 million in new credit loans in the President's request, and over 12,000 farmers nationwide would benefit from the supplemental funding for agriculture. But we needed action last month, and we needed a bill today that would get to the President's desk with no strings attached and not a bill that is isolationist and which harms our national security. These are irresponsible policies that were injected into this bill. These objectionable policies should be dropped so we can get the aid to the people who have already been waiting too long for it. We must not deliver this aid at the cost of giving up on our obligations which are in the long term to the benefit of every American citizen. Mr. Chairman, I urge the majority to drop these objectionable provisions, I urge them to bring a bill that we can support, and if that does not happen, I urge Members to vote against this legislation in the hope that we can get a bill that is worthy of support.