Lindsey Graham

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Speaker, a comment and a perspective from my point of view. Thus far the debate in this House I believe has brought honor to the House and is serving the American people well. Some of the rhetoric I disagree with, but that is what a debate is all about. I choose now to not use rhetoric, but to talk about the facts. I will talk to you about Article IV, abuse of power, and the offenses against this institution, the Congress, by the President of the United States. It is the one article that is very similar to the Watergate impeachment of President Nixon. Article IV is very similar to Article III in the Nixon case, and I will talk about that just in a moment, but first a quick summary from my perspective of what brought us here. What brought us here is not partisanship, but the conduct of one man who happened to be the President, who happened to be elected by the people and given the most solemn responsibility in the Nation, to be the chief law enforcement officer of the land, and he failed miserably in that responsibility and he deserves to be impeached based on what he did, not what I think about him, not how I voted, but what he did. Article I, grand jury perjury. Mr. Speaker, remember the context in which the perjury occurred. The President several months before had given false testimony in a deposition. The President was begged by members of both parties in the House and Senate, ``Mr. President, do not go into the grand jury and lie again. Do not give false or misleading or perjurious testimony again, because you put your presidency at stake; you do a disservice to this country.'' Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, based on the facts, not based on my feelings, based on overwhelming facts, the President of the United States chose in August, months after being warned not to do it, he chose to lie to a Federal grand jury. He abused the 23 citizens who were trying very hard to get it right. He abused the Federal court system. It was his fault, and no one else's. Mr. Speaker, any President of the United States, regardless of party, that goes to a Federal grand jury in the future, let it be said by as many Members of the House that can say it, you are subject to being impeached if you do that. Article II, who is the injured party? Consensual sex, this is colored by sex, but there is a moment in time, Mr. Speaker, where the allegations about sex were anything but consensual. The day the President gave deposition testimony in the Paula Jones case, the allegations were far from consensual. They were rude and crude. He was put under oath, he was asked questions with a Federal judge sitting in front of him, and the injured party was Paula Jones, because he chose to lie in a sexual harassment suit. That is nonconsensual sex, the topic. He chose to deny a citizen their fair day in court. The President turned the justice system upside down on many occasions for his personal gain, and that is why we are here today. Article III, the President of the United States, while being in a litigation matter against an average, everyday citizen, chose to go to witnesses and try to get them to lie and provide false testimony, chose to go and plant stories about witnesses that were false, that were malicious. The President of the United States tried to cheat a litigant out of a fair day and trial. Let it be said that at anytime, anywhere, regardless of party, in the future if you do that as president, you are subject to being impeached. Article IV, who is the injured party? We are the injured party. Here is what happened in Article IV. This House by House Resolution 581, 360 votes, I believe, authorized the Committee on the Judiciary to inquire into the allegations against the President. Mr. Speaker, we can that. Part of that inquiry, what we chose to do was submit questions to the President to flesh out the facts. Eighty-one questions were sent to flesh out the facts in this case by Chairman Hyde, and the President was asked under oath to give answers to those questions as part of our inquiry. Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, the President lied in January to injure Paula Jones, he lied to the Federal grand jury to injure the Federal court system in this case, and I think the facts are overwhelming that he gave false, misleading and perjurious testimony to the Congress as part of our inquiry. Let me tell you how that is similar to the Nixon case. Article III of impeachment against Richard Nixon, the article was based on the idea that Richard Nixon as president failed to comply with subpoenas of Congress. Congress was going through its oversight function to provide oversight of the President. When asked for information, Richard Nixon chose not to comply, and the Congress back in that time said, ``You are taking impeachment away from us. You are becoming the judge and jury. It is not your job to tell us what we need; it is your job to comply with the things we need to provide oversight over you.'' The day Richard Nixon failed to answer that subpoena is the day that he was subject to impeachment, because he took the power from Congress over the impeachment process away from Congress and he became the judge and jury; and the day that William Jefferson Clinton failed to provide truthful testimony to the Congress of the United States is the day that he chose to determine the course of impeachment. He usurped our power, he abused his authority, he gave false information. That, to me, Mr. Speaker, is the same as giving no information at all. Actually, I think it is worse. So I believe these articles will stand the test of time, they will stand a factual scrutiny that has to be done, and the only way to avoid impeachment is to leave your common sense at the door, defy the way the world works and ignore the facts and talk about something else. We are the victim of Article IV. If you believe he committed grand jury perjury, I think it would be incumbent upon you to find him guilty of Article IV, because the underlying conduct that led to perjury in the grand jury was reasserted in the 81 questions, and he gave the same false, misleading, unbelievable answers. William Jefferson Clinton's impeachment is based on what he did, and no one else.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 453, I was in meetings with Members of Parliament from the U.K. and missed the vote. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and very quickly let me tell my colleagues my experience and what I bring to the debate, I believe. Unlike most Republicans, I was a trial lawyer. I made my living trying to enforce the rights of people, and at one time I had the largest medical malpractice verdict in the State of South Carolina. And I can tell my colleagues, my client would rather have had good health care than the money. I know what I am talking about. I have sued doctors who are medically negligent, and it takes years and it is no fun. The goal that I have today is to get people the treatment they need. Let us talk about the lady who died of cancer. My mother died of cancer. Under this bill that I am supporting here, this is what would happen. An individual does not have to wait 43 days and get told no. The first thing that is a difference today is when a doctor calls up and says the patient needs cancer treatment, they are talking to a doctor, not a nurse. In their bill it can be a nurse. It does not have to be a doctor. So it is doctor-to-doctor. We require that now. No more clerks. The clerks are taken out of the mix and we replace it with a medical doctor. I have lived in the real world, and sometimes doctors have an allegiance to the company and not to what is good for medicine. Under our bill, if it is an emergency situation, we take that case and send it to a panel of independent doctors who have no idea who the company is that is involved, has no idea the doctor who is treating the patient. They are just looking at the facts. Under our bill they have to give a decision in 6 days of whether or not the treatment is medically necessary. That lady will get the treatment. If the patient is awarded at the independent review process, if there is a finding for the patient, our bill has a $500 per-day penalty that kicks in. An individual can go to court right after that, get attorney fees, get the full benefit plus $500 a day. And if the judge finds out the decision was made in bad faith to provide care, it is $1,000 a day, up to $250,000. This happens up front. And give me that any time, rather than a 4-year lawsuit. If the HMO doctor says no, an individual can go get a lawyer, like myself, and go to court within 24 hours and get a temporary restraining order ordering the treatment be paid, by a judge in State or Federal court, and I can get my attorney fees. The lady does not die. The penalties in this bill are to force people to make the right decision, not awards 4 years later. I will tell my colleagues about the $500 claim in the next part of this debate and how our bill is better.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. For any lawyer out there, listen up close. The $500 a day is to ensure prompt payment. The bill ensures treatment. That is the whole point of this bill. If one has a medically urgent situation, one can go to court within minutes of being said no to and get a temporary restraining order ordering the treatment to be given. Also, the physician and hospital can provide one the treatment and subrogate to one's interest and have an external review of the HMO decision within 6 days. That is when the $500 per day kicks in, to get them to pay. During the initial waiting period, one is getting the treatment. That is the point. The $500 a day is to ensure payment. Under our bill, one gets treatment from day one, from minute one, because one has avenues to compel them to treat them. But what about the $500 claim? As a lawyer, one comes in to my office with a $500 claim, no matter how meritorious it is, I am going to say that is very nice, but I have got to make a living and feed my family. I cannot chase $500. Under the Democratic bill, if we have a small claim, we are not entitled to external review until the significant threshold is passed. Under the Republican bill, if they nickel and dime us for $100, $200, $500, and that is what happens every day. They nickel and dime us out there. We allow people to go to external appeal no matter how small the claim is if they put up from $25 to $100. The filing fee in South Carolina for tort actions is $35. So they get an external appeals process and a small claim, then the $500 a day kicks in plus attorneys' fees, plus the benefit. I will take the case then, because I can get paid, and there is a $500 clock running for the small claims. So HMOs will not nickel and dime people. That is where the abuse is at. And my colleagues do nothing about that. This really makes them honest. We get the treatment up front. The penalties are significant. We get people what they need, which is health care, not a jury award 4 years later when they are dead.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Largent) for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, I want to bring back a chart that we looked at just a few minutes ago and have kind of a little different perspective on what we were doing. The gentlewoman from New Jersey (Mrs. Roukema) just mentioned some of the reforms. When we go down this chart of NEA reforms, the gentleman from Florida and the gentleman from Illinois, the Cliff Stearns and the Phil Crane of the world who have been fighting this fight for dozens of years, and other people in this conference, trying to highlight the abuses of this program, I think here are some dividends that have been paid. There is a $400,000 grant in Kansas in March of 1997, a review of that art project. It was called ``Santa's Workshop'' and it had Santa Claus masturbating. So this fairly recent phenomenon here of 1997, of where we do not quite have it right. But the people who have the courage to come up here and say that this is not a proper thing to spend taxpayer money on, and have highlighted the abuse and the way the NEA is run, should be proud that we have made progress. The subcommittee chairman should be proud of what he has been able to do, because that $400,000 grant to produce art showing Santa masturbating is more money than the entire arts agencies in Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho, North Dakota, Wyoming, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and all the U.S. territories received combined. Whether we consider that program art or not, whether we consider it the proper role of the Federal Government, this has been a poorly run Federal agency where 25 cents of every dollar goes into administration and most congressional districts receive little, if any, support from it. It is an elitist organization, out of touch with the American people in terms of business management, out of touch with the American public in terms of what art is. We are making small progress, and that is something to be thankful for. But we can set our watches by this debate, because it will happen again next year, and one year we will take this pot of money and give it to the communities to let them come up with programs better than we can do here. That day is coming.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. Mr. Speaker, you have probably heard it all about status quo, agents for change. Eventually, you are going to get a team to pick, and everybody in America can choose up a side. We have got two leaders here today that are in the Hall of Fame, one in baseball and one in football. This really is about team sports; politics are about team sports. Politics are really about team sports. Two teams are going to take the field today when we vote. One team is going to say the Tax Code is too large, too cumbersome, and we are going to replace it in a timely process, in a reasonable process. We are going to give ourselves 3 or 4 years to do it. If at the end of the 3 or 4 years we do not have a compromise that will work, we will just extend the current Tax Code and keep working on it until we get it right. That team says what we have today is wrong, and we are going to work on it until we get it right. We think 3\1/2\ to 4 years is enough, but if we are wrong, we will extend it. But we are not going to sit by and let the Tax Code be unnoticed. We are going to be agents for change. The other team is going to say it is irresponsible to take a Tax Code that manages the economy to the extent that this Tax Code does and manages people's lives and replace it without knowing where you are going to go. There is a certainly logic to that argument. But a 4-year period, knowing that you are not bound by the 4 years, if you need to extend it, you can, I think that argument sort of falls flat; and it really is a status quo argument. That team is divided into two camps. One group really believes you need something certain before you replace the current Tax Code. A group within that group never wants change, and they are just saying it as a way to avoid change. But if you took that logic and applied it to the history of this country, I doubt it if you would have had much teeth on it in Boston Harbor. I guarantee the first militiamen who fired the shots at Lexington-Concord did not know how that thing was going to end, but they knew they were doing the right thing. They knew that they were taking a stand, and what they were leaving behind was unacceptable. That has been the history of this country, people being bold when they need to be bold, taking oppression and throwing it off the yokes of the working people. That is what this vote is about. That kind of logic, if we had had it in the mid-part of our country here in the 18th century, we would still be in Ohio because nobody would want to go any farther West because they do not know what was over the hill. I can tell you what is over the hill for the American worker: a new Tax Code that is simpler, that is fair, that does not chill you to the bone is a good day. That day is going to come sooner or later. I hope it comes by the year 2003. The only way it is going to happen is if we set a date certain and put a closing date like we do on our House. Anybody that has ever been in litigation, anybody that has ever been a lawyer, they do most of their work on the steps of the courthouse because they have got something to do. You have got a date to meet. We need a date to take this Tax Code and put it in the history books, put it in the history books where it belongs and replace it with something that helps the working people of this country. We can do it, Republicans and Democrats alike. The reason we know we can do it is, we balanced the budget together. But we have got to buy into it. The status quo has got to go.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Speaker, I would like to state that had I been present during the vote on the conference report for H.R. 2400, Building Efficient Surface Transportation and Equity Act, I would have voted ``no'' on the conference report.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the remarkable achievements of Philip C. Musgrave. Mr. Musgrave has had a splendid career in education and discipline which has spanned more than three decades. Sadly, we say goodbye to this gentleman, but are grateful for the legacy that remains. The youth of Edgefield County owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Musgrave for his firm, but fair style of discipline. When love was absent at home, there was Mr. Musgrave. When the role model was no where to be found, there was Mr. Musgrave. When they needed someone simply to talk to, there was Mr. Musgrave. As a coach, a teacher and a principal, he has influenced thousands of young men and women. A recognized leader in Edgefield County, he has honed his leadership skills over the years and developed a sense of strong values vital to his many roles. From my contact with him as an educator and a mayor, he has impressed me with those characteristics revered by many; including honor, humility and personal integrity. I have found Mr. Musgrave to be a dedicated man of outstanding character, concerned with the needs of other and with the willingness and ability to lead.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Chairman, now the rest of the story about tritium. The good news is that when we are talking about tritium, something we ought to be talking about, my good friend the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp) is absolutely right, it is an essential component to keep a nuclear deterrent force operational. I speak about it from representing a district that has made tritium for the United States military for about 50 years. There is parochial interests involved. If they do not have a dog in this tritium, they make a decision they think is good for the country. But let me point a couple things out to my colleagues. The reactor they are talking about that TVA owns is 85 percent complete. They do not have the money to complete it. Nobody will buy it, and they are trying to dump it on the Department of Energy. Let me tell my colleagues what would be so dangerous to let this happen. The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey) is right. Seldom do we agree on anything. And this is an historic agreement in Congress when the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Graham) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey) can agree on something. But if we allow a commercial reactor to make a nuclear weapons product, we are taking 50 years of American public policy and turning it on its head at a time the world is in the most danger it has been in recent times. And what are we going to tell the Indians when they use their commercial power plants to make nuclear weapons? ``Do not do that like us''? That is not what we want to tell them. Let us talk about money. I will take my position as a fiscal conservative against anybody in this body. The $4 billion price tag we hear about the accelerator, the other way of making tritium, is too much. $4 billion is too much to spend. A modular design is being had right now to reduce the cost of the accelerator to $2.6 billion. If they use the TVA numbers to complete this reactor, which is 85 percent complete, they say $2\1/2\ billion. A utility that looked at buying the thing said it cost over $4 billion to complete. If they go down this road, they will be in court forever. Because every group in this country will sue them to keep them from using a commercial reactor to make a military product, and they ought to sue them. It will never happen. Do not take a bad reactor off TVA's hands and mess up American military policy.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Chairman, to take up where my colleague left off about families and about doing better and about hopes and dreams, this bill has a lot of that in it. I am the first person in my family to ever go to college because my parents worked hard. They died fairly early on in my life, and I helped put my sister through, and we got student loans and grants, and it really helped. But one of the debates about education is to provide quality. And, quite frankly, one of the problems we are facing in this country is a shortage of qualified teachers. In this bill, the higher education bill that we are about to, hopefully, pass here, there is a provision that I think the American public needs to know about that is a very good, common-sense step to solving that problem. About 30 percent of the teachers in our K through 12 schooling systems have been in teaching over 20 years and are going to retire, and we are going to have a tremendous teacher shortage in the first part of the 21st century. The number of emergency certificates being issued to get people into the teaching profession, like in New York City alone, is about 18 percent, is at an all-time high. We are having a hard time getting people into the teaching profession, especially in urban poor and rural poor districts. In this bill we have a program, thanks to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee), the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), and the people on our side of the aisle. We have come together in very much a bipartisan fashion to address the teacher shortage facing this country. The loan forgiveness program goes as follows: If individuals graduate from college and are willing to go into the teaching profession and keep their certifications up, because we want quality, not just bodies, and they will go to a Title I school where 30 percent of the students are at the poverty level or below and they will stay in that school system and teach for 3 years and keep their certification levels current, in the fourth year of their teaching career we will start forgiving the student loan at 30 percent, and by the sixth year of their teaching careers we will forgive the student loans entirely, up to $17,750. We on this committee believe that it is a small step forward to addressing the teaching shortage in this country, and I cannot tell my colleagues the response I have gotten in South Carolina. I have a lot of Title I schools with 30 percent poverty level or below. The educators are excited. This will help us get the best and brightest as an incentive to go into teaching, to go into the schools that have a hard time recruiting. And this amount of money is $218 million, and it comes out of the bill itself. There is no new spending. I think it is Congress at its best, and I want to thank the people on the other side of the aisle, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Miller), for helping in this endeavor. A lot of lives are going to be changed very positively as a result of this, and I just think it is a good day for Congress, and I hope other Members will tell the folks back home about this new program.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate and honor Dr. Walter G. Watson of North Augusta, South Carolina. At the graduation ceremony, on May 6, 1998, Clemson University will present Dr. Watson with an honorary degree. At 88 years of age, Dr. Watson remains a practicing physician. After graduating from the Citadel, he attended the Medical College of Georgia (MCG), and later taught there. Besides serving as chair of the OB/GYN department for most of his career, Dr. Watson has received the Outstanding Faculty Award and the Outstanding Alumnus Award from MCG. Dr. Watson also demonstrates exemplary commitment outside of his career. He has served the North Augusta athletic program for over fifty years, by performing physicals and caring for the injured. He also provided critical assistance to his church, by helping to rebuild Grace Methodist, one of South Carolina's largest Methodist churches. As Dr. Watson has no plans for retirement, he continues to serve as an exemplary role model for future generations. He is a dedicated gentleman of high character, concerned with the needs of others and the community he serves. Mr. Speaker, I ask that my colleagues join me in paying tribute to this outstanding individual, by recognizing the commendable actions in all aspects of his life.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Chairman, I would say to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Chairman Shuster), listen up. You have used my name, and that is okay. You talked about a letter I wrote, and that is okay. Last year your committee called me and said there was $7 million for projects in my district. I submitted a list of projects after talking with the highway commissioner in the Third Congressional District, and I appreciated the $7 million. Two weeks ago I got a call from your committee, unsolicited, that said I now have $15 million. I said no. You told me I had by 5 o'clock two weeks ago to take the money or lose it, and I said no. And the reason I said no is because the bill you put together spends $26 billion more than we can afford to spend. What you are doing is, you are allowing this House to slip down a slippery slope because your committee wants to take more of the balanced budget pie than we gave it. And the next chairman and the next worthy cause is going to do that. You are going to make us take it out of somebody else's hide, because you have an amendment in this package that requires this bill to be offset. So we have to go to somebody else in this government and say, ``Give us $26 billion because we overspent on highways, but we are not going to give a dime ourselves.'' Mr. Chairman, my amendment says give up the demonstration projects and we reduce the amount we have to offset by 69 percent. But we are not going to do that. We are going to go to other people in the government and say, ``Give it up. But not us, buddy.'' Mr. Chairman, we reduce spending by 8 percent if we do away with the demonstration projects. All of them are probably worthwhile. I am not up here shaming anybody. Let us assume all 1,467 of them are worthwhile. Look what has happened since the last time we did this. Look how the number of projects has grown. Look how much money. We have tripled the number of projects and increased the spending by a third. I am not here to shame anyone and say that their project is not worthwhile. I am here to say we cannot afford it. Families cannot afford a lot of things they would like. But not us. Somebody in this government is going to pay for this bill, but it will not be us. We will not give one penny. We are going to take every penny we can get and put it in the ground, in the asphalt, and somebody else is going to have to give it up. Mr. Chairman, that is what is wrong with this country. That is why we cannot lead. The gentleman has taken the balanced budget agreement and has made a sham out of it and we all should be ashamed.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

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

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder).

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Inglis).

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg).

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Myrick).

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 5 seconds, just to say that Citizens Against Government Waste and the National Taxpayers Union support my amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn).

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Chairman, speaking of angels and governors, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle).

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Largent).

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to and congratulate United Defense's Ground Systems Division of Aiken, South Carolina for an unprecedented safety achievement. On January 30, 1998, GSD-Aiken employees successfully completed six million hours without a lost-time accident. This remarkable feat is directly attributed to the employees of GSD-Aiken. To accomplish something of this magnitude, every single employee had to work to ensure the safety of others. It was through their hard work and commitment to each other, GSD-Aiken was able to achieve this rare milestone. An exemplary record in safety is nothing new for GSD-Aiken. Since 1994, GSD-Aiken has been certified by the South Carolina Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation as a Palmetto Star facility under the Department's Voluntary Protection Program. Through this program, GSD- Aiken was notified of areas in need of improvement as well as confirming their accomplishments. GSD-Aiken has set a standard in safety that all others should seek to emulate. Therefore, I take great pride in recognizing GSD-Aiken for this remarkable achievement.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Chairman, I know this is an emotional issue to many folks. The commonwealth status of Puerto Rico has been a long-standing status and it confers upon its people certain rights of citizenship. This body is about to take it to a new level. I do not believe the American people are any closer to understanding this issue than when we started. It is taking everybody in the country by surprise. It is a big deal to me. I think we are rushing into it. But if we are going to do it, we need to recognize certain things. Three out of four people in Puerto Rico are not fluent in the English language, and we are setting in motion the possibility of Puerto Rico becoming a State in a couple or three years. The legislative affairs of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico are conducted in Spanish. The Federal Court system requires that jurors speak English to sit as jurors, but the State court system, or the equivalent thereof, is conducted in Spanish, so if anybody finds themselves in Puerto Rico as a State, chances are you are going to be tried in a language you do not understand. What the gentleman from New York (Mr. Solomon) is trying to do is bring unanimity to the 50 or 51 states, saying the common language that unites us is English, and it would apply to all states, not just the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. If we are going to go down this road, we certainly need this piece of legislation. But I believe it is ill-advised to do this without the goodwill of the American people behind us and without exactly understanding where the people of Puerto Rico are. I do not understand why we are doing it, but if we are going to do it, the English component of the Solomon amendment is essential to integrating Puerto Rico into the United States in a viable way. When 3 out of 4 people cannot speak English, that is a road map for disaster, if you are going to be a part of the United States.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Why are we doing this bill? That is a good question. A lot of what the gentleman from California (Mr. Martinez) said I agree with, about the substance of the bill. The reason I think we are having to do the legislation now is because the President and the administration has not taken the results of our agreement seriously and there is a constant state of spin. Everything has to be spun. The truth cannot be announced that when he sent a bill over here to create another national test, 295 Members of the House said no, not a good idea, Mr. President, for a variety of reasons. Two hundred ninety-five Members of the House is a veto-proof vote. Why were we so upset with this proposal and why did we support the Goodling amendment that stopped it in its tracks? There is a lot of reasons. If one is in a minority community, an inner city, where parents have a hard time getting their kids into a quality school, and we do a national test, those kids are going to do a lot worse on the test than somebody here in the suburbs of Washington. We already know that. We do not need to stigmatize those kids any more. It is $100 million. That bothers some of us, that we are going to spend $100 million to develop yet another national test on the top of the ones that we have. So we said no overwhelmingly to the President. But every time he got to speak, the spending would reflect that he just could not get his way on this issue. I thought the agreement was a good agreement, the slowdown, stop, no field testing, no pilot programs. We have done nothing in this legislation to prejudice the studies, to look at the existing tests we have so we can get some useful information out of it. This bill does not prejudice those studies that this House and the President agreed on. The President said in the State of the Union, ``Thanks to the actions of this Congress last year, we will soon have for the first time a voluntary national test based on national standards in fourth grade reading and eighth grade math.'' That is not true. That is not what we agreed to. On the website for the Department of Education, they are advertising the implementation of a national test that Congress said, whoa, stop, slow down, no go. We are not going to give you the money. This is about keeping your word. We need a legion of lawyers, apparently, to do a deal with this other crowd down the street. And that is very disturbing to me. I understand that many of my colleagues that voted for us are going to vote against it because they feel like they have to support the President. The truth of the fact is that this agreement that we all worked so hard to get, a lot of hours spent by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling) and others, handshakes were had; and it is in the law now not to implement a national test that Congress said is okay is being violated by the Department of Education. And every time the President speaks, he is denying that agreement. That is what this bill is about, and that is why we are having the vote 2 weeks into that Congress to put us back on track, and we do need a legion of lawyers to do a deal with this guy.