Gene Green

Mr. GREEN of Texas

Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I will be as brief as possible because I know I have colleagues who have amendments. I rise in support of the Roemer-Kelly-Quinn amendment and talk about that it is just $1.5 billion in authorization. The biggest battle always is in the Committee on Appropriations that is done every year here. But this lets us at least go to the Committee on Appropriations because we have to authorize before we can appropriate. This year we have seen that what has happened with the Committee on Appropriations, literally the Labor-HHS appropriations bill is the last one that comes up on the floor of the House, it is a second thought to everything else we do and it really should be the first thought. Education is expensive. It is expensive for teachers, expensive for administrators, for parents, but mostly it is expensive for the community. That is why this authorization, even though it is a partial loaf, is so important. If my colleagues think education is expensive, they ought to see how expensive ignorance is, because we see what is happening, whether it be the businesses in my district along the Houston ship channel trying to hire students or like my colleague from California said earlier, young people who graduate from high school to join our military, we need to make sure they are qualified and they are ready to go into business and industry or else to serve their country. Again, this is just a partial success, but we have thousands of students all over the country who are not served by Title I and this authorization increase would be a great first step.

Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. (Mr. GREEN of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GREEN of Texas

Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle leave everything until the last minute. Sometimes I wonder if this Congress could not mess up a one-car funeral. According to the Congressional Budget Office, they are dipping into the Social Security budget to the tune of $13 billion while spending thousands of dollars on false and misleading ads. Before the appropriations bills are finished, that $13 billion cut into Social Security could rise to $24 billion. Social Security is one of the most successful domestic programs ever created. It guarantees a retirement security for millions of Americans. It is our responsibility to take the necessary steps to keep Social Security safe and strong, not only for our parents' generation, and not only for our generation, but also for our children's generation. Where is their plan to extend the life of Social Security? It does not exist. In fact, the leaders in the Republican conference have been quoted many times against Social Security and Medicare, like this one from my colleague from Texas that says, ``No, I'm not going to make such a pledge, not to get into Social Security.'' In fact, the Republican tax plan would have sucked the surplus dry, leaving nothing for strengthening the Social Security Trust Fund, extending Medicare, or even a prescription medication provision.

Mr. GREEN of Texas

Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to and help celebrate the ministry of Dr. John R. Bisagno. After 30 years, Dr. Bisagno will be retiring from Houston's First Baptist Church. John Bisagno was born on April 5, 1943 in Augusta, KS. He is married to Uldine Beck Bisagno. The Bisagnos have three children, Ginger Bisagno Dodd, Anthony Bisagno, and Timothy Bisagno, and five grandchildren. Dr. Bisagno graduated from Oklahoma Baptist University and received a doctor of letters degree from Southwest Missouri Baptist University and a doctor of divinity degree from Houston Baptist University, where the ``Chair of Evangelism'' is named in his honor. In February 1970, Dr. Bisagno became the pastor of the 22,000-member First Baptist Church of Houston. He has authored 24 books, including the best seller ``The Power of Positive Praying.'' He is the past president of the Southern Baptist Pastor's Conference and has gained national attention as a dynamic and effective crusade evangelist and Bible teacher. He was the first preacher on the Southern Baptist ACTS television network. During the 30 years of Dr. Bisagno's ministry at First Baptist Church, the church relocated from downtown Houston, purchased property near the intersection of Interstate 10 and Loop 610 in Houston, built a worship center and education buildings now valued in excess of $60 million and continues to be an integral part of the dynamics of Houston, TX. Dr. Bisagno has announced that he will retire from the pulpit on Sunday, November 21, 1999. However, I am certain that John Bisagno will continue to be a Christian committed to spreading the gospel. When he retires from Houston's First Baptist Church, he retires to continue to be a significant part of the faith community in Houston, in Texas, in the United States, and around the world. Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring Dr. John R. Bisagno.

Mr. GREEN of Texas

Mr. GREEN of Texas. Madam Chairman, I am glad to follow my colleague, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Schaffer), because obviously I support the bill generally; but I had some concern about the committee mark, and I am told that it has been corrected in dealing with limited English proficient children under title I. The concern I had was a parent would actually have to give permission for their children to be in a bilingual program or even be in title I if they were limited in English proficiency. I do not have any problem with parents being able to take their children out of a program, but to get that parent's permission before, and the wife that is a schoolteacher, oftentimes they do not have the correct address sometimes and the teachers are the ones that are going to have to follow up on making sure that parent gives that permission; and it is the children who will be in a no-man's land for a period of time. I know the manager's amendment, I think, corrected it where that child will be in that program and if the parent wants to remove them that is fine because it ought to always be the parent's decision. In fact, that is the way the practice is today because in my own district children say they do not want their children in bilingual, and it is not that difficult to remove them from that if the parent wants it. The bill overall is very good. In fact, even in the administration statement where it said that in supporting the bill that the House should change or should delete the provisions that would require parental consent for title I services and jeopardize student access to the full title I benefit and opportunities of the high standards and, again, I think the manager amendment has done that and I congratulate both the chairman and the ranking member and the committee for being able to do that, because I have been in every public school in my district. I have watched bilingual programs work, and they do work. Students do not stay in there for their full life. They stay in there typically 2 to 4 years, depending on the students. Although I have to admit I was in a kindergarten class a few years ago, went to that class in September when they were first bilingual, went back in May and those children were speaking English. I read to them first in September in Spanish, and when I went back in May they were speaking English; and I read them an English book. So it works. That is what we need to make sure that we continue that.

Mr. GREEN of Texas

Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, it is amazing to follow my colleague from Florida, because once again we are seeing where the Republican leadership's values are. According to the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, they are already borrowing $13 billion more in Social Security dollars than they have available. Thirteen billion more in Social Security dollars. But my concern this morning is that we have not even talked about the education funding. We have not even got to Labor-HHS yet. It is estimated that education could be reduced as much as $16 billion, and yet the Republicans are already borrowing more than $13 billion from Social Security before we have even gotten to education. Education is the number one issue for most people in this country. They want more money put into it, not less. Yet what we are seeing is that we have not even gotten to one of the appropriation bills on the floor and they are still $13 billion in the hole on Social Security. That is what bothers me, and I think it bothers a lot of people in this country. I think they should get their appropriations bills all lined up so we can look at them, instead of holding education funding till the last so they can use education as an ATM machine.

Mr. GREEN of Texas

Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, on Thursday of last week, October 14, I had the opportunity to speak to 1,000 student leaders in front of the State Capitol in Austin, Texas during the second annual Enrique ``Kiki'' Camarena Red Ribbon Rally about drug prevention. While I would have normally been here debating and voting on the VA-HUD conference report, the Motor Carrier Safety Act, and the D.C. appropriations bill, I could not pass up this opportunity to speak at this rally. The ``Kiki'' Camarena Red Ribbon Rally was sponsored by both Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies, along with State and community drug prevention organizations, including the DEA, the FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service, Houston Crackdown, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas, Customs, the Texas Federation of Parents, Kick Drugs Out of America, Partnership for a Drug-Free Texas, and the Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse. I was invited by our director in Houston of the Drug Enforcement Administration. Mr. Speaker, this is the second annual ``Kiki'' Camarena Red Ribbon Rally. I could not go last year because of votes, but this year I was able to attend. Again, it is hard to say no to someone who is literally putting their life on the line every day, that both Customs, DEA, and FBI agents and all of our law enforcement are, to make our country safe from this scourge of drugs that we have. For people's benefit that they may not know, the rally was named in honor of Enrique ``Kiki'' Camarena, the Drug Enforcement Administration special agent who suffered a traffic death while being kidnapped in Mexico in 1985. I was proud to share the stage with Myrna Camarena, Kiki's sister. Kiki Camarena sacrificed, and the sacrifice of other law enforcement officers should never be forgotten. They have paid the ultimate price for our safety, and we should pledge to never forget. As Members of Congress, we deal with many important issues, but I believe that none are more important than recognizing the sacrifice of law enforcement officers providing solutions, including effective treatment for drug addiction. By our involvement last Thursday, we demonstrated that in Texas we are serious about our involvement to reduce and end substance abuse. I was proud to be there for a number of reasons. One, it was sponsored by a great many law enforcement agencies who typically are concerned with catching the people who are the users or the people who are selling, or the smugglers. Yet, this rally, with 1,000 students and the red ribbon, talking about the red ribbon day, that it was aimed not just at the effort for law enforcement, but for prevention; to be able to have schools and different agencies there to say, we need to do a better job in treatment and prevention. That is why it was a great rally, and it was good to see our law enforcement agents, again, who typically are out on the frontline protecting our country from drugs to be there and say well, we cannot do all of the job. We have to stop it with the young people that we have in our State and our country to make sure that they do not succumb and be addicted to drugs. We owe a huge debt to the men and women who put their lives at risk to ensure our children's lives in the future are safe. I appreciate the opportunity to be present at that rally and to be one of the keynote speakers. We have come a long way to eradicate substance abuse, but we still have a long way to go. One of the concerns I have is that on a national basis, we have seen a lessening in the use of illegal drugs by the general population, but we have seen an increase in the younger population, our youth. So what we need to do, and with those 1,000 young people there on the State Capitol steps in Austin, is to rededicate our effort not only for law enforcement, but also for prevention, and for treatment to where we can hopefully keep these young people from becoming addicted to drugs.

Mr. GREEN of Texas

Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, as we move even closer to the end of this century, I rise to pay tribute to President Lyndon B. Johnson. Earlier this year, I included in the Congressional Record, an article printed in the Houston Chronicle by Marianne Means which details why President Johnson will be considered as one of our nation's greatest Presidents. Today, I would like to include an article from the October 1999 issue of the Washington Monthly by Joseph A. Califano, Jr. At the end of this important article, Mr. Califano states: ``* * * it is time to recognize--as historians are beginning to do--the reality of the remarkable and enduring achievements of the Great Society programs. Without such programs as Head Start, higher education loans and scholarships, Medicare, Medicaid, clean air and water, civil rights, life would be nastier, more brutish, and shorter for millions of Americans.'' Mr. Speaker, I would like to conclude my remarks by including this important article in its entirety: What Was Really Great About the Great Society: The Truth Behind the Conservative Myths (By Joseph Califano) If there is a prize for the political scam of the 20th century, it should go to the conservatives from propagating as conventional wisdom that the Great Society programs of the 1960's were a misguided and failed social experiment that wasted taxpayers' money. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, from 1963 when Lyndon Johnson took office until 1970 as the impact of his Great Society programs were felt, the portion of Americans living below the poverty line dropped from 22.2 percent to 12.6 percent, the most dramatic decline over such a brief period in this century. Since then, the poverty rate has hovered at about the 13 percent level and sits at 13.3 percent today, still a disgraceful level in the context of the greatest economic boom in our history. But if the Great Society had not achieved that dramatic reduction in poverty, and the nation had not maintained it, 24 million more Americans would today be living below the poverty level. This reduction in poverty did not just happen. It was the result of a focused, tenacious effort to revolutionize the role of the federal government with a series of interventions that enriched the lives of millions of Americans. In those tumultuous Great Society years, the President submitted, and Congress enacted, more than 100 major proposals in each of the 89th and 90th Congresses. In that era of do-it-now optimism, government was neither a bad man to be tarred and feathered nor a bag man to collect campaign contributions, but an instrument to help the most vulnerable in our society. What has the verdict been? Did the programs we put into place in the 1960s vindicate our belief in the responsibility and capacity of the national government to achieve such ambitious goals--or do they stand as proof of the government's inability to effect dramatic change that helps our people? A Fair Start The Great Society saw government as providing a hand up, not a handout. The cornerstone was a thriving economy (which the 1964 tax cut sparked); in such circumstances, most Americans would be able to enjoy the material blessings of society. Others would need the kind of help most of us got from our parents--health care, education and training, and housing, as well as a nondiscriminatory shot at employment-- to share in our nation's wealth. Education and health were central to opening up the promise of American life to all. With the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Great Society for the first time committed the federal government to helping local school districts. Its higher education legislation, with scholarships, grants, and work-study programs, opened college to any American with the necessary brains and ambition, however thin daddy's wallet or empty mommy's purse. Bilingual education, which today serves one million individuals, was designed to teach Hispanic youngsters subjects like math and history in their own language for a couple of years while they learned English, so they would not fall behind. Special education legislation has helped millions of children with learning disabilities. Since 1965 the federal government has provided more than a quarter of a trillion dollars in 86 million college loans to 29 million students, and more than $14 billion in work-study awards to 6 million students. Today nearly 60 percent of full-time undergraduate students receive federal financial aid under Great Society programs and their progeny. These programs assure a steady supply of educated individuals who provide the human resources for our economic prosperity. When these programs were enacted, only 41 percent of Americans had completed high school; only 8 percent held college degrees. This past year, more than 81 percent had finished high school and 24 percent had completed college. By establishing the federal government's responsibility to finance this educational surge--and the concept that access to higher education should be determined by ability and ambition, not dollars and cents--we have amassed the trained talent to be the world's leading industrial, technological communications and military power today. Head Start, which has served more than 16 million preschoolers in just about every city and county in the nation and today serves 800,000 children a year, is as American as motherhood and apple pie. Like so many successes, this preschool program has a thousand parents. But how many people remember the battles over Head Start? Conservatives opposed such early childhood education as an attempt by government to interfere with parental control of their children. In the '60s those were code words to conjure up images of Soviet Russia wrenching children from their homes to convert them to atheistic communism. But Lyndon Johnson knew that the rich had kindergartens and nursery schools; and he asked, why not the same benefits for the poor? The impact of the Great Society's health programs has been stunning. In 1963, most elderly Americans had no health insurance. Few retirement plans provided any such coverage. The poor had little access to medical treatment until they were in critical condition. Only wealthier Americans could get the finest care, and only by traveling to a few big cities like Boston or New York. Is revolution too strong a word? Since 1965, 79 million Americans have signed up for Medicare. In 1966, 19 million were enrolled; in 1998, 39 million. Since 1966, Medicaid has served more than 200 million needy Americans. In 1967, it served 10 million poor citizens; in 1997, 39 million. The 1968 Heart, Cancer and Stroke legislation has provided funds to create centers of medical excellence in just abut every major city--from Seattle to Houston, Miami to Cleveland, New Orleans to St. Louis. To staff these centers, the 1965 Health Professions Educational Assistance Act provided resources to double the number of doctors graduating from medical schools, from 8,000 to 16,000. That Act also increased the pool of specialists and researchers, nurses, and paramedics. Community health centers, also part of the Great Society health care agenda, today serve almost eight million Americans annually. The Great Society's commitment to fund basic medical research lifted the National Institutes of Health to unprecedented financial heights, seeding a harvest of medical miracles. Closely related to these health programs were efforts to reduce malnutrition and hunger. Today, the Great Society's food stamp program helps feed more than 20 million men, women, and children in more than 8 million households. Since it was launched in 1967, the school breakfast program has provided a daily breakfast to nearly 100 million schoolchildren. Taken together, these programs have played a pivotal role in recasting America's demographic profile. In 1964, life expectancy was 66.6 years for men and 73.1 years for women (69.7 years overall). In a single generation, by 1997, life expectancy jumped 10 percent: for men, to 73.6 years; for women, to 79.2 years (76.5 years overall). The jump was highest among the less advantaged, suggesting that better nutrition and access to health care have played an even larger role than medical miracles. Infant mortality stood at 26 deaths for each 1,000 live births when LBJ took office; today it stands at only 7.3 deaths per 1,000 live births, a reduction of almost 75 percent. These enormous investments in training medical and scientific experts and funding the National Institutes of Health have played a key part in establishing our nation as the world's leader in basic research, pharmaceutical invention, and the creation of surgical procedures and medical machinery to diagnose our diseases, breathe for us, clean our blood, and transplant our organs. Those of us who worked with Lyndon Johnson would hardly characterize him as a patron of the arts. Yet think about what cultural life in America would be like without the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, which were designed to ``create conditions under which the arts can flourish,'' and make fine theater and music available throughout the nation, not just at Broadway playhouses and the Metropolitan Opera in New York. The Endowment for the Arts has spawned art councils in all 50 states and more than 420 playhouses, 120 opera companies, 400 dance companies and 230 professional orchestras. Johnson also oversaw the creation of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, whose programs entertain three million people each year and are televised to millions more, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, which attracts more than 700,000 visitors annually. Another creature of the Great Society is the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which today supports 350 public television and 699 public radio stations. These stations have given the nation countless hours of fine arts, superb in- depth news coverage, and educational programs such as Sesame Street that teach as they entertain generations of children. Now many conservatives say there is no need for public radio and television, since there are so many cable channels and radio stations. But as often as we surf with our TV remotes and twist our radio dials, we are not likely to find the kind of quality broadcasting that marks public television and public radio stations. The Great Society's main contribution to the environment was not just passage of laws, but the establishment of a principle that to this day guides the environmental movement. The old principle was simply to conserve resources that had not been touched. Lyndon Johnson was the first president to put forth a larger idea. ``The air we breathe, our water, our soil and wildlife, are being blighted by poisons and chemicals which are the by- products of technology and industry. The society that receives the rewards of technology, must, as a cooperating whole, take responsibility for [their] control. To deal with these new problems will require a new conservation. We must not only protect the countryside and save it from destruction, we must restore what has been destroyed and salvage the beauty and charm of our cities. Our conservation must be not just the classic conservation of protection and development, but a creative conservation of restoration and innovation.'' Those new environmental commandments inspired a legion of Great Society laws: the Clear Air, Water Quality and Clean Water Restoration Acts and Amendments, the 1965 Solid Waste Disposal Act, the 1965 Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act, and the 1968 Aircraft Noise Abatement Act. They also provided the rationale for later laws creating the Environmental Protection Agency and the Superfund that exacts financial payments from past polluters. Of the 35 national parks established during the Great Society years, 32 are within easy driving distance of large cities. The 1968 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act today protects 155 river segments in 37 states. The 1968 National Trail System Act has established more than 800 recreational scenic, and historic trails covering 40,000 miles. Equal Access Above all else, Lyndon Johnson saw the Great Society as an instrument to create racial justice and eliminate poverty. Much of the legislation already cited was aimed at those objectives. But we directly targeted these areas with laser intensity. When LBJ took office, this country had segregated stores, theaters and public accommodations; separate toilets and water fountains for blacks; and restaurants, hotels, and housing restricted to whites only. Job discrimination was rampant. With the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Great Society tore down all the ``whites only'' signs. The 1968 Fair Housing Act opened up housing to all Americans regardless of race. But the measure of the Great Society, particularly in this field, cannot be taken alone in statutes enacted. In one of the most moving speeches of the century, Johnson's 1965 Howard University commencement address, ``To Fulfill These Rights,'' he said: ``But freedom is not enough. You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him to the starting line of a race and then say, `You are free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe that you have been completely fair. This is the next and the more profound stage of the battle for civil rights.'' Thus was born the concept of affirmative action, Johnson's conviction that it is essential as a matter of social justice to provide the tutoring, the extra help, even the preference if necessary, to those who had suffered generations of discrimination, in order to give them a fair chance to share in the American dream. Perhaps even more controversial today than when then set forth, affirmative action has provided opportunity to millions of blacks and has been a critical element in creating a substantial black middle class and an affluent black society in a single generation. That speech provided another insight the nation ignored. In cataloguing the long suffering of blacks, Johnson included this passage: ``Perhaps most important--its influence radiating to every part of life--is the breakdown of the Negro family structure. It flows from centuries of oppression and persecution of the Negro man. And when the family collapses it is the children that are usually damaged. When it happens on a massive scale the community itself is crippled. So, unless we work to strengthen the family, to create conditions under which most parents will stay together, all the rest--schools, and playgrounds, and public assistance, and private concern--will never be enough to cut completely the circle of despair and deprivation.'' Conservatives charge the Great Society with responsibility for the disastrous aspects of the welfare program for mothers and children. But that program was enacted in the 1930s and conservatives (and liberals) in Congress rejected Great Society efforts to revamp it. LBJ called the welfare system in America ``outmoded and in need of a major change'' and pressed Congress to stop conditioning welfare benefits on the man leaving the house and to create a work incentive program, incentives for earning, day care for children, child and maternal health, and family planning services. In the generation it has taken the nation to heed that warning, millions of children's lives have been savaged. In the entire treasury of Great Society measures, the jewel Lyndon Johnson believed would have the greatest value was the Voting Rights Act of 1965. That law opened the way for black Americans to strengthen their voice at every level of government. In 1964 there were 79 black elected officials in the South and 300 in the entire nation. By 1998, there were some 9,000 elected black officials across the nation, including 6,000 in the South. In 1965 there were five black members of the House; today there are 39. Great Society contributions to racial equality were not only civic and political. In 1960, black life expectancy was 63.6 years, not even long enough to benefit from the Social Security taxes that black citizens paid during their working lives. By 1997, black life expectancy was 71.2 years, thanks almost entirely to Medicaid, community health centers, job training, food stamps, and other Great Society programs. In 1960, the infant mortality rate for blacks was 44.3 for each 1,000 live births; in 1997, that rate had plummeted by two- thirds, to 14.7. In 1960, only 20 percent of blacks completed high school and only 3 percent finished college; in 1997, 75 percent completed high school and more than 13 percent earned college degrees. In waging the war on poverty, congressional opposition was too strong to pass an income maintenance law. So LBJ took advantage of the biggest automatic cash machine around: Social Security. He proposed, and Congress enacted, whopping increases in the minimum benefits that lifted some two million Americans 65 and older above the poverty line. In 1996, thanks to those increased minimum benefits, Social Security lifted 12 million senior citizens above the poverty line. The combination of that Social Security increase, Medicare and the coverage of nursing home care under Medicaid (which today funds care for 68 percent of nursing home residents) has had a defining impact on American families. Millions of middle-aged Americans, freed from the burden of providing and medical and nursing home care for their elderly parents, suddenly were able to buy homes and (often with assistance from Great Society higher education programs) send their children to college. No Great Society undertaking has been subjected to more withering conservative attacks than the Office of Economic Opportunity. Yet the War on Poverty was founded on the most conservative principle: Put the power in the local community, not in Washington; give people at the grassroots the ability to stand tall on their own two feet. Conservative claims that the OEO poverty programs were nothing but a waste of money are preposterous--as preposterous as Ronald Reagan's quip that ``LBJ declared war on poverty and poverty won''. Eleven of the 12 programs that OEO launched in the mid-60's are alive, well and funded at an annual rate exceeding $10 billion; apparently legislators believe they're still working. Head Start, Job Corps, Community Health Centers, Foster Grandparents, Upward Bound (now part of the Trio Program in the Department of Education), Green Thumb (now Senior Community Service Employment), Indian Opportunities (now in the Labor Department) and Migrant Opportunities (now Seasonal Worker Training and Migrant Education) were all designed to do what they have been doing: empowering individuals to stand on their own two feet. Community Action, VISTA Volunteers, and Legal Services continue to put power in the hands of individuals down at the grassroots level. The grassroots that these programs fertilize just don't produce the manicured laws that conservatives prefer. Only the Neighborhood Youth Corps has been abandoned--in 1974, after enrolling more than five million individuals. Despite the political rhetoric, every president, Ronald Reagan included, has urged Congress to fund these OEO programs or has approved substantial appropriations for them. A Better Deal The Great Society confronted two monumental shifts in America: The urbanization of the population and the nationalization of commercial power. For urban America, it created the Department of Housing and Urban Development. It drove through Congress the Urban Mass Transit Act, which has given San Franciscans BART, Washingtonians Metro, Atlantans MARTA, and cities across America thousands of buses and modernized transit systems. The 1968 Housing Act has provided homes for more than 7 million families. The Great Society also created Ginnie Mae, which has added more than $1 billion to the supply of affordable mortgage funds, and privatized Fannie Mae, which has helped more than 30 million families purchase homes. The '60s also saw a nationalization of commercial power that had the potential to disadvantage the individual American consumer. Superstores and super-corporations were rapidly shoving aside the corner grocer, local banker, and independent drug store. Automobiles were complex and dangerous, manufactured by giant corporations with deep pockets to protect themselves. Banks had the most sophisticated accountants and lawyers to draft their loan agreements. Sellers of everyday products--soaps, produce, meats, appliances, clothing, cereals, and canned and frozen foods--packaged their products with the help of the shrewdest marketers and designers. The individual was outflanked at every position. Sensing that mismatch, the Great Society produced a bevy of laws to level the playing field for consumers: auto and highway safety for the motorist; truth in packaging for the consumer; truth in lending for the home-buyer, small businessman and individual borrower; wholesome meat and wholesome poultry laws to enhance food safety. It created the Product Safety Commission to assure that toys and other products would be safe for users and the Flammable Fabrics Act to reduce the incendiary characteristics of clothing and blankets. To keep kids out of the medicine bottle we proposed the Child Safety Act. The revolution in transportation led to the creation of the National Transportation Safety Board, renowned for its work in improving air safety, and the Department of Transportation. In numbers of Americans helped, the Great Society exceeds in domestic impact even the New Deal of LBJ's idol, Franklin Roosevelt. but far more profound and enduring are the fundamental tenets of public responsibility it espoused, which influence and shape the nation's public policy and political dialogue to this day. Until the New Deal, the federal government had been regarded as a regulatory power, protecting the public health and safety with the Food and Drug Administration and enforcing antitrust and commercial fraud laws to rein in concentrations of economic power. With the creation of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the other alphabet agencies, FDR took the government into deeper regulatory waters. He also put the feds into the business of cash payments: welfare benefits, railroad retirement, and Social Security. Johnson converted the federal government into a far more energetic, proactive force for social justice--striking down discriminatory practices and offering a hand up with education, health care, and job training. These functions had formerly been the preserve of private charities and the states. Before the Johnson administration, for example, the federal government was not training a single worker. He vested the federal government with the responsibility to soften the sharp elbows of capitalism and give it a beating, human heart; to redistribute opportunity as well as wealth. For the public safety, Johnson took on the National Rifle Association and drove through Congress the laws that closed the loophole of mail order guns, prohibited sales to minors, and ended the import of Saturday night specials. He tried unsuccessfully to convince Congress to pass a law requiring the licensing of every gun owner and the registration of every gun. Spotting the ``for sale'' signs of political corruption going up in the nation's capital, Johnson proposed public financing of presidential campaigns, full disclosure of contributions and expenses by all federal candidates, limits on contributions, and eliminating lobbying loopholes. He convinced Congress to provide for public financing of Presidential campaigns through the income-tax checkoff. But they ignored his 1967 warning: ``More and more, men and women of limited means may refrain from running for public office. Private wealth increasingly becomes an artificial and unrealistic arbiter of qualifications, and the source of public leadership is thus severely narrowed. The necessity of acquiring substantial funds to finance campaigns diverts a candidate's attention form his public obligations and detracts from his energetic exposition of the issues.'' Fear Of The L-Word Lyndon Johnson didn't talk the talk of legacy. He walked the walk. He lived the life. He didn't have much of a profile, but he did have the courage of his convictions, and the achievements of his Great Society were monumental. Why then do Democratic politicians who battle to preserve Great Society programs ignore those achievements? For the same reason Bill Clinton came to the LBJ library on Johnson's birthday during the 1992 campaign and never spoke the name of Lyndon Johnson or recognized Ladybird Johnson, who was sitting on the stage from which he spoke. The answer lies in their fear of being called ``liberal'' and in their opposition to the Vietnam War. In contemporary America politicians are paralyzed by fear of the label that comes with the heritage of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. Democrats rest their hops of a return to Congressional power on promises to preserve and expand Great Society programs like Medicare and aid to education, but they tremble at the thought of linking those programs to the liberal Lyndon. The irony is that they seek to distance themselves from the president who once said that the difference between liberals and cannibals is that cannibals eat only their enemies. Democratic officeholders also assign Johnson the role of stealth president because of the Vietnam War. Most contemporary observers put the war down as a monumental blunder. Only a handful--most of them Republicans--defend Vietnam as part of a half- century bipartisan commitment to contain communism with American blood and money. Seen in that context, Vietnam was a tragic losing battle in a long, winning war--a war that began with Truman's ordeal in Korea, the Marshall Plan, and the 1948 Berlin airlift, and ended with the collapse of communism at the end of the Reagan Administration. Whatever anyone thinks about Vietnam and however much politicians shrink from the liberal label, it is time to recognize--as historians are beginning to do--the reality of the remarkable and enduring achievements of the Great Society programs. Without such programs as Head Start, higher- education loans and scholarships, Medicare, Medicaid, clear air and water, and civil rights, life would be nastier, more brutish, and shorter for millions of Americans.

Mr. GREEN of Texas

Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, on Thursday, October 14, I missed five votes because I was in Texas on official House business. Had I been present, I would have voted yes on rollcall 500; yes on 501; no on 502; no on 503; and no on 504.

Mr. GREEN of Texas

Mr. GREEN of Texas. I stand corrected. I am glad to be here, Mr. Speaker, with both my colleague, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Trade, and Consumer Protection, and the ranking member in support of S. 800. For over 68 million wireless subscribers, wireless communications is often the critical link in emergency and accident situations. Mr. Speaker, from the city of Houston, our Greater Harris County Emergency Network has taken great strides in implementing E-911 services. Over the past year in Houston, Texas, the emergency service has been conducting a test of an actual E-911 network with simulated 911 wireless calls. The test has met with great success, and the city's action has made them a leader and role model for the rest of the country in deploying and implementing E-911. I applaud all localities that are taking this extra step toward implementing this in our communities. The ultimate goal in S. 811 is to deploy an end-to-end seamless wireless safety network that will save lives. There are some obstructions we need to overcome. I am glad my colleague, the gentleman from Massachusetts, was able to get his privacy amendment in there, because there are times that we want to know where we are at, particularly in an emergency, but also we do not want Big Brother looking over our shoulders, so I am glad that hopefully was addressed. Currently, wireless emergency calls do not include location information. Location information allows a wireless 911 call to be located on a map within 100 meters of the actual call. S-800 enforces current FEC rules that call for Automatic Information Location to be put in place by October 1, 2001. It eliminates the barriers to installing wireless location technology, and assists emergency medical and public safety communities to respond to calls for help. Mr. Speaker, in response, and the gentleman has heard it in our committee hearing, last spring I was going through a number of States, including Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, and Virginia. I did not realize how many States had different numbers than 911. So if nothing else, this bill will do that, but it does a lot more.

Mr. GREEN of Texas. I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee.

Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding time to me. Mr. Speaker, I am glad the gentleman corrected or at least gave my friend, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Ford), the opportunity to correct himself. The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey) and I both lost our jump shot about 30 years ago.

Mr. GREEN of Texas

Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I thank my colleague, the ranking member of the Committee on Commerce, for yielding me this time. I am glad to follow my colleague from Pennsylvania, because I do not know if I would call their amendment anywhere near middle ground. It may be middle ground from that side of the aisle, but it is not middle ground between the two aisles, and that is what the Norwood-Dingell- Ganske amendment does. The middle ground is really the amendment that is the base of this bill. The Coburn-Shadegg proposal falls short of meeting the needs of the American people in the most critical issue: accountability. Unlike the Norwood-Dingell-Ganske, the amendment we are considering now will force patients harmed by their HMOs to seek remedies in Federal court. The practical effect of the Federal court provision would be devastating for patients. First, the Federal court system is more difficult to access than our State courts. People have to travel longer distances, particularly in large States or rural areas. Worse yet, in Federal courts, Federal courts give priority to criminal cases. I know in Texas we have civil courts, we have State civil courts, we have county civil courts; but the Federal courts have to give preference to criminal cases. So these cases will sit behind them. The Norwood-Dingell-Ganske builds on the success of our State's efforts, the State of Texas, both rural, urban, rich and poor and great diversity, and we need to learn by example. One of the concerns I have about the amendment, Coburn-Shadegg- Greenwood, et al., is that it would actually overturn current laws that we have. Not only in my home State of Texas, but Missouri, Georgia, and California already have laws in effect to protect their citizens against negligent HMOs. In plain English, no State law can protect its citizens when HMO's medical decisions causes harm or death, and that is what Coburn-Shadegg says, and it is the section of the bill. They are preempting State law that our States have used. The State of Texas has had it for 2 years now, and it has stood the test of time. We have only had three court cases filed, but what we found out because of the effectiveness of the appeals process and, ultimately, judicial accountability, that is why we only have three cases filed, the appeals panel is working. They are finding for the patients over half the time, and that is why we need to make sure that we will not be faked out or pass a false amendment. The Coburn-Shadegg amendment is not a compromise; it may be a compromise on one side of the aisle.

Mr. GREEN of Texas

Mr. GREEN of Texas. Madam Speaker, my colleague from Arizona needs to come to Texas, and we will show him what has happened in the real world when we have really had a Patients' Bill of Rights and real effective reform. We do not have a lot of lawsuits. In 2 years, in fact we have had three, maybe four. What we have seen, though, is the external appeals process backed up with the right to go to the courthouse means that they settle those appeals. In Texas, we are finding that over 50 percent of the appeals are being found in the patient's favor. In other words, the decision-maker, the insurance company, whoever made that decision was wrong over 50 percent of the time. And that is what is wrong with the current system. I do not want lawyers to get rich. They want health care. The people want health care. That is what they are doing. And in Texas, with 2 years' experience, that is what is happening, strong external appeals backed up with a judicial review that they do not want to go to neither the insurance companies nor the patients. We have that in the Norwood/Dingell bill, and that is why it is so important. Medical necessity, external appeals, access to specialists, emergency care, but also backed up with an accountability system. If Wal-Mart can be sued for a slip-and-fall in State courts, why should their employees not be able to go to State courts?

Mr. GREEN of Texas

Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my good friend and ranking member of the Committee on Commerce for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in reluctant opposition to H.R. 2990. Clearly, access to health care is not a Democrat or Republican issue. In fact, I have introduced legislation in the last two Congresses that would do some of the things that this bill would do. In fact, we have not even had a hearing on my bill the last two Congresses, so it is good to be able to talk about it on the floor today. My bill would allow everyone to deduct from their taxes what their health and long term care costs would be. Unfortunately, the bill we are considering today is poorly timed and irresponsibly drafted. The Republican leadership has gone out of their way to say they will not spend a dime of the Social Security funds until the program is fixed. Yet that seems to have lasted about a week. Earlier this week we found out that they were dipping into Social Security for about $16 billion, and today we are proposing an agriculture bill that would dip into the Social Security trust fund to the tune of about $48 billion with H.R. 2990. So this is how it works. They also started running TV ads saying that they were going to devote 100 percent of the Social Security surplus. Hopefully when this Congress is through, we will be able to do that. This bill promises a lot, but gives little results because it is not funded. Some of the specific things I think that is wrong with it, it expands the MSAs, a demonstration project that has failed, and we have seen that happen. Throwing more tax benefits at the MSAs will not make it become a reality and it will increase health costs for those who remain in traditional health care or insurance or managed care plans. It misdirects Federal dollars through the tax deduction, disproportionately helps the wealthy by not expanding it to all employees and just doing self-employed predominantly. You are taking the highest income brackets, and the deductions will not help those 32 million people in the 0 to 15 percent tax bracket who will not be able to benefit from this bill. The last concern I have is that because in Texas we have passed managed care reform and over the years had a very aggressive insurance commissioner or State Department of Insurance, this would bypass state regulation on benefits in Texas in favor of new Federal regulations, and it would disrupt state insurance markets. That is just not true in Texas, but that is in all our states. One size does not fit all.

Mr. GREEN of Texas

Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I am surprised that we have this rule here on the floor today and hear the debate talking about the access bill that will allow 44 million people to have insurance. We have had a Republican majority for 6 years, and it is the first time I have heard concern for that 44 million. My colleagues talk about these bills did not have a hearing in the Committee on Ways and Means at any time was a decision by the Republican leadership not to have a hearing on any of these bills. I worked for years on the Committee on Commerce so I could deal with health care. None of the bills had hearings that we are debating today in the decision to bring them to the floor. It is becoming increasingly clear that the leadership does not reflect the views of the majority of this House on many issues. The Republican leadership is using the Committee on Rules to defeat legislation supported by majority Members of the House and attempting to defeat by subterfuge what they cannot defeat on a straight up or down vote. The Republican leadership cannot defeat the bipartisan Norwood- Dingell proposal, so it attempts to change the proposal so that it is unacceptable to the bipartisan Members who support a real strong Patients' Bill of Rights. That is why this rule is so wrong. That is why it should be defeated. By denying the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) the right to finance the small portion of their legislation, the Republican leadership is trying to create a situation that they can claim that a vote for a Patients' Bill of Rights is an effort to spend the Social Security surplus. That is not the intent. Hopefully, before the day is through, we will have a chance to pass a clean Norwood-Dingell bill. It is what the people want, what 83 percent of the people in a most recent poll said. I know at all the town hall meetings that I have they say that. They want patient protections just like, Mr. Speaker, we enjoy in Texas for our constituents under Texas law. We need them for all the Americans.

Mr. GREEN of Texas

Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to follow the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey) and obviously disagree with him because he said there is not going to be a bill scheduled that will spend Social Security trust funds. Well, I was going to stand up here and talk about the managed care reform bill and the rule that was rigged to make sure that the access bill would pass even if the Dingell-Norwood bill does. Let me tell my colleagues what has been scheduled today, and it is exactly opposite from what the majority leader said. $48 billion of Social Security money will be spent if that access bill passes because there is no way they are paying for that. So I do not know who to believe, either the numbers I see or what I hear from the 1-minute from the majority leader. Hopefully, the American people will look at what is happening. They are promising one thing from the floor of this House; but in the Committee on Appropriations and everywhere else, they are spending over $18 billion in Social Security funds, and today they have allowed an amendment on this floor that will spend $48 billion that will not be used for Social Security benefits.

Mr. GREEN of Texas

Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay special tribute to Emily Cole, principal of Jefferson Davis High School in Houston, Texas. Ms. Cole has been principal of Jefferson Davis High School for the last 11 years and has been an educator for 34 years. As a Jeff Davis graduate, I am especially proud to join in paying tribute to her. Emily Cole earned a BA and M.Ed from Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos. Ms. Cole was the first in her family to earn a college degree. Education has always been a major part of her life. She has worked as a teacher in several elementary schools in Texas, as the associate director of the Teacher Corps at the University of Houston, and as an assistant principal and principal in Houston public schools. Ms. Cole has spent her career working tirelessly on behalf of all children. She has always promoted what was best for school children, never forgetting that their best interest was her driving force. During her tenure at Jefferson Davis High School, Emily Cole has made many improvements. The number of seniors receiving scholarships has increased, TAAS scores have risen, the dropout rate has decreased and the number of graduates has grown. In addition, Ms. Cole has used Project GRAD (Graduation Really Achieves Dreams) to increase the number of college-bound students at Jefferson Davis High School. Project GRAD was started 10 years ago by Jim Ketelsen, former Tenneco chief executive officer, as a scholarship program. It now provides a comprehensive college-preparatory curriculum to students beginning in the elementary grades. Before the program was started at Jefferson Davis High School, only 20 graduates per year went to college. In 1998, 110 Davis graduates enrolled in college. American historian and writer Henry Adams once stated that ``a teacher affects eternity; he can never tell when his influence stops.'' For Emily Cole, the lives she has touched over her many years in the education field will ensure that her influence carries on far into the future. I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring the career of one of Texas' education heroes as principal of Jefferson Davis High School. Ms. Cole, we wish you well.

Mr. GREEN of Texas

Mr. GREEN of Texas. I would hope so. Again, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. There are certain cases the Federal court needs to be dealing with. We have not created Federal courts on the floor of this House. The Senate has trouble even filling the vacancies. But there are so many more opportunities for justice to be had in the local and State courts. Like I said, in Harris County, Texas, Houston, Texas, we have dozens more State judges than we do Federal judges. And again, we have State courts for civil jurisdiction, and we have the district courts, depending on the size of the loss. We could go to a county court if it is a small loss, whereas on the Federal level, you are in there, whether it is your small case, you are in there with those multi- million dollar cases, but also you are behind the criminal cases. Again, our experience in the Southern District of Texas with the border region we have that comes up to Houston, most of the cases in our Federal District Courts are drug cases and criminal cases. They do not try as many civil cases as they used to. All these issues would be behind those criminal cases, because I want them to do those criminal cases. We want that justice swift for someone who is accused of violating our law, so they can either be found not guilty, or start serving their time.

Mr. GREEN of Texas. I thank my colleague, one, for being willing to do this night after night, and I know how firm he is in his belief, because I have watched the gentleman in our committee, in the Subcommittee on Health in the Committee on Commerce. The fear I have from some of the options tomorrow, some of the poison pill amendments, as we call them, is that transfer to Federal court, in my experience as a lawyer, again, practicing law, I did not want to go to Federal court. I had one case in my almost 20 years of practicing law that was in Federal court, but I liked the State court one because you could get to court quicker, you had more access, more judges in the court. Again, the Federal courts under our rules now, and we voted for them, they would give preference to criminal cases. I want that to still be the case. I want them to be able to handle the drug cases in the Southern District of Texas, because that is the overwhelming number we get in our Federal courts. I do not want to continue to add more cases to the Federal court when they cannot deal with the criminal cases now. So that is what worries me about allowing these to be brought in Federal court. It will just delay it. They will have to be behind the criminal cases. Why should we not take advantage of the State courts, because these are State issues? Typically, insurance has been a State- regulated commodity, except on ERISA, but we have a right as a Member of Congress and as a Congress to say, on these issues, go back to your State court. I think that is good. The gentleman used the great example of his father, who managed produce. If somebody had slipped on that grape, they were going to State court. Whether it is Wal-Mart or Safeway or anyone else, why should they not be able to go to State court, just like they would if there is a personal injury?

Mr. GREEN of Texas

Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of the special order by the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Boswell).

Mr. GREEN of Texas

Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members be permitted to extend their remarks and include their extraneous material on the subject of this special order speech that I and my colleagues have given tonight.

Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate our colleague from Wisconsin in being here this evening and joining in this. We only have a few minutes left before our colleague from Iowa (Mr. Ganske) comes to the floor. Having watched Dr. Ganske over the last number of weeks and sitting in my office, returning phone calls, thank goodness an hour earlier in Texas, and I can catch up on that, and his efforts on managed care reform and his efforts over the last, in the last session of Congress. Let me talk before we close about some of the bills or the competitive bills tomorrow to the Norwood-Dingell bill. There will be a bill called the Comprehensive Access and Responsibility Act introduced by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner). Which is one of the two alternatives. It falls very far short of the Norwood-Dingell bill and the protections that are in there. The biggest problem is it does not cover as many Americans as the Norwood-Dingell bill. It is very limited. Moreover, the bill has no provision to hold HMOs accountable for the decisions that harm their customers that are enrollees, and every other business in America is subject to liability for poor judgment, and why should not the health plans be any different? Finally, this bill does not allow chronically ill patients to designate their specialist as a primary care provider. As our colleague from Wisconsin mentioned, there are times that you might need if it is an oncologist, if you have a cancer, if you have some other type of illness, you might want to designate that specialist as your primary care person, and that is in the Norwood-Dingell bill. The other alternative by a couple Members of Congress, the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg), it is called the Health Care Quality and Choice Act. Now again for most folks who watch Congress and they understand that there is no requirement that the actual title of the bill reflect what is in the body of the bill, and we do not have any truth in titling here in Congress, because their bill again falls short. It would force patients harmed by their HMOs to go to Federal court so you can get behind all the Federal cases, and in Texas most of the Federal cases are drug cases, and they have preference; criminal cases have preference. So their bill would require you to go to Federal court. First, the Federal system is much more difficult and expensive to access than State courts, and there are fewer of them, so patients will be forced to travel long distances, and particularly in rural areas, but even in Houston we have many more State courts in Harris County, Texas, than we ever have Federal courts. And worse yet, Federal law gives that priority to criminal cases over civil cases. So, in other words, maybe a decision will be made on whether you should have that bone marrow transplant. By the time you get to Federal court after all the other criminal cases are there, it may be 5 or 6 years later, and health care delayed is health care denied. The Dingell-Norwood consensus bill is the only bipartisan bill that we have that recognizes medical necessity, that allows the patient and the doctor to define medical necessity based on the medical history and the specific need of that patient. Appeals process. Again, modeled after the Texas law, allows patients to appeal the decision of their HMO to an independent external panel of specialists. Access to specialists. As I said earlier, the bill requires health care plans to include access to specialists and offer access to specialists that the patient needs. Emergency room coverage. The bill provides guaranteed access to emergency services to managed care enrollees and requires a plan to pay for those services if a prudent lay person believes that they are in a health, in a life-threatening situation, and I use the example: I am a lay person. I do not know if I am having chest pains because of the pizza I had last night or it is because I am actually having a heart attack. I should not have to make that decision. That is why we need to go to the closest emergency room. But the most important and the final issue is accountability. The reason the appeals process in Texas works is because ultimately they could go to court, and it is also the most controversial; but again this is modeled after the Texas law, and we have over 2 years experience. This bill allows Americans harmed by their HMOs to seek redress in the State court. However, to prevent frivolous cases, they can only sue after they have exhausted their appeals and the patient is harmed. The provision is tightly crafted so not only to hold the medical decision maker accountable. And let me say in brief I had, a couple of years ago I had the opportunity to speak to the Harris County Medical Society, and after talking about some of the bills I have been working on, the first question from a doctor was, and by the way, I joked about my daughter having 2 weeks in medical school, and she was not quite ready to do brain surgery. The first question from that doctor to me said, you know your daughter after 2 weeks in medical school has more training than the person I call to treat my patients. That is what is wrong with our medical system we have now. We do have the greatest health care system in the world. People come from all over the world to get to us to have that system, but we are denying it to some of our folks who have insurance, and we need to change that. We need to make sure that we restore that health care provider and that doctor so they can talk to their patient. The reason, reasons the consensus bill are so insistent on accountability provision, because if you do not have that, you will not have, they will not have the incentive to change their practices, and while opponents of the strong binding consensus bill claim it would dramatically increase health costs, we know in Texas it has not increased health costs in 2 years; and what we found in Texas, that patients are right and about half their appeals in the health care plans honor that decision because they do not want to get sued. All the people want is their health care. They do not want to have to go to court; they do not want to have to go to State court, much less Federal court that is in some of the alternatives. I would hope that my colleagues tomorrow would reject the poison pill amendments. Sure we need to do additional access, and I would hope we can do that on the floor of the House sometime but without trying to dirty up the waters on providing access in modernization of the HMO process. I have had my colleagues talk about earlier that all we are asking for is some guidelines for managed care to deal with their customers and our constituents and the doctors' patients. In fact, over the past 5 years all 50 States have passed laws to protect patients in State- regulated plans. Some of them are stronger than others, and these alternative bills essentially disregard the advances that are made in each State and moreover more people into Federal regulation would lose protections. These laws have been passed by Democratic and Republican legislators. They have been signed into law by Democratic and Republican governors. But the Republican leadership would jeopardize the health care of millions in these protections unless we pass it tomorrow. Mr. Speaker, I again thank my colleagues who were here tonight and all those who are listening because tomorrow, Wednesday, and Thursday this week this House will make some major decisions; and if we make the wrong decision like we did last year, then we will continue to have people denied adequate health care in our country. Our country is too great to do that.

Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman, and I want her to know that I am aware of the devastation in the gentlewoman's district, we talked about it today, from the hurricane. In Texas, we are familiar with hurricanes damaging our coast. I would like to now yield, Mr. Speaker, to a new Member, a very active new Member from Wisconsin. And like I said earlier, we have people from not only the West Coast in California but North Carolina, on the East Coast, and of course in Texas, and also now the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Baldwin), and I yield to her.

Mr. GREEN of Texas. I thank my colleague from California. It is great to serve with the gentlewoman on the Committee on Education and the Workforce. And the gentlewoman is right. In the California experience, it is both rural and urban. Just like Texas is rural and urban. So it will be a great example of making it work in this country from one coast to the other coast. We need to make sure that we have real patient care and managed care reform. I would like to now yield to my colleague, the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Clayton), who came in the same class as I did, in 1993.