Gil Gutknecht

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I make a point of order against the motion to recommit because it violates section 302(c) of the Congressional Budget Act.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, Section 302(c) prohibits the consideration of any amendment that provides for new budget authority for a fiscal year until the Committee on Appropriations has made the suballocations required by section 302(b) of the Congressional Budget Act. This motion to recommit increases the amount of budget authority provided by the measure. The suballocations published by the Committee on Appropriations on October 10 of 2002 lapsed upon the adjournment of the 107th Congress, and no 302(b) suballocations have been made for the 108th Congress. Hence I make the point of order that this motion to recommit violates section 302(c) of the Congressional Budget Act.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I move to lay the appeal on the table.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I will let the Chair rule.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, on September 11, 2001, our generation met its challenge. The attacks against innocent Americans were acts of war. We are still fighting that war. Carl von Clausewitz said that the goal of any military encounter is to destroy the enemy's will to fight. We still have work to do. But at home we have come far. We have buried our dead. We have comforted our wounded. We have rebuilt the Pentagon. New York is being rebuilt. We have gained a resolve and determination to go on. We will continue to be the shining beacon of liberty. We are willing to bear the price of defending the principles of freedom, justice and honor. We are Americans, and proud to be so. Generations of Americans have followed the wisdom of President Theodore Roosevelt when he said, ``In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.'' From the Barbary Coast to the streets of Kabul, Americans have always sought to do what is right. We have never given way to despots and madmen in the name of artificial peace. More than 48 million men and women have served in our armed forces to do the right thing. The sacrifice of Americans who left their homes and lives for the cause of justice across the globe is a testament to what is good and right about our great nation. Because of Americans, Europe was liberated from a madman. Because of Americans, Communism is left to the ash heap of history. Because of Americans, little girls are going to school in Afghanistan. Today I honor those Americans who stepped in to secure our domestic defenses during a time of great uncertainty. The brave men and women of the National Guard. As active duty troops were deployed, the men and women of the National Guard dropped what they were doing and answered their call to duty. Careers were put on hold, families parted with a loved one, sacrifices were made to secure our nation. Guard members from Minnesota have served in every major conflict since its inception more than 360 years ago. More than 150 Minnesota National Guard soldiers were called to duty following the September 11 attacks. I am especially grateful to the National Guard soldiers of Company B, Second Battalion of the 135th Infantry. These soldiers performed special duties at the Rochester International Airport. During a time of crisis, they stepped up to join that long grey line. That line that has never failed us. Thank you First Sergeant Thomas L. Butterfield, Sergeant Samuel M. Adjei, Sergeant First Class Jason R. Schweitzer, Specialist Jason A. Cox, Specialist Benjamin R. Jech, Specialist Jacob R. King, Staff Sergeant Troy D. Landsverk, Sergeant William M. Olson, Sergeant Timothy A. Patterson, Sergeant Daniel J. Prescher, Specialist Brandon L. Riggs, Sergeant Scott J. Saltou, Sergeant Matthew Swiger, and Specialist Benjamin W. Teed. These soldiers deserve our respect and our gratitude. As William Jennings Bryan said, ``Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.'' Americans have a history of choosing their destiny. We will continue to do so, because that is who we are. We must, and we will, continue to achieve this victory for the people of the United States and for all civilized, peace-loving people around the world. There will be a price. The blood and treasure of our nation will be invested. The leadership, resources and unwavering courage of the United States are critical in this struggle. We shall not falter, we will rise to the challenges. And, in the end, we will leave to future generations a safer planet because we never failed to defend the freedom we cherish. We will continue to practice what we preach. God Bless America.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, until just a few minutes ago, I was up in the Speaker's rostrum and I was listening to all of this debate. I will try to not get too emotional about this, but the gentleman is probably correct. That is what it says, but this resolution is only for one week. And as the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young) just said, what that means is for the period of one week, yes, it may be reduced; but they also have language and an agreement it will not be reduced. So we are straining out the gnat and gulping down the camel. The issue is, will the House agree with a resolution that will keep the Federal Government open for one week? That is a pretty simple question, and I think the answer is, or should be, yes. Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations. I think he said it correctly. The House from the very beginning has been prepared and willing and has done its work. The problem is the House is only one part of Congress, and we have had problems from the very beginning because we have a budget resolution which we have deemed and which we will abide by, and the other side has not. Now, that makes it impossible to come to an agreement. Somebody said earlier, Well, does the House have the will to pass appropriation bills? I think the answer to that question is, yes. But we do not have an agreement. If there is no agreement, what is the point? I think the gentleman from Maryland said, what are our priorities? Let me ask a question. What are the priorities of the other side of the aisle? Not only for the first time in 26 years did one branch of the Federal Government not pass a budget, in violation of Federal law, but our friends on the left never offered a budget resolution. They ask what our priorities are, what our blueprint is. We have a budget. We can tell the American people, this is what the Republican blueprint was. Now, how do we compare that to the plan on the other side of the aisle? The other side of the aisle never offered a budget plan.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, these are times that try our souls. These are decisions that all Members of Congress hope they will never have to make. All of us have in our own way prayed for the wisdom of Solomon. As the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde) said earlier in quoting Abraham Lincoln, ``We cannot escape history.'' Our ancestors understood that negotiation alone would not bring freedom or peace to the colonies. Today we stand on the shoulders of the patriots who knew that freedom is not free. Patrick Henry warned that peace could always be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. He closed with, ``Forbid that Almighty God.'' Nearly 64 years ago to this very week, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain believed that he could reason and negotiate with a despot. He returned from Munich smiling, waving a paper, touting, ``Peace in our time.'' A few days later, a wiser Winston Churchill went to the House of Commons and said, ``Mr. Prime Minister, you have been given the choice between war and dishonor. You have chosen dishonor, and we shall surely have war.'' How much blood? How much treasure could have been spared had we have stopped the despot when all he wanted was liebensprau? Last year I led a delegation of Members from the House to Northeastern Germany. We toured a small camp near the Baltic called Peenemunde. It was there, understand total secrecy, that the Nazi war machine perfected the lethal buzz bomb rockets that set Great Britain ablaze. We did not know until after the war that they were also working on nuclear weapons and a multi-stage rocket capable of hitting the United States. Our delegation saw a cartoon drawing on the wall of one of labs that showed these rockets raining down on New York City. We liberated Germany just in the nick of time. Today our intelligence is far from perfect, but it is much better than it was in 1940. We know that Saddam is rebuilding his arsenal of death. We know that he has used chemical and biological weapons to kill thousands of his own people. We know that he is attempting to acquire nuclear capabilities. We know that he has attacked his Arab neighbors. We know that he plotted the assassination of a former U.S. President. And worst and most sobering, we know that he has repeatedly pledged to lead a holy war against the United States. For more than a decade the terrorists and the rogue states that harbor them have been at war with the United States. They have killed hundreds of innocents at our embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. We launched a few Scud missiles. They killed dozens of our sailors on the U.S.S. Cole. We did little. So September 11 they crossed the ocean and killed thousands. They crossed the line. They attacked we the people on our home soil. We the people will do everything in our power to make sure that this never happens again. Now the battle is joined. In many respects the confrontation with Saddam Hussein is an important chapter in ridding the world of the vicious hatred which bred those bloody attacks on American soil. In our bones we all know that sooner or later we will have to lead the effort to confront this despot. The only real question is when. It is once again left to the Americans to liberate Iraq. We must join together and speak with one voice. We must give our President the authority to make the peace, to free the Iraqi people of this despot and leave to all the children of the world a safer planet. No, we cannot escape history; and history expects no less.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, today we would like to talk about a couple of issues that are very important to those of us from Minnesota. One is, of course, what is happening out in Oakland right now and a tremendous story, and I would like to yield to my friend also from the State of Minnesota (Mr. Kennedy) to talk a little bit about what is happening in Oakland and what happened this year to a Minnesota team that was not supposed to be playing baseball this year. I would yield to my friend from Minnesota.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, that is tomorrow in 345 Cannon House Office Building from 8:30 to 12:30. Snacks will be served. It will be a great time.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, it is a Cinderella story, and 1 year ago it looked as if that team would not even exist this year, and now here they are in the playoffs. And yesterday was another great story; fell behind early, came back to win in Oakland. Today my staff is gathered around. They rigged up a way that we can actually listen to the game in the office, and we have a feeling they are going to come back today. We are also proud and we are here today to talk about something that we in Minnesota are proud of, and that is a Minnesota company called Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, 3M better known, because they are celebrating 100 years of innovation, and it really is one of the most innovative companies. Several years ago we had one of their researchers come down to Rochester, Minnesota. He gave a speech, and he said something pretty profound. He said that he is talking about basic research, and he said if we knew what we were doing, it would not be research. And there is no other company that I know of that has done so much in terms of developing new products, because many people think of 3M, and they think of Scotch tape or they think of Post-It notes, but truthfully, it started 100 years ago making sandpaper, and now they are a $1 billion pharmaceutical company. They are involved in all kinds of things from health care to industrial products, consumer and office products, electrocommunication products and specialty material. They operate in more than 60 countries. They have 37 international companies within the operation. They have 32 laboratories, and I think last year they were awarded 501 patents. It is an amazing story of innovation, and let me just share one quote, and then I want to yield back to my colleague. One of their first presidents was a gentleman by the name of William McKnight, and he is the one who ignited the whole notion of innovation and research, but he said, ``This higher good, people, leave them alone. If you put fences around people, you get sheep. Give people the room that they need.'' And he did and built an amazing company and also created an amazing foundation which serves the people of the Upper Midwest and the world even today. I yield back to my colleague from Minnesota.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I rise in support of the Sanders amendment. Mr. Chairman, I agree with some of the things the gentleman from Texas just said, and, that is, that the IRS has been studying this thing for about 5 years, 5 years, and during that time millions of Americans have seen their pensions change and the amount of money they expected to receive dramatically changed while the IRS has studied this. This amendment is pretty straightforward. It just says it is time for the IRS to get off the dime and come to a clear conclusion, the conclusion that I think anyone who studies this issue objectively for more than 10 minutes will come to, and, that is, for older workers, when they convert from a defined benefit plan to a cash balance plan, the older workers lose. That is a fact. Now, I am not on any of the committees of jurisdiction. I am not on the Committee on Ways and Means; but I did serve on the pension commission back in the State legislature, and I do come from a part of the country where a deal is a deal and a bargain is a bargain. And what happened many years ago, the Congress made a bargain with large employers. We called it ERISA. And the bargain was this: if you take good care of your workers, we will protect you from legislation in the 50 States. You will only have to deal with one set of regulations. Now, my colleagues, we never broke that bargain; but major corporations have. They have changed the bargain on pensions. And when they make these conversions, the truth of the matter is a lot of that money is freed up and can be transferred to other parts of that company's budget. Now, you may not want to call it raiding the pension funds, but that has been the net practical effect, and millions of workers have lost. This is a straightforward amendment. It makes sense. It sends a clear signal to the IRS that it is time to get off the dime and make it clear that when they make these conversions, older workers lose. That is wrong, and it is time for Congress to do something about it.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I rise once again to talk about the high cost of prescription drugs, more importantly, the price that Americans pay versus what people in most of the rest of the industrialized world pay for exactly the same drugs. This particular chart is one that I have used many times here on the House floor and at town hall meetings back in my district. They are beginning to get dated and a little bit frayed, but I want to talk about some of the prices that Americans pay, and what we have listed here is roughly about a dozen of the most commonly prescribed drugs. One that we have learned an awful lot about last fall when we had the anthrax scare here in Washington, and unfortunately four of our postal workers lost their lives to anthrax, we learned a lot about Cipro. Cipro is a drug made by a German drug manufacturer called Bayer. We in the United States know it as a company that became famous making aspirin, Bayer Aspirin; but it is a German company, and they make a lot of other pharmaceuticals. But I wanted to point out to my colleagues what we pay for a 30-day supply on average for Cipro is about $88. It is $87.99 to be exact. That same drug in Europe sells for an average of about $40.75, less than half the price for exactly the same drug. I will say that Tommy Thompson, our Secretary of Health and Human Services, did a good job; he negotiated a very good price on the millions of capsules that we bought at the time that we were concerned about anthrax, and we still are concerned about anthrax, and he got a much better price than that, but this is what the average consumer would pay. A drug like Claritin, which is a very commonly prescribed drug this time of year for allergies that people have, in the United States the average price is $89. That same drug on average sells in Europe for $18.75. A drug that my father uses, my 84-year-old, soon to be 85-year-old, father takes a drug called Coumadin. Many seniors take Coumadin. It is a blood thinner and one of the most commonly prescribed drugs. A 30-day supply if you have to go down to your local pharmacy and pay for it yourself sells for about $64.88. That exact same drug made in the same plant under the same FDA approval sells in Europe for about $15.80. And so the list goes. I am not here tonight to beat up on the pharmaceutical industry. It is really not so much shame on them, because they are only doing what any free market company would do and, that is, to exploit a market opportunity that they have. So it is not shame on them. They have done a great job of developing many drugs that not only save lives but improve the quality of lives not only for Americans but for people around the world. The problem is that the way we have set this system up, because we do not require competition, we have created a monster and the monster is that we are paying literally all of the costs for the research for the rest of the world. More importantly, there are estimates that at least 60 percent of the drug companies' profits come at the expense of American consumers. I happen to believe that Americans ought to pay their fair share for prescription drugs. We are a very wealthy country. God has blessed this country. We are the most productive country in the world, and therefore we probably should pay more than the developing countries in Europe, but I do not think that American consumers should have to subsidize the starving Swiss. Let me say too, Mr. Speaker, these are not my prices. I did not make up this chart. These are from a group called the Life Extension Foundation which for more than a decade has been studying the differences between what Americans pay for prescription drugs and what the rest of the world pays. I also want to point out a chart, because what we are seeing is an incredible inflation rate in the cost of prescription drugs, and what you see here from the latest estimates we have for 2001, prescription drugs went up in the United States about 19 percent. The average Social Security cost-of-living adjustment was a little less than 3\1/2\ percent. One does not have to have a degree in statistics to realize that this is unsustainable. We cannot live with this system. So some of us have come together and tried to put together a program that we think will work, and what we are going to be introducing is a bill here in the next several days that will make it very clear that Americans do have access to these drugs at world market prices and it is a simple bill that simply says if it is an FDA- approved drug made in an FDA-approved facility that both consumers and their pharmacists can import those drugs or reimport those drugs into American markets. And how much can we save? Let me give you an idea. We estimate that you can save at least 35 percent on the drugs coming in, the same drugs made in the same FDA-approved facilities as opposed to what you will pay for them here in the United States. And to put a pencil to that, our own accounting experts, the people at the Congressional Budget Office, estimate that seniors alone over the next 10 years will spend over $2 trillion on prescription drugs. Two trillion dollars times 35 percent is $700 billion that we can save. I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this very important legislation which will give Americans access to world market drugs at world market prices.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to honor the U.S.-Japan Maritime Youth Exchange Program. This program brings together high school age students from Japan and the United States for a 3-week program of travel and study in both countries. It was developed and funded in 1996 through a partnership between the U.S. Navy Memorial Foundation here in Washington and Mr. Kaoru Hasegawa, an unsuccessful World War II Japanese kamikaze pilot and now president of Rengo Company, Limited, in Japan. Mr. Hasegawa was shot down and then rescued by the crew of the USS Callaghan back in World War II. When the survivors of the Callaghan invited Mr. Hasegawa to attend their reunion several years ago, it was a very emotional reunion. The desire to share their new-found goodwill and understanding with the next generation of Americans and Japanese led to the creation of the Maritime Youth Exchange Program. The program's purpose is to teach participants about the historical, cultural and economic factors that impact the two countries' maritime policies and practices. With understanding, respect, teamwork and friendship, the program will work to create a healthy partnership for the future of these two great countries. Mr. Speaker, I will leave the names of all of the participants, and I congratulate them and wish them the best of luck during their travels. Mr. Speaker, I include the list of participants for the Record. Adam Meyer of Cary, North Carolina; Titus Wong of Des Plaines, Illinois; Juliet Bintliff of Corpus Christi, Texas; Caroline Toole of Mountain Home, Arkansas; Ashley Thompson of Cincinnati, Ohio; Andrea Claycomb of Euclid, Ohio; Tatsuaki Takanashi of Nagano, Japan; Terumi Tabata of Kagoshima, Japan; Shoko Ishigami of Hyogo, Japan; Yuka Sakai of Saitama, Japan; and Akiko Hasebe of Tokyo, Japan.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I reluctantly rise tonight to support this amendment, but, more importantly, to begin to raise the issue and the consciousness of this Congress about what has been happening in this Congress for the last 3 or 4 years. Now, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Nethercutt) and a number of us came here in 1994, and we were very serious about balancing the Federal budget. We were serious about controlling the growth in discretionary spending. And every time we passed an emergency supplemental bill, for the benefit of some of the Members who have come here in subsequent years, when we passed an emergency supplemental bill, there was an offset. And as a result, we balanced the budget in 4 consecutive years. We paid down over $450 billion worth of publicly held debt. And that was the right thing to do. Now, last year, after September 11, and because of the slowdown of the economy, we have begun to slip back into deficits. But we have a chance, as we go through this appropriation process, to begin to get the ship of state headed back in the right direction. Now, I regret, I want to say to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Skeen) and all the members of the Subcommittee on Interior of the Committee on Appropriations that it just so happens that his bill is the first out of the chute, because I know that he does good work, and there are a lot of important things for all kinds of constituencies in this bill. But the question we ought to all ask ourselves is this: Why should the Federal budget grow at a rate of twice that of the average family budget? The average family budget in America today is growing a little more than 3 percent. Discretionary spending, and I will be happy to talk to the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, but discretionary spending is going to grow this year, unless we get serious about controlling that growth rate, by more than 7 percent. Now, at a time when the average family budget is growing 3 percent, discretionary spending is 7 percent. The question is: How much is enough? When are we going to say enough is enough? Because, my colleagues, if we stay on the path we are on right now, and last week the House passed what is very important legislation as regards prescription drug coverage, but if we look at the charts that have been prepared by the Republican study committee, with that bill and with the continuing growth in discretionary spending in this budget and the next, we are going to be looking at $250 billion deficits as far as the eye can see. Now, that is not what the American people sent us here to do. So, unfortunately, we have to begin to stand and draw a line in the sand and say, enough is enough. And unfortunately, it happens to be that this is the first bill. What this amendment does, as I understand it, we simply go back to what we agreed to back in 1996, where we said we are going to adjust this account to what the spending would be if that account had gone up every year at the rate of inflation. Now, do not talk to us about draconian cuts. We are saying let us go back to what we thought we agreed to in 1995, 1996 and 1997 when this Congress was serious about balancing the budget. There was a Pepsi commercial a few years ago that said life is a series of choices. What we do on the floor of this House every day is a series of choices. We have to decide whether we are going to allow the Federal spending machine to continue to grow at double the rate of the average family budget, or are we going to start to say enough is enough.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I will give all Members a medal and a kiss on the cheek. But the point is that this account has grown by more than double the inflation rate. All we are saying is let us take this account back to the 1996 levels adjusted for inflation. I am not here to be critical of the Committee on Appropriations because they have done a good job.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I want to agree, in part, with what the gentleman from Wisconsin just said. He said that there is not enough money to do all of the things that we want to do. That is exactly right, and that is why we have a budget, and that is why the family has a budget. What we are saying tonight is you cannot allow the Federal budget to continue to grow at twice the rate of the average family budget. You have to make some choices. Now, we had a Committee on the Budget meeting today and we talked about what has happened to the Federal budget in the last 12 months. A lot of what has happened to the budget is the result of what happened on September 11. Revenues are about $234 billion less than we expected. Now, let us be honest. About 14 percent of that is because of the tax cuts that we passed. Frankly, I think if we had that vote again, every one of us who voted for those tax cuts would vote for them again. It was exactly the right thing to do and, as it turns out, with the economy slowing down, I think it was a brilliant thing to do. So we are not going to back off on the tax relief. Let me tell my colleagues something. I was visiting with a farmer friend of mine a few years ago, and we were sitting on bales of hay. He said something pretty profound. He said, the problem with you guys in Washington is not that we do not send enough money into Washington; he said, the problem is you spend it faster than we can send it in. And that is the problem. Now, we have said earlier that we do not fault the Subcommittee on Interior of the Committee on Appropriations; we think they have done a pretty good job. But they are part of the problem. Let us be honest. Let us look at this chart. Do my colleagues see the green line right here? That is the inflation rate. For a few years, we were doing a pretty good job. We were keeping spending at just slightly above the inflation rate. But then somehow in about 2000, and it might have something to do with the fact that we began to have these big surpluses, that rate began to increase. That is the red line. The question we have to answer tonight and during the next several weeks is, will we be able to slow the rate of that growth back to the inflation rate, or are we going to continue to allow it to grow? If we do, here is what we are going to face. We are going to face big, big deficits. We are going to lead to perpetual deficits. It is not the Interior appropriations, it is not Treasury-Postal, it is not any one of those individual bills, it is not even prescription drugs; it is a combination of that. We wind up with a chart that looks like this. Now, how many of us really want to go home this November and explain to the folks back home why we started with a chart just a few years ago where we were paying down anywhere from $100 billion to $200 billion worth of publicly held debt every year and go home and explain, but now we have decided that we are going to go on a spending spree? We can blame Agriculture, we can blame all of the various committees, but it is like Pogo. We have met the enemy and the enemy is us. As I say, it is unfortunate that the Skeen bill is the first one out of the chute, but I say to my colleagues, we have to start getting serious about this budget. I think every person that we represent understands that there is absolutely no reason that the Federal budget ought to grow at a rate twice that of the average family budget. So tonight the only option that some of us have is to come to the floor of the House and ask our colleagues to slow the machine down, just slow down the spending. We are not asking to cut the Interior appropriations; all we are asking to do is bring it down to the rate of inflation. If we do that, good things will happen. The good thing is that within 2 years, I believe we will be back on the path towards a balanced budget and paying off that debt. One other thing. Back in the Midwest, it used to be that part of the American dream was to pay off the mortgage and leave your kids the farm. Well, I think that is still a dream. But unfortunately, we are going to go back to that old saw here in Washington where we are literally going to sell off the farm and leave our kids the mortgage, and every one of us knows that it is wrong. It starts tonight, and the question is, do we have the discipline, do we have the courage to do what we really know is right, and that is to get off this spending track, get back on a reasonable spending track of slowing the rate of growth in the Federal Government to roughly the inflation rate and, if we do that, we can balance the budget and, yes, we will have plenty of room to provide tax relief to the American families as we go forward. So the money is there. It is not that they are not sending it in fast enough; it is that we want to spend it faster than they send it in.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, while I support the general spirit of H. Res. 393, which condemns the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe, I am concerned that the initial findings might lead to misconceptions regarding our German friends. The citations of anti-Semitic incidents in Germany misrepresent the actual frequency of anti-Semitic activity. Germany has very assertively attacked anti-Semitic trends within its borders. For instance, on June 28, 2002, the German Parliament passed, by unanimous vote, a resolution condemning all aspects of anti- Semitism. Additionally, recent statistics gathered by the German Interior Ministry cited an average of 130 anti-Semitic incidents per month in 2001. Incidents have decreased dramatically thus far in 2002. The Interior Ministry reports 127 anti-Semitic acts in the first three months of 2002, an average of 42 incidents per month; a decrease of 68 percent. I encourage and commend our German colleagues in their continued attention and efforts against anti-Semitism.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I rise in support of this rule and this bill. There is an old expression that ideas in children are brilliant when they are your own, and we have a problem sometimes with technology because we have one group who has an idea and another group that has an idea, and they begin to speak different languages. What this bill, the Enterprise Integration Act of 2002, is about is ultimately getting everybody talking the same language. Imagine, for example, if we had a situation where pilots from one airline here in the United States spoke Greek and the next one spoke Latin and the next one spoke German; what we want them all speaking is the same language. It is said that 50 percent of our economic growth over the next 10 years is going to come from small business. It is also said that more than 50 percent of our economic growth is going to come from technology. This is the way we tie together small business and technology. This is a very, very important bill in the long-term economic future of this country, and particularly for our small businesses here in the United States. Let me take a minute, though, to say what a wonderful agency the National Institute of Standards and Technology is. I have had the chance to visit two of their campuses, and I cannot tell my colleagues enough how impressed I am with the scientists who work there. The National Institute of Standards and Technology is involved in all kinds of basic research. They study everything from fire to atomic clocks, and they do it very well and they do it on a very limited budget. In fact, I was so impressed when the chairman and I went out to Boulder, Colorado, to see the way they do business out there at their labs to see how much duct tape they are using in their various labs, and this is very high technology that they are working on. They do not waste any of the taxpayers' money, but what they do best is come up with standards so that various industries are all working on the same language, and the language of science is something that is probably way above my ability to completely understand, and we are delighted to have the good doctor being a very important part of this discussion, but I understand this: if we can get big business and small business, manufacturers and suppliers, all using the same language, both the big business, the small business, the consumer, everyone; the American economy will benefit. This is a very important piece of legislation. I hope Members will join me in supporting the rule and the bill.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Of $1,000 bills. And to get to $1 trillion, how high?

Mr. GUTKNECHT. We do have to ask, Who are they protecting us from?

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I think it definitely needs to be part of the solution. I think part of the reason that health care costs are so high in the United States relative to the rest of the world is the fact that we have literally allowed this jackpot justice. Now, I do not think that the manufacturers of any of these drugs have intentionally put those drugs on the market knowing that they were going to have these adverse consequences to whatever percentage of the people who take them. I think they have put these drugs on the market in good faith believing that the patients would receive a real health benefit from taking these drugs. My view of tort liability is much more restrictive. I am not an attorney. I do not play one here in Congress. I do not think the gentleman is one, either. I think we have allowed this whole system to go out of control, and we all pay for it. They have a much more restrictive system in Europe, and that is part of the reason the drug companies are willing to sell the drugs for considerably less in Europe than in the United States. So long term, this needs to be part of the solution.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. We only have about 1 minute left. I want to thank the gentleman for joining us for this special order tonight. I certainly agree with the gentleman. I think it is time we do something in terms of covering those seniors falling through the cracks, but I think as I said, and the gentleman and I both said at a news conference a few days before the vote on that bill, that the real issue is affordability. If we are to do our job and effectively deal, we cannot sustain this kind of a chart. With 19 percent increases in the costs of prescription drugs and 3.5 percent increases in Social Security cost-of-living adjustments, that just cannot last. We have to do more on the affordability side so that we can do more on the coverage side, and reimportation, reforming the FDA, reforming the tort liability laws, making it easier for generic drugs to come on the market, all of those things will go a long ways toward making prescription drugs affordable here in the United States. We are willing to pay our fair share in terms of the research for those prescription drugs, but the time has come to say to the rest of the world, we are not going to continue to subsidize the starving Swiss.