Gil Gutknecht

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Watts) because I think in many respects he has done the best job of communicating what it was we were trying to do. As the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston) mentioned, welfare reform was not about saving money. I think to a large degree that was miscommunicated by so many people. Welfare reform was not about saving money. It was about saving people, because we all knew that there were too many people that were being trapped in an endless cycle of dependency and despair, and because of our welfare reforms we allowed States and governors and legislatures to decide what it was that they wanted for their people and how it was that they could use the instruments of government to encourage work, to encourage personal responsibility, to encourage families to stay together, and that is what welfare reform was all about. The great news is, since we passed that bill, gave that authority back to the States, we have seen the welfare roles in the United States drop by 50 percent. That is a great story, not in terms of how much money it will save but most importantly how many people it saves. One of the stories that I love to tell, and many of us do visits to our local schools, I was at one of my local schools a couple of years ago, about a year after we passed the welfare reform, and we were talking to the teachers after school. One of the teachers said, Of all of the things that have been done since you went to Washington, Gil, I think the best thing is this welfare reform. I said, Really? Tell me about that. She said, Well, let me talk about one of my students and let us call him Johnny. All of a sudden Johnny started to behave better. He was a better student. He was a better kid. He carried himself better. Everything about Johnny was better. So finally one day the teacher said to Johnny, Johnny, is there something different at your house? Johnny said, Yeah. My dad got a job. We sometimes forget that a job is more than the way one earns their living. A job helps to define their very life, and when the breadwinner of a family is unemployed and on a government welfare program, it not only affects the attitude of the breadwinner, it affects the attitudes of everyone in that family.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. I thank the gentleman for allowing us to talk about this tonight. Actually, it all started several years ago at a meeting with some senior citizens at one of my townhall meetings, and they started talking about the differences between what prescription drugs sold for in the United States compared to what they sell for in Canada, in Mexico, in other countries in the world. So I began to do some research and began to do some work, and I came to the realization that they were in fact telling the truth; that there was a huge difference. What the gentleman has next to him there is a chart based on some information that we got from the Life Extension Foundation. These actually compare some of the prices of drugs between what the average price is in the United States. As a matter of fact, I might say that those prices on that chart are probably about a year old now. They are actually probably worse today in terms of the actual prices, but I want to pick out a couple of them there that are important to my family. The first one is Synthroid.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. We are just about at the end of our time for this special order, but I am really happy we have had the opportunity, and I was delighted our colleague, the gentleman from Oklahoma, could join us. Because really, in many respects, this country is a much better place than it was 6 years ago. Instead of a future of debt, dependency, and despair, I really think we are giving to our kids a future of hope, growth, and opportunity. Instead of having huge deficits piling up bigger and bigger every year, we are now talking about surpluses. We are not talking about leaving them a legacy of debt, but perhaps actually paying off all of the debt held by the general public. We have welfare reform so we encourage work and personal responsibility. We want to allow families to keep more of what they earn, because we know at the end of the day the magic of America is not here in Washington, D.C. It really is back there in places like Savannah, Georgia, and Rochester, Minnesota, in Kasson, Minnesota, where real people, ordinary people, are allowed to do extraordinary things. That is the magic of America. That is the magic we cannot afford to lose, because if we continued down the path we were on 6 years ago of higher taxes and bigger debts, more government regulation, and even more government interference in the activities of business, we were absolutely guaranteed that we were on a downhill spiral, not only for the economy but for our society. The good news is we are moving up now, we are headed in the right direction. Taxes should be coming down. The deficit is coming down. Spending is under control. We are encouraging work and personal responsibility. I think that is the future that we want to leave to our kids. That is a legacy that I think we can all be proud of. I want to thank the gentleman for joining us tonight. If the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston) has any closing words, I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, it is an incredible tragedy in America today that the IRS knows more about one's personal finances many times than one's spouse. Which leads me to the next point. I hope we have made some progress in terms of simplifying this Tax Code. But it is very small progress. I would hope that in the next Congress, with perhaps a different leadership at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, we can get very serious about simplifying and making this Tax Code much fairer. There are several things we could do. But it really is amazing that Americans even allow this system to survive. When we think about what Americans did back at the beginning of this country, we started throwing tea in Boston harbor because the king wanted to put a penny per pound tax on tea. I mean that outraged the American people. Today, we allow an IRS to continue to look into every nook and cranny of our personal lives, and if we make a mistake, even to the tune of $1, it puts a tremendous burden on the American people, and it is simply wrong.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. On the tax side, it all fits with the total budget plan. I only wish that he were here tonight. I remember so many nights doing special orders with Congressman Mark Neumann of Wisconsin. He has left us now, he decided to run for the other body, and now he is back in the private sector and doing quite well. I remember doing special orders and talking about, if we could get Congress to limit the growth in Federal spending to roughly the inflation rate, he had these models, he was a former math teacher, and he showed us with charts what would happen, how we could balance the budget, pay down debt, make certain that every penny of social security and Medicare went only for social security and Medicare, and we could provide real tax relief to the American people. In fact, what he said is if we did those things, if we could limit the growth in Federal spending to roughly the inflation rate, that we could pay off the national debt in 20 years. Americans have always loved big dreams. In fact, Ronald Reagan said, ``America is the place where we love to dream heroic dreams.'' That has been the history of this country. What a great dream. What a great dream, to say that we are going to leave this country to our kids debt- free. The truth is, it can be done. We are on the path to do that today. Part of the reason is when we first came here, when I first came here, Federal spending was growing between 6 percent and 8 percent. In fact, years before that Federal spending was actually increasing by more like 10 percent and 12 percent per year. Now we have reduced the rate of growth in Federal spending so this year, if we can abide by the spending agreement that we have with the Senate, we will limit the growth in total Federal spending to only about 2.8 percent. That is at a time when we are estimating the inflation rate will be something like 2.9 percent. If we can do that, and that is going to be tough in the next several weeks because all of these groups are descending on Washington and they want more money for this and that program, and it is going to be tough to limit that growth in spending. But if we do that, we can balance the budget, pay down the debt, strengthen social security, but most importantly, we can allow families to keep more of what they earn. The interesting thing is, when we allow families to keep more of what they earn, they spend it a whole lot smarter than we spend it on their behalf here in Washington. They get more value for that money, and they help grow the economy. A growing economy makes everything easier.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Let us not be too willing. The truth of the matter is, no family should have to visit the undertaker and the IRS in the same week. I do not think most Americans realize that very quickly, and it does not take much of a farm in my part of the world to quickly be worth $2 million, perhaps $3 million, that has been the family farm perhaps for a couple of generations, all of a sudden the patriarch dies, and in a very short period of time the family could have to cough up upwards of 55 percent. So I hope we are not too willing to compromise. I agree with the gentleman, we have to be willing to meet the President halfway. Frankly, I do not want to meet the President halfway going in the wrong direction. Frankly, I think it is time for us to say, this is not the government's money. At some point, I think every one of these estates, every one of these businesses, we have to be honest, they have been paying taxes all through the years. They have paid sales taxes, they have paid income taxes. As the gentleman mentioned, they have paid property taxes. For the Federal government to step right in and say, oh, by the way, we want upwards of 55 percent of the value of that estate, I am willing to compromise and I think we are willing to meet the President halfway on this, but I think the principle that families should not have to meet the undertaker and the IRS in the same week is a very important principle. As we were told this morning at a breakfast meeting we were at, that is not the Statue of Fairness, that is a Statue of Liberty. The people who came here came here for liberty and freedom and opportunity. I hope we will always remain a society that understands that the three magic words are hope, growth, and opportunity. We cannot make things completely fair. People came to this country so they could create their own fortunes, so they could take their chance at life, so they could use their God-given skills and create wealth for themselves, for their families, and in many cases, for hundreds, perhaps even thousands of other people. That is the magic of America, where ordinary people are allowed to do extraordinary things. We have to make certain that we have a government that respects the fact that people have a right and an opportunity in America to make the most of it.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Let me clarify that. It is actually in Europe. Those are all European prices. Now the price in Canada, I believe, is about half what it is in the United States. The point is, it is even cheaper in Europe. Now, Synthroid is a drug that my wife takes because she has a goiter, an enlargement of her goiter, and many Americans have to take that drug. As long as she takes her drug, she has no medical complications because of that. So it is a wonderful drug, and we are certainly appreciative of that drug and that it is available. We can afford the $13.85 or whatever the price is here in the United States. That does not really break us, but it does begin to bother when it has to be taken all the time. Literally, she has to take that drug probably for the rest of her life. When one looks at the differences between what the Europeans pay for exactly the same drug, made in exactly the same plant, under exactly the same FDA approval, one begins to ask the question, why is it the world's best customers, the Americans, pay the world's highest prices?

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, without being overly political, though, I do have to say this: This administration has had 8 years to deal with this issue and what they have given senior citizens most are these threatening letters. I mean, hundreds of thousands of seniors have received these threatening letters from our own FDA. That is not the way to deal with this issue. And let me also point out, if we could put the other chart up, so we can talk a little bit about this, what we have said, what I have said and I know the gentleman has joined me on this both on the agriculture appropriations bill and some others, what we have said is, if we do not deal with this price problem, because the real problem for seniors is price, when we have drugs like Prilosec, for example, that sells for over $100 here in the United States, sells for about $56 in Canada, the same drug sells in Mexico for about $17.50, the average price in Europe for the same drug is about $39.25, the problem is that over the last 4 years, prescription drug prices have gone up by about 60 percent. When we look into the eyes of some of the seniors at our town hall meetings and they say, I can afford the price of prescription drugs today, now; it is not easy, but when we look at how much they are going up every year, I do not know if I will be able to afford them in another 2 years. The problem is, if we do not deal with the price side of that equation, we will never be able to catch up just by pouring more Federal taxpayers' money at this problem. As one person put it, I think, very accurately, if we think prescription drugs are expensive today, just wait until the Federal Government provides them for free. So we have said that we have to deal with this problem from both sides. We have to open up markets so that Americans have access to market prices for drugs, world market prices for drugs; and secondly, we have to provide a prescription drug benefit as part of Medicare as an option, if people choose it, so that it is affordable, available, and that people have choices. That is the plan that we are working on. I think if we attack the problem from both sides of that equation, we can make certain that every senior has access to the drugs that they need at affordable prices that will not bankrupt them now or in the future. I think that is the right prescription drug plan. Frankly, I am prepared to debate that with anybody in front of any audience, anywhere in the United States, because I think once people have the facts before them, they will see that the plan that we are trying to put together is superior to what the President is talking about. Saving Social Security and Responsible Spending

Mr. GUTKNECHT. We begin to open the door. What happens right now, to try and explain what happens, for example, and let me take another drug on that list, Cumadin, that is a drug that my 82-year-old father takes. The average price in the United States is over $30. The price in Europe for the same drug is $2.85. What happens sometimes is people are traveling, and they happen to have their prescription along with them; they are traveling perhaps in Italy and they realize they are running short on their Cumadin. It is a blood thinner. It is very commonly prescribed. They go into a pharmacy and they buy it; and when they convert the lira to dollars, they realize that it was less than $3.00. That is 10 percent of what they pay back in the United States. So when it is time to renew that prescription, some people have said, I have the phone number of the pharmacy there in Rome. Maybe what I could do is just give them a call, and see if I could get my prescription refilled and have them ship it to me. What happens is, and the gentleman has it behind him there, there is another chart, what our FDA does when that drug comes into the United States, even though it clearly is the same drug, made by the same company in the same plant, what our own FDA does is they send a threatening letter to that senior citizen or to any citizen, as a matter of fact, who happens to be importing drugs, and this letter is one of the most threatening letters. It says, ``It appears that you are violating drug importation laws and that you are importing a drug that is illegal in the United States,'' even though it says clearly on the carton that this is Cumadin or this is Prozac or this is Premarin or whatever the drug happens to be. So it is clear to everyone what that drug is. As a matter of fact, the FDA has the right to actually test that drug. But beyond that, it strikes me that it is outrageous because the burden of proof right now is on the individual to prove, in fact, that it is a legal drug. So what my amendment does is it reverses the burden of proof so that the FDA must now prove that that is, in fact, an illegal drug. Now, in doing so, what it does is it changes everything. It begins to reverse the process so that it will be virtually impossible for the FDA to send these threatening letters to consumers who are abiding by the law, have a legal prescription, and are importing legal drugs into the United States. And when that happens, markets work. We have a world market price for oil, we have a world market price for wheat, we have a world market price for automobiles. And we should not allow our own FDA to stand between American consumers and especially American seniors.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Somewhere in there.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, talking about coupons, sometimes we need to be reminded of this here in Washington, that every Sunday, families sit around their coffee tables and their kitchen tables and they clip over 80 million coupons out of the Sunday paper, worth an average of 53 cents, and that is how they balance their budgets every single week. They watch their pennies. Now, we still have an awful lot of waste in the Federal Government. I will not be one to say that we do not have waste. But we have much more accountability, and I think we have less waste today than we have had in the last 10 years.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, virtually everything that has been said this morning about this bill is true, and it is a bipartisan bill. I am delighted with the work that has gone into it, but I reluctantly rise in opposition to the bill. Mr. Speaker, I want my colleagues to all consider for a moment the term ``vested.'' I think we all think we know what that term means. The dictionary says it is law, settled, if fixed, absolute, being without contingency, as in a vested right. About 2 years ago, thousands of employees that worked for IBM Corporation found out that vested does not mean what we think it means, and all of a sudden these people who had calculators on their computers, as part of their tool kit so they could calculate what their pension benefit would be when they retired, all of a sudden woke up and the company had unilaterally changed the pension formula. They had gone from a defined benefit program to a cash balance program, and they were given no choice. And I had offered to the authors language to give them that choice, just for the vested employees, because once those rights are vested, it seems to me we have a moral obligation as a Congress, as employers. In fact, the term in pension policy is fiduciary responsibility, and that transcends legal. Yes, it was legal for IBM, and many of these other corporations, to convert their pension plans into cash balanced plans. It was legal, I think. I am not so certain, but it was not moral. It was the wrong thing to do. As a result, I have to rise in opposition to this bill because we have an opportunity in this Congress to solve this problem; and just because it is IBM this year does not mean it is not going to be another employer next year. This is ultimately going to affect millions and millions of Americans, and everyone in this room knows that it is wrong. It is wrong to allow large employers to abuse their employees, to convert these pension plans without their knowledge and without their choice. Mr. Speaker, I have to congratulate the authors for working together, but this bill has one glaring omission.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about an issue that every senior citizen knows about and, frankly, if we have had town hall meetings, we know about it as well, and that is outrageously high drug prices. My 82-year-old father, for example, takes a drug called Coumadin. It is a blood thinner. In the United States, the average price for that drug is $30.25, but the Europeans for the same drug made in the same plant under the same FDA approval pay only $2.85. Mr. Speaker, in the information age, we can no longer keep this secret. Americans are paying double, triple and sometimes quadruple the prices that people around the rest of the world are paying for the same drugs, and it would be easy for us to say shame on the pharmaceutical companies. But the truth of the matter is this administration has had 8 years and what have they done about this? Well, they have sent thousands of threatening letters to senior citizens when they tried to import legal drugs into the United States. Shame on the FDA. Shame on our Justice Department and shame on us. It is time for this Congress to take action to make certain that American senior citizens have access to world market prices for prescription drugs that they need. No senior should have to choose between getting the food they need and the drugs that they need as well.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I would like to associate myself with the comments expressed today by my colleague from Minnesota, Mr. Minge, regarding the Farm Planning and Analysis System presented in use by the Minnesota Farm Service Agency. This software has served as an extremely valuable financial management tool for thousands of Minnesota farmers and saved thousands of man hours for our FSA employees in Minnesota. While I appreciate the Department of Agriculture's move toward a common computing environment, I strongly encourage the Committee to consider the superior capabilities of FINPACK and help ensure an appropriate resolution that allows our producers to continue using this popular tool.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a very special woman. A few weeks ago, Harriet Ressler celebrated her 60th year in business. Sixty years ago, she opened a women's clothing store in Blooming Prairie, Minnesota, named Harriet's Dres-Wel. That was back in 1940. Mr. Speaker, I might just say that Harriet just celebrated her 86th birthday as well. She started back then with only one employee who came in to cover the lunch hour and got paid 50 cents a day. She now has 10 employees and the business has expanded to two buildings. Up until 2 weeks ago, she worked 6 days a week. Mr. Speaker, in a world that some say is dominated by glass ceilings, Harriet Ressler is living proof that America is still the land of opportunity. As Paul Harvey would say, ``Harriet, lead on.''

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment. Last week the House did take some action late one night, I think Thursday night or 1\1/2\ weeks ago, that will begin to open this door. But this issue needs to be talked about a lot by this Congress. I have a chart here which sort of demonstrates the problem. Many of us in the last week have had town hall meetings back in our districts or have met with senior citizens. We had one in my district, and I learned or relearned what we have been hearing before. That is one example of one of my constituents who was traveling in Europe. Her traveling partner needed to get a prescription refilled. The prescription here in the United States is $120. The price of having that prescription filled in Europe for the same drug made in the same plant by the same company under the same FDA approval was $32. This person has to take that drug, has to have it refilled every month, so the savings of about $90 a month times 12 works out to about $1,000 a year. The differences between what Americans pay and what the rest of the world pays for the same drugs is just outrageous. Let us take a drug like Coumadin. My 82-year-old father takes Coumadin. It is a blood thinner, a very commonly prescribed drug. Here in the United States, the average price is about $30.25 for a 30-day supply. That same drug made in the same plant by the same company under the same FDA approval in Europe sells for only $2.85. Mr. Speaker, we have a serious problem right now. Part of the problem is that Americans are paying a disproportionate share of the cost for research and ultimately I think a disproportionate share of the profits for the large pharmaceutical companies. It would be easy for us as a Congress to sit here and blame the pharmaceutical companies and say, shame on them. But the truth of the matter is that it is shame on us. It is shame on us for allowing this to continue. It is shame on our own FDA because, in view of these huge differentials, we would think that the FDA would be doing something to help senior citizens and other American consumers. The fact of the matter is that our own FDA is making matters worse. These are excerpts from an actual letter sent to a senior citizen, a very threatening letter that in effect says if they continue to do this, we believe they may be in violation of Federal law and we may have to come after them. If someone is an 82-year-old senior citizen taking Coumadin or Synthroid or some of these other commonly-prescribed drugs and trying to save some money by getting them either through Mexico, Canada, or Europe, the last thing our Federal Government ought to do is threaten us, especially when those drugs are absolutely legal, they are FDA- approved, and the problem is the FDA has put the burden of proof on the consumer. Finally, I support this legislation or this amendment here today, as well, because in many respects our Justice Department has failed, as well. It has failed in its oversight responsibilities to make certain that there is adequate competition and that there is not collusion between the large pharmaceutical companies. It is not just shame on the pharmaceutical companies, it is shame on us, it is shame on the FDA, it is shame on the Justice Department. It is time that this Congress sends a very clear message that the game is over. We are not going to continue to subsidize the starving Swiss, we are not going to continue to subsidize the rest of the world in terms of prescription drugs, especially when our own seniors have to make very difficult decisions every day in terms of whether or not they are going to get the prescriptions that they need or the food they should have. That is simply wrong, and we should not allow it to continue. I hope we can pass this amendment tonight to send one more clear message to the folks at FDA, the folks at Justice, and the people around the world that the game is over.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

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

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. I will not be as passionate as the previous speaker. I was just sitting here listening to that speech and the other speeches thinking about what a wonderful place this is, because last night, I should not even say last night, earlier this morning the gentleman from Florida and I were here on this floor, and we were on the same side of an issue. We do not grow a single sugar beet in my district in Minnesota, but we do grow a lot of sugar beets in Minnesota. In fact, in Minnesota it is a $2 billion industry. It is a very important industry, and particularly in northwestern Minnesota, again, very nonpartisan areas represented on both sides of the Red River by Democrats. I want to talk about the sugar program just briefly, if I can, both from the perspective of agriculture policy and for budget policy, because I think it is interesting how people of good will, people who may agree or disagree on different issues, can look at the same set of facts and come to such incredibly different conclusions on them. Let me just share with my colleagues my conclusion. If we look at the sugar title in the farm bill, it does not cost the American taxpayer a penny. We make money on the sugar title. I would invite any of my colleagues to come to my office, and we will go through that with them. Another thing that has been said is that American consumers are paying more. In the first 3 years of the 1996 farm bill, and I have a small chart here which we did not have time to make into a big chart, but if we look at these red bars here, the price paid to the farmers for raw cane sugar and wholesale refined sugar dropped by 23 percent. But what happened for the consumer? Well, the retail price of sugar did go up, 1.2 percent; the price of candy went up 4.6 percent; and the price of cereal went up 5.8 percent. So a lot of the things we are talking about here today, the farmer is getting less for his sugar; but we are paying more for candy and some of the things sugar goes into. Let me just say that this really gets at the very core of why we have farm policy at all. Why do we have a farm policy at the Federal level? I think the reason we have a farm policy is to ensure that Americans have an adequate supply of safe food, and we have a farm policy to act as a shock absorber for some of the ups and downs in the market and some of the things that happen in terms of Mother Nature and floods and pestilence, and all the other things that can affect agriculture and farmers. And if we look at the sugar title, I think it really is the example we ought to use for all of our farm programs, because we do not subsidize sugar, although it is supply management to a certain degree; but at the end of the day what we have done is guaranteed an adequate supply of a very basic commodity for American consumers at very reasonable prices. I do not think that is too much to ask. I think it is a good program. And, frankly, I respect the gentlemen who are bringing this; but again I have to say that we look at the same set of facts and come to completely different conclusions.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Reclaiming my time, I think the gentleman is generally correct in that. Right now no one would buy it. But when is the best time to buy a commodity? When the price is low. We should be buying sugar right now, and we should sell it when the price starts to go back up. That makes sense. That is supply management. At the end of the day, this program will cost the taxpayers nothing. It will save future taxpayers and consumers a great deal. We need a strong sugar industry in this country, and they are forced to compete every day against heavily subsidized sugar from around the rest of the world. I support open and free trade. We had that debate last night. But we do not have free trade, we do not have fair trade in the sugar industry, and, frankly, I think I would have to rise in opposition to the motion that the gentleman is trying to propose.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. I yield to the gentleman from New Hampshire.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted that we are finally getting a chance to talk about this bill. We have had a lot of discussion today about the high cost of prescription drugs. I do not know if this chart was shown or a chart similar to it, but we have got a lot of charts and a lot of research has been done by a number of groups around the United States about the differences between what Americans pay for prescription drugs and what people around the rest of the world pay for exactly the same prescription drugs. Let me give one example. My father takes a drug called coumadin. If one buys that drug in the United States, the price is $30, roughly $30.50 for a 30-day supply. If one buys that same drug made in the same plant under the same FDA approval in Europe, Switzerland, for example, you pay $2.85. Now, Mr. Speaker, we have the North American Free Trade Agreement. We have passed a number of free trade agreements and somehow we always wind up on the short end of that stick. Let me show another example. This is an example of a very commonly- prescribed drug called prilosec. If one buys it in Minneapolis, the average price for a 30-day supply is $99.95, but if one buys it in Winnipeg, Manitoba, if one happens to be vacationing and they have their prescription, they take it into a pharmaceutical shop and it can be bought for $50.88, but if one happens to be vacationing down in Mexico, in Guadalajara, Mexico, the same drug, made in the same plant, under the same FDA approval, can be bought for $17.50. Mr. Speaker, this is really about basic fairness. If we are going to have the North American Free Trade Agreement, American consumers ought to be able to benefit from this. It is easy for us to blame the big pharmaceutical supply companies, the big manufacturers, but the truth of the matter is, one of the real culprits and one of the real reasons we can see these big differentials is our own Food and Drug Administration, because when consumers try to order these drugs or reorder drugs that they have bought at a pharmacy, whether it be in Guadalajara or Winnipeg or wherever, when they try to reimport, bring those drugs back in and reorder, they get a very threatening letter from our own FDA. The unvarnished truth is, Mr. Speaker, our own FDA is defending this system. Our own FDA is standing between American consumers and lower drug prices. So I have offered a bill. It is a relatively simple bill. Part of the problem is that right now the burden of proof is on the importer to prove that it is a legal drug in the United States, and that is very difficult for a senior citizen living in Minnesota or Montana or wherever. What my bill basically says is the burden of proof is now going to be on the FDA. They must prove that those drugs are, in fact, illegal. Now, it is not the complete answer but it is a very important first step. If we can pass this here in the House, if we can get it passed in the Senate, if we can get it passed by the conference committee, we can begin the path to opening up our borders and having lower prescription drug prices for American consumers.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to clarify something. Section 3 of our bill says including a pharmacist or wholesale importer. We want our local pharmacies to be able to set up correspondent relationships. In terms of the whole issue of people getting bad drugs, I mean, the truth of the matter is, this is happening now; and the reason is because of these huge differentials. We have tried now for 2 years to work with the FDA to come up with a plan so that we can bring down these barriers to local pharmacists and HMOs. Let me give an example. One of the HMOs in Minneapolis, they did a study on their own, and if they could buy their drugs from Winnipeg, if they could realize half of the savings that they recognized in this study, they could save their subscribers $30 million a year. Now, they are already negotiating better deals with their drugs than the average consumer, certainly the average senior citizen can. So what we are talking about is opening up markets. We want to work with the FDA, but for 2 years the FDA has basically refused to return our phone calls. Mr. Speaker, there is a crisis out there; but the crisis is price. I am not here tonight to beat up on the pharmaceutical companies. The truth of the matter is they are going to charge as much as they can. I mean, shame on the pharmaceutical companies, yes, for what they are charging; but shame on the FDA for letting them get away with it, and shame on us for not doing something about it. Now, this bill is not perfect, and I understand that we should be going further; but I think that is as far as we can get this year, or at least in the next several weeks. As we go forward, perhaps in the Senate, perhaps in conference committee, sometime perhaps before we get it to the President's desk, maybe we can strengthen it this year. And if the FDA does not respond appropriately, I guarantee I will be back next year and we will be fighting for even stronger legislation. Because this idea that American consumers should pay $30.25 for Coumadin when consumers in Switzerland pay $2.85 for the same drug, that is simply wrong. And shame on us if we let that continue. The time has come to send a very clear message to our own FDA that we are not going to allow them to stand between American consumers in the day and age of NAFTA, in the day and age of the Internet, and in the day and age of the information age. The game is over. We are not going to allow them to stand between American consumers, and particularly American seniors, and lower drug prices. The game is over. This is the night when we begin the journey to bring lower prices to American consumers. When we allow markets to work, we will see lower prices for American consumers, and especially for American seniors.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, it absolutely was. I would bet long money and short odds that all the kids in Faribault are going to benefit from that kind of an attitude. But the other thing I wanted to mention about Governor Carlson, he said something really profound; and that is that, for too long in public education and education in general, we have measured quality education by inputs. And he sort of reversed. Maybe it is because he came from PS-36. Maybe it is because he was State auditor. But when he was governor, he said, we better start measuring outputs. Because we have all labored under this Lake Woebegone mentality that all our children were above average, and that is not necessarily true. And when we began to actually test the students, we began to find out they were not doing nearly as well in many of the areas as we thought they were doing. And so, we are starting to measure quality now in Minnesota not by how much we put into the process, and we put an awful lot of money in public education in the State of Minnesota, as my colleagues do in Colorado and in Michigan, as well. But we want to find out how well the students really are doing in terms of learning. And I think that if we focus on the students, if we focus on the children, and if we focus on outputs, what we are really getting out for the resources we put into it, I think in the long run the real winners are going to be the children. So the testimony today was excellent. I cannot thank my colleagues enough. I came away charged up reminded that the Forefathers were even smarter than we thought they were when they created the system that we have today where each State becomes the laboratory of democracy. We are seeing this happening in places like Milwaukee and in Minnesota and all around the country from governors, State legislators, private nonprofit groups. We heard from a number of them. The Executive Director of Partnership for Choice and Education spoke to us. Kids for Scholarship Fund. They are offering 1,200 scholarships a year now in the State of Minnesota to poor kids to go to the school of their choice. And we heard from some parents excellent testimony of the benefits of allowing students to have that kind of choice. So I really came away with a renewed optimism that Americans do care about education, they do care about the children, and, in places like Minnesota, there are a lot of people doing the right things and, ultimately, the kids will be the beneficiaries. So I want to thank my colleagues for coming to Minnesota. I thought the hearing was excellent. As I say, the only regret that I had was that we did not get more people at that hearing so more people could see what is really happening in places like Minnesota. We would love to have our colleagues come back and perhaps bring some of those folks into Washington to share with some of our colleagues what really is happening in terms of educational reform in Minnesota.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Yes.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Let me, first of all, say I thank the gentleman, and second I do not have that quote; but I do have it in my office now, and I will be sharing it from time to time. He quoted Winston Churchill, though; and I think the point was well taken. Let me give you a simplier quote from Winston Churchill, it is one actually my wife needlepointed for me on my office wall, and it is simple, it says, ``Success is never permanent. Failure is never fatal. The only thing that really counts is courage.'' And what we saw today in Minnesota, and I cannot thank the gentleman enough, I left that meeting so excited about the future of education, not just in Minnesota, but around the country, because it renewed my belief that Americans do care. They care about their kids, and they want to make certain that every child, and this was what really came through with virtually all of the testimony today, that every child, whether they come from a family of privilege or a family of poverty, every child deserves a first-rate education in this country today. The truth of the matter is, and we all know this, people on all sides of the political aisles of every spectrum philosophically, we all know that too many kids today are being cheated by the system, and we in Washington cannot completely change everything, but I think we can make some reforms. And the gentleman is making reforms, and I want to thank the gentleman for that and we see it happening. I was so impressed, and I have worked for many years with Governor Ernie Carlson, now former Governor Carlson; but his testimony today was powerful. I think the only regret I have is that more Americans did not get a chance to actually see and hear that testimony today because it was from the heart. He grew up in a tough section of New York. He told us about PS36. He told us about what it was like when he was growing up, but the great thing was he told us what is happening today with the right leadership, with the right flexibility, allowing that new principal there to control his school, to motivate his teachers, to motivate those students; and, guess what, the results are there.