Denny Hastert

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns on Monday, April 29, 1996, it adjourn to meet at 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 30, 1996, for morning hour debates.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the business in order under the Calendar Wednesday rule be dispensed with on Wednesday next.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Same to you, sir.

Mr. HASTERT. It is our intent that the health care conferees will be appointed next week.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Before you stood up, I wanted to congratulate the gentleman and his subcommittee work on the intervention and looking at the oversight. You have the oversight responsibility in the Committee on Government Oversight. You have done a very good job. You have set up the premise on this action and this joint teamwork we are going to do. The first step is, of course, laying out what the problem is. The second step is to take a look at it and try to find some solutions to it. You also were instrumental in bringing the former ambassador of Colombia with us, and he paid his own way to be a part of this, to try to solve the problem; former ambassador Morris Busby, who did an invaluable service trying to lay out what the predicate was and trying to move through this whole process. But I commend the gentleman, and you certainly have done a good job. But we have a lot of work to do.

Mr. HASTERT. In closing, I thank all the gentlemen who have worked on this, the gentleman from New Hampshire, Mr. Zeliff, who has taken the lead in committee, our friend from Indiana, Mr. Souder, and of course my friend from Florida, Mr. Mica. I thank the gentlemen.

Mr. HASTERT. Reclaiming my time, we have used the word ``balance'' a number of times, but this is a balance purely between supply and demand. We have to do our part. We promised those Presidents and those Congresses in those Central American countries of Mexico and Panama, and certainly in the Andean countries of Colombia and Bolivia and Peru, that we would work in our country to try to hold down that demand. That is partly a result of the government. If we take this chart, we can see that from basically 1980 the demand for drugs, the kids' usage of drugs in this country had fallen rapidly until 1992. All of a sudden, the demand for drugs and the use of drugs goes up. This chart here shows exactly what happens. Twelfth graders, in 1980 the use started to go down. In 1992, it went up. Tenth graders, it went up. Eighth graders, it went up. I am sure if you have a chart there, you will find that sixth and fourth graders' use went up too. We have to change from a government that used to say ``just say no,'' and we had good results during that time, to a government which has lately just said nothing, and we need to work and develop that as a huge issue in this country. Parents, and as the gentleman from New Hampshire [Mr. Zeliff] said, everybody has to work together. I am sure we can get the job done, but it has to be a country effort. And we have to work in those countries that produce this, work with their governments, work with their presidents who are willing to work with this country and try to eradicate the supply side of this, as well. You can see in these charts it is there. They are doing it. They are doing it today. Farmers are planting cocaine seedlings on sides of mountains, under the brush in Bolivia and Peru, and we have to help stop that. I yield to the gentleman from Indiana.

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

Mr. HASTERT. I think an important point that you started to bring out is that not only did the Peruvian campesinos or farmers start to abandon their fields, but the price of cocaine in Peru went down tenfold, and all of a sudden it was so cheap that they could not afford to grow other solid anymore. So I think that is an important issue of the whole supply and demand, but it was directly because of Fujimora's actions.

Mr. HASTERT. I appreciate the gentleman yielding back for a second, but he makes very important points that the reason we are doing this is our children. Kids in the streets of the United States and our neighborhoods, both middle-class neighborhoods, upper-class neighborhoods, lower-class neighborhoods, are being effected by this. If a kid uses crack cocaine, he only has to use it twice, and he gives up his free will for the rest of his life. Now that is something that is pretty important. I think parents and teachers and community leaders need to understand that. Only two times do you need to use the crack cocaine, the pictures that Mr. Souder showed us, and a kid is hooked for life, and what an expense, what a waste of human life, what a waste of the human vitality that we have in this country and the potential that every kid has in this country to be a better person, to make a living, to raise a family and to be an American. So that is really the issue there, and, Mr. Souder, we really appreciate the work you have done on this. Now I would like to yield to the gentleman who really has been at the crux of this whole issue, driving it forward for a number of years and working on his committee to bring this issue forward, and certainly a great American, somebody that we have all looked up to on this issue, Mr. Zeliff of New Hampshire.

Mr. HASTERT. I thank the gentleman from New Hampshire. I just wanted to make another couple of comments. When we saw what was going on, the results of President Fujimori's shoot-down policy in Peru, what happens is that cocaine piles up there and now they are trying to take it out in the river system. So another country which has been involved somewhat unwittingly is out in the Amazon Basin of Brazil, and so many of those flights now, because they cannot fly up through Peru and through Colombia to get into Colombia, now what they do is they go around through Brazil. That is a real job for our ambassadorial corps and others, to make Brazil aware of the problem that they have with drug traffickers moving that cocaine supply out of Peru and out of Bolivia and on up into Peru through the river system and ultimately through airways.

Mr. HASTERT. I thank the gentleman from Florida. We also want to mention that in our time in Mexico, we were joined by Senator Coverdell of Georgia, who also has taken, in the other body, a great interest in this issue. Now I would like to yield some time to our good friend from Indiana, who has done a great deal of work on this narcotics issue, Mr. Mark Souder.

Mr. HASTERT. I thank the gentleman. What I want to do now is take a few minutes and sort of let the Speaker, and the Members of Congress know exactly what we did, where we went, what we found during that period of time, and we will try to move through that as quickly as possible and then come up with wind-up remarks on this. As I started out and talked about Mexico, I think the key thing is in our meetings with the President of Mexico and with the Ambassador, Mr. Jim Jones, a former Member of Congress, that we found out in discussions with the President, that he thinks that the drug problem, the trafficking problem up through Mexico is really Mexico's number one problem, because it is a false indicator on their economy. The money laundering, which only forces legitimate people out of business, and the tremendous amount of drugs that move up through Mexico really cause violence and shooting and some guerrilla activity. For instance, in the last few years, deaths in Mexico because of this grew 145 percent, and there were over 2,000 speed or what we call speed or methamphetamine-related deaths between 1991 and 1992, even in the borders along Mexico, in Los Angeles, and San Diego, and San Francisco alone. So the incidence of increase and literally trainloads of marijuana, thousands of pounds of cocaine and crack, and literally thousands of pounds also of heroin that is moving up through Mexico is not only a United States problem, but the Mexican President in our discussions has admitted it is the number one problem in Mexico as well. The next place that we stopped was in Panama, and we met with Ambassador Bill Hughes and the new Ambassador to Colombia and the country team there. Then we met with the SOUTHCOM, which is the U.S. command that is out of Panama City, that is literally the source that we can send our AWAC planes down to Colombia and off the Andes area in Peru and Bolivia and we can actually see foreign flights coming up and the flights that deliver and drop--pick up the cocaine or coca paste and bring them up north either into Colombia or then into Mexico to be processed. That is a very sensitive place. But Panama itself has a problem because they are in a very precarious position and a vulnerable position. The city on the north coast, on the north part of the Panama Canal that empties into the Atlantic Ocean, has the free trade zone in that area, has virtually been overtaken by Colombians, and literally hundreds of tons or pounds of cocaine and coca leaf and coca paste move through that area; and they understand a country without a military, with just a police force, that they have to do a better job of cracking down on that. Also, Panama has over 400,000 shell companies or paper companies that are used as fronts to launder illegal drug profits. In talking with the Vice President of Panama, he admitted this and said this is one of the most important things that they need to do and they need to try to control. They know that Colombia is a primary drug transit zone. The United States is currently in the process of turning over military bases to the Panamanians, and that is a sensitive thing to the United States. I think Howard Air Force Base, where we base our P-3's and our helicopters, and is the repair base for many of the operations in South America, was very important to the United States in drug control. So that is something else the United States has to deal with in the next couple of years. But Panama has no military. It has not been eligible for the military sales systems. And in the last couple of days we have passed a piece of legislation in this Congress to allow the Ambassador to be able to use some of that money to work on the counternarcotics in Panama. Panama can and will be likely the gateway for the overtake of the narcos if we do not get something done there and if we do not beef up our activities. Now, people talk about, well, how come we are sending money to Panama or Mexico. We are not sending money, we are sending people; those people who on the ground can make a difference. We are sending intelligence officers, members of the DEA, so that they can actually get in and find out where the source is of the storage, where the transshipment is, where the manufacturing of these narcotics is, and they are doing a good job. But we cannot shut that faucet off, because if we do shut that faucet off, we will see a huge increase of infusion in drugs added to the drugs that we already have in this country. I think the next place that--I know the next place that we went was Colombia, and I would like to have Mr. Mica from Florida give you a little bit of a review on what we found in Colombia.

Mr. HASTERT. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. HASTERT. I thank the gentleman for his contribution. I would also like to recognize our good friend and fellow traveler, Mr. Mica, from Florida.

Mr. HASTERT. I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania. One of the things that we wanted to look at is what are the contributing causes to something that would kill 10,000 people in this country, many, many of them our youth, our college students, our high school students and yes, even some of our junior high students. One hundred thousand deaths because of some unseen, unknown culprit, $300 billion in the 1990's alone, the cost and the deaths that have resulted by this phenomenon. What is the phenomenon? It is drugs, it is speed, it is crack, it is cocaine, it is heroin. Where does it come from? Why is it here? Those questions are pretty relevant, especially if you are a family across this country that has had a child involved in drugs or a death in your family because of drugs, or you have had your home burglarized or your person held up because some drug addict had to get money to get a fix. Then you are drawn into this whole idea of where drugs come from and why they exist and what is the whole issue and mechanics that move drugs from South American countries and southeast Asian countries into our borders. If you live in a neighborhood that you are imperiled to go out at night because you are afraid you might be mugged, held up, or somebody is on crack cocaine or on heroin and you feel that you or your family may be accosted, the reason is that we have drugs in this country. We are the demand source for literally billions and billions and billions of dollars of drug trade. In our emergency rooms every year, in our hospitals, and we have just moved a health care bill through here, but clearly 500,000 emergency room incidents in this country alone come from drug abuse. There are 250,000 Americans serving time in our prisons, both in our Federal prisons and in our State prisons, because of drug law violations. Unfortunately, drug use is involved in at least one-third of all our homicides and assaults and property crimes. Now, something that would cause, and we do not have the exact numbers because it is pretty fluctuating, but something that would cost between $70 and $90 billion to the people in this country every year, the net, and that cost piles up day in and day out, that is pretty important. I think it is pretty important for this Congress, who initiated a pretty strong drug policy in the 1980's and has gone from a Just Say No policy to ``just say nothing'' government over the last few years, I think we need to examine ourselves. We need to examine where the cause of this problem is, examine our problems in trying to stop the demand in this country, but, most of all, we need to find out where this comes from and stop the growth of coca leaf, the growth of heroin poppies, the manufacture of speed or methamphetamines. That is what this endeavor was about. Where does this come from? What do we do? How do we find out about it? This chart right here shows the toll of drug abuse's estimated cost in the United States. The cost of illness is over $8 billion. The cost of death is over $3.4 billion, if you can put a price on death. The cost of AIDS, $6.3 billion, AIDS that people get through use of intravenous needles and passing those needles around from drug addict to drug addict. And the direct medical costs in this country are $3.2 billion. But the big cost is crimes and misdemeanors to the American people because of drug use is over $46 billion. Now, if you want to count all the victims of crime and people who have been assaulted and people who have been beaten up, then you can move this cost of nearly $66.7 billion probably up to $97 billion. It depends on the accounting method you use. But if we are going to do something and impact upon the value and quality of this life this country is going to have, then we are going to have to start doing something about one of the main reasons that this problem exists. Now, when you start to look at what the costs are to the American people and look at what the costs are to what this Congress is trying to do, let us take a look. Some $13.2 billion expended. Where does it go? State and local assistance, almost 10 percent. Other law enforcement, the FBI, DEA, others, about 2.5 percent. The research and development to find out what drugs do is another 4 percent. Drug abuse prevention, which is a good program and certainly gets into our neighborhoods and schools, it is almost 14 percent. Drug abuse and treatment for those people who have been into drugs and need to be led back and hopefully on a path that will rehabilitate them, although it does not have very good results, 20 percent of our budget. Interdiction of drugs, where we go out and try to catch the drugs moving through other countries, coming into this country, and drugs moving in this country, is roughly under 10 percent of our budget. Regulatory and compliance 0.38 percent, investigations, 13 percent, international involvement, 2.3 percent. Now, remember, almost 90 percent of the drugs coming into the United States of America come from other countries. Our international involvement is 2.3 percent. Prosecution, it passes a lot of money, it takes prosecutors and district attorneys and States attorneys to prosecute drug thefts and drug crimes, 6.4 percent every year. Corrections, the costs that we have in this country to keep people in prisons, is 15.5 percent. Intelligence, to find out on the street where the drugs are coming from, who is selling them, where it is being put together, where drugs are manufactured, are 2.3 percent. And the State and local assistance we give to cities and States is nearly 10 percent. So that is almost $3.5 billion that every State and municipality has to dole out to find the reason, to find the solutions. Now, why did we take this trip? It is a good question. I think we need to answer it. Because in this country, when we look at Mexico, and if we would take Mexico as a V or triangle and look over here in Mexico, we have four huge drug cartels. Coming up through the area of the Gulf State area, it comes into southern Texas. We have the problem of drugs coming up through the cartel zone in Sonora, which is along our Arizona border. We have drugs coming up along the Tijuana cartel that comes up into California. We have drugs coming up into the Juarez area, it goes into El Paso, TX, and up through that area. So we have four huge cartels. Where are they? Not United States cartels, they are Mexican cartels. So nearly 70 percent of all drugs that come in, that are grown in Peru and grown in Columbia and manufactured in Colombia and grown in Bolivia, come up either through Colombia or up through the airways and land in those cartel areas in Mexico. Well, we had a meeting with the Mexican Congress, and we stressed to them that it was important that in Mexico, we better start doing something, they better started doing something, on a cooperative basis. What should be done? Well, we need to have good legislation, and the Mexicans understand that, and they are stating to do that. So they have money laundering legislation so that they can start to find the money that comes in these cartels, and they can start to trace where it comes from. And it does not just come from Mexico, folks. It comes from New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. So we can start to stress where that money comes from, because if we can take money out of the drug equation, that is the most important thing to the drug traffickers and the drug pushers and the cartels and the Mafioso and the street gangs that all make their money off drug trafficking. If we can take that money away, find the way that they launder that money we can begin to solve the problem. We can begin to deny those people from the end results, from all the trouble they get in with drugs in the first place. We also need to have wiretap authority so those criminals who do the drug deals, especially in Mexico, that Mexico has the ability to tap in and find out who they are and what their deals are. We need to have anticospiracy legislation and antiorganized crime and asset forfeiture. If you find a drug cartel or pusher that is moving drugs up into the United States, so that they can take their planes and automobiles and haciendas and those things away, deny them the tools that they use to move drugs into the United States. And we need to aggressively pursue the naroctraffickers. These are things we stressed to the Mexican Congress and things they pledged to us they will begin to work on in the next year.

Mr. HASTERT. I would like to wrap up a little bit what we did and saw in Mexico. We have done five countries. I would like to yield some time to the gentleman from Indiana first.

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, first I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Clinger], the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor an outstanding civic leader of Illinois' 14th Congressional District, Leo Nelson, on his forthcoming receipt of the Elgin Cosmopolitan Club's Annual Distinguished Service Award. Leo Nelson has served the community of Elgin with great distinction over the years, serving as a member of city government for over a decade and participating in a number of community activities. The list of accomplishments during his long career are many, and there are several States across this Nation that are better for his service there. Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, he graduated from the University of Illinois with a Bachelor's degree in political science in 1957. He then served his country for several years in the U.S. Army, retiring and returning to college at Boston University where he received his Master's degree in 1964. He began his professional career as administrative assistant to the city manager of Rock Island, IL in 1964, and followed that position with city management positions in Wyoming, Michigan and Sidney, OH before settling in Elgin, IL, in late 1972. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Nelson has been a highly valued member of the Elgin community for nearly 25 years, and his list of civic activities is quite lengthy. He is a former director and current chairman of the Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce Board, the president-elect of the United Way of Elgin Board, member of the Elgin Community College Foundation Board and current chairman of the Robotics and High Technology Academy of School District U-46 in Elgin. His past activities have included time as chairman of the Jayne Shover Easter Seal Center, as chairman of the Greater Elgin Area YMCA Corporate Board, and as a member of the Neighborhood Housing Services Board, the Well Child Conference and the Elgin affiliate of the Literacy Volunteers of America. Mr. Speaker, I ask you and my colleagues to join me in honoring this dedicated man, for his commitment to the Elgin community and to improving this Nation. I wish him well as they years's recipient of the Elgin Cosmopolitan Club's Annual Distinguished Service Award, an honor that is richly deserved.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. I guess we just need to straighten out some things. To my friend who just talked over here about the deductibility, I guess plagiarism is one of the best compliments there is. To my friend, the gentleman from Illinois, who talked about the deductibility issue, it is interesting, it is the same folks who for years just let the deductibility for small businesses go to zero and left it there until we moved it to 30 percent. We are going to move it to 50 percent. They are talking about something in 2002. It is a promise, folks. I would not count on that promise. Mr. Speaker, also I would say to my good friend from New Jersey, who says that the Senate leadership wants this Kassebaum bill, it is interesting, she did not read her papers, because the Senate leadership endorses our bill. They are going to move an add-on to the Senate to exactly what we have passed in this House tonight, so she might be apprised of that. Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot of outrageous claims on the other side of the aisle. I think now is the time of reckoning. This substitute is just a whisper in the dark. It does not do anything to help health care. We cover group-to-group, we cover group-to- individual, and we also make health care affordable for the American people. If Members want real change in health care, if we really want to help Americans from the shoestore and the barber shop and the truck drivers and the real people that work out there in America, defeat this substitute, the farce out here that they are putting out as the substitute, and support the Republican bill.

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce for yielding time to me. As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, I thank all of those chairmen of the committees who have worked together to make this bill possible, and the subcommittee chairmen, and I would be remiss if I did not thank the staff of the combined committees, who did an excellent job in working together to make sure that this bill was successful. Mr. Speaker, I have heard a lot of outrageous statements from the other side of the aisle tonight, and even one from our side of the aisle. But it questions me, it wonders me, I guess you would say, who are those special interests that everybody is talking about? Is it the small businessman who needs to have the ability, the deductibility; that if he has a small business and wants to get his employees covered, 85 percent of which are people who work today and do not have insurance and end up in situations with one family member that works for a small business, that we give them the ability to pool that and take it to the marketplace with the same advantages that big business gets? Is that a special interest? Is it a special interest for a family who wants to get health care and make choices of their own, instead of having an HMO or a doctor or an insurance company tell them, is that the special interest they talk about? Maybe, Mr. Speaker, there are some dinosaurs still in this Congress that do not want to have change, some dinosaurs that still want to have big Federal health care take care of everything, and take over everything, and if they cannot have it their way, then they are going to do the very minimum, the very minimum to cover the ladies and gentleman of this country and the families of this country. Mr. Speaker, we have traveled a long road in a short period of time with this reform bill. For that, I applaud the cooperation of everybody. It must be noted that with this legislation, we have succeeded where previous Congresses have failed, and we have put together reforms in the health care delivery system that will help people today. Our legislature will lower the cost of health care insurance while making it more available and affordable to middle-income American families. Who among our critics will deny that health insurance is too expensive? Who among our critics will deny that American families should have more control over their health care spending? Who among our critics will deny that patients deserve more health care dollars than bureaucrats and trial lawyers? I have listened with intent interest, and the charges of some of the members of the minority party are just outrageous. They claim our bill does too much, that it goes too far, and that it is too ambitious for this Congress. This claim, coming from proponents of the President's ill-conceived centralized, federalized health care scheme, can only be seen as a farce. I contend that the President's first health care bill was far too big. The Kennedy approach now advocated by the President is just too small. Our health care plan is just right for the American family. Our colleagues in the other body deserve a great deal of credit for trying to remove the barriers created by preexisting conditions. It is a needed reform, and it is contained in our bill. This bill gives people who lose or change jobs the insurance that they can keep their health insurance when they need it most. One other misstatement of fact. The Senate has not passed the Kennedy bill. It has only moved out of committee. Only yesterday the letter comes out of the Senate that the leadership in the U.S. Senate approves of our bill. They ratify our bill. They commend us for doing these things, for doing more for the American people. I have to say that a letter from the small business groups in this country says that this is the right thing to do for the American working people, for those people who have to carry a lunch bucket to work. It gives them choice, it gives them coverage, and Mr. Speaker, the time has come to pass this legislation. I ask for its approval.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. I think the gentleman from Colorado for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, I think we need to talk about how this bill came about and what is in it and what is not in it. The bill is an amalgam of ideas that have been tested around this House for the last 5 or 6 years, things that made eminent good sense. Now this year of course the House has been working on Medicare and Medicaid, and insurance reform has been on the back burner, but we have always tried to use the issue and work the issue of portability so that we could have people move from group to group and group to individual. Now, in the Senate bill there was some controversy with the group to individual because people who were basically healthy, when they lose their jobs, many times do not go out and buy a very expensive insurance policy. People who are sick, or if they are 15 years of age, and three kids, and a wife who is going to deliver, or if they are 55 years of age and have a preexisting condition, and need to go into immediate health insurance coverage, they are going to go out and buy that insurance policy, probably at whatever cost. So we thought that it was very, very important that we design and change the group to individual policy so that only sick people would not buy individual insurance, that we could hold down the cost so that insurance can be available and affordable to everybody. So, the way that we structure group to individual allows for that, but it is really the central theme of what this bill does. Health care availability is something that we all strive for. We know that there are a lot of Mercedes and Rolls Royces out there that are available. The problem is people do not drive them because they cannot afford them. Well, my colleagues, that is the same way in health care. If someone cannot afford the health care, if they cannot afford that insurance policy, then they do not buy it, and those folks riding around in Mercedes and Rolls Royces certainly have a lot of money to spend, and they can probably afford anything. But most of those people are people that do not have jobs. So that is the issue. How do we take people who need a health care bill and they do not have a job? Our approach to that is an approach of a type of policy that they can buy that is a low-cost policy, maybe a deductible, but something that is affordable, not for just people who are sick, but people who are well. So the theme of affordability and availability is central to everything that we have put in this package, and my colleagues know this package goes a little bit beyond the Senate package, but it is because we think that the Senate package was lacking. We have had four committees that have worked on this bill and four committees that went out and structured things that were within their jurisdiction and moved legislation through their committees, had hearings, subcommittee hearings, full committee hearings, took amendments, listened to amendments, went through the debate and moved out a package; each bill within the jurisdiction of that committee. The Committee on Rules then put those three bills together, plus some information or piece of legislation that came out of the Committee on the Judiciary and put it together in the Rules Committee yesterday. Now what is the difference between this bill, the House Republican bill sponsored by the chairmen of the four committees and subcommittee chairman, and the Senate bill? For one thing, we have medical savings accounts, and my colleagues will hear people over here saying, ``Boy, medical savings accounts are only for rich people,'' and that is just a fraud. Medical savings accounts are for everybody. The average employer cost per employee family in this country is about $4,500 a year. If my colleagues had a $4,500 savings or $4,500 life insurance policy, Medisave, a policy, probably my colleagues would take a $2,000 deductible and buy a high deductible policy; my colleagues would take that other $2,500 and put it in their medical savings account. Now is that for rich people? No, that is for the average worker. That is for the guy who carries a lunch bucket to work. But a fellow or a person or a family that wants to control his own choice in health care, that does not want an HMO or an insurance company telling him what doctor to go to, or what hospital to go to, or what type of treatment to get, somebody that wants to control their own health care choice, and with a medical savings account we do just that. Now if my colleagues do not spend that money, then they get to keep it, and that is real portability, because if my colleagues had this insurance policy for a couple of years and they have $10,000 or $15,000 or $20,000 in their medical savings account, that gives them real portability. My colleagues can move that and take it wherever they want, or buy insurance with it, pay for health care costs with it. Also, this bill has long-term care expense so people, seniors, can take their assets and move it into long-term care, or if they have a fatal disease, they can take their life insurance, cash it in, and buy long-term care or health care with it. We also have small group employer, so the 85 percent of the people who do not have insurance today that live in families that work for small businesses, that they can go to the marketplace and get the same break that big businesses get. Now this is commonsense reform, my colleagues. It is something that everybody can work with, it makes health care not just available, but affordable. I hope that my colleagues would vote for this rule.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. This is the third time the House of Representatives has taken up legislation to raise the earnings limit for working seniors in the 104th Congress. I want to congratulate the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Archer], who I think for 13 Congresses has worked to make this thing possible. I also want to congratulate the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Bunning], who is the chairman of the Social Security Subcommittee, along with Members of the 100th class who have been working on this project for another 8 years. They have made this thing happen. Mr. Speaker, every time this legislation has come to the floor, it has passed with nearly a huge bipartisan margin. It is clear the House understands that working seniors, people who have to earn money by the sweat of their brow, usually people who have earned money by the sweat of their brow their whole life, who have not been able to accumulate huge savings or investments or those revenues or huge pensions, that today they have to go out and work to supplement their pension, to supplement their Social Security so that they can have a decent life, so that they can help put their grandchildren through college, so that they can maybe go on a vacation or somebody pay their property taxes or even buy a new car. These people are affected by this bill. I am proud to be able to stand here today and say that those seniors will be able to make more money this year without paying a tax on work. Those seniors will be able to eventually realize and take the earnings test up to $30,000 so that they can share the benefits of work that all Americans can have without paying a penalty or a tax on it. Mr. Speaker, I sincerely wish we were able to raise the limits faster, as in earlier versions of this bill, but I am glad we have been able to come up with a plan that the President will sign. The seniors need and deserve relief. They have waited patiently for too long. In fact, I think those people who have to work by the sweat of their brow, people who work at McDonald's and flower shops and drive school buses need a break today, and we are going to give it to them.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Republican Conference, I offer a privileged resolution (H. Res. 382) and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. I thank the gentleman for yielding. It would be speculation on my part to try to presuppose what the distinguished Committee on Rules would do. I really do not have an idea of what that final decision would be.