Denny Hastert

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, today I commend the Ann Arbor Huron High School Music Department for being named as a Grammy Award Signature School. Their hard work and commitment to excellence has made this achievement possible and it brings me great pleasure to have the opportunity to share this day with them. As a former member of the Ann Arbor School Board, I know the special significance of such an achievement for a high school music program and I look forward to future accomplishments from the department.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this conference report and I urge my colleagues to support it as well. The American people often look to Congress in the hope that we can accomplish things in a bi-partisan fashion. With this bill, we have. My colleagues on both sides of the aisle, especially Mr. Archer, Mr. Rangel, Mr. Crane, and Mr. Royce, worked very hard on this legislation and should be commended for their efforts. Today's conference report gets to the very heart of compassionate conservatism. By promoting expanded trade, the United States will be minimizing the need for foreign aid and disaster relief. We will be helping other nations become more self-sufficient. This Africa-CBI bill is great news for all parties involved. For our friends in Africa and the Caribbean, this bill will help increase the stability of their nations, and help their economies grow. For the United States, this bill means an expanded market for American manufactured goods and agricultural products. It was over 200 years ago that our founding father Ben Franklin said that, ``No nation was ever ruined by trade.'' Ben Franklin was right. Nations aren't ruined by trade; they are strengthened by trade. With this bill, we will be exporting more than just our products, we will be exporting our ideals of freedom and democracy. That means a stronger, more stable Africa. And safer, stronger Caribbean nations. By promoting trade and investment in other nations, we are making the world a more secure place. There are 700 million people living in Sub-saharan Africa and 58 million people living in the Caribbean. We must engage these citizens of the world, and help them participate in the new economy. The new economy is based on world-wide trade and the free flow of ideas. By passing this conference report, we will take another crucial step down the road to an integrated society and world. I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this important bi- partisan, legislation. It is in the best interest of our nation and our world.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, Cardinal O'Connor will be missed by our entire nation. He was quietly courageous--unafraid to take positions that might not be popular, while always approaching people with dignity and humility. Earlier this year, Congress had the privilege of bestowing on Cardinal O'Connor the Congressional Gold Medal, our highest civilian honor. When asked how he would like to be remembered, Cardinal O'Connor said he wanted to be remembered simply as a ``good priest.'' Cardinal O'Connor was more than a good priest, he was a great man. He was an example to people of all faiths about how to live a truly God-filled life. Whether it was his work with AIDS patients or his commitment to education, Cardinal O'Connor kept himself immersed in helping others. Cardinal O'Connor loved God. He loved the Church. He loved his family, and he loved his friends. But he also loved and was committed to the less fortunate. His life serves as an example to us all.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski) for arranging a special order today on the preservation of rail safety in the State of Illinois. I would also like to thank the gentleman for his continued work on rail safety throughout the nation, and his efforts over the last several years in making sure that any proposed rule on the use of locomotive horns does not adversely affect rail safety in Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on behalf of rail safety in the State of Illinois and the potentially adverse impacts of the recent Federal Railroad Administration's (FRA) Proposed Rulemaking on the Use of Locomotive Horns at Highway-Rail Grade Crossings. As the Representative of the 14th District of Illinois, which covers portions of five counties and contains approximately 18% of all highway public-at-grade crossings in the state, I have intently followed this issue since I was first elected to Congress, and have witnessed firsthand Illinois' history with mandatory whistles. In fact, when the Illinois Legislature passed a mandatory whistle law in 1988, it met with such intense public backlash that it resulted in a court order to stop the whistles. On January 12, 2000, the FRA published their Proposed Rule which will require all freight and passenger trains to sound the train's air horn when approaching and entering a public at-grade highway-rail crossing. According to the proposed rule, each train horn must be sounded with a series of two long, one short, and one long horn blasts to signify the locomotive's approach to a crossing. The timing is a combination of state laws with minimum federal requirements. There is currently no federal law requiring horn sounding, however many states, including Illinois, currently require trains to sound their horns at all public at-grade crossings unless specifically exempted by the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC). The grade crossings in Northeast Illinois that currently do not have air horns routinely sounded may have them sounded every time a train approaches a grade crossing if the new regulations are put into place. This occurs up to 140 times a day at the region's busiest grade crossings, and, at 66 of the crossings in Northeast Illinois, 101 or more trains per day pass through. Within my district, Auroa (50, Elgin (25) and West Chicago (22) rank #2, #11, and #14 respectively in the number of grade crossings per city in the state. In fact, should this rule go into effect as drafted, 80 of 148 crossings in DuPage County alone would have to change operating practices. Thus, the direct impact on Illinois, and the unique nature of the state with respect to this issue is clear. In Illinois, rail safety is the responsibility of the ICC, which may exempt crossings from routine horn sounding if they have automatic flashing lights, bells and gates and have experienced less than three accidents in the past five years. The state of Illinois currently has 899 whistle ban rail crossings. Mr. Speaker, the history of increased rail safety in Illinois is a proud one. Illinois has a proven program of substantially improving rail crossing safety at an annual average cost of approximately $40 million. In 1998 alone, the state of Illinois spent over $60 million on grade crossing improvements. In fact, between the ICC and Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT), Illinois has invested hundreds of millions of dollars over the years to install modern safety devices at grade crossings throughout the state. Illinois is also well along in a program to install innovative remote monitoring devices at every active grade crossing (Illinois is the only state where this is happening). I am pleased to report that these investments in safety have paid off. In Illinois, collisions at public grade crossings have declined by 52% since 1989. In Northeast Illinois, injuries have declined by 77% and fatalities have declined from 26 in 1988 to 9 in 1997, a 65% decrease. The large rate of decline is more impressive when you consider that between 1980 and 1999, train traffic and average vehicle miles traveled by motor vehicles, have both increased by approximately 45%. My primary concern with the FRA's proposed rule is that it would preempt the responsibility of the ICC, which has a demonstrated history of improving grade crossing safety. In fact, I am concerned that the proposed rule could have the unintended consequence of decreasing rail safety in the State of Illinois. As you are well aware, Mr. Speaker, the State of Illinois is the hub of rail activity in North America. Nowhere is the issue of rail safety more important. Citizens of Illinois appreciate the need for, and support efforts to, increase rail safety. The question addressed by this proposed rule, therefore, is not whether we should try to decrease the number of rail collisions, we can all agree on that, but how this can be best accomplished. People in Northeast Illinois are constantly reminded of the need for rail safety. In the last several years, Illinois has suffered several high profile accidents, most notably in Bradley-Bourbannais and Fox River Grove. Both of these tragic accidents resulted in significant loss of life, and the people of Illinois are committed to making these tragedies a thing of the past. It should be noted for the record, however, that none of these accidents can be attributed to the lack of a horn being sounded. As I stated earlier, we can all agree that increasing rail safety is a laudable goal and that even one death on the nation's rail system is one death too many. Let me assure you that the ICC, IDOT and the people of Illinois work towards this goal every single day. I believe the data show that their efforts have paid off--rail crossings in Illinois are safer today than they were yesterday and will be safer tomorrow than they are today. Unfortunately, the proposed rule offered by the FRA threatens the progress we have already made in Illinois. While offering little, if any, benefit in safety, this rule becomes an extraordinary unfunded mandate on local communities and the State, who will have to divert a large portion of their resources to upgrade already safe crossings in order to maintain their quiet zones; otherwise they will face the specter of incessant horn blasts at all hours of the day and night. Thus, I believe this rule is fatally flawed in that it preempts already proven and effective State control. It is a ``one size fits all solution'' that does not fit Illinois. I believe that, at a minimum, this rule should not be finalized without recognizing Illinois is unique with respect to its rail crossing environment and that a more- tailored approach, which does not undermine state control, is developed. In summary, I believe that after hearing all of the evidence delivered to the FRA at the public hearings held in the Chicagoland Area last week, they are essentially left with only two reasonable options: (1) The FRA can conclude that their study, upon which the proposed rule relies, is fatally flawed and, given the extraordinary costs and quality of life issues at stake, determine that additional studies need to be undertaken before publication of the final rule; or (2) The FRA can recognize that Illinois is unique with respect to its rail crossing environment and safety record, and alter the final rule in such a way as to preserve Illinois' authority over rail crossing safety. Again, I thank the gentleman for the opportunity to address this issue. And I look forward to working with the FRA in the future to bring a solution to the state of Illinois that continues the strong safety record that has been demonstrated over the last 10 years and does not devote resources away from these efforts.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this budget conference report, and I applaud the work of the Committee on the Budget. For the second year in a row, under the leadership of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich), the Committee on the Budget has produced a quality work on time. If the House will look at this, it is the first time in the history of the House that we have met this budget on time ever. When the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich) first became budget chairman, our government's finances were a mess. We had high taxes. We had expanding government. We had a huge debt and a budget deficit of $200 billion, and I quote the administration, ``as far as the eye could see.'' Today we have a responsible and a balanced budget which keeps America on the right track. Today we have a goal of balancing the budget, paying down the debt, securing Social Security; and, yes, we hear all the ifs on the other side, but that is our goal, that is our target and this budget gets us there. Those who would like to spend more are not keeping their eye on the target, which is balancing the budget, paying down the debt, protecting Social Security. Also, besides protecting Social Security in this budget, the money that goes into Social Security is reserved for Social Security. We pay down $1 trillion of debt over the next 5 years, $1 trillion of debt. We modernize Medicare by providing $40 billion for a prescription drug benefit so no senior should be forced to choose between putting food on the table or taking life saving prescription drugs. We provide additional educational spending; additional educational spending. I believe our goal is simple when it comes to education, that every child in this country deserves an opportunity to go to a good school. We improve our national security by giving our men and women in uniform the resources they need to protect America from the dangerous world outside. We include tax fairness in this common sense budget. We believe it is morally wrong to penalize young couples who want to get married, up to $1,500, simply because they are married as opposed to being single. We believe it is unfair to tax people just because they die, and we believe that the Tax Code must encourage people to save for their children's future education. Today, my friends, we continue to keep this Nation on the right track. We have balanced the budget; and we have a balanced, responsible approach to govern. I commend the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich) for his hard work on this budget, to the Committee on the Budget and to this institution and to the American people for the many years of his service. I would say thanks to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich).

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in respectful opposition to the amendment of the gentleman from Wisconsin. I want to speak in favor of U.S. assistance to the government of Colombia to fight the war on drugs. I do not take this well in a frivolous way. First of all, the supplemental that we are considering today is about our children and whether we want our children to grow up in a society free from the scourge of drugs. Now, does that mean that we can do this just by doing something in Colombia? No, and I want to pursue that. The gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), my good friend, talked about Peru. I have been to Peru several times, more times than I want to count. But when President Fujimori came in there on the Shining Path and controlled the drug trade in the Upper Huallaga Valley, and they did bring the shoot-down policies because they were moving drugs from Peru to Colombia, he was successful. He was successful because he was able to address the problem of the narcoguerillas in Peru and the transportation of drugs from where it was grown to where it was being remanufactured in Colombia. Then the new president of Bolivia came in, and I have been to Bolivia more times than I want to count, and he was able to do the drug suppression there where drugs were going into Brazil and Argentina by crop substitution, but also by being able to stop the drug trade from moving from Bolivia to Colombia. I say to my colleagues, the problem is, all of the drugs that we stopped from Peru and Bolivia are now grown in Colombia. How do we address that? The Colombian police officers have been fairly successful. They have a great human rights record. They have been able to do a credible job. But the police force in Colombia does not have the manpower, it does not have the ability to get into southern Colombia, an area the size of Switzerland, to be able to stop drug trade and drug growing and drug transportation and drug manufacturing. The Colombians need help. But I want to focus for a few minutes about why. Colombia is the source of 90 percent of the cocaine that comes into this country. Colombia is the source of 65 percent of the heroin that reaches our neighborhoods, our schools, and our children. Over 52,000 Americans die every year, every year from illegal drug use, and others from gang- and drug-related violence, thousands, and tens of thousands of lives are ruined. I could tell Members stories from my own experience. Thousands of families are destroyed because of what Colombian drugs and others, but mainly Colombian drugs, are doing in this country. They are our real casualties of a quiet, deadly battle that is waged on the streets of our cities, our towns, our rural areas, our neighborhoods, and our schools. Some of my colleagues have said that this package is not the answer. They are correct, stopping drugs in Colombia is not the only answer. We have a responsibility to stop drugs in Colombia, to stop them in transit, to stop them at our border, to stop them in our streets and in our schools. We also have a responsibility to teach our children to say no, and to educate them as to the dangers of drugs, and keep them from trying drugs in the first place. Finally, we have the responsibility to provide meaningful and effective treatment to those who are addicted to drugs. I know the gentleman before me talked about that. This year alone we will spend close to $6 billion, or one-third of our drug control budget, on treatment and prevention. I am personally committed to working with this Congress, the gentleman from Wisconsin, the President of the United States, to implement an effective and balanced strategy to win the war on drugs. My friend, the gentleman from Wisconsin, asked, he said, have we ever had this debate? Since I have been in this Congress, especially the last 6 years, we have debated this every year. We have had hearings. We know what the problems in Colombia are. We know of the ineffectiveness of the previous administration in Colombia fighting drugs. We were somewhat askance when the President opened up the territory in southern Colombia, but now our administration and the administration of Colombia are in concert. Our administration has listened to what this Congress has said for 5 or 6 years: that we need to do something about it, that we cannot put our head in the sand; that we cannot say, well, we cannot do anything about it, so we ignore it. Mr. Chairman, I say to my colleagues, and I speak to Members today as my colleagues, we cannot ignore this issue. We cannot ignore it in this Congress, we cannot ignore it on our street corners, and we cannot ignore it from the place that this stuff comes from. I ask Members today, and again, respectfully, because I have a great deal of respect for the gentleman from Wisconsin, and I understand that we do not want to get in a prolonged war. But we helped Peru and we did not get in a prolonged war because we did not have our troops down there. We are not going to do this here. We helped Colombia, and they were able to stop it. We did things, and if we are constant and vigilant in this Congress, we can do a great deal. We can do a great deal together. I ask the gentleman from Wisconsin, I am willing to reach out my hand and work with the gentleman. I do not want to see us escalate. A lot of this is for the beginning helicopters, so they can get into the territories, they can get into the places where they grow the drugs; that they can stop the transit, the riverine problems that they have. But Mr. Chairman, we have to solve this problem. We cannot solve the problem by ignoring it. I ask Members again respectfully to reject this amendment. Let us get on with this job, and let us do it right.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise to a question of personal privilege.

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I come to this well today following a long period of prayerful consideration. I want to talk to you about the choice of our next Chaplain, a man whose job it is to ask God's blessing on our work. When I became your Speaker last year, I stood in this very spot and said that this House needed to heal. Impeachment had hardened the hearts of too many of our Members and ruptured the trust necessary for effective legislating. Frankly, we had made progress toward that end. We successfully worked together to bring economic security to our country. We worked together to strengthen our schools and our national defense. And, working together, we lowered our rhetoric from this well and we returned some sense of civility to this chamber. When I first heard that our current Chaplain wanted to retire, I decided I wanted to build on that growing sense of trust. Instead of simply appointing a Chaplain, as some of my predecessors had done, I appointed the largest and most bipartisan search committee in the history of this House. I want to take a moment to describe that process because it has been much distorted in the last 4 months. I knew that finding the right person would be difficult. Many religious faiths are represented in this House, and many of you had candidates you believed would be good for the job. The Search Committee the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) and I created was asked to review the many applicants and to send to the leadership up to three unranked candidates for final consideration. I suppose that the committee could have ignored those instructions and sent us only one candidate because they believed he or she far superior, that they stood out above all the other applicants. But they did not. In fact, I learned early and recently that the search committee discussed that very option and rejected it. Instead, the committee, under the able leadership of the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Bliley), a Catholic, and the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy), a Presbyterian, selected three outstanding candidates: Reverend Robert Dvorak, Father Tim O'Brien, and Dr. Charles Wright. These names were sent to us in alphabetical order. There was no ranking of candidates. There was no first choice of the committee, as some would have the public believe. And, in fact, there could not be a first choice because the committee never set out to select a first choice. The report to this House by the bipartisan co-chairman of the committee makes this fact abundantly clear. The truth is simple: each of the three candidates was deemed as acceptable to the search committee. Along with Majority Leader Armey and Minority Leader Gephardt, I interviewed the three candidates sent to us by the bipartisan search committee. I was looking for a kind person with a caring heart. I was looking for a person who had extensive counseling and pastoral or parish experience. And I was looking for a person who Members of Congress could take their problems to and find reassurance and wisdom. I was not looking for a particular denomination or faith, and I did not make my selection based on a candidate's religious doctrine or the past history of other House Chaplains. I was trying to be fair to all candidates. While I found all three candidates to have impressive credentials, I was most impressed with the pastoral experience and personal warmth of Dr. Charles Wright, who for years has ministered to the needs of the Capitol Hill community. And, in addition, he had years of experience in the inner city, as well as the international community. He spent a long time trying to break down the walls of apartheid in South Africa and to seek common understanding between blacks and whites. I made my selection based on that experience and the qualities that I found in him. No one other than the candidates themselves influenced my decision. Any suggestion to the contrary is simply wrong. After the interviews and a period of reflection, I consulted with majority leader and the minority leader twice before I made my final decision. In the first discussion, one preferred Dr. Wright and one preferred Reverend Dvorak. In the second discussion, one preferred Dr. Wright and one preferred Father O'Brien. The choice was not unanimous. But both signed off on the choice of Dr. Wright, and we issued a joint press release announcing the selection. I thought we had reached consensus. Following our joint press statement, there were immediate charges of anti-Catholic bigotry, I was surprised and disappointed. Since there was no bias in the decision, I assumed that the disappointment held by some that a Catholic was not chosen would go away when people understood the truth. But I was wrong. I then thought that once the search committee issued their report and laid out the facts of the selection process that the controversy would be over. Sadly, the facts were ignored and the controversy continued to be stoked. It was then that I realized that a far more serious effort was afoot. Some were trying to take political advantage out of what was essentially a spiritual decision and charged me with anti-Catholic sentiment. Is there anti-Catholic sentiment still alive in our country? In fact, is there anti-religious bias alive in our country? Sad as it is to admit, I believe the answer to both these questions may be yes. This bias comes in many shapes and sizes. Whether it be television shows that hold the church in contempt, the activist who desecrates St. Patrick's Cathedral, or the so-called ``artists'' who denigrate important religious symbols, my friends, that is anti-Catholic and anti-religious bias. Certainly, there are those who differ with some of the views held by the Catholic Church; and even some Catholics respectfully disagree with some Church positions. I agree with the Catholic Church on many things. I agree with the Catholic Church that we should protect the unborn. I agree with the mission of the Catholic schools to help so many Catholic and non- Catholic students get a values-based education. I wholeheartedly support the Catholic Church's great work to help the poor. And I believe that the Vatican should have a seat at the United Nations. I have the greatest respect and admiration for the Pope, who has done so much to bring peace to our troubled world and played such a critical role in ending the scourge of communism in Eastern Europe. I am a patient man. In my role as Speaker of the Whole House, I believe I should try to be especially patient and seek compromise and not confrontation. But even I did not easily take in stride carelessly tossed accusations of bigotry. Where I come from, such slander is an ugly business. I can only conclude that those who accuse me of anti- Catholic bigotry either do not know me or are maliciously seeking political advantage by making these accusations. The institution of this House means a great deal to me. I believe each of us, as Members of this House, should look out for this institution and treat it with respect. As your Speaker, I feel a special burden to do so. It is with that conviction that I say to each of you that I believe the political maneuvering on this issue may have catastrophic unintended consequences, like children playing with matches. In fact, in light of this controversy, some critics now advocate that we get rid of the Office of the Chaplain altogether. There are editorials being written to that effect in papers around this country. I ask each of you to search your heart: Is that what is good for this institution? I hope your answer is no. But that, my friends, is where the political games could be taking us. I think to lose the Office of the Chaplain would be a grave mistake. Ever since the first prayer was offered in the Continental Congress on September 7, 1774, 2 years before the Declaration of Independence was written, Congress has been blessed by a daily prayer. The daily prayer has served as a peaceful refuge for the partisan wrangling. It has bound disparate factions under the unifying theme of God's love. The first amendment to the Constitution states clearly that ``Congress should make no law respecting an establishment of religion.'' But, at the same time, the rules and precedents of this House say that the Chaplain shall attend at the commencement of the House and open the same with prayer. These contrary impulses signify two great American themes: Americans should have the freedom to practice any religion they want, but Americans also believe that this Nation was founded under God to fulfill a greater mission. The House Chaplain must reflect both traditions. The Chaplain of the House must submerge his or her own doctrinal views while reaching out to all Members regardless of religious faith. He must say a prayer that unites us rather than divides us. Our current House Chaplain, Jim Ford, has blessed us with daily prayers and counseled Members quietly with honesty and integrity. Jim Ford is a Lutheran, but he does not preach Lutheran doctrine from the House pulpit. His message is universal. In fact, Tip O'Neill, an Irish Catholic and our respected former Speaker, often called Jim Ford monsignor as a way to signify his approval of Ford's universal message. I believe that any representative of any religion can provide a similar universal message for the House of Representatives. My support for Charles Wright had nothing to do with Mr. Wright's denomination or his religious doctrine. Of the three candidates presented to me by the committee, I believed he had the best ability to help the Members of the House based on his extensive experience in counseling. I agree with our colleague Tony Hall, who first suggested to Dr. Wright that he apply, that first and foremost Charles Wright has a pastor's heart. Sadly, it has become clear that the minority will never support Charles Wright to be the House Chaplain. I have waited more than 4 months in the hope that voices of reason would prevail. Charles Wright is a good and decent man. He would make an excellent chaplain. That is why I asked Leader Gephardt to allow him to meet with the Democratic Caucus and that is why our colleague Tony Hall, a man whose respect in this House is unmatched, made the same request. But those requests have not been fulfilled. Instead of hearing the positive voice of a Godly and caring man, the only voices we hear are whispered hints in dark places that his selection is the result of anti-Catholic bias. My friends, in all my years in this Congress, I have never seen a more cynical and more destructive political campaign. That such a campaign should be waged in connection with the selection of the House Chaplain brings shame on this House. During the interview process, Dick Gephardt explained very eloquently to one of the candidates that democracy was a substitute for war. He was warning the candidate that if he became the Chaplain, his flock would not always behave like folks on a Sunday afternoon picnic. He went on to say that unlike war, where men set out to destroy one another, in a democracy, we were constrained by a set of rules and a common decency. It was a moving and profound observation that I have often thought a lot about. But I must say that the history of this Chaplain issue over the last 4 months does not appear to be constrained by common decency. It looks a lot like war and it has an ugly face. This institution, so important in the protection of our freedom, is more important than which one of us sits in that chair. In the light of this controversy, Charles Wright has told me that he does not want to serve as Chaplain in a divided House. I reluctantly agreed that I would accept his decision not to be our Chaplain. I regret that decision of Dr. Wright, but I understand it. So where do we go from here? As Speaker of this whole House, I will act to stop those who want to persist in this unseemly political game. I will not allow this House to be torn apart and the office of Chaplain to be destroyed. Having formally received the resignation of Chaplain Ford, I am today under the authority granted to me under the rules and precedents of this House to fill vacancies naming Daniel Coughlin to serve as Chaplain of the House. Father Coughlin is the vicar of the Archdiocese of Chicago and comes with the highest recommendations from a man of God for whom I have great respect, my good friend Cardinal George of Chicago. I believe that Daniel Coughlin will bring to the House a caring and a healing heart. He has been a parish priest and spent the past several years counseling parish priests within the Archdiocese. He brings 40 years of ministerial experience to this House. Daniel Coughlin is a Catholic. That does not make him more nor less qualified for the job. But I am proud of his historic appointment. I hope his appointment will help us to heal and that it will bring a sense of pride to the millions of Catholic men and women around this country who have had legitimate feelings of past discrimination which some in this House have sought to manipulate. I urge all of my colleagues to get to know Father Coughlin. He is a good man who will provide this House with spiritual guidance and counseling support necessary to bring us together again. Let me say to every leader of this House and to every Member of this House: let us embrace our new Chaplain, put this episode behind us, and move forward to do the people's business.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to pay tribute to one of the true pioneers in the field of public relations, Chicagoan Daniel J. Edelman. For nearly a half-century, Dan Edelman has made major contributions to advance the visibility of and respect for the public relations profession. Mr. Edelman has been a pioneer in the public relations community, across this country and around the globe. The firm he created, Edelman Worldwide, today employs more than 1800 people globally and is the only remaining global independent public relations concern still owned by its original founders. Known as the Father of the ``media tour,'' Mr. Edelman has driven constant innovation and creativity within his company and the public relations world; his firm became the first in the business to establish an Internet presence, and conducted the first cyber-newscast. In recognition of this leadership, Dan Edelman was recently awarded the Public Relations Society of America's highest individual honor, the Gold Anvil. And in honor of his significant professional, community and philanthropic contributions the Chicago City Council formally proclaimed February 16, 2000 as Daniel J. Edelman Day in the City of Chicago. In an unveiling ceremony on Friday, March 3, a section of St. Clair Street was named Honorable Daniel J. Edelman Way.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw) for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, when one looks at the genesis of an idea, why a bill like this comes into being, sometimes it has not just happened overnight. This particular bill, this has been worked on for almost 20 years. I remember the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Archer) when he first came to Congress talked about this. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey) tried to push this concept. He brought together economists that shows there is really a positive effort when people work. The positives, when one does dynamic scoring, really has outshone what the negatives were, and that was the payment is out of the Social Security trust fund. Then 14 years ago, the 100th Congress decided that this was a project that was something that was important for people. For 14 years, we have been trying to get the Social Security earnings limit, as we call it, changed. We did change it. Twelve years ago, one could earn $10,000; and anything over $10,000, every $2 that one earned one lost a dollar in one's Social Security. Then we kind of phased it out to $3, and it went up from $10,000 to $13,000 to $17,000 today. But the fact is, when a senior citizen goes to work at McDonald's or starts his or her own little business or, like the lady 10 years ago when I bought Valentine flowers for my wife at the florist shop, she said, Congressman, I had just came back to work in January. I had stopped work last October because I was up against the earnings limit, at that time about $10,000. I had to leave my job. Or the seamstress at the little corner dress shop that the owner came out to me and said, I am going to lose my seamstress because she has reached that earnings limit. That was in November just at a busy time. So the unfairness of the earnings limit for today's worker certainly has been apparent, and it has been apparent for a long time. Slowly, but surely, we have been able to move this bill to a point where we can pass it and we can give equity to seniors, people who are over the age of 65 that do not want to relegate themselves to a rocking chair. Now, quite frankly, some seniors at age 65 want to retire, and God bless them. They should be able if they have had that productive life. But the issue is that seniors who maybe did not have to work by the sweat of their brow their whole life, that they have unearned income, if they have pensions and they have retirement accounts, they were not penalized by the earnings test. The people that were penalized by the earnings test were people that had to go out and earn by the sweat of their brow, people that were never to save up, never to have an IRA, never to be able to have a lot of money in pensions, people that had to go out and work every day to feed their families, to make ends meet. Now they are 65 years of age and, all of a sudden, they have a big government tell them, oh, by the way, you can get Social Security, but you cannot work anymore. ``You cannot work to send your grandchild or child on to college; you cannot help earn that tuition for your family and, by the way, you cannot have that car that you would like to have to go on vacation because you cannot earn more than this amount of money because you are going to be penalized.'' This is wrong. It has been wrong for a long, long time. And especially in today's economy, when seniors are valued, because it is the seniors that have work ethics. It is the seniors that put in a full day's work, and they know the value of work. People like Sears Roebuck and J. C. Penney and McDonald's, and on and on, have been telling me for over a decade that they want those seniors in their ranks. Because not only are they good workers, people they can depend on, but for people entering the work force they are great people to train. It is a good ethic to pass on. So we cannot afford to keep this resource, these people who have built this country, these people who want to contribute, even into their retirement, to what America is all about, we cannot afford to keep them out of this process. I want to again say that I urge everybody to vote for this bill. And I am very pleased that the President has endorsed this piece of legislation. I think it is good, as the gentleman said, that we have found something that we can work on, something that lifts the American people and gives them a better future. I want to also thank certainly the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw) for bringing this legislation up, and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sam Johnson), who has worked on this as a pioneer for years, and Jim Bunning, who used to be a Member of this body worked on it for years and years. There are a lot of people and a lot of history here. I think it is time that this bill passes, and I urge everybody to stand up and vote ``yes.'' Thank heavens this is here, a time of salvation for our seniors.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, when a man and a woman exchange the vows of marriage, they traditionally promise to their spouse that they will be there for richer or for poorer. Unfortunately, for too many years, our government has wanted to make these married couples poorer. Over 25 million married couples have to pay extra taxes, just because they are married. Well, today we have the opportunity to give a Valentine's Day gift to these 50 million, hard-working American families. The Marriage Tax Penalty Relief Act is another piece of our common sense agenda that enjoys strong support of Americans around this country. This is because most Americans understand that it is ridiculous for our government to penalize married people. This is not just about tax cuts; it is about fairness. I know of a young couple in my home State of Illinois, Peggy and Patrick Allgeier. Peggy is an elementary school teacher and Patrick is an assistant football coach at a small college. These fine young people have committed their lives to teaching. They have committed their lives to helping young people. Last July, in a wedding ceremony, they committed their lives to each other; but they also committed about $1,500 of their salary back to the Federal Government because they decided to get married. Because of that wedding, Peggy and Patrick now face the risk of being penalized by our Tax Code. This is absurd. We should be helping young married couples, not forcing them to pay extra taxes. Some have argued that the marriage penalty is no big deal. They think that if Americans itemize, they should be penalized. They think that if an American owns a house, he or she ought to be penalized. They say that if an American scrapes and saves to obtain the American dream, they ought to be penalized. Well, I think these people are wrong. In my district alone, over 65,000 couples are hit by the marriage penalty tax every year. These couples pay an average of $1,400 in extra taxes simply because they are married. We need a fairer Tax Code. We need a Tax Code that does not punish married couples. We need a Tax Code that recognizes that working families need help. They need to buy braces for the kids; they need to be able to pay the insurance on the car and the home. They need to do the things that every American, whether one itemizes on one's income tax or not, needs to do. They do not need the Federal Government picking their pocket and taking money out of their home account just because they are married. I encourage all of my colleagues here to vote yes on the Marriage Tax Penalty Relief bill today. Some of my friends on the other side of the aisle said this is an extreme bill. It is an extreme practice to do this, extreme tax cuts. Well, folks, I think it is extreme too. I think it is an extremely good idea, and we ought to do it as extremely quickly as possible because the American people think that they need to have the marriage penalty relief. They think that this is extremely fair, and they would like to have it passed today.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, as the first session of the 106th Congress concludes, I think it is proper to give this legislative body my thoughts on what the House has accomplished this year and what is left to accomplish next year. Together we have enjoyed many victories and some disappointments. When I became Speaker last January, the House needed some serious work. The distrust and bitterness and rampant partisanship of both parties threatened to undermine the public support of this House. We had Members who would not even talk to each other, let alone work with one another. Given that situation, last January in this very spot I said solutions to problems cannot be found in a pool of bitterness. Solutions can be found in an environment in which we trust one another, and we trust one another's word, and where we generate heat and passion, but where we recognize that each Member is equally important to our overall mission of improving the life of America's people. We have made progress in putting that bitterness behind us, because we decided to go to work. Members of the minority cosponsored six out of the ten top bills introduced by the majority. Our greatest achievements this year had bipartisan support: The budget bill that we just passed, the Social Security lockbox bill, the appropriations bills, the missile defense bill, the Education Flexibility bill and the Financial Services Modernization Act. Both parties must continue to promote their views and their philosophies, but we must never sacrifice the common good of the American people on the altar of partisan competition. We have proved that when we work together, we get our work done. This year, we passed the budget on time for only the second time since 1974. By completing our budget on time, we were able to complete all 13 appropriations bills without dipping into the Social Security Trust Fund, doing that for the first time since 1967. For the second consecutive year we passed a balanced budget. That is the first time that has happened since 1960. The appropriations process was hard work and took longer than I wanted to take, but, thanks to the dogged determination of the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young) and the ranking member, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), and the rest of the Committee on Appropriations, we completed the work of the House; and, by doing so, we made great progress in preparing America for the next century. We had four goals at the beginning of this Congress: Protect retirement security for the next century, improve national security by bolstering our armed services, reform our education system so that all of our children can go to a good school in a safe environment, and promote economic security and fairness by paying down debt while giving tax relief to American families. We have made progress in all four areas. Our budget stopped the raid on Social Security for the first time in 30 years. Why do we care so much about protecting Social Security and the surplus? Let me give you three reasons. First, it helps to strengthen the Social Security system far into the next century. That means baby-boomers can have the peace of mind that Social Security will be there for them. Second, when we protect the Social Security surplus, we also pay down the Nation's debt. Think about how good you feel when you pay off your home mortgage or your car loan. When we take responsibilities for our Nation's debt, we ease the crippling burden of our debt on our children and our grandchildren. Our budget discipline has allowed our government to make the largest debt reduction payment in the history of this Nation. Third, when we protect the Social Security surplus, we stop the government's spending spree. We have torn up the government credit card and said that now it is time for a new era of fiscal responsibility. Retirement security also includes vital programs like Medicare, and I am pleased that we were able to take steps to restore vital funding for Medicare. The health care bureaucrats misinterpreted the Balanced Budget Act guidelines and began slashing Medicare reimbursements to nursing homes, hospitals, and other health care agencies. We believe that Medicare must be more efficient, yet still responsive to the needs of our citizens. We passed reform that fulfilled those needs and restored funding to the nursing homes and hospitals. Millions of seniors rely on Medicare every day. Our government must continue to improve and strengthen this lifeline for our seniors. We still have a year left in this Congress, and I hope that the President will work with us to find long-term solutions to the problems that affect the Medicare program. As important as retirement security is to older Americans, education is vital to the future of all Americans. As a former public schoolteacher, improving education is one of my top priorities. America's teachers and parents and grandparents have told us that they want the government to help improve the Nation's schools. We have responded by putting education improvement at the top of our agenda, and I am proud to say that we passed more education funding with less strings attached, which ensures that more dollars will go directly to the classroom. Earlier this year the President signed our legislation that would give more control over education to parents and teachers and local administrators. Although Washington provides only 6 percent of the resources for our Nation's schools, it mandates over 60 percent of the red tape that our schools have to deal with. The Federal Government should be providing a helping hand not a heavier load for our Nation's schools. We also passed legislation to improve teacher quality, improve student results, and give parents and teachers more flexibility to teach our children. Every child should have the opportunity to go to a school in a safe environment, and we are committed to seeing that those opportunities exist. Likewise, all Americans must be safe from international threats, and so our Republican majority will continue our commitment to improving the national security. I am proud to say that we have successfully increased commitment to our men and women in uniform. We have given them a well-deserved pay increase. We have increased defense spending in other areas so that our troops have the resources to get the job done. And why have we made this commitment to our nation's defense? It is a dangerous world out there, and for too many years the administration has been slashing funding for our military, while at the same time asking our troops to serve in more and more dangerous places around the world. We currently have soldiers and sailors stationed in the Middle East, in Bosnia, in Kosovo, in East Timor and Korea, to name just a few places. Our servicemen and servicewomen spend months away from their families and are poorly compensated for doing so, and, as a result, many of them are leaving the military. In these good economic times, it is crucial that we increase our military budget to deter hostile or maverick countries and to improve the quality of life for military personnel and their families. We also passed and the President signed a national missile defense bill that will make our homes and neighborhoods safer. Many hostile nations are developing missile technology that will soon put the United States in harm's way. Fortunately, our missile defense bill makes it a national priority for the United States to develop a missile defense system capable of protecting us from the threat of enemy missiles. As Americans, our liberty is our most valuable asset, and we must protect ourselves from those who would threaten it. National defense is among the most important roles of our Federal Government. This is why this Congress will continue to support our military and give our troops the funding they need to defend America and her interests. Finally, we remain committed to providing tax relief to the American people. This is why we sent a fair and responsible tax relief package to the President's desk. Currently we have a Tax Code that punishes couples for getting married through the marriage tax penalty. We have a Tax Code that punishes people for trying to save for retirement through the capital gains tax. We have a Tax Code that punishes widows through the death tax. The time has come to get some fairness to the Tax Code. Couples should be able to get married without the fear of higher taxes, the government should be encouraging people to save for retirement, not punishing them, and our tax relief package was responsible because it took money out of Washington and put it back into the pockets of the people who earned it, the American people. It would be irresponsible to leave the whole $3 trillion surplus here in Washington so that only politicians can spend it. Our tax relief package kept faith with the balanced budget and it secured $2.2 trillion for retirement security and for debt relief. As a matter of fact, our budget spends down $350 billion of national debt this year. Although the President vetoed this common sense proposal, I hope he will work with us next year to provide tax relief to the American people. We have come a long way since the House first asked me to be the Speaker, but we still have much left to accomplish next year, and we will consider a conservative agenda that makes America a more compassionate place to live. Earlier this month the President and I went to the South Side of Chicago to promote a plan that we hope will revitalize America's most impoverished urban and rural communities. It accomplishes this goal through tax incentives, environmental cleanup, and other private sector and public sector partnerships. Coupled with common sense education reform and better crime and drug control strategy, we can make these communities a safer place to grow up and to raise a family. This is compassionate conservatism. We will push for tax relief for the American family. It is compassionate to put more dollars into the family budget. We will consider health care legislation that will make HMOs more accountable and health care insurance more accessible. We will take up a trade bill for Africa and the Caribbean basin. We believe helping these countries help themselves is done more effectively with trade, not necessarily foreign aid. We will continue to find ways to improve retirement security for our Nation's seniors by addressing the long-term problems that face our Social Security system, our Medicare system, and our pension system. And we will continue to do the work of the House. As we continue our agenda in the second session of the 106th Congress, we will fight for certain principles. We will fight to keep the Social Security surplus dedicated only to retirement security, we will also continue to fight for the principles of a smaller and smarter government, and we will continue to fight against government waste, unnecessary government power and undue government influence. Government does have an important role to play in the lives of the American people. It does have a responsibility to secure the freedom and promote the general welfare of its citizens. But we must remember this: the Government works for the people; the people should not be forced to work for the Government. I want to thank my colleagues for the great trust that they have placed in me over the course of this session. It is a great honor and privilege to serve as Speaker of the House. I look forward to an even more productive second session.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida for yielding me this time. I do not have to tell my colleagues that it has been a long and often challenging road to get us to this point. Today, we have before us a good bill, a fair bill, a bill that reflects our priorities as a Congress and reflects our priorities as a Nation. When I took over this job a little less than a year ago, I said the appropriations process needed to be a process that we sent the 13 bills. After we moved through the process of the committee and we sent them to the White House and the President has the chance of signing those bills or vetoing those bills, and if he chooses to veto, give us the message and send the bill back and we will work it. We have done that. Every one of these pieces of legislation have gone through the process. Now we are back. We are dealing with the five bills that the President decided to veto. And over a long period of time, and working with the White House and working with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, we have pieced together what we need in this Nation to make this Nation work on an appropriations process for the next fiscal year. For the past 30 years, our government has taken money out of the pockets of seniors and spent it on more wasteful Washington spending. Last February, our majority pledged to stop this raid on Social Security Trust Funds, and in this bill we have. Stopping the raid on Social Security is not just good news for our seniors, it is good news for our children who unfairly have been burdened with the national debt and paying the interest on that debt year after year, not only now but way into the future. With this bill's passage today, we will be on target to pay down $131 billion of national debt in this fiscal year. When I arrived in Congress in 1987, the idea of passing a budget that would actually pay down $130 billion worth of debt would have been laughable, and even 5 years ago the thought of debt reduction was just that, a thought, but now it is a reality. This bill also represents a huge victory for those in this chamber who have spent many years fighting for local control of Federal education dollars. We had a long debate with the White House, and the White House wanted more teachers, and we put $300 million more in for education than the White House asked for. But with that we asked, let us give our local school districts, let us give our parents, let us give teachers and let us give superintendents and those people we ask to take care of our local schools the flexibility to do the work that they have to do. We did that in this bill. Working with the White House and the good work of the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling), we got the flexibility, even in the teacher bill, so teachers would be there, we would have the people to do the discipline and do the teaching and do the work, but if we did not need teachers, we could use that money to lift up the level and capability of the teachers we already have. The debate over education has now changed. Instead of arguing about whether there should be local control of education dollars, we are now debating about how much local control there should be. There is money in this bill that can be used to hire more teachers and lower classroom size, but there is also flexibility in this bill. Parents and teachers will have more freedom to use this money as they see fit. Keeping more dollars and decisions in our classrooms is a victory for this Congress and a victory for our children. This bill also takes a very important first step in eliminating government waste. Every year our government spends billions and billions of dollars, and we are saying in this bill, let us take 38 cents out of every $100 that the Federal Government spends and find waste and abuse. I think that is doable, and I think next year we ought to do the same thing, over and over again, because that is what the American people expect us to do. The across-the-board spending cut in this bill will force the agencies of government to take a close look at their budget and see what frivolous spending can be eliminated. Taxpayers deserve to have their money spent responsibly, and this bill will save the American taxpayers from over $1 billion in excess spending. I would like to take this opportunity certainly to thank the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young), and to thank the subcommittee chairmen on the various appropriations committees, and to thank the gentleman on the other side of the aisle who has led a gallant fight and an honest and straight fight for what he believes is right. We do not put legislation like this together just at a whim. It takes a long time. It takes people standing up for their principles and their ideals. Sometimes we have different principles and we have different ideals; but at the end, we have a product that we can stand up for, that we can vote for, that we can be proud of. It is amazing to think about what this bill actually does. It stops the raid on Social Security, it keeps the budget balanced, it pays down our national debt and it gives parents and teachers more control and better benefits to our children. It was not too long ago that these accomplishments were nothing more than broad goals. So I encourage my colleagues to vote for this agreement, and let the American people know that this Congress is committed to fiscal discipline and sound policy, and as we open up the new millennium, the Year 2000, we can promise our seniors that their pension funds are secure, that their Social Security funds are secure, and our children are not going to have to pick up the interest on our debt that we have piled on their shoulders over the past years. I ask for support on this bill.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps) for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise in recognition of Dr. Ford and his devoted service to this House. He is a man of this House. He is a colleague. He is a friend. He is a counselor. He has touched the lives of many Members in countless ways. He has married us. He has kept marriages together. He has baptized our children. He has visited us in the hospital. He has been with our families as we bid farewell to our beloved colleagues. And, very simply, he has been there when we needed him. He has made us laugh when we did not think we could, and he has made us introspective when we wanted to look elsewhere. For me personally and the entire House, he was there that tragic day a little over a year ago when a gunman changed our lives in this House forever. He was there for the fallen heroes. He was there for their families. He was there for those of us who knew them well and whose lives were saved by their heroic actions. For that, I will be forever grateful. Dr. Ford is not allowed to speak on the House floor, and we are not about to break that tradition, even for an emeritus chaplain. But I think it fitting on this occasion to quote him from his charge to the Chaplain Search Committee. I have been honored to have served you as Chaplain for nearly 20 years, and I leave with deep appreciation for the vital work of the Congress and the people who serve this place so faithfully. I continue with enthusiastic support for this institution, our democracy, and with a sense of thanksgiving for the opportunities that I have been given. Thank you, Dr. Ford, and may God bless you in the years ahead.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, yesterday was a sad day for everyone in Chicagoland and for everyone who loved sports. But it was also a sad day for everyone who cherished the life of a special man whose influence extended far beyond the stadiums in which he played. With the death of Walter Payton, we not only have lost one of football's greatest stars, but we have also lost one of America's greatest citizens. His nickname was ``Sweetness,'' the perfect description for a Hall of Fame running-back whose silky smooth performance on the football field was the bane of most defenses. There is no doubt that Walter Payton will be remembered for his records, especially his remarkable all-time rushing total of 16,726 yards over his 13-year career. More importantly, however, he will be remembered for the grace and dignity with which he carried himself both on and off the field. A lifelong Chicago Bears fan, I have sat in the bitter cold of Soldier Field only to have my spirit warmed by Water Payton's fierce determination and his amazing feats of athletic prowess. But I also saw the way he warmed people's hearts in his everyday life. He was someone who recognized the power of faith and the value of teamwork. As a local business owner in my district, Walter Payton played an important role in the economic revitalization of downtown Aurora, IL. While he built a successful restaurant and created new jobs for the area, he also became an integral part of the community. It was the same with the Bears. Walter Payton was the glue that often held a fractious team together. By his own example and leadership, he helped younger players meet new challenges, while at the same time encouraging veterans to reach new heights. As a high school coach, I saw the way Walter Payton inspired young athletes to strive to do their best. He was a true role model because he exemplified an important life lesson that teaches us that success requires hard-work, discipline, and concentration. It was a philosophy that made him physically powerful and spiritually centered. And it should come as no surprise that he approached his recent illness head-on, with the same courage and grit he displayed on the field. But there was another side to Walter Payton--the playful and mischievous side that delighted fans, friends, and teammates. Walter Payton had the confidence to live his life to the fullest. And he had the rare ability to make us revel in that life along with him. Just last February, Walter Payton said: ``It's just like football. You never know when or what your last play is going to be. You just play it and play it because you love it. Same way with life. You live life because you love it. If you can't love it, you just give up hope.'' Walter Payton never gave up hope. It is with fondness for that spirit that we remember him today and forever.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong support of the coalition substitute. As many of my colleagues know, I have been involved in this whole idea of health care and health care reform for a long time, probably longer than I want to remember. One of the things we have strived for is to be able to get people into health care, into the situation where they need to get treatment, try to get people into hospitals' rooms and doctors' offices and not necessarily going into lawyers' offices and courtrooms before they can get that treatment. I have always believed that we have three goals in health care. It must be affordable. It must be available. And it must be accountable. If it is not affordable, it is not available. Trying to change a system and keep a balance so that we do not change that system too much that we completely upset it so patients cannot get the care that they need is the task before this House, to try to find balance to try to do those things that are the right things. As we debate these bills and these options before us today, there are a lot of similarities. People getting the access, people being able to get into emergency care, getting to their caregiver, their pediatrician, or their Ob-Gyn so that they can take care of them. They are all the same. I have written that legislation for years. The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood) helped me to do it. And this is all the same. The difference in these bills is to some a fine line, but the difference in these bills is how far we go, how far that we give license to the trial lawyers, how far that we take the incentive away from corporate and employers to provide health care for their employees. I am pleased that the House passed an access bill yesterday in a bipartisan fashion that will help address the problem of the 44 million uninsured today. It would be shameful to take up the important issue of patient protections without doing something to protect the uninsured. As my good friend the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss) put together a package that does both, he wrestled with many issues, how to make sure that managed care plans come through on their promises to their patients, how can we be certain that patients get the care they need when they need it. Mr. Chairman, the coalition substitute developed by the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss), the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg), the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood), and the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) is an excellent product. It took us a while to reach this point. Consensus takes time. But we have got a solid, balanced approach that I urge my colleagues to support. This is what the coalition bill does: It provides access to binding, independent decisions by doctors. For patients, we enforce their rights in court. And if they are harmed, they have access and rights to go back to court and get their damages. We protect employers who offer health care as a voluntary benefit. And we do not end fee-for-service medicine. We protect States like California and Texas that have already passed the right to sue legislation. Sound reasonable? I think so. What could possibly be the reason for division on such a common-sense approach? It is very simple. We do not protect the trial lawyers. We do not force people to sue their way to get better health care. We do not provide windfalls for the trial lawyers. We want to show them something. We want to show them a common- sense way. I want to also show my colleagues something else. This is a class list from the University of Texas Law School. It is a class list of all kinds of courses on how to sue an HMO. Probably that is relevant in Texas. Folks in Texas argue that the right to sue has not increased costs and they have not exploded. And they may be right so far. But under the Norwood-Dingell legislation, trial lawyers will be given unprecedented new rights to sue any time for any reason in any venue. The truth is no one has any idea what the cost implications can be when they go too far. The coalition bill, instead, gives patients the care they need when they need it. My colleagues, we have come to an important point in this Congress in this debate. If we want to protect patients, vote for Goss. I urge support for the coalition substitute. And when it passes, I want to urge my colleagues to vote yes on final passage to move this legislation forward.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, German-American Day will be celebrated on October 6, 1999 with festivities all over the nation. German-American Day honors all Americans of German descent and their contributions to the life and culture of the United States and October 6, 1999 once again calls attention to this vital ethnic group and its continuing work and efforts in support of the democratic principles of this country and its commitment to the improvement of the quality of life in the United States. The first German immigrants arrived at Penn's landing in Philadelphia in 1683. They had been invited to come to the New World by the William Penn, and arrived under the leadership of Daniel Pastorius, to settle in Germantown in Pennsylvania. They proved indeed to be valuable assets to their new homeland. The achievements of German immigrants are legion. Famous names like Carl Schurz, Baron von Steuben, Levy Strauss, John Jacob Astor, Peter Zenger, and more recently Albert Einstein and Henry Kissinger are testimony of Germany-American industriousness, loyalty and contributions. Congratulations to all Americans of German descent on this important day.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Financial Freedom Act and in opposition to the Rangel substitute. This substitute clears up any confusion on where our friends, the Democrats, stand on tax relief. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Democrat substitute actually increases taxes by $4 billion. We have the largest surplus in history. The Democrat substitute raises taxes by $4 billion. Now, we have to give our friends on the other side of the aisle credit. They remain committed to larger Government and bigger spending. What we have here is a basic difference in philosophy, a philosophical difference. We can do what the Democrats want. They want to spend more of the surplus, including a portion of the Social Security surplus, on more Washington bureaucratic programs. They believe that more Washington spending is responsible. The President has said that giving this money back to American people is risky because he does not know how the American people will spend their own money. I think the President is wrong. It is not risky to give the American people back the very money that they have earned. We have a better plan. First we lock away the Social Security surplus so it could be spent only on retirement security. Over 10 years, we put $2 away for retirement security for every $1 of tax relief. But over 5 years, the first 5 years, we put away $800 billion in debt relief and $156 billion in tax relief, almost a six-to-one ratio in debt relief. Second, we allow Government to grow slowly. In fact, the Government will increase its spending by more than $300 billion in the next 10 years under this plan. This means we can keep funding programs that are important to the American people while we work to cut wasteful Washington spending. Finally, we give some surplus back to the American people by targeting unfair tax parts of our Tax Code. We think it is unfair to tax marriage, so we reduce the marriage penalty. And where did the marriage penalty come from? It came from tax writers on this side of the aisle over the last 30 years. It is time to change that. We believe it is unfair to tax people when they die, so we phase out the death tax so that family farms and small family businesses can move from generation to generation. We believe it is unfair to tax people who want to save for their children's education, so we include education savings accounts in this bill. My colleagues, we believe it is unfair to tax people at the highest rate since the great world war of World War II. We include a 10-percent across-the-board tax cut that phases in over 10 years. Our tax relief proposal is responsible and it is balanced, and it will keep the budget balanced. It will keep the economy growing, and it will return power back to the American people. Today the House has a simple choice. We can give some of the surplus back to the people, as we advocate, or we can return to the tax-and- spend policies of our friends on the Democratic side of the aisle. I urge my colleagues to make the right choice. Vote against the Democrat substitute. Vote for responsible tax relief. And vote to give some of the money back to the American people that go to work every day and punch a time clock and commute to work and earn that money.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a great opportunity. We are on the cusp of doing something for the American people that has not been done in this House for a long, long time. We are giving the American people the opportunity to take more money home to put in their own pockets instead of putting it in the pockets of bureaucracies. The American people are going to have a choice. They are going to have a choice to be able to decide how their kids' education is going to be done because they will have education savings accounts. We are going to give them the fairness to be able to decide how that is spent. We are going to be fair because we are going to treat people who are married the same way as people who are single. We are going to try to say that those folks who punch a time clock or commute to work or have to contribute to the economy will be able to take more of those dollars home and put them in their pocket. We will have over the first 5 years $800 billion of debt retirement and $156 billion of tax relief for the American people. If you look out over the next 10 years, American taxpayers will be paying over $28 trillion in taxes. We give the American people the chance to take a little bit of that money back home, decide how they are going to treat their kids' education, decide what they are going to do with their future and their retirement. And also in this bill for senior citizens, who are over the age of 65, that decide that they want to be productive and they want to work, we take the earnings test penalty away so that they are not penalized $2 in their Social Security for every $1 they earn, twice the rate that millionaires have to pay. This is a tax cut for fairness, it is a tax cut for the American working people, and it is a tax cut that the American people deserve, not a tax increase like our friends on the other side of the aisle would like to give. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule and in support of the Financial Freedom Act. I urge my colleagues to vote for both. I want to commend Chairman Archer for his fine work on this bill. Over the last four years, the nation has seen a remarkable turnaround in our financial fortunes. Four years ago, the President submitted a budget that had 200 billion dollar deficits for as far as the eye could see. We said that the President was wrong. We said it was time to balance the budget, to make the government smaller and smarter, and to give tax relief to the American people. They said that it couldn't be done. They said our budget plans were irresponsible. They said that our tax proposals were unrealistic. Well, they were wrong. Because of our efforts to cut wasteful spending, because of our efforts to move people off of welfare and into work, and because of our efforts to give tax relief to the American people, we have the healthiest economy in our nation's history. Today, we have the largest surplus in history. This surplus gives us two options. We can do what the President wants. He wants to spend the surplus, including a portion of the social security surplus, on more Washington programs. The President thinks more Washington spending is responsible. He believes that giving this money back to the people is risky, because he doesn't know how the people will spend their own money. Once again the President is wrong. It is not risky to give the American people their money back. We have a better plan. First, we lock away the social security surplus so that is can be spent only on retirement security. Over ten years, we put two dollars away for retirement security for every one dollar of tax relief. Second, we allow for government to grow slowly. In fact, the government will increase its spending by close to a half a trillion dollars in the next ten years, under our plan. This means we can keep funding programs that are important to the American people, while we keep working to cut wasteful Washington spending. And finally, we give some of the surplus back to the American people by targeting the unfair parts of our tax code. We believe it is unfair to tax marriage, so we reduce the marriage penalty. We believe it is unfair to tax people when they die, so we phase out the death tax. We believe it unfair to tax people who want to save for the children's education, so we include education savings accounts. And we believe that it is unfair to tax people at the highest rate since the Second World War. We include a 10 percent across the board tax cut that phases in over 10 years. Our tax relief proposal is responsible and balanced. It will keep the budget balanced. It will keep the economy growing. And it will return power back to the American people. Today, the House has a simple choice: We can give some of the surplus back to the people or we can spend it here in Washington. I urge my colleagues to make the right choice. Vote for this rule, vote for this responsible tax relief measure and vote to give some money back to the American people.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to two extraordinary gentlemen who were taken from us much too soon--Officer JJ Chestnut and Detective John Gibson. It was a year ago that our whole nation came to know of the bravery and dedication of these two men. But those of us who were lucky enough to know them, already knew what remarkable men they were. Detective Gibson had been assigned to Congressman DeLay's security detail for years. As Chief Deputy Whip, I worked out of the whip office and came into daily contact with John. Although he was assigned to protect Congressman DeLay, he was also responsible for the security of our whole office. This was a duty he relished, and it was easy to feel safe when John was around. Officer Chestnut had been stationed at the Document Door for many years. That happened to be the door I used every day on my way into and out of the Capitol. Officer Chestnut was the last person I would say good night to on my way home every evening. And his family and friends already know, he was a quiet, warm and giving person. This week, we will rededicate the Document Door, renaming it the Memorial Door in honor of these two men. It is fitting that we do this. These two men embodied the best of our Congressional community, the best of law enforcement and the best of America. JJ and John--you are still remembered fondly and still missed dearly.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, as a parent and former coach, I rise in strong support of this Resolution to celebrate the many contributions the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team has given to the American people. These young women have illustrated the American spirit on a global stage. They have shown young and old alike that teamwork still works. They have also demonstrated that it's not always about winning, but how you perform on and off the field. These are all positive life lessons that everyone around the globe can take to heart--especially our children, the next generation of leaders. As one who has worked for a long time to improve the athletic opportunities for women and men, I am particularly heartened to see the success of our World Cup Champions. We must be ever vigilant in our quest to open more doors so those who want to participate in extracurricular activities can do so. I have seen first-hand how sports and team play have molded young kids into future leaders. We need more of that in today's society. In closing, congratulations to Coach Tony DiCicco, his assistants, and the U.S. National Women who brought home the World Cup. I would hope that as they make their way around the country on their well- deserved victory tour they'll make a stop in Washington so all Americans can celebrate their accomplishments through a National Pep Rally at the U.S. Capitol.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier) for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule; and I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support it. When this rule came before the committee, there were well over 100, almost 150, amendments that were requested. There were 55 amendments, I believe, made in order from all points of belief and perspective. This rule gives the House the most open debate possible regarding the issues surrounding violence in our schools and violence with our children. As a former public school teacher, I worked almost my whole career to make sure that there is good education both as a practitioner, then in the State legislature, and here in the Congress. What makes too many of our students do these things to their classmates, their teachers, and their friends? How can we stop it? Those are the questions. Our colleague, the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Watts) put it well when he said, we should explore not only these things and how they happen but also why these things happen. Earlier this year, legislation authored by my colleague, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood), would start the process of answering the questions of why. This legislation assembles experts from around the country who will investigate the common reasons why so many children act so violently. In this debate we attempt to provide some answers to both of these questions. But let us not kid ourselves. Congress cannot quickly and easily provide complete answers that will solve the complex problems of juvenile violence. So we can only try to highlight some of those issues that we as a society should work to solve. We will debate options regarding guns in our society. I believe that there are common-sense steps that we can take to keep guns out of the hands of unsupervised children. This rule sets up a fair process that lets the House speak on gun legislation. We should look at the disparity between gun shops and gun shows. It makes no sense to put restrictions on the gun shops if a juvenile or a criminal can easily purchase a gun at a gun show. The gun debate helps us to partially answer the ``how'' question. The juvenile justice debate will help us answer the ``why'' question. Why have our children lost sense of the value for human life? Why do they not know the difference between right and wrong? What in our culture promotes this kind of reprehensible conduct from our very children? This debate will help to address these questions. We will have a debate about our justice system and how it deals with young people. We will have a debate on prayer in the schools and how that might help children understand the difference between right and wrong. We will have a debate on obscenity in our culture. And if sexual obscenity is left unprotected by the Constitution, why should violent obscenity be protected when studies already show the damage it does to our young people? This will be a long debate, but it will be a good debate that reflects the many opinions of this great Nation. Many have asked why this rule allows for two different debates on two different bills. The answer is simple. This strategy allows the House to work its will on two separate issues joined by one common tragedy. The House will work its will on the issue of gun restrictions. We cannot and should not hide from this issue that occupies the attention of the American people. And the House will work its will on the wider issues surrounding our culture and our society and its impact on our children. I urge my colleagues to support this rule and to join with me in starting the process of finding solutions to the problems surrounding the violence of youth in our schools.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. On behalf of the elected entire Republican leadership, I rise today to talk about the efforts of the House to respond to the national crisis surrounding violence in our schools. Last week's shooting in Conyers, Georgia, only reinforced the fears of many parents about the safety of the schools which their children attend. Studies show that our Nation's schools on average are safer than ever, but average means nothing to the mothers and fathers who send their children to school every day. They want more from us, and we will provide more. Last week the other body passed legislation that responded in part to the situation in our schools. Part of that legislative response included gun control legislation. We support commonsense legislation that keeps guns out of the hands of unsupervised children. We support tightening laws to bring uniformity between gun shows and gun shops. We support instant background checks at gun shows. We intend to bring these measures to the floor of the House, and I believe they will pass, but passing these measures is only part of the solution. As I said on this floor last week, our children need to learn the differences between right and wrong. They need moral instruction, and they need a culture that reinforces positive values that help create a safer and more secure society. What happened in Littleton, Colorado, and Conyers, Georgia, are genuine national tragedies. It is natural that they should spur us to action, but it is wrong for anyone to simply try to score political points as a result of these tragedies. I take a back seat to no one in this Congress when it comes to a desire to make our schools safer. I specifically spoke about safer schools from this well in my first speech as Speaker. I taught high school for 16 years before entering public life. My two boys graduated from public high school not that long ago. My wife goes to work every day in a public school, just as she has for the last 33 years. I want her and the children she teaches to be safe. Last week, in consultation with the minority leadership, we developed a timetable for consideration of a juvenile justice bill that would help make our schools safer. It was a very constructive meeting. I thought we had mapped out a very responsible, straightforward approach to handling this issue by prompt action of the authorizing committee, not riders on unrelated appropriation bills. Unfortunately, it appears that despite the best efforts at the leadership level, more partisan elements are continuing to press for quicker, ill-considered action this week. We continue to believe, just as we proposed last week, that we should consider this bill in a timely yet responsible way. In order to responsibly expedite matters, I asked the Committee on the Judiciary to move up its hearing on this issue by 3 weeks. They agreed, and will start hearings this Thursday. I asked the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde) to be prepared to mark up legislation the first week we get back from the Memorial Day district work period so it could be ready for the floor the next week. Again, this was much faster than originally proposed. He has agreed to do so. Later today he and the chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. McCollum) will announce an outline of our youth violence legislation. This legislation will focus on making our schools and our streets safer by prosecuting those who break the current gun laws. It will keep lawbreakers in jail longer. It will enact a zero tolerance policy for children who bring guns to school, and it will make sure that dangerous juveniles will not be able to buy guns lawfully when they become adults, and that we have open and complete juvenile records to help us keep guns out of their hands. When we consider this legislation, the House will be able to work its will regarding certain provisions from the Senate package, just as I had assured the minority leader last week. The House will vote on trigger locks, background checks at gun shows, and closing the gun purchasing loophole. We will expedite this legislation, but we will not force it through the system without the proper consideration of the Committee on the Judiciary. Some of my colleagues, sensing an advantage, may try to go outside of the rules of the House and attach ill-considered riders to legislation not relevant to the juvenile justice issue. That would be a mistake. I know emotions are running high, but let us be honest about this. Even if we did pass legislation this week, it would still be the middle of June at the earliest before we could send a bill to the White House. Pretending otherwise, and promising the victims of these terrible tragedies something else, does a tremendous disservice not only to us and to our institution, but to the very people we are trying to protect. Our Nation's schoolchildren deserve to attend the safest, most secure schools that we can provide, and the parents of our children should rest secure in the knowledge that everything is being done within our powers, both as citizens and legislators, to create precisely that environment. This is not the time to play on the fears of our most vulnerable. This is the time for aggressive yet responsible leadership, one in which we can think carefully and examine all of the issues before we go off half-informed, searching for the snappiest sound bite rather than working together to develop the best legislation that we can. This is one of those rare times when the national consensus demands that we act, but it does not require us to rush to judgment, to risk compounding the situation by stampeding toward what sounds like the best way to score points against each other. We can do better than that, and I am determined to see that we will. By cooperating, we can get a bill to the White House promptly, while making sure that the policies are ready to be enforced when schools reopen in September. The Nation's eyes have turned towards us, looking for responsible leadership. We must resist the temptation to score political points at the expense of the lives and families of our Nation's children. Demagoguery for the sake of partisan advantage will not serve the country well, nor will it produce the best legislative solution possible. We have the opportunity to rise above partisanship and do ourselves and our Nation proud. I appeal to all the Members not to let this opportunity slip away. We have responsible legislation and it is ready to go. It can be made better. Rushing it to the floor this week will not result in a better product in the long run. Let us come together, move forward, and develop the best legislation we can so that all Americans can take pride in how we respond.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 4 which states that it is the policy of the United States to deploy a national missile defense. I am convinced that this measure should and will pass by a large bipartisan majority. I am also convinced that the President of the United States will sign this important piece of legislation. In doing so the President will make a historic decision, a decision to protect the United States and its people from the grave threat of missile attack. Today the United States faces these threats defenseless, unable to stop even a single missile launched at the United States. And yet there are dark clouds on the horizon. Countries like North Korea and Iran are moving ahead undaunted with weapons of mass destruction programs, including intercontinental ballistic missiles. The United States and the American people are at risk now, and H.R. 4 states clearly that we must do something to respond to these threats. I would also like to take a moment to thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for his tireless work and leadership on this critical issue. It is rare that one individual can make such a difference on behalf of his country. The bipartisan support for this measure is a tribute to his hard work and dedication to protecting the American people from a clear and imminent threat. I strongly urge my colleagues to support this vital measure.

Mr. HASTERT

Mr. HASTERT. Madam Speaker, the latest shooting in an Atlanta school is deeply troubling. My wife is a teacher in a public school. My kids have gone to a public school. I taught for a lot of years in a public school. I fervently believe that every child deserves to learn in a good school and in a safe environment. But how can we create such an environment if it is the children themselves who make the schools unsafe? Clearly, we need to tighten current laws to make it more difficult for kids to get guns. We will take a look at the measure passed by the Senate to make sure that it is a reasonable and common sense approach. We also need to more effectively enforce the laws that are already on the books and to prosecute those who break the laws. But these measures will fall short if we do not effectively address the deeper problems that face our society and our children. Our children need to learn the differences between right and wrong. They need moral instruction. They need a culture that reinforces positive values that help create a safer and more secure society. It is more difficult to be a parent today. We feel the need to work harder just to keep pace with the neighbors. All too often, parents are forced to worry first about their jobs and then about their kids. And it is becoming more and more difficult for parents to monitor what their kids are watching, hearing, and learning. I support free expression, but there is a point where unbridled free expression undermines a free society. I challenge the entertainment industry, the Internet industry, the video game industry, and the media to become good corporate citizens. Monitor the material that flows to our kids. I applaud the Disney Company for taking some steps in the right direction, but the whole industry must join in the cause. Keep casual gunplay out of the movies. Keep hate music out of the music stores. Keep bomb-making web sites off the Internet. Do not make video games so violent that they warp young minds. Free expression does not necessarily have to lead to moral chaos. Let us join together in finding ways to help parents raise their children to be good productive citizens.