Maurice Hinchey

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to say a word in support of the Visclosky amendment as well because I think it does something that is very important. The administration, this administration, has recognized that the policy that has been pursued by the Army Corps of Engineers over many years which has allowed for the destruction of small wetlands, wetlands under three acres, is a wrongheaded policy in that in the course of that policy we are losing cumulatively hundreds of thousands of acres and have lost cumulatively hundreds of thousands of acres of wetlands over a period of time in the past. The administration wants to move to stop that. This is a very important thing to do, and we should not discourage the administration in this effort, and unfortunately that is what the anti-environmental riders in this appropriations bill would do. It would make it more difficult to protect small wetlands, wetlands under three acres. It is very important to protect those wetlands for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that we in this country, as a result of increasing population and increasing activities of various kinds, have placed in jeopardy our surface water supplies, the reservoirs of our Nation, particularly the big cities. We have seen that impact in the Midwest and elsewhere. Consequently the EPA has adopted a program whereby, if cities fail to protect their surface water supplies, their reservoirs, they will have to implement a filtration program. That filtration program is a very expensive one. Let me give my colleagues the example of the City of New York. In the case of the City of New York, if New York has to build a filtration program which is more likely if we destroy the wetlands upstate, it will cost the city approximately $5 billion to construct that filtration plant and approximately a half a billion dollars a year to operate it. Now that is just the economic side of the equation. Of course, once the filtration plant is built and operating, the quality of the watershed and the water supply system will further deteriorate because the main incentive for protecting it will have been evaporated, will have been lost as a result of the construction of this filtration plant. So the loss of these wetlands is very critical. Recently the City of New York did something very foolish, I think, because they approached the Army Corps and dropped a provision whereby they would agree that the city would agree to a plan which would provide for the protection of these small wetlands, these wetlands of less than three acres in the Catskill watershed in upstate New York. The city was prepared to go along with that, but recently the mayor of the city intervened and decided that he would drop that. And so these small wetlands, which are now protecting the quality of the watershed, which is an absolutely precious, invaluable, and I use that word literally, invaluable resource, is in danger now and increasingly in danger because we will be losing these small wetlands. So, by adopting the anti-environmental rider in this bill we will once again deprive ourselves of the opportunity to protect these small wetlands, protect our water supplies, avoid enormous costs associated with building filtration plants and operating those filtration plants and place our citizenry in increased jeopardy of disease and other ailments as a result of contaminated water supplies.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise to express my support for this amendment.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I want to say also a few words in support of this amendment which allows the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities to expand their outreach and educational efforts. What the endowments want to do and what we want them to do is support education and extend the excellent programs that they provide to all Americans. For example, NEH has programs to provide training for elementary and high school teachers to help them update and improve their curriculum, they are popular, but NEH would like to reach more teachers and, therefore, obviously more students. NEH is developing web sites as well to provide material that teachers can use in their course work. NEA is reaching out to minorities and getting children at risk in our cities interested in and excited about art. We have heard from Justice Department officials that these programs are enormously effective in reducing delinquency as well as an appreciation for the art itself. Those are practical effects, but there are also intangible values as well. NEA and NEH help to build and develop our culture. They also help to democratize it, to demonstrate that art and music are not the property of the wealthy and the elite alone but something that can enrich the lives of all of us. In that sense, they belong in the Interior bill since it is the Interior bill that protects our beautiful places simply because they are beautiful and that offers recreation to our citizens because enjoyment and recreation is in and of itself a good. Mr. Chairman, the increases we are requesting in this amendment are small, too small in my judgment, but they are an excellent investment. It is the culture we foster now that will be remembered for the next 100 years. This is a good amendment. I hope it has the support of the Members of the House.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the bill and I want to commend the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula), our chairman, and the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks), our ranking member, for the excellent job they have done putting this bill together under very difficult circumstances. I also want to thank the subcommittee staff for their hard work on the bill and thoughtful consideration of the many difficult issues that we faced. What we have before us is a fair and balanced bill that genuinely takes into consideration the many different concerns and interests of Members of the House, and of the people that we represent. None of us support every item in the bill, but I think all of us can agree that it is fair, reasonable, and representative. The difficult circumstances I allude to are obvious. Our subcommittee's allocation is far below the real needs of the agencies funded through this bill. Although we have heard widely varying figures on the National Park Service's maintenance backlog, it certainly amounts to several billion dollars at least. The same is true of the Forest Service. As our population grows and our open space shrinks, we have an ever- increasing need to protect open space and wildlife to protect recreational opportunities for our people, to conserve the watersheds we all depend on, and to save our historic and cultural sites. Our subcommittee received hundreds of requests from Members for projects that are sensible and worthy, but we could not fund them even though we would have liked to and should have. There simply was not enough money. But our chairman, I think, in the final analysis has used his discretion very, very wisely. The bill and the bill report include language regarding the management of the Everglades restoration project that we hope and believe will guarantee that the project serves the national interest. And the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) should take full deserved credit for this. We are putting Federal money into the reengineering of the Everglades because we want to see its unique ecosystem restored and conserved for the future because we want to reverse past mistakes that led to overdevelopment and overuse of fragile resources. This bill aims to ensure that that is what will happen and that the Federal funds will not ultimately be turned against the Everglades and be used to promote unwise development. I am delighted to say that despite the constraints on this bill, it includes increased funds for the Park Service, which are badly needed to meet the demands both of conservation and increased visitorship. I am similarly very happy that the bill also includes a small increase in the Forest Service's recreation budget above the administration's request. The national forests are more widely used for recreation even than the national parks; and recreation has become an increasingly important part of the Forest Service's mission, but its budget has not kept up. The increase is a much-needed step in the right direction. The bill also provides for a small increase in the Forest Services State and private forestry budget. Again, this is very welcomed. These programs are not as well known as they should be, but they are immensely valuable to those States where most forests are in non- Federal ownership. In my own State, they are particularly important for the role they play in protecting our urban watersheds, but they also provide critical assistance to people who never see a forest through their support for such beneficial and popular projects as urban tree planting and disease prevention. The Interior bill's public lands titles almost always attract more attention than its energy research and conservation provisions, but I am also pleased in what we could accomplish in those areas as well. Our subcommittee heard a great deal about the progress that can be made if we keep supporting these programs in achieving energy independence and providing our citizens with a cleaner environment. I am particularly pleased that the bill increases funding for Energy Department conservation programs that can help our constituents reduce their household energy costs. There were some disappointments. I am sorry that the bill provides no increase for the Arts and Humanities Endowments, despite the administration's excellent plan for new outreach and education programs at both those agencies. I am hoping we can correct that in an amendment. I am sorry too the bill provides only a small fraction of the administration's request for its Lands Legacy programs. But these are good programs, and I hope that they could be improved upon in the final analysis. Mr. Chairman, this is an excellent bill and our chairman and our ranking member deserve great credit for the way they have put it together. I strongly believe we should acquire and protect critical lands for open space, recreation, and wildlife habitat while we can: I have seen to many lost opportunities in my own state. But I realize the funding constraints made full funding of Lands Legacy impossible. Finally, I regret that the bill does not include requested funding for the addition to the Roosevelt Memorial here in Washington that the last Congress authorized, but I hope that can be resolved soon. I will be supporting several amendments that I believe would improve our bill, but again, I urge support for the bill itself.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time. I just want to say a few words in opposition to this bill, and I do so because it is lacking in some very important qualities that we all would hope to see in legislation that deals with this subject. First of all, the bill does nothing to prevent young women from having abortions. It simply puts them at risk, higher risk, for physical harm. Secondly, the bill does nothing at all to educate young women about teenage pregnancy and about the need for responsible family planning. Furthermore, it does nothing to reduce the overall number of abortions, a shared goal of everyone in this House and on both sides of this debate. While we in Congress would like to be able to legislate good parent- child relationships in every family, we ought to know that that is simply beyond our reach. We cannot do it. The truth is most minors do, in fact, involve a parent in the difficult decision to end an unplanned pregnancy, and they should always be encouraged to involve them. Many young women, however, live in households where a parent is absent or, in some cases, even abusive. What we are saying to these young women in this difficult time and under these difficult circumstances is that they are on their own; they are prohibited from enlisting the support or counsel of a trusted friend, another adult or relative. This legislation sends a terrible message to young women that not only is the Congress willing to trample on their constitutional right to medical privacy, it wants to make abortion more dangerous for them. Since the bill contains no prohibition whatsoever against women traveling across State lines to avoid a State's consent requirement, it will lead to more women traveling alone to obtain abortions or to seek unsafe abortions locally wherever they may live. Mr. Speaker, this is simply a bad piece of legislation. The bill's intention may be to increase parental involvement in the difficult decision to seek an abortion, but in reality it will not do so. It will only isolate young women who cannot go to their parents during such a difficult time. Instead of attempting to legislate good family relationships, we here in the House and the Congress should spend more of our time and resources on reducing the necessity of abortions through teenage pregnancy prevention programs and improving access to information and family planning. This is a piece of legislation that is well- intentioned, I am sure, but the effects of it would be counterproductive, dangerous and disastrous to many, many women across our country.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, last week, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board appearing before the Joint Economic Committee hinted broadly that the Federal Reserve is about to raise short-term interest rates. It would be a serious mistake for them to do so. When asked why it was necessary to raise interest rates at this time, the Federal Reserve Chairman was at a loss to give a good reason. The only reason he could point to was that unemployment was now at about 4 percent, and they felt that that was too low. To raise interest rates now would choke off the kind of economic progress that we have been enjoying for the last several years; and, it would create a situation whereby people who are just now beginning to benefit from this economic circumstance would be deprived of the ability to do so. Wages and benefits of the average working people are now just beginning to go up over the course of the last couple of years. The Federal Reserve would cut that off. People who have not been able to find a job up until now are working. The Federal Reserve would cut that off. It is a mistake to raise short-term interest rates, and we need to make it clear to the Federal Reserve that they ought not do so.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, in the 1980s the Reagan administration let antitrust enforcement in the country collapse. With that and the demise of regulation, we have seen predatory pricing, monopoly power and monopoly pricing in the airline industry. For example, in those areas where we find real competition, as opposed to those where it is not, the price where there is no competition is often three to four times the price of where there is competition, covering the same amount of distance. It is quite clear that airlines are taking advantage of a monopoly situation and the ability to price their rides as high as they want to when there is nobody to compete with them. We have to have a system of regulation in our country that regulates airlines in accordance with competition and provides that people who need to travel from one place to another can do that at a fair and reasonable price. Let me just give you one example. To fly from Ithaca, New York to Washington costs $628. If one were to fly the same distance from San Diego to San Francisco, for example, even a little bit less, what someone would pay for the lowest airfare is less than $100. It is quite clear that the system is out of control. Monopoly pricing and monopoly power has led to a system where most people in our country are being deprived of the airline service they need.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma.

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I am searching in the report for the language that would be stricken by this amendment. I am searching in vain. I wonder if the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn) could assist me in finding the line where this item exists. It says, page 13, line 11. However, we cannot seem to find it in the report.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, I want to express my appreciation to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Skeen), the chairman of our subcommittee, for the care and craftsmanship with which he worked to put this bill together. It has been a pleasure to work with him as a member of the Subcommittee on Agriculture. Unfortunately, the constraints within which we have had to operate, constraints imposed by the leadership here in the Congress and traceable directly back to the agriculture bill of 1996, the so-called Freedom to Farm bill, have made it impossible to put together an agriculture appropriations bill here that meets the needs of the agriculture community, the needs of our farmers and the needs of our consumers across the country. As I said, this is directly attributable to the constraints that flow from the so-called Freedom to Farm bill, which is not in fact a Freedom to Farm bill, but in many cases it has been a freedom to fail bill, almost a guarantee of failure. Farm prices in the farm belts all across our country are at near-Depression prices. Farmers are finding themselves in situations that verge on the desperate and in many cases they are in fact desperate. Farmers are being forced out of business because they cannot sell their crops at a price that is higher than the cost that they had to incur for putting those crops in the ground. It is an absolutely impossible situation. We cannot have an agriculture that is sustained in a global economy where other countries are subsidizing their agriculture and making certain creating circumstances within which agricultural people are going to prosper. We have failed to do that. In fact, we have taken all the safeguards that our agricultural community has had away from them. We did so in that Freedom to Farm bill in 1996. We need to go back and correct those mistakes, and we need to do so soon. The longer we wait, the more desperate the circumstances will become. Are we committed to family farms, or do we want farms that are corporate in nature exclusively across this country? Do we want farmers to make a living, or do we want it all to be processors? Do we want to have an agricultural community that is healthy and strong and providing the food and fiber that our people need domestically here to sustain their lives? These are the basic questions that are before us. And, unfortunately, this bill, not through any fault of the chairman or members of the subcommittee, but only because of the constraints imposed upon the subcommittee and constraints in the Freedom to Farm bill have made it impossible to meet these needs this year. We need to go back and meet them and we need to do so soon, intelligently, and thoroughly.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act, I wish to take this opportunity to congratulate the Republic of China on Taiwan and its people on the progress they have made since that time. Taiwan has established itself as a stable political presence in Asia, an important economic power, and proof that democracy can work in Asia. At the time of its enactment, there were some who believed that this new foundation for relations between our countries would not work, that our friendship would dissipate, and that Taiwan would be weakened. But that has not been the case. If anything, I believe our friendship and understanding has strengthened since that time. Taiwan's determination not just to set its own course, but to develop and mature as a nation has grown. Its economic achievements in that time are especially impressive: no other Asian nation was as successful in withstanding the recent economic crisis on that continent. But I continue to believe that its most impressive achievement has been the development of a multi-party democracy, and its readiness to share power among its democratic parties. I wish to extend my congratulations to President Lee Teng-hu--who once resided in my congressional district--on his achievements in office, and also to Representative Stephen S. F. Chen on the capable job he has done as Taiwan's representative here under the Taiwan Relations Act.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. I want to thank the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) very much for yielding to me to discuss this very important issue and also commend him for his leadership on it. I think all the Members of this House who are concerned about health care and particularly the health care of older Americans, and in fact every American who is concerned about this for themselves and for their parents owes him a debt of gratitude for the leadership that he has shown on this critically important issue. Prescription drugs, as we know, are an essential part of health care in America, and they are particularly essential for those who need it the most, and that inevitably is people as they age. As we age, we call upon the health care delivery system much more frequently. The elderly, in fact, spend three times as much of their income on health care as compared to that is which is spent by the average American. Our Nation's largest health care program, Medicare, currently does not provide even a minimal prescription drug benefit. Senior citizens use one-third of all prescriptions that are issued in our country, and yet nearly 40 percent of our seniors have no prescription drug coverage. They, therefore, must incur drug expenditures out of their pocket. Seniors on fixed incomes are the people who can least afford to shell out thousands of dollars a year for drugs on which their health and often their very lives depend. In short, we are asking them to choose often between the necessities of life, often between the basic essentials of life, choices between buying food or buying the medication they need to sustain their health. The irony in all of this is that in many cases the drug manufacturers are charging senior citizens double what they charge their most favored customers, as our colleague pointed out in those charts he showed us a few moments ago. Their favorite customers, of course, are large HMOs, or Federal Government or other large purchasers. The Committee on Government Reform and Oversight minority staff under the gentleman's leadership conducted a study on drug prices in the district that I represent as they did in districts across the country. The study surveyed prices at pharmaceuticals for 10 prescription drugs that are most commonly used by elderly Americans. The average price differential between what the drug companies' most favored customers pay and what a senior citizen in my congressional district in New York that stretches from the Finger Lakes across the Catskill Mountains to the Hudson Valley, the difference between what is paid by HMOs and senior citizens averaged 106 percent. So that is an extraordinary differential. For one drug, Ticlid, the price differential was in fact 270 percent difference. In other words, the senior citizens were paying 270 times what the price was for a person with a member of a large HMO, for example, or someone else who could purchase in bulk. The difference between what seniors pay and what large HMOs pay is not merely result of volume discounts, however. There are other factors that intervene. Compared to the markup on other consumer products, which average around 22 percent, the markup on prescription drugs was much higher, the average markup there being 116 percent. This price markup is coming directly as a result of the markup from the manufacturers. As my colleague pointed out, it is not the corner drug store that is scalping these prices. It is the drug manufacturers themselves that are causing these enormously high prices, and therefore they are the ones who are getting the huge profits. Our Nation's seniors deserve fair treatment. The Prescription Drug Fairness for Seniors Act, which we have introduced under the leadership here of the gentleman from Maine, would help ensure more equal treatment, fairer treatment, and better treatment and healthier treatment for our senior citizens. It would do so by allowing pharmacies to purchase drugs for Medicare beneficiaries at the best price charged by the Federal Government. This bill is estimated to have a benefit to senior citizens in that it will reduce the prices they pay for prescription drugs, as the gentleman has indicated to us in his charts by about 40 percent on average across the board. Each senior citizen will realize a 40 percent saving in the prescription drug prices they require to maintain their health and in some cases their lives. Making prescription drugs more affordable for seniors is a strong first step as we work toward expanding the Medicare program to include a prescription drug benefit. So I want to thank the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) for the leadership that he has shown. The passage of this bill, which he has indicated, is unfortunately at this moment sponsored only by Democrats. If we manage to pass this bill, it is going to mean an enormous saving for every elderly American across the country. So I praise the gentleman for his leadership in this very, very important issue, and I am very pleased to join with him in cosponsoring this bill, and he and I and all the others of us that are working so hard to get it passed will succeed, this bill will succeed, and the beneficiaries will be elderly Americans all across our country.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, I offer amendment No. 4.

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. As I understand it, the gentleman is offering an amendment to my amendment which would strike paragraph (2) of section 304(b) as proposed to be added by the amendment; is that correct?

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, because of recent activities by a certain member of the Spanish judiciary, the attention of the world has once again been directed at the events which took place in Chile beginning in September of 1973 with the assassination of the duly-elected president of that country, Salvador Allende, and the subsequent ascension to power of General Augusto Pinochet to become the President of the Republic of Chile. In the course of those events, it has been alleged in responsible venues over and over again in the intervening now more than 25 years that very inappropriate actions were taken by members of the Chilean military, assisted by others, including members of the military of the United States. I have an amendment which requires that no later than 120 days after the date of the enactment of this act, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees which are mentioned in the amendment a report describing all activities of officers, covert agents, and employees of all elements of the intelligence community with respect to the following events in the Republic of Chile: One, the assassinations of President Salvador Allende in September of 1973; Two, the ascension of General Augusto Pinochet to the presidency of the Republic of Chile; and Three, the violations of human rights committed by officers or agents of former President Pinochet. The report submitted under this subsection shall include copies of unedited documents in the possession of any such element of the intelligence community with respect to such events. Mr. Chairman, I think that after the passage of all of this time, it is appropriate that the United States Congress and the people of the United States and the people of the world understand with much greater clarity than they have been able to up to this moment the specific events which took place in Chile which led to the assassination of the duly-elected president and the ascension of power by a military junta. It is important for us to understand these events because it is important for us to take action to ensure that these kinds of illegal activities do not occur in the future. So therefore, I offer this amendment with all respect in the hopes that the Members of the House and the chairman particularly, the chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, will see fit to look upon it favorably.

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss), the chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and I am happy to accept his amendment to my amendment. Amendment Offered By Mr. Goss to Amendment No. 4 Offered By Mr. Hinchey

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of legislation authored by my friend and colleague, Mr. Kucinich of Ohio. The Truth in Rock Act would protect rock and roll's early heroes from the victimization of imitators by changing the trademark laws that allow the imposters to get away with it. Under current trademark law, the original members of performing groups cannot use the names that made them famous without risking copyright infringement. But the original artists can be replaced by imposter performers who make recordings and sell concert tickets under their names. You can buy a concert ticket to see the Drifters or the Coasters perform this summer. You'll be surprised to see on stage performers who are not the original Drifters or Coasters. You won't be listening to the memorable voices of those legendary artists; you'll be listening to their imitators. The law allows the imposters to perform as the Drifters or the Coasters. Under that same law, the original members of the Drifters and the Coasters cannot mention their past affiliation with these bands. This is a widespread practice that takes advantage of recording artists and consumers. The Truth in Rock Act corrects this inequity by permitting original recording artists to seek damages from the imposters. More importantly, it gives the original members of rock bands the right to advertise their ties to the groups they founded. Tomorrow night I'll be joining a group of legendary recording artists who have been victimized by the trademark laws. These musicians are working hard to raise awareness on this issue and I'm proud to join them. They deserve the support of this Congress.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. Last year when the appropriation bills were folded into an omnibus bill, the majority here added a long list of anti-environmental riders. They could not get those proposals through on their own merits, but they tried to hold funding for all Federal programs and services hostage to those riders. They figured that their opponents in Congress would be forced to swallow them, and that the President would agree to accept them to keep other programs operating. But the President did not accept them. He insisted that they be taken out of the appropriations bill before he would sign it. That surprised the people who wrote the riders. The factor they did not count on in their strategy was the Vice President of the United States, Al Gore. The President relies on Al Gore for advice on environmental matters, and it was Al Gore who said no, we cannot allow these things to happen. We have to take a stand. We have to take a stand, so that the riders faded away. Let me give some examples of what Al Gore would not allow. He said no to proposals that would have blocked the EPA from conducting research or educational activities on global warming, a gag rule to block even a discussion of what may be the most serious environmental problem of our time. He said no to a proposal that would have blocked clean-up of toxic PCBs, even in places where children could be affected. The Vice President said no to proposals that would have blocked the EPA from reducing children's exposure to pesticides, and we now know that pesticides pose a much greater risk to children than they do to others, much more than we thought. He said no to proposals that would have canceled environmental reviews on timber sales, where logging could threaten wildlife. He said no to a proposal to build a road through the middle of a migratory bird refuge, a place that is supposed to be wilderness. He said no to proposals that would have required uneconomical logging that would have permanent damage to one of our most pristine forests. He said no to proposals that would have barred EPA from trying to improve air quality in our national parks. Because Al Gore took a firm stand, those proposals were blocked. He has stood with us when we blocked efforts to roll back 25 years of work on cleaning up our rivers. He stood with us when we blocked efforts that would have prohibited EPA from doing more to clean up the air that we all breathe. He stood with us on protecting children's health from asthma caused by airborne pollution, illness caused by food poisoning, and pesticide poisoning, permanent damage caused by toxic wastes let loose in the environment. The Vice President stood with us on all those issues. The American people want clean air and water. They want freedom from pollution and contamination. They want protection of our beautiful public lands and forests, and they want protection for our wildlife. Al Gore wants them, too, and he wants all of them to have them as well. He is willing to stand up and fight for it to see that they get it. He has been a very big help by having the courage to say no and to mean it. I am looking forward to seeing what he can do when he gets the opportunity to say yes.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Madam Speaker, it seems to me that one of the hallmarks of this majority since they have resumed that responsibility in this House has been a clearer suspicion of democratic rule and a denial of democratic principles. The first indication of that was in the campaign of 1994 when we heard so many of them talk about the need for term limits, not trusting the voters to make judgments about whether or not people should be elected to office. They wanted people to be restricted to the number of terms that they could run. Now they seem to have had a different attitude about that. Now that the time period has run out, many of them are reconsidering that whole business. But now we have something new here, another denial of democracy, denial of majority rule. They want to create a circumstance whereby it takes two-thirds rather than a simple majority to pass an important measure, a tax measure, in the House of Representatives. If we were to begin that process, obviously we would start down a road that is going to lead us to a place where we are going to be not a democracy but a plutocracy, a government run by a handful of people, a diminishing number of people, plutocratic rule. That seems to be the hallmark of the Republican majority in the House of Representatives. We believe in democratic principles. We believe in the right of the majority. We believe in democratic rule and we believe in majority rule. And that is why our opposition to this rule and to this bill is so solid and so firm. Let us not deny democracy and move toward plutocracy. Let us keep the democratic principles upon which this country is based and keep simple majority rule in order to pass important measures in this Congress.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, I would first like to turn my attention to the presentation which was made just a few moments ago by the chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, the gentleman from New Jersey, in which he showed the decline in inflation and job loss since 1992 and 1993. That was an interesting presentation, but what it lacked was the other side of the picture. It focused only on monetary policy. As we know, fiscal policy is intertwined with monetary policy and in this particular case led the monetary policy. When the President gave his presentation here, the budget resolution in 1993, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve sat up in that chair right in the middle there and gave his imprimatur to what the President was trying to do that year. That budget resolution was in fact responsible for driving down inflation and driving down employment and giving us the extraordinarily successful economy that we currently enjoy. The budget resolution currently before us, however, threatens to end all of that. It threatens to end it by returning to the fiscal irresponsibility which preceded public policy, fiscal policy particularly in our country prior to the passage of that budget resolution in 1993. It does so by pretending to do certain things it does not do, by pretending to protect Social Security, by pretending to protect Medicare and in fact Medicare is going to be in serious jeopardy if this budget resolution passes. It does so, also, by advancing a series of very irresponsible tax cuts which grow out exponentially in future years. Those tax cuts will threaten other essential parts of our budget process which are very important to the American people, things like Head Start, like public health programs, job training, housing, law enforcement, environmental programs, national parks will be put in jeopardy, community and economic development programs will have to be sharply reduced, rural programs, energy, agriculture, biomedical research and others will suffer if this budget resolution passes. That is why we should defeat this resolution and pass the Democratic alternative.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, it is quite clear that this Republican budget has many and serious deficiencies. It is also true of the rule. The rule, for example, will not allow us to direct our attention to the needs of American veterans. The rule does not allow us to have an amendment come to the floor which will allow us to debate the issue of health care for American veterans. The rule does not allow us to provide very drastically needed additional funds to provide for the health care for the men and women who went to war for this country. Why do the Republicans refuse to allow us the opportunity to provide adequately for American veterans? It is a tiny amount of money that is needed. It will not disrupt the budget. Please, I implore my colleagues, make in order as part of the rule an amendment which will allow us to debate the issue of veterans' health care and finally allow us to provide the funds that are necessary to provide for the health care of American veterans at veterans' hospitals across this country.

Mr. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, these are two critically important deficiencies in this supplemental bill. We have before us some genuine emergencies as a result of the hurricanes and the devastation that those hurricanes caused, genuine emergencies. We have an emergency also in our agricultural community across the country. We should respond to those emergencies in the spirit of emergency. They are serious problems. They need to be dealt with, and they need to be dealt with now. But instead of doing that, we have a bill before us which has within it an extraordinarily high political quotient. It is not designed to deal with the emergencies. It is designed to play a little bit of politics and to play some politics with the administration particularly. I beg my colleagues, please, on behalf of the farmers of our country, on behalf of our national security, change this bill, support with us the Obey amendment. Do not take the rescissions from the multilateral development banks. Do not take the rescissions from the money that is required to buy 50 tons of weapons grade plutonium from the Russians. Let us help agriculture truly, and let us improve our national security by taking those provisions out of this supplemental appropriations bill. Mr. Chairman, I very much support the Obey amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt).

Mr. HINCHEY. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. HINCHEY. I yield to the gentleman from Kansas.