Duncan Hunter

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 151, I call up the bill (H.R. 1569) to prohibit the use of funds appropriated to the Department of Defense from being used for the deployment of ground elements of the United States Armed Forces in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia unless that deployment is specifically authorized by law, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the very distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman). (Mr. GILMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Bateman), a member of the committee.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss). (Mr. Chambliss asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to introduce a bill that will benefit millions of Americans directly, substantially and quickly, including most notably single mothers and students. Furthermore, this legislation will lift some of the heavy burden of government off of thousands of small businesses. My bill is very simple. It calls a tip what it is: a gift. All tips earned, not to exceed $10,000 annually, would be tax-free. This puts hundreds of dollars a month back where it belongs, with the individual who earned it. Those who work in the service sector, who rely principally on tips for their income, work in a system transacted largely in cash. Accounting for small amounts of cash for income tax purposes is not only unworkable, it is unenforceable even if a paperwork scheme could somehow be conceived. Small amounts of cash, received through hundreds and hundreds of transactions, and almost never while standing behind a cash register, should not be taxable. Washington bureaucrats lack an understanding as to just how impractical the present system is to all those who labor so hard for their tips. The system simply breaks down. Tips cannot possibly be reported accurately, and law-abiding citizens who work for tips do not wish to be labeled cheaters by people who don't understand the realities of their work. It is time to change that. My bill caps the tax-free earnings of those who make waiting on tables a career in high-end restaurants and resorts, at $10,000. But for the 95 percent of those in the service sector who work for tips, it's time to change the tax law covering income from tips. Under current law, service employees who typically earn tips are assumed to have made at least 8 percent of their gross sales in tips. This tax is applied regardless of the actual level of the tip. Further, if the service personnel earns more than 8 percent in tips they are expected to report them accordingly. The end result for these employees, many of whose base salaries do not exceed minimum wage, is that they may have to pay taxes on income they didn't receive. In addition, accounting for tips and gross sales is a burden on every restaurant, bar or other small business whose employees are regularly tipped. They are constantly under threat of an audit, where the IRS will hold their business responsible if the agency determines tip skimming to have occurred. By putting in place a reasonable annual cap and strictly defining a tip, this tax relief bill is clearly focused on low- to middle-income households. According to the industries involved, most of the employees that will be helped are either students or single mothers. In addition, most of the employees are at the beginning of their careers. Those in the service sector who rely on tips for their income are a special breed of people. Those who work for tips see a direct relationship between effort and reward like few others. Night after night, day after day, weekend after weekend, the millions of bell hops, valet parking attendants, coat checkers, taxi drivers, hairdressers, bartenders, waiters and waitresses are on the job, working hard and providing vital services to people of every walk of life. Let us give a break to those who labor so hard for their living. Let's show them, for a change, that the Federal Government is not so out of touch, and has some understanding of life for so many, especially during their younger years in entry level jobs. I hope other Members will join with me in this common sense proposal that will help millions of hard-working Americans.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I thank my friend for yielding this time to me. Our folks in the Armed Services need more ammunition, they need spare parts for readiness, they need better equipment, and they need better pay. They have told us what we need and what they need, and we should give it to them. There is not a budget here that gives them everything that they have requested for this year. Nobody's budget does that. But the Republican budget comes closer than anybody else. It gives 8 billion more in spending authority for the troops, and it gives 3 billion more in outlays. Mr. Chairman, that means if my colleagues vote for the Republican budget, we are going to have better pay for our troops, we are going to have more spare parts, we are going to have a better chance of them coming home alive. My colleagues should vote for the Republican budget if they care about defense.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, in a couple of minutes we are going to tell these wonderful people who protect America, our uniformed service personnel, how much we respect them. We are going to tell them that with this vote. But in the next several weeks, we are going to have a chance to show them how much we support them and how much we respect them. I hope every Member here will vote to close that 13\1/2\ percent pay gap that exists between them and the private sector, and help to get those 10,000 service personnel off food stamps. I hope every Member here will vote for a defense budget and for supplemental budgets to pay for that $1.7 billion worth of ammo that we are short in the Army, and to pay for the equipment that our personnel need, and to pay for some of the spare parts we need to get those planes off the ground that right now are grounded. These are our finest citizens, and I hope in the next several weeks we are going to show that and demonstrate that in the best way we know how. That is when we vote to support them.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I think there is one thing that housewives and our other citizens across the Nation need to know, because I have sat in focus groups and listened to them say over and over again that they thought that there was a defense. And interestingly, the mothers of this Nation seem to be the most outraged when the moderator tells them, no, there is no defense. They say, ``Well, that's outrageous. Of course our country has a defense against incoming ballistic missiles.'' Now, it has been argued over and over that we have spent $120 billion and we have not produced or built any system. Well, that is because every bill that we have put forward that has authorized expenditure of money has specifically kept that money from going toward production. We have said in every authorization bill and every appropriation bill, you can research, you can do all kinds of analysis, you can't build anything. So now the opponents of national missile defense say, well, we haven't built anything. Well, that is right, and that is why the bill of the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) is on the floor today, to move the country forward in a unified manner and build something. And for those folks like the gentlewoman who just spoke who say that they will rely on mutually assured destruction, the problem that we have now is that it appears that there are certain people on this globe like Mr. Khadafi who will take that bet. They will go along with mutually assured destruction. Mr. Khadafi has said that if he had the missiles when we backed him down in the Gulf of Sidra, he would have fired on New York City. Unfortunately, because of arms sales and the proliferation of missile technology, Mr. Khadafi may well soon have the ability to carry out what he has stated that he will do. Now, can we hit a bullet with a bullet? Well, yes we have done that. In fact, when Adolf Hitler fired the first missiles, those slow cruise missiles that he called buzz bombs at London in World War II, within a few weeks we designed a system to hit those slow-moving bullets with other bullets, with real bullets, and shoot them down. When we had American troops shot at by those Scuds, which are ballistic missiles, we hit those bullets with bullets, albeit slow bullets, we shot them down. Can we shoot down faster bullets? Absolutely. With a computing power that is millions of times above what it was just 10 or 12 or 15 years ago, of course we have that capability. But as long as we have conditions in our authorization bills that say you can research and develop forever but don't ever build anything, of course we never will build anything. Finally, every time a threatening system has come before this country, has faced this country, whether it was the advent of the machine gun, or the tank, or radar, or enemy aircraft, we have built defend against those systems to protect our people. If we do not build a system to defend against incoming ballistic missiles, we will have turned down that most important duty for the first time in our history.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. My colleagues, we have a time in the oversight committee when the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs appear before the House Committee on Armed Services as they appear before a number of committees. Sitting there with the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spence) and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) and the other members of the committee, I usually ask as a first question, this question of our Secretary of Defense. I ask, ``Could you stop, could the United States of America stop a single incoming ballistic missile today should it be coming in at an American city?'' The answer is always ``no.'' And yet most Americans think that we do have some kind of a defense. Interestingly, if the Russian defense minister was sitting there at the witness table, he would be able to say ``yes,'' because the Russians do have missile defenses. They have the defenses that are allowed by the ABM treaty. They have interceptors which are tipped with nuclear devices that can go off when incoming missiles come in proximity of their cities that they have decided to protect under the ABM system. They also have what are known as SA-10 and SA-12 missile defense systems which they advertise in open literature as having capability against not only airplanes but ballistic missiles. They, like a lot of other people in the world, understand something that the Weldon bill tries to make us understand, and that is this: We live in an age of missiles. Back in the 1920s, Billy Mitchell tried to prove to us that we lived in an age of air power. To do that, he sank a number of ships, American ships, and I believe one large German ship that had been captured. It infuriated the U.S. Navy because the U.S. Navy wanted to live in the past and they did not want anything that threatened the funding for their battleships and they thought that air power would do that. And so Billy Mitchell was a great advocate for air power. He argued for the development of air power by the United States, we refused to develop it in a timely way, and we paid to some degree the price for that in World War II. But his argument to some degree did get a few wheels spinning and we had more in World War II than we would have had if Billy Mitchell had not gone out there, ultimately getting court-martialed for the crime of saying that the United States was not ready for a conflict. Well, today we live in an age of missiles. And for my friends that act like it is an impossible thing to shoot down a missile with a missile, that is not true. The missiles that came in on the American troops in Desert Storm and killed a number of them were ballistic missiles. They were slow ballistic missiles. But we did shoot down some of those ballistic missiles with our Patriot missile batteries. We have now upgraded those. So we have shot down the slower ballistic missiles. Our adversaries are making faster and faster missiles. My point is that we have shot down already the slower ballistic missiles and, yes, we do have the capability, if we decide to deploy. Now, the other side throws this back at us. They say we have spent $120 billion and we have not deployed anything. Well, that is because we have always spent that money under the condition that nothing could be deployed and now it is thrown back in our face that we have not deployed. The Weldon bill mandates deployment. It puts us all on the same page, it gives us a national purpose, and hopefully we will move forward and defend America.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, this situation, regardless of which route we take, stay out or go in, has potential dangers. Many people have argued that going in is going to cause more of a conflagration than if we stayed out. There are good intellects on both sides of the debate. It is a very difficult debate. It is a very close question, I think. I am going to support the base bill. I think in the end the organization that we created, NATO, that we have always been the guts, the leadership of, that was put together to handle then the Soviet Union, has a role in this post-Cold War environment in keeping stability in Europe. If we do not participate in this operation, and it is a very dangerous operation, one in which I think we may take casualties, I think NATO will dissolve as a real entity. It may be a debating society, it may have a location, but I think that NATO will dissolve, and maybe the stability that NATO could bring to Europe over the long haul will be gone. So I am going to support the base resolution. All of the dangers that we see and all of the problems with this deployment or with the nondeployment are things that we really cannot do much about. We cannot change the situation, the political situation, in Kosovo. We cannot change the military offsets. We can do something by participating in this force. There is something we can do something about. That is to provide our men and women who carry out American foreign policy after debates like this one the wherewithal to be effective. We, the government of the United States, have not been doing that. Let me show the Members what we have been doing. Since Desert Storm, we have cut our military almost in half. We have gone from 18 army divisions to only 10; 546 naval ships to only 325 now. We have cut another 20 since this chart was put together. We have gone from 24 fighter air wings to only 13 fighter air wings, cut our air power almost in half. Our mission capability, that is the capability of our aircraft to fly off of their runways or off their carrier decks, like the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham) used to, to fulfill our mission, whether bombing or recon or something else and return to that home base, that mission capability that I want 83 percent in the Air Force has now dropped to 74 percent. It used to be 77 percent in the Marine Corps. It is now down to 61 percent. Mission capability used to be 69 percent in the Air Force, it is now 61 percent. A lot of our planes are hanging around as old hangar queens. They are like old hay balers that we are taking spare parts off of so the few we have left on the runway will work. Military aircraft crashes. I can tell the Members, we are now crashing more aircraft, some 55 in the last 13 months, 14 months, than we are building, along with the 55 Americans who died as pilots and crews in those crashes. Equipment shortages. We are building, and President Clinton's defense budget continues that this year, if we follow it, we are building to a 200-ship Navy, down from 600 ships. The marines are $193 million short in basic ammunition. The Army is short about $1.6 billion in ammunition. We have aging equipment. We are living off the old equipment of the Reagan years. Our CH-46 helicopter is over 40 years old. The Clinton administration intends to fly B-52 bombers with no replacement until they are 80 years old. Personnel shortages, we are 18,000 sailors short in the Navy. We are going to be over 700 pilots short in the Air Force. We are going to be short in marine aviation, and we are down about 140 helicopter pilots in the Army. Here is something we have not been paying attention to. We have a 13.5 percent pay gap between the people who wear the uniform and the people in the private sector. I want to ask all of the patriotic folks who have gotten up and spoken about going into Kosovo, and I am going to vote to go into Kosovo, to really support our troops. I am going to give the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Gejdenson) a substitute amendment that says, let us support them with a pay raise, with new equipment, by building military construction to house their families while they are gone, and maybe we will even give them a little ammunition go. Let us support the troops.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, the Joint Chiefs have done something this year that they have not done in a long time. I think it is because the services are desperate, they are desperate for help. The 10,000 uniformed service men and women on food stamps are desperate for help. They have told us what they need. The Army has come forth and said, we need an additional $5 billion a year just to maintain this downsized military of 10 divisions. The Navy has come forth and said, to maintain 305 ships, we need an additional $6 billion a year. The Air Force has said, to maintain this downsized Air Force of only 13 active fighter wings, we need an additional $5 billion a year. The marines have said that to maintain this downsized Marine Corps, that now has the highest operating tempo of any time since World War II, we need an additional $1.75 billion a year. They said that on top of that they need a pay raise for our troops, to start cutting into that 13\1/2\ percent pay gap. If we add those together, and if we add the cost of Bosnia, which we should not take out of ammunition and operations and maintenance, that is $21.95 billion or $22 billion a year more that our service people need to be well-equipped and well-paid to serve our country. So however Members vote on these resolutions, and let me really commend the brilliant gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Tillie Fowler). I wish I could support her amendment. I think her conditions are excellent. But I am going to support the base bill. However Members vote on this, we should follow up very quickly with a series of votes, manifested in our budget and in supplemental appropriations bills, to provide our military what they need, so they can provide us what we need.

Mr. HUNTER. I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the outstanding service and dedication of two of my constituents, Quentin and Ellen Burke of Imperial County. It is my understanding that Mr. and Mrs. Burke will be retiring after working for 34 years with the American Field Service (AFS), the international student exchange program. Mr. and Mrs. Burke, who were publishers of the Holtville Tribune for 25 years, began their dedicated service to AFS in 1964 when they interviewed a visiting student, Helen Keel, from Switzerland and became excited about the program. Soon thereafter, they began to regularly print articles and photographs in their weekly newspaper regarding AFS activities and events. For 15 years, Ellen acted as liaison between the Imperial Valley chapter and AFS international. During the past three decades, Quentin and Ellen Burke have served as hosts for foreign students, worked with local families to open their homes and encouraged American students to travel abroad for the opportunity and experience to learn about other lands and cultures. I firmly believe that through their efforts with AFS, Mr. and Mrs. Burke have made a contribution to promoting peace through the global exchange of ideas, the sharing of customs and the collaboration of knowledge. On March 21, friends and family will gather in El Centro to honor this generous and caring couple. I would like to join with these individuals in honoring Mr. and Mrs. Burke for all their remarkable achievements and wishing them great happiness and success in all their future endeavors.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, all of us have heard from constituents in our districts who are frustrated with the process by which the federal government provides compensation to landowners for the private property it acquires through condemnation proceedings. As you know, federal agencies obtain property for all types of reasons, from community and infrastructure development to environmental concerns. Unfortunately, the problem is that this procedure often takes years to complete. Though legally the property owner may develop their property during this process, realistically they are discouraged from doing so. It is for this reason that I am introducing The Prompt Compensation Act. Currently, the federal government has two available procedures to obtain private property. The first is ``straight condemnation'', wherein a federal agency requests that the Justice Department file a ``complaint in compensation'' with a district court. It is the court's responsibility to ascertain the value of the land, utilizing testimony from the federal agency, the property owners and the appropriate appraisers. Once the court has come to a decision, the federal government has the option of compensating the property owner with the adjudicated price, or moving for a dismissal. The landowner is compensated only if the federal government accepts the adjudicated price. Though the federal government forfeits its interest in the property if it moves for a dismissal, the property owner has been deprived of time, revenue and, in some cases, overall value in their land. It is important to remember that not until a judgment is rendered does the United States obtain title and possession of the property. The second and more expeditious procedure is commonly referred to as ``quick take.'' This is utilized in instances where waiting for a court decision before taking possession of the property is not acceptable. In this procedure, the United States assumes title of the property immediately, or at any time before judgment, by simply filing a ``declaration of taking'' along with the complaint in condemnation and depositing with the court an amount of money equal to the estimated value of the land. Normal protocol is then followed, with the court ascertaining the value of the property, and the balance is issued to the landowner. The Prompt Compensation Act will require the federal government to deposit with the court an amount equal to the estimated value of the land within 90 days or it must forfeit its interest in the property, thus making the ``quick take'' procedure the only alternative available. The Prompt Compensation Act will make a significant impact in curbing the takings authority of the federal government, while at the same time, strengthening the private property rights of America's landowners. I urge all my colleagues to join me in this important endeavor.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I just want to say to my friend that I think he has stated the issue very well, and I look forward to hundreds of our colleagues coming on board this effort, as many of them already have, and making sure that we succeed.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for that great introduction, one of the best I have ever had, but I have to confess I did nothing special in Vietnam, and it was just that I happened to show up, like many people over there. I want to thank my friend who really was a combat veteran and who was nominated for the Congressional Medal of Honor and the only member of the Navy to have shot down five MIGs and become an ace in the Vietnam conflict. I am just his wing man in this operation. I want to thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Sweeney) for his very eloquent remarks, and I want to thank him also for the participation of his father in two of our conflicts. I think that goes to this issue. The flag is a piece of property. It is property that represents freedom, represents sacrifice, represents in many cases the ultimate sacrifice, that is, the giving of one's life. If my colleagues see the great movie that is out now, ``Saving Private Ryan,'' it is evident that that sacrifice in many cases was enormous. So every American owns a piece of the flag, and that is a problem with burning it. When one is burning it, one is really burning some of the property that belongs to every American, and we do not have the right to do that. For those who would say that burning the flag represents speech, I think that Chief Justice Rehnquist made the right observation, and I would paraphrase his words, when he said, ``Burning the flag is not a political statement. It is not speech. It is an inarticulate grunt.'' I think that is true. Look at all of the ways that one can communicate now with others, whether one is communicating with a large body of people or communicating just with another individual. One not only has all of the classic methods of communication, of speaking to people and, in this century, talking over the telephone, now talking over the electronic media, radio, television, one now has computers. One now has e-mail. There have never been as many methods of speaking, of communicating as we have today because of high technology. So why do we have to say that we are going to characterize this inarticulate grunt, this burning, putting the torch to something, why are we going to classify that as speech? In fact, I thought that speech was supposed to take the place of burning, of destruction, of destroying something to make a point. That is the whole point of speech. Speech is the alternative. The idea that some people can only manifest their feeling about their country by burning a piece of this property that really belongs to all of us because of the joint and common American sacrifice that has touched almost every single family that lives in this land does not make any sense. So, Mr. Speaker, I think that we are following exactly the right course here in following the lead of the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Sweeney), that lead that was initiated by Jerry Solomon, a great Member of this House of Representatives, and also supported by another great patriotic gentleman who used to stand here many times with us, Bob Dornan, who flew every single airplane that the U.S. military ever made and who loved our flag and stood in front of and stood every time that flag went by, whether it was a parade or any other type of event and who used to offer very articulate arguments on behalf of the flag in this Chamber. So let us move forward on this. Also, I wanted to mention, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Livingston) is leaving today. And watching the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham) make some comments about the gentleman from Louisiana in his testimonial today reminded me that the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Livingston) was another individual who supported this amendment very strongly and has been a great Member of this House. I know that this is his wish that we pass this amendment to protect the American flag. So the United States is not just made of the stock market and tax cuts and the latest movie and all of the things that other people around the world think represents America. It is also made of tradition and a legacy of a lot of people, many of whom knew America for only a short period of time. If one goes over to the Arlington Cemetery, one will notice a lot of people that were killed in America's wars that did not spend much time in this country before they were killed and did not get to have that piece of enjoyment. But the idea that this flag is part of their legacy, part of that tradition and that it represents property, a little bit of which is owned by every single American family, that is a good fundamental principle upon which we should act to protect the American flag with this piece of legislation and ultimately with this amendment. So I want to thank my good friend. I want to thank him also for his great service to this country in a very difficult time and his hard work. I know one thing about the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham) and that is he is tenacious. He will have the rest of us up here working away, pushing away on this amendment until we get this thing passed.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the outstanding life of a friend from my district, Mrs. Ruby ``Alice'' Finn of Campo, California. Alice recently passed away and I would like to take a moment to commend the dedication she had for her family and country. Alice married John W. Finn in 1933 while he was serving in the U.S. Navy. They were stationed all over the country and world, including San Diego, Alaska, Hawaii, Panama, Japan and China. On December 7, 1941, John was a Chief Aviation Ordnanceman at Kaneohe Bay on the windward side of Oahu, when the Japanese military attacked on their way to Pearl Harbor. During this attack, John was seriously wounded but refused medical treatment and would not leave his position until ordered to do so, earning him the prestigious Congressional Medal of Honor. With Alice by his side, John was given this honor by Admiral Chester Nimitz aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise, making her the first woman ever allowed aboard a ``U.S. Man of War'' during a wartime situation and in a war zone. Alice stayed with John during the remainder of his tour of duty in Hawaii working as a military mail-censor. Alice and John came to the beautiful backcountry of San Diego in 1958. On their ranch, they raised one son and took the time to help those in need by serving as foster parents to several of the local Native-American Indian children who were alone. When Alice passed away this last December, she was laid to rest in this area amongst the surroundings she helped make beautiful and near the people she loved. Mr. Speaker, in a time where indifference is often chosen over concern, Alice exemplified the meaning of caring for those around you. Whether it be standing beside her husband during time of war or reaching out to those in need, Alice was a person who put others before herself. Thank you Alice for giving us an example of the type of person we all should strive to be.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, national defense is in crisis. We are going to be 18,000 sailors short this year in the U.S. Navy. We are going to be 700 pilots short in the Air Force. We are short on basic ammunition in the Army and the Marine Corps. Our equipment is aging. And we have an inadequate budget. We have a budget which is $150 billion less on an annual basis than the Reagan budgets of the mid-1980s. Now, we do not have to go back up to the Reagan budgets because the Cold War is over, but we do have to add an additional $20 billion this year. The President has only offered $4 billion of that $20 billion that the services request. Now is the time to rebuild national defense and this is the House to do it.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on an issue that is of great concern to many Americans, abortion. Every year, approximately 1.5 million innocent babies are intentionally killed because of abortion. This represents 4,000 times a day that an unborn child is taken from its mother's womb and denied the opportunity to live. In some instances, these babies are killed moments before taking their first breath. Section I of the Fourteenth Amendment to our Constitution clearly states that no State shall ``deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.'' I wholeheartedly believe that these constitutional rights should include our nation's unborn children. Mr. Speaker, in the landmark case of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court refused to determine when human life begins and therefore found nothing to indicate that the unborn are persons protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. In the decision, however, the Court did concede that, ``If the suggestion of personhood is established, the appellants' case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment.'' Considering Congress has the constitutional authority to uphold the Fourteenth Amendment, coupled by the fact that the Court admitted that if personhood were to be established, the unborn would be protected, it can be concluded that we have the authority to determine when life begins. It is for this reason that today I am introducing the Right to Life Act. This legislation does what the Supreme Court refused to do in Roe v. Wade and recognizes the personhood of the unborn for the purpose of enforcing four important provisions in the Constitution: (1) Sec. I of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibiting states from depriving any person of life; (2) Sec. 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment providing Congress the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this amendment; (3) the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment, which concurrently prohibits the federal government from depriving any person of life; and (4) Article I, Section 8, giving Congress the power to make laws necessary and proper to enforce all powers in the Constitution. The Right to Life Act will protect millions of future children by prohibiting any state or federal law that denies the personhood of the unborn, thereby effectively overturning Roe v. Wade. I urge my colleagues to join me in this very important endeavor.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the outstanding service and dedication Mr. Merrill P. Richardson, Jr. has made to his family, community and country. Merrill has recently retired and I would like to take a moment to commend all his hard work and achievements. A native of Brewer, Maine, Merrill committed himself to serving our country early on by joining the National Guard at the age of sixteen. One year later, Merrill enlisted in the U.S. Army and began a career that took him all over the U.S. and the world, including South Korea, West Germany, Turkey, Vietnam and England. It was here that Merrill met and married his wife of 40 years, Elizabeth. Merrill served our country faithfully and honorably and upon retirement had earned, among several honors and decorations, the Good Conduct Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal, the RNV Civil Action Medal, the Vietnam Service Medal, the National Defense Service Medal and the Bronze Star. After being honorably discharged from the service, Merrill began a second career at Kansas State University where he worked for 20 years before retiring. Currently, Merrill is living in St. George, Kansas with Elizabeth and enjoying life with his five children Linda, Merrill III, Jeffrey, Christina and Steven, nine grandchildren and one great- grandchild. In a time where the concepts of family and dedication are becoming more and more trivialized, people like Merrill offer hope and assurance to us all. Merrill has shown that the ideals of hard work and patriotism are not old-fashioned, but qualities of strength and character. I would like to join with many others in honoring Merrill for all his remarkable achievements and wishing him great happiness and success in all his future endeavors.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to respond to the President's presentation of his defense budget to the U.S. Congress. We listened to Secretary of Defense Cohen today as he made this presentation to us, and explained to us that we are in fact, according to him, increasing defense for the first time in many years. I think it is important to respond to Secretary Cohen and to the President, because otherwise I think the American people will be somewhat misled with respect to his presentation. First, we are not, I repeat, not, increasing the defense budget of the Clinton administration. The Clinton administration has cut defense since they took over in 1992 by $102 billion below what President Bush had planned for our country when he sat down with Colin Powell and other defense leaders. So he put together a blueprint for where he thought defense should go, and President Clinton, when he took over, decided to cut that blueprint by $102 billion. So now he is coming up slightly in this year's budget with a $12 billion increase. I say it is $12 billion, even though they averaged a $112 billion increase, because the last half or two-thirds of that increase is not during his presidency. That means that he is giving us a recommendation that defense be increased by some other president some other time. That means some president who is elected, who is out there in the year 2004, 2005, is, according to the recommendation of President Clinton, going to increase defense, but I do not think the American people nor the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States can count on that increase. All we can count on President Clinton doing is what he is capable of doing and has the legitimate right to do under his presidency. So let us focus on that. If we look at Ronald Reagan's defense budgets back in 1986 and compare them with today's, our defense budget today is well over $100 billion less on an annual basis than it was in 1986. It is way under what it was in 1986. Let us look at what has happened as a result of these defense cuts. First, Mr. Speaker, let me speak a little bit about what is happening with respect to mission capable rates. The mission capable rates are the rates at which your aircraft can fly out, fly from their carrier or from their home base, do their mission, and return to the United States or return to their home base. That rate in 1991 was 83 percent for the Air Force. It is now down to 74 percent. It was 69 percent for the Navy. It is now down to 61 percent. For the Marine Corps it was 77 percent and it is now down to 61 percent. That means that under the Clinton administration, the ability of our aircraft, for some reason, whether it is lack of pilot training, lack of pilots, lack of spare parts, lack of fuel, our aircraft are not able to rise off their carrier deck or rise off of their air base, go out and do their mission, and return home like they were just a few years ago. That is a very serious problem with our ability to project military power. Mr. Speaker, let me talk about our equipment shortages a little bit. I am the chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Procurement. I looked at the President's military budget for this year. That budget calls for a six-ship building program this year. Now, Navy ships have a life of 30 to 35 years, so that means that the President's budget is building toward a fleet of only 200 ships. When he came in we had 546 naval vessels. Now we are down to about 325. If we keep building at this low rate, we are going to be down to 200 ships in our Navy. With respect to ammunition, we are $1,600,000,000 short in basic ammunition for the U.S. Army. We are $193 million short in ammunition for the Marine Corps. With respect to equipment our CH46s are 40 years old, our AAVs average about 26 years old. We have many, many pieces of equipment, right down to Jeeps and trucks and tanks, that are extremely old. Basically, we are living on what we had during Ronald Reagan's presidency, and we haven't replaced that equipment. Now, the interesting thing is that most Americans have looked at the old pictures on television of our air strikes during Desert Storm, and they have the impression that we are able to wage a war like we waged in Desert Storm just a few years ago, but we are not able to do that. The reason we are not able to do that is because we do not have the equipment and the force structure that we had just a couple of years ago. We have cut our military almost in half. That is, we had 18 army divisions in 1992. We are now down to 10. We had 546 ships during Desert Storm. We are now down to about 325. We have 346 on this poster. They have actually retired more ships since we made the poster. Active airwings were down from 24 airwings to only 13. If we include reserve airwings, we are down from 36 to only 20. What we have done under this administration is we have cut America's force structure of our Armed Forces almost in half. The tragedy is, Mr. Speaker, that while we have cut it in half, the half that we have left is not ready. It is not ready to fight. Mr. Speaker, let me get to another very critical area. We are 18,000 sailors short right now in the Navy. That means that the few sailors that we have left, and this is manning a very, very reduced fleet, the few sailors that we have left now have to shift back and forth between ships. It also means that when a sailor comes home to be with his family, he may be called the next week and told, ``Instead of getting that 1- or 2- or 3-month reprieve and being able to stay home with your wife and family, you are going to have to head out again, because we don't have enough people to man all of our ships. You are going to have to go back out and join the fleet again, and go back into these strenuous operations without seeing your family.'' That is called personnel tempo. That is the amount of time--basically it reflects the amount of time that a soldier or sailor or airman or marine spends away from his family. That means that, for example, with the Marine Corps, we are seeing a higher personnel tempo, marines away from their families more than they have ever been since World War II. That is important to us as a U.S. Congress that is in charge of raising the Army and the Navy and the marines and maintaining it, because we have an all-volunteer service. If people will not join, we cannot draft them, so we have to have a service that is attractive enough to get people to join. One aspect of that attractiveness has to be quality of life. Quality of life can mean a lot of things. It can mean having a nice home for your family if you live on base, if you are an enlisted person, for example, or an officer. It can mean having a good barracks, if you are a single enlisted person, or a good bachelor officer's quarters, if you are an officer. It can mean having enough of a housing allowance to live in a fairly nice place in the community that your base is located in. It can mean having decent pay. We will talk about that in a minute. But it also means having some time with your family. That means not being constantly deployed. The interesting thing about the Clinton administration is they have deployed their people more often than any other president. While they have deployed these people more often than any other president, they have cut the number of people that we have; that is, the force structure: the number of ships, the number of sailors, the number of army divisions, the number of marines. They have cut that force structure so much that we have this thin line of American defenders literally running around the world, running themselves ragged. What does that mean? It means that people are not reenlisting. I think in our marine aviators, we have 92 percent of the pilots not reenlisting, which is remarkable for us, because they have always reenlisted in record numbers; in much higher numbers, up in the forties. It means that we are the 18,000 sailors short that I spoke of. It means that we are going to be 700 pilots short in the Air Force this year. It is very, very difficult to keep these people in the service, and it is very difficult to build people in these technical skills if you do not have a lot of time and a lot of money. It costs as much as $1 million, $2 million, to build some of the technical skills to give these folks all the schools they need, and once that person walks out the door, he takes with him that enormous investment. Then our other problem is once a person walks out the door, we now have the problem of going out and recruiting another person to take his or her place. That person is looking at a domestic job market which is quite good right now; looking, for example, if they are a pilot, at the prospect of going into the airlines; if they are a mechanic, looking into going into an automotive industry; if they are an electronics technician, looking at going into one of those areas on the outside in the civilian sector. It is more and more difficult to bring people into the military. Once again, this Congress does not want to have to be faced with the prospect of having to draft people. That means we are going to have to treat our people better. That means we are going to have to slow down OPTEMPO and Personnel Tempo, not stretch our people so thin, not run them so ragged, pay them better money. That means get them up in a much higher bracket so that they cut into what is now a 13 percent pay gap between people who are in the service and people who are in the private sector. When Ronald Reagan came into office in 1981, we had a 12.6 percent pay gap, and we closed that pay gap in a very short period of time. Well, today we have a 13 percent pay gap. The Clinton administration is offering a 4.4 percent pay raise, but that is not nearly enough to pay for that major gap that has people leaving in droves, and at the same time bring up the modernization, the spare parts, ammunition, and all the other things that we need to make our military work. Mr. Speaker, let me go to one other aspect of national security that I think is very important. The President now realizes that we have indeed a problem with missile defense. We know and we knew ever since those scud missiles hit our barracks in Saudi Arabia that we had a problem with not being able to stop those missiles coming in. Those are very slow missiles. Those were the Model Ts of ballistic missiles. Today, many years later, we still have very little capability in terms of stopping missiles. There are several classes of missiles. We hear about the intercontinental ballistic missiles. Those are the missiles that can be launched from Russia or China and presumably hit a city in the United States. It is a long-range missile that goes very fast. One also has short-range missiles, and those missiles go a little slower. But what they can hit are our troop concentrations in Korea or Saudi Arabia or other places. We have to build and maintain a missile defense. So far, we do not have that defense. This budget, Mr. Speaker, is not going to allow us to proceed fast enough to build that missile defense before our adversaries build the offensive missiles that can overwhelm that defense. When I talk about that, what I am saying is we need to look at the North Korean missile that was just launched over the Sea of Japan. We realize now it is a two-stage missile, that it could hit some parts of the United States if it took in its full flight, built by North Korea. We know that China is moving ahead on its strategic weapons program. We know that we have to place our troops in concentrations all over the world just like we had troops in Saudi Arabia. We had troops in Kuwait. We have troops right now in South Korea. We have to be able to maintain those troops. If missiles can be launched from long range to hit those troops with concentrations of chemical or biological weapons, then it is going to be very, very difficult to convince America's moms and dads that we should be allowed to keep their youngsters in the military, move them into foreign theaters which are very, very dangerous, and expect them to stay in the uniform. So it is going to be very, very difficult to recruit people unless we have a way to protect them in foreign theaters. That means we have to have missile defense. This administration, in slashing the defense budget dramatically, has not put enough money into missile defense. So Mr. Speaker, this President has said that he is increasing defense dramatically. Let us put it in perspective. Most of the $112 billion that he has proposed to increase is supposed to be done by some other president at some other time. It is like handing a blueprint of a house to our neighbor and saying, ``After I am gone from this neighborhood, I want you to build this house on that lot over there.'' And our neighbor says, ``Do you have any legal right to make me build it?'' And you say ``No, but it is my recommendation that you build this house over here after I am gone.'' The President is recommending to some president who has not even been named yet, has not been elected yet, that he build this defense, rebuild national defense on his watch after President Clinton is gone. So the President cannot increase defense $112 billion in 2005 because he will not be the President then, and he has no control over the President at that time. All he can do is offer a suggestion. Of course, if the future president looks at what this President did rather than what he says with respect to defense, he will not increase defense at all because this President has not increased defense at all. What we have to do in the U.S. Congress, Democrats and Republicans, is listen to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that is the services, the Army, the Air Force, the United States Marines, and the Navy, and give them the equipment that they say they need. The Army says they need $5 billion worth of equipment per year. They need $5 billion worth of increased funding per year for equipment and for people. The Navy says they need an additional $6 billion a year. The Air Force says they need $5 billion. The Marines say they need $1.75 billion. And that excludes this pay raise that we all agree our service people need of $2.5 billion per year. If we add those numbers together, that is $20 billion this year that we need. The President has only offered $12 billion. We have to come up with the difference. So then, as Republicans and Democrats put this budget together, it is incumbent upon us to listen to our armed services, listen to the men and women who serve in the military, and make sure that they are well equipped and that they have quality of life and that they have decent pay. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spence) so that he might control it.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, equal justice means two things. First, every citizen, including the least powerful, like the plaintiff in the first civil case in which President Clinton perjured himself, has a right to demand truthful testimony under oath even when the defendant is the President. Secondly, equal justice requires adherence to the rule of law by all Americans, including the most powerful. Further, equal justice requires accountability by those who have committed perjury. In this case, accountability for perjury is provided by the constitutional remedy of impeachment. I am going to vote for impeachment against President Clinton because he committed perjury before a court and a grand jury. For us to do less might be a little more comfortable in the short term, but I think it would do permanent damage to our ideals of equal justice and constitutional government.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the majority leader for yielding to me. Let me just say, it is something that happens regularly here in the House that two parties, both in good faith, can look at the same facts and come to totally different conclusions. I have come to a totally different conclusion from the esteemed minority leader and others who feel that troops will be demoralized if we do not stop this constitutional process. I think just the opposite. From talking with them and with a number of people who are veterans, I have come to the conclusion that they will be demoralized if we do stop this constitutional process. There is one term that I think is common to both this House and to our military. That term is duty. We refer to it often, and it is clear now that our uniformed people are carrying out their duty in difficult circumstances to defend the liberties and security of this country. They are doing that so we can perform our duty. Our duty is to carry out the Constitution. With respect to other nations that are watching this process around the world, they have been watching the Committee on the Judiciary on television for the last many months. We do not hide our internal problems and our internal debates. They are always out there for the world to see. I think that is a sign of strength, not a sign of weakness. I think we would be sending the message to not only our military people but to others around the world. If we hold up on our constitutional duty because of this strike, then we are sending the message that somehow there are political implications in the timing of this strike. I think it helps the President's authority and I think it helps the credibility of this House, and I think it helps the morale of our armed services if we continue to do our job.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, the President has decided to take this action that should have been taken any time over the last several years. We have gathered today to commend the troops and to pledge our loyalty to them. We know they have a very difficult task. I hope that they finish the job. It is going to be a very, very difficult job in rooting out and destroying these sites where Saddam Hussein is building weapons of mass destruction. But we are going to have an obligation to them. I hope that all my colleagues who are coming to the floor to pledge undying loyalty to the troops will join us on the Committee on National Security in moving to increase the defense number to close the 13 percent pay gap that right now exists between the civilian sector and the uniform sector, to buy that $1.6 billion worth of ammunition that the Army is presently short of, to buy the $193 million worth of ammunition that the Marine Corps is short right now, and to increase the defense budget by at least $28.5 billion a year. Because that is what the Joint Chiefs of Staff tell us we are going to have to spend if we want to fill all those unfunded requirements that they have been giving this President over the last several years and that he has not been responding to. So let us reciprocate to these troops in the next several weeks. We will have a chance to demonstrate our commitment to them. I hope everyone will join with me and other members of the Committee on National Security in seeing to it that we, in fact, do reciprocate and do rebuild our national defense.