Duncan Hunter

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I listened to this debate. I had to rise because I am familiar with a lot of the facts with respect to the investigation as to illegal voters voting in the Sanchez-Dornan race, and this is not about the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Sanchez], it is not about Bob Dornan; it is about a very simple American fundamental value that is known as one man or one woman and one vote, and that means that no matter where one comes from, no matter how long they have been in America, no matter whether they are rich or poor, they get one vote. And there was an investigation in Orange County, and one organization that is supported by taxpayer dollars, by our dollars, registered to vote over 300 people who were not legal voters. That has been established. That is the basis for the ongoing investigation. I think it does a disservice for people that come from all over the world to be Americans to somehow give them the idea that the system that they left, the system where the ballots are counted on Sunday before the Tuesday election, the ballots where some people get five votes and other people get no votes, is somehow something that should be pursued here. Now one of the two candidates, Mr. Dornan or the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Sanchez], got the most votes by legal voters in Orange County. The person who got the most votes wins. That is what this is about, and everybody who is involved in this is willing to let the chips fall where they may. If Ms. Sanchez when the smoke clears and the illegal votes have been taken away has the most votes, then she wins; if when the smoke clears the person who got the most votes on election day is Mr. Dornan, then he wins; and if it is unclear as to who wins, then we have a new election. That is America, and I might say to my colleagues that is why people come to America. That is not bad, and that is not any kind of an insult to anybody. The Republicans do a lot of registering of new citizens, we have our card tables right there at the new citizens' swearing in programs for Hispanic Americans, Filipino Americans, Vietnamese Americans after they become citizens.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I was not going to speak on this because it is clear that the committee is and the chairman of the committee is prepared to execute his reservation against any of these loans, loan guarantees for short-track rail, and therefore it is not necessary to take a vote on this, on this issue. But I do want to, since my colleagues, the gentleman from California [Mr. Cunningham] and the gentleman from California [Mr. Bilbray] and the gentleman from California [Mr. Filner] have spoken about the prospects for this guaranteed program with respect to a San Diego to points east rail line, I thought it was important to come out and just say a few things about that specifically. First, there is a broken down railway between San Diego and points east that goes mainly and starts out in the district of the gentleman from California [Mr. Filner], goes mainly through in terms of mileage, through my district going east, but I do not think that is really relevant, whose district it goes through. I think what probably is more relevant is the commentary that was elicited recently from the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Reyes] who is one of our esteemed Members of Congress, former Border Patrol chief in El Paso. And if my colleagues walk through this problem with him with respect to border control problems, that is, having a short-track rail line that actually goes into Mexico. This is the area in Mexico where we are now having fire fights between border patrolmen and smuggling elements on the other side of the border; goes into Mexico, goes through about 50, 60 miles of rugged country, comes back along a series of precarious canyons, and then comes back into the United States. The gentleman from Texas [Mr. Reyes] has made a couple of statements with respect to that railroad that I think should be considered by any Member of Congress before they pass this thing. First, he said that this railroad will be vulnerable to robberies, just like the railroad in El Paso which was robbed 600 times last year. The gentleman from Texas [Mr. Reyes] himself in an interview, a television show that I did with him, mentioned he himself was in a gunfight between train robbers on the other side of the border and American Border Patrol agents on our side. In recent weeks we have had a series of fire fights, very brief fire fights, across the border where Border Patrol agents were shot at in some cases; in the first case, actually shot by drug agents on the other or by drug operatives on the other side, forced to return fire, and we have actually had more fire back and forth across the southwest border in the San Diego region than we have had in Bosnia in the same period of time. It is a very dangerous area. I would suggest that the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Reyes] should be listened to when he says, ``First you should get the guarantee of the government of Mexico that they will, in fact, patrol that area on the Mexican side. Otherwise,'' he said, ``you're not going to have control.'' He said we should do that before we rehabilitate that rail line. Second, he showed several areas where in remote areas we are going to have problems. Now we had over 600 robberies in 1 year with the rail line in El Paso. We had it with the rail line that comes into Laredo, we had over 36,000 illegal aliens pulled off that rail line last year, and the President of Southern Pacific in that area asking the President of the United States for the entire increase in border patrol for the Nation. That is 500 new border patrolmen going just to protect his railroad. Now the happy talkers in San Diego say that will never happen to us, and that is all they say. They do not offer any experience that is any better than the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Reyes] who was chief of the Border Patrol for some 20 years, who was in fire fights on the border, who understands across-border crime problems. They just say it will not happen, and I would just suggest to my colleagues we have had a vote on this thing before. It was overwhelmingly defeated because we do not have that guarantee of security for Mexico, we do not have that guarantee from the Clinton administration that they have an extra thousand Border Patrol agents to put 500 in south Texas just to guard one railroad and to put another contingent similar to that in southern California. Right now, our eyes should be on the ball. The ball is border control. We are building fences, we are building roads, we are building lights, and we are putting more border patrolmen at the border, and the last thing we need to do is complicate the security situation by weaving a railroad in between this situation on rickety tracks across precipitous canyons and inviting at least in the words of, in the opinion of probably the best expert on border control in this Congress, and that is the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Reyes], at least the complexity in border patrol.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman for his excellent amendment and just to answer a few of the questions that have been raised. First, why have we had this incredible debate over the last number of years? It is not whether or not we spend the money, but in essence it has been who spends the money. We have had people in the NEA here in Washington, for whatever reason, who have disbursed money in a way that has embarrassed this House. We have had the horror stories of people handing out $10 bills to illegal aliens on the international border on the basis that that is an art project that shows the contribution of illegal aliens to the U.S. economy. We have had the desecration of the crucifix, these famous cases where absolute obscenity has been funded with U.S. taxpayer dollars, and the taxpayers do not like that. This amendment does exactly the right thing. It eliminates the NEA, and that is the problem, the people who spend the money. But it does spend some money in a way that we all agree money should be spent, and that is that it gives it to kids. It sends money, most of the money, to the art classes in our grade schools, grammar schools and high schools throughout this country. Pictures like this one, this was a picture from the district of the gentleman from California [Mr. Thomas] done by Christopher Suniga from North High School in his district. This represents, and we all see, the great representation and manifestation of the talent of our kids when we walk the hallway from the Cannon Building over here to the Capitol to vote. We see wonderful art. We see all these budding artists who are being taught great art in their classes. We have had art classes in schools for hundreds of years in this country. What this money will do is go to those kids, go to those classes. If the gentleman says, ``Well, a dollar a student isn't going to do any good,'' I say it is going to do a lot more than handing out $10 bills to illegal aliens at the international border as some kind of a fuzzy-headed art project. We are not going to give the money to aging hippies anymore to desecrate the crucifix or do other strange things. We are going to give it to our kids, our 10 and 12 and 14 and 16-year- old kids who have talent, who want to develop that talent. Lastly, it is going to give it to the kids on a per capita basis. That means, I say to my great friends from New York who have gotten 25 percent of the money over the years, all the States are going to get an equal amount of money based on their population, based on the number of kids they have who need to develop this talent. This is a great amendment. It eliminates the NEA, and it funds art where we really should fund it, and that is with our children. I thank the gentleman for offering this amendment.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman for yielding to me. He talked about the billions of board feet that we are going to lose in terms of timber production. That means also hundreds of thousands of logging families who are going to have no wherewithal to pay their mortgages, send their kids to college, and do all the other things that we like to do in America as part of the American dream. This will be a devastating blow to a lot of working folks in this country.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, this Tickle-Me-Elmo made in China is more coherent than the trade policy of the Clinton administration. Let me turn this fellow off. Trade is a balancing of interests. Whether we engage with a nation with respect to trade is a balancing of interests. What are we getting? We are getting a smaller export to China than we get to Belgium. They are not a major trading partner except for the one-way street, except for the $50 billion-plus coming back to China, the trade surplus that they enjoy over us, the enormous sales throughout our Wal-Marts and K-Marts with hundreds and hundreds of products, many of which are made by the People's Liberation Army, and what are we getting in return for that? Have we stopped any of the poison gas sales to Iran by China? Have we stopped any sales of ring magnets that are used to make ICBM's sold to Pakistan? Have we stopped the purchase of the missile destroyers that were purchased from Russia, that have one purpose, and that is to kill American sailors and destroy American ships on the high seas? My colleagues have spoken of the policy of engagement, but not one CEO, not one president, not one trade negotiator can point to a single case of technology transfer or military transfer that they have stopped by engaging with the Chinese, nor can any of them really point to any attempts that they have made to stop this amassing of military capability in China and the transferring of military capability to outlaw nations around the world. So in the balancing of interests, we are getting about the same exports that we get to Belgium, which is very little, and in return for that we are making China strong with hard American dollars. They are militarizing with their strength, and the same children, the 5- and 6- year-olds playing with that made-in-China Tickle Me Elmo today, may well be facing us on a battlefield in Korea when they are 17 or 18 years old. Vote against MFN for China.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume, just to respond briefly to the remarks of the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich]. Mr. Chairman, first, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich], for whom I have great respect, said the cold war is over and the B-2 is a cold war relic. The problem with the Soviet Union dissolving is they did not dissolve their SAM production. That is surface-to-air missiles. They are designed to do one thing, and that is kill American aircraft. That is how they shot down Scott O'Grady over Bosnia. Basically a little batch of teenagers in uniform with 3 weeks' training time in SAM missiles delivered from the Soviet Union, now Russia, were able to shoot down an American high-performance aircraft. Mr. Chairman, the red on this map of the world denotes all of the nations that have SAM sites: Libya, Syria, North Korea, and China have lots of SAM sites. That means that if Americans drive nonstealth aircraft into those SAM sites as the gentleman from California [Mr. Cunningham] said, a number of them are going to die. Second, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich] should be happy to know that we have saved in the reform part of this budget according to CBO $15 billion over the next 5 years. That is enough according to CBO to purchase the $12 billion buy of B-2's and, once more, it is 1/35th of what we are going to spend for short-range aircraft.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I rise on behalf of the Solomon-Rohrabacher amendment. Let me just remind my colleagues, the reason why this is a reasonable amendment is simply this: All of the reductions in Soviet weaponry that the gentleman enumerated have been agreed to by the Soviet Union as part of our arms reductions talks. The Soviets agreed to do those reductions on their own with their own taxpayer dollars. They do not necessarily have a right to our money; we are giving them a great deal of money, which is perhaps a good thing, to effectuate these reductions. In light of the money that we are giving the Soviet Union, the hundreds of millions of dollars, is it reasonable for us to ask them at the same time to refrain from giving a very effective ship-killing capability to China? I think, in light of the enormous dollars we have given them, this is a reasonable request to make to the Russians. And because of that, I strongly support the Solomon-Rohrabacher amendment. This is reasonable; this is judicious, let us do it.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Let me just say to all Members of the House, sure, after the Air Force Chief of Staff and the Joint Chiefs were told by the President that they would not support a B-2, they saluted and they came down and they sat before us and said, we do not have the B-2 in our budget. Then we asked the Air Force Chief of Staff, in the words that are over on the side of the room here, would B-2's be valuable in war, and he said, B-2's would be extremely valuable in the Hawk phase; that is, when we stop the enemy tanks from rolling. Then he hesitated and he said, and in all other phases. I asked him the question, would the B-2's save lives, and he said yes, they would save lives. My friends, we are going through really what is kind of a microcosm of defense itself. We had the war to end all wars, I guess that is the post-cold-war world that my friend from California refers to in the early 1900's. We called it the war to end all wars, and we were unprepared for the Second World War, where we did not get the 2-week warning time that the study that he refers to says we should have. Then we threw away our weapons after World War II, went from a military of 9 million people to a group that could not hold a third-rate military as it pushed us down the Korean peninsula. And we were not able to stop those tanks. After the world war was over, we cut again. We have cut and we have cut the defense budget on an annual basis by $140 billion, from $404 billion in 1985, real money, to about $268 billion today. Within those confines of the $268 billion, with the reform package we put together, a real reform package, we have enough money, $15 billion over 5 years, to buy all of those B-2's. We are asking for basically Wal-Mart sales for 2 months so that our pilots do not have to fly under the Bill Clinton scenario, 80-year-old B-52's, older than their great- grandfathers. Vote ``no'' on this amendment.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the last 2 minutes of my time. Mr. Chairman, let me just answer my friend that there are a number of experts who disagree that 20 B-2's is enough. Brent Scowcroft with the Scowcroft Study that the gentleman has a copy of is one of those leaders who believes that. General Chuck Horner who ran the air war in the Persian Gulf, who utilized stealth and utilized precision-guided munitions, is on the Hill visiting Members' offices because he believes very strongly in having enough B-2's. Let us get straight what we are talking about because Members have gone over a lot of things. We are talking about maybe 2 months worth of Wal-Mart sales. We are talking about one thirty-fifth of the amount of money that we are spending on short-range aircraft. Interestingly, we are moving to short-range aircraft as we lose our bases around the world. We are down to 14 bases. Nobody has an idea as to whether or not we are going to be guaranteed those bases in Japan, for example, in a second Korean conflict. Nobody knows exactly how we are going to detox the airfields because we do not have enough detoxification equipment. This is going to be the first time in our modern history when we have had the ability to make our pilots survivable and we told them no, and ironically, we said we do not want a relic flying, so we are going to fly 80-year-old B-52's, older than the great-grandparents of the pilots who wear the uniform of the United States of America. We have the money. We saved $15 billion in the reform bill. I know that the gentleman from California [Mr. Dellums] will be pleased with that, over 5 years. That more than pays for the entire B-2 program. Finally, the National Guard, which was supposed to benefit by the money that would be cut out of the B-2, says that they have an excellent modification program because of what the committee and the Congress has given them. We have messages there from the National Guard for every Member if we want to look at that. There is no problem there. Let us give our pilots the very, very best because we care about them. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. DeLay], the majority whip.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 45 seconds to my friend, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon].

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to my friend, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Traficant].

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California [Mr. Rohrabacher], my friend.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Kansas [Mr. Tiahrt] a B-2 proponent and expert.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. McKeon] a very articulate Member.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Sam Johnson, former POW, great Thunderbird driver, and great pilot.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Harman], a very articulate member of the committee.

Mr. HUNTER. The gentleman makes a good point. Saddam Hussein gave us 6 months to build airfields and acquire airfields. We cannot guarantee that in every situation.

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

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. Cunningham], Navy top gun, my seat mate from San Diego.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds to respond to the comments of the gentleman from California [Mr. Dellums]. The standoff weapons, Mr. Chairman, are extremely expensive. They are over $1 million apiece. That is our air launch cruise missiles. In fact, closer to a million and a half apiece. That is compared to $23,000 for the short-range weapons once your bomber has penetrated. Mr. Chairman, we are sending out our Navy ships that have missile tubes with no missiles in them because the Navy and the other services have not bought enough missiles. It is difficult to get these very expensive standoff weapons that the gentleman says we are going to be buying. The smart buy is the B-2 bomber. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Skelton], the ranking member of the subcommittee.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, how much time do we have remaining?

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman would yield, even if we take the highest number, even if we take the CBO number, we are asking in the committee's package to spend \1/35\, that is 3 percent, for long-range aircraft, that is our B-2, of what we are spending for short-range aircraft. At a time when our overseas bases have shrunk from 81 overseas bases to 14, that makes sense.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield, along with seven Secretaries of Defense, Gen. Chuck Horner, who ran the air war, if we are going to listen to the war fighters, to the warriors, who now is free to speak his mind because he does not have to do what the President tells him to do, has said very strongly that the B-2 should be supported. That is the guy who ran the air war in Iraq.