Ernest Istook

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, in closing debate on this bill, first I want to take the opportunity to thank the staff who have worked so hard on this: John Albaugh of my personal staff and the Committee on Appropriations; Chris Stanley, a Congressional Fellow who has been assisting in our office from the U.S. Secret Service; Mary Porter, who is detailed to us from the District Government, and I will say more about her in a moment; the committee staff for the majority, Migo Miconi; the committee staff for the minority, Tom Forhan; and from the personal staff of the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran), Tim Aiken. Each of them has put in untold hours of hard work and effort to help bring this bill to the floor, and regardless of where we may stand on different issues, I want to express my appreciation to all of them. In regard to Mary Porter, this Fall she is retiring after 40 years of dedicated service to the District government and to our Committee. She came to the Washington area from Tennessee, worked for an insurance company until 1960 when she went to work for the District Government, and, for the last 40 years has been assisting through the Mayor's office and then on loan to Congress to follow the budget through with the city council, with the Congress, the House, the Senate, and is the undisputed expert of so many things. So, Mary, on behalf of all the subcommittee and the Members, we appreciate your many years of hard effort. I do not know how we could tackle the technical problems we have to face, were it not for your efforts. We appreciate you and we want to thank you. Mr. Chairman, as I stated earlier, Mary Porter has provided more than 40 years of dedicated service to the District of Columbia government and to our Committee. That is an absolutely remarkable achievement--in fact, it is almost unbelievable. For all of those years, Mary has been with the Mayor's office where the budget is prepared. She follows the budget to the Council, and then she comes to Congress and follows it through the House, the Senate and finally the House/Senate conference. She is the technical expert and without question the single most knowledgeable person at any level when it comes to all aspects of the District's budget. In every organization or office there is one person who keeps everything together and running smoothly and who knows not only what needs to be done but also what it takes to get it done. Mary Porter is that person when it comes to the District government's budget. Her technical expertise, knowledge and temperament in putting the bill and report together cannot be matched. Many times Mary has worked 18-hour days and weekends but she was always back on the job bright and early. Mary has always set high standards that others find difficult to attain. Mary came to the District of Columbia from a little town called Deer Lodge in Tennessee in May 1954 just out of high school and found her first job with the Equitable Life Insurance Company. She worked there until the birth of her first child in 1960 when she went to work in the District government's budget office. Back then the District's total budget was $196 million; today 40 years later it is $3.3 billion, a 1,584 percent increase over what it was when she started. I don't believe we can blame Mary for that phenomenal increase. Mary also witnessed the evolution of the governmental structure of the District of Columbia from a three-member Presidentially-appointed commission to a single appointed mayor-commissioner with appointed city council members to an elected mayor and city council form of government. I'm sure she could tell us first hand which form of government was the most efficient and effective in delivering services, but we will not ask her. Mr. Chairman, there is only one Member of this House who was here when Mary first started working for the District government back in July 1960, and he is the Dean of the House. She has assisted the Committee under seven Committee Chairmen: Chairman Clarence Cannon of Missouri, Chairman Mahon, Chairman Whitten, Chairman Natcher, Chairman Obey, Chairman Livingston, and now Chairman Young. On the District of Columbia Subcommittee, she has served under Chairman Rabaut, Chairman Natcher, Chairman Wilson, Chairman Dixon, Chairman Walsh, Chairman Taylor, and now during my tenure. Mr. Chairman, I can attest to the fact that she is a ``professional'' in every sense of the word and has served chairmen and members of our subcommittee of both parties equally, providing them with her best advice and technical support. Mr. Chairman, Mary is not one dimensional. Although she has been employed for the last 46 years, she and her husband Al have managed to raise a wonderful family. Their four children, Harvey, Lorne, Vance, and Vera are successful in their own right. Mary, I know that I speak for the entire subcommittee and for this entire House in wishing you well in your retirement. Your 40 years with the District of Columbia government and your professionalism are a credit to our subcommittee, to the Committee and to the Congress. You are truly a remarkable person. We all thank you very much.

Mr. ISTOOK. MR. Chairman, to address the bill, I ask unanimous consent that I be granted an additional 2 minutes.

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt), one of the valued members of our subcommittee. (Mr. TIAHRT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I would certainly agree to that. I misstated on the time. I agree to a unanimous consent request of 20 minutes to be divided 10 minutes per side.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve my point of order, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, basically, the gentlewoman representing the District of Columbia has offered an amendment to strike out all of the provisions after the appropriating paragraphs, all of the substantive provisions in this bill; and basically, as I believe she stated, there are two categories. One of them are so-called social riders, such as the concern with programs to exchange drug needles out on the public streets, and programs such as the marijuana initiative that the District in a referendum adopted, which this Congress has expressly disapproved and said it shall not go into effect. Other provisions are not so-called social riders, but they are provisions that have been carried on this bill for a number of years because they have not been enacted into substantive law, where this would be the controlling standard if they were not in the bill. Now, I realize that the gentlewoman says, well, these are old things to be done away with; they are not needed anymore. We went through those provisions before this bill was offered this year; and we wiped out two dozen, two dozen provisions that have been carried on this bill for years, that I agree, fit the description of things that were outdated, outmoded, duplicative, and no longer necessary. If there are any others of those that still remain, we want to take them out too; but we are not satisfied that that is the case. For example, we do have provisions in this bill to make it clear that all contracts regarding the District are a matter of public record. We had a circumstance, Mr. Chairman, just a few weeks ago when the former head of the Public Benefit Corporation, which operates the D.C. General Hospital, said, since you fired me, I am entitled to $1 million, and people said, where is the contract? And people could not find it. It should have been public record. We had testimony in a hearing from the control board that is supposed to be a repository of these, and they said, we never saw such a contract. And get this: the control board, headed by the former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, has been writing checks for millions of dollars not budgeted, not approved, for millions of dollars, as I mentioned before, to keep this facility afloat, despite years of efforts by this Congress, years and years by this Congress saying, they are wasting money over there, it is a sink hole, they have not fixed it, and the control board continued writing millions of dollars worth of checks. There were no signed agreements, there were no memoranda, there were no security agreements, there was no promissory note, there was no statement of collateral, there was nothing, nothing, for about $200 million of outlay of public money, not budgeted, not authorized by law, and they did not even have any sort of written agreements for it. So of course we need a provision that says, all of these contracts are a matter of public record. If the District or the control board is going to loan money to the Public Benefit Corporation for the D.C. General Hospital, they ought to have at least one piece of paper that reflects why they wrote all of these millions of dollars of checks. All contracts are a matter of public record. That is an example of one of the provisions that the gentlewoman wishes to strike. Also, a restriction saying, we do not use this public money for personal cooks, chauffeurs or other servants. They cannot use it for any sole-source contracts. They cannot renew contracts or extend them without taking competitive bids. Let us protect the taxpayer from sweetheart deals. Now, we can be satisfied that some provisions are actually in the law elsewhere so that they do not need to be carried in this bill. That is why we wiped out two dozen of them that have been carried year after year; and we want to get rid of all of these and have them in substantive law, but they are not there yet. That is just an example, Mr. Chairman, of the provisions of the gentlewoman's amendment, along with many others that we will be discussing later, would wipe out all in one block. As well as reserving my point of order against this amendment, Mr. Chairman, as an improper way to bring issues up before this House, I certainly oppose the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve my point of order, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this is the appropriation bill that we consider each year for the District of Columbia, the Capital of the United States of America. In addition to local monies and in addition to monies that the District receives, just as other communities and other States do through different Federal programs for transportation, for education, for public assistance, for Medicaid and Medicare; in addition to all of those, this bill appropriates $414 million for the District of Columbia to operate its prisons, its courts, and the program of supervising those that are on some form of probation or parole. And even beyond that, this makes additional monies available for a number of special items in the District of Columbia, such as the new expansion of the metro system, the subway system in the District; funding for a special college tuition program that provides thousands of dollars to D.C. students to go to college, dollars that are not provided to students from any other part of the country; providing environmental cleanup monies; or providing assistance in the development and the strengthening of the charter school movement here in the District of Columbia. I do not want to detail all of them right now. I do not think I need to. Mr. Chairman, as I made the point earlier, this is a different community than any other community in the Nation or we would not be talking about this. We would not be making special money available to D.C. were it not our Nation's Capital. We have a Nation's Capital that was in severe financial straits, basically bankrupt financially, a few years ago; murder rates were at the top of the charts; failure rates in schools at the bottom. This Congress got busy several years ago and created a plan to restructure and restrengthen the District of Columbia, to get it back on its feet. And I want to applaud the people that were involved in this Congress, the people that were involved in the administration, the people involved in the District government, the people involved on the control board that was set up to oversee the District government, who collectively have worked together and have brought the Nation's Capital out of bankruptcy so that this year, for the fourth straight year, they are going to have a budget surplus. The figure I am hearing is they are looking at a surplus of about $280 million. That is great. Now, it would not have happened, Mr. Chairman, had the Federal Government not assumed some direct liabilities that other States and communities face themselves, such as I mentioned earlier, the prison system, the court system and so forth. We also assumed some retirement obligations that are not directly appropriated but are paid through the Federal Government, and increased the Federal share of Medicaid reimbursements from 50 percent to 70 percent. So, with that help, and some of it seen and some unseen, but with an agreement of involvement and help of this Congress, the District of Columbia is back on its financial feet. They still have severe problems in schools, with drugs, with crime, but there is also a resurgence of the business community. The D.C. Council--and they deserve all the credit in the world for this--a year ago they led the way saying that D.C. was going to reduce taxes on people here because they wanted people to come back and live in the city. Tens of thousands of people over the years moved out of the District. We want them back and we want to create financial incentives as well as a better and safer place for the people who live here, who work here, and who visit here. The District has made a lot of financial progress. But everything is not straightened out yet, and we understand that and we are trying to work patiently. There is a new Mayor: Anthony Williams. He is a good man doing a good job, really focusing on working the bureaucracy and getting it whittled down because it consumes resources and it stops things from happening that ought to be happening, whether it is a business that wants a permit or whether it is a matter of running the D.C. General Hospital. Now, here we have a public hospital that already gets tens of millions of dollars each year in direct subsidies from the District government and still has been going beyond that. They have taken hundreds of millions of dollars in money that was not even budgeted. It was not even budgeted. And here is where I will fault the local government. They took money that was not even budgeted, and hundreds of millions of dollars were supposedly loaned to the hospital and then they wrote off the loans. The District needs to be honest in its budgeting. And taxpayers are not getting their monies' worth in public health benefits, yet they are paying inordinately high amounts for it. And they are paying through the use of gimmicks such as loans, which they then write off. I say that as one example of the management problems and the waste problems that are still severe in the District. If they took even half the money that they were wasting and applied it to things like a metro station, or a cleanup problem, or an economic development problem, whatever it might be, they would not need to ask for special money from Congress to help with the revitalization of the District of Columbia. They would have it. So we are trying to work with them on all fronts. This bill does that. It helps with the charter school movement, which is a part of public schools, but is run differently without the normal school bureaucracy, that is approaching 15 percent of the students in D.C. public schools. These parents have chosen to send their children to a public charter school instead of one of the other regular public schools, and we are trying to help give them equal footing with the regular public schools as far as the way that public resources are allocated and the way the bureaucracy treats them so the bureaucracy does not try to hold them back but, for the benefit of the future of these kids, it lets them advance. So we will have a debate, Mr. Chairman, on many of these different items. I know it is not all financial. Life is not just all about money, and being the Nation's Capital and being in harmony with the rest of the country is not all about money either. I appreciate the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Davis), who chairs the authorizing committee, the oversight committee. We have not worked with him as smoothly as we should have on many things, but he and his committee have been so supportive of helping D.C. to get back on its feet and helping to make reforms happen in Washington, D.C. Mr. Chairman, I am submitting herewith for the Record a chart comparing the amounts recommended in H.R. 4942 with the appropriations for fiscal year 2000 and the request for fiscal year 2001: [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH26JY00.001 Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), chairman of the full Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, I keep hearing people try to create a fiction that supposedly we are not taking care of what the District says is its top priority; namely, the Metrorail station at New York Avenue. In fact, at the Full Committee, we shifted a few million dollars more of Federal funds into the Metrorail project, as well as the interest earnings on the Federal and other funds that we are allocating. Mr. Chairman, I heard the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) say, oh, but the fund only has $6 million, and it does not have $18 million. That is not accurate. Mr. Chairman, what has happened is after the control board found out that we thought that money should go to the top priority of the District, then we started receiving lists saying ``we have these things that were not part of our budget, we want to spend this money on something different than our top priority.'' And that is where we found out they want to spend the money on more bonuses at city hall and golden parachutes for people involved with the control board, to double their budget in the control board in their last year of operation, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to correct that, Mr. Chairman; and I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham), a member of our subcommittee.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, there is a general principle we often quote here that says, you should not do for people what they are capable of doing for themselves, because you don't want to restrict their ability to grow and to achieve. It is not a matter of we do not want to help them, but it is a matter we want to do it in the right way. I hear a lot of comments about we ought to be doing more for the District here, we ought to be doing more for the District there. Then I hear people say, oh, we have cut this budget or that budget. For example, they claim, inaccurately, but they claim, that we have cut a Federal commitment to the metro subway station. Let us back up. What Federal commitment are we talking about? We are talking about the budget proposal submitted by the White House which is not a budget submitted or approved by the Congress. Just because something is proposed by the President, let us not pretend that if we do not agree with the President on something, that we have gone out and we have cut budgets or that we reneged on a commitment; that is not the case. We have made sure that rather than going to this new, after-the- budget, laundry list of things that now they say are higher priorities than the metro subway station, so we cannot spend money out of this account for it. Instead of doing that, we said no, we are going with the top priority of the metro station. Let us look at what the District is doing or not doing for themselves. We know they have remaining significant management and financial problems. Let me just give my colleagues the figures on just one of them. In addition to the money budgeted and tens of millions of dollars of subsidies that were budgeted, the D.C. General Hospital with the Public Benefit Corporation in the last 4 years has had loans, so- called, of $174 million, which were, in fact, spending beyond what was authorized or appropriated by law. In that one institution alone there was $174 million. On top of the subsidies, on top of their budget. We had a hearing on this, more than one hearing that we had, and District officials including the central board said they are not loans they are receivables because the hospital is supposed to pay it back out of money they receive. No, they know that. They do not even have the hospital sign any paper. There is no written agreement. The city and the control board just write checks for millions of dollars until they have gone $174 million in the hole, beyond their budget, beyond the subsidies, and then the District government writes it off. They have a group looking at it right now that is telling horror stories about the level of management. In fact, the just-fired individual in charge, even though people will say when he was in charge, this hospital got run into the ground even farther than it was already, he wants a million dollars severance pay, a million dollars severance pay for helping something go $174 million in the red. That is the kind of priorities or lack of them that waste money, and then they come to Congress and say we make up the difference, and then claim we are reneging on a pledge made at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue if we do not just rubber stamp that instead of trying to take a more responsible approach. They say we are using too much of their money for these things. We are using money of the taxpayers of the United States of America in this bill, $414 million. And we still have management problems. I agree that Mayor Williams is working diligently and making a bona fide effort, but if we look at who is still in charge, the upper level, what they call the ``excepted service'' positions, in other words, these are the people that can be hired and fired by the mayor, as opposed to through a civil service system. The Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs still has 62 percent of the upper level people who are holdovers from the prior administration and administrations that had these severe problems with how they handled taxpayers' money. In the Department of Employment Services, two-thirds, two-thirds are still management holdovers. In the Office of Contracting and Procurement, two-thirds are holdovers. In the Department of Public Works, 62 percent. There is a lot of change that has not happened yet. There is a lot of savings the District can achieve in its own budget, and we are trying everything we can to help them to do that. But remember, you ought to come to this Congress, and if you are wanting people to do something because you are the Nation's Capital, you ought to show what you have done for yourself. We had, I believe it was $330 million in past years, that this Congress provided to the District for management reforms to achieve savings, and we had the General Accounting Office go in a few months ago and say, okay, we spent $330 million supposedly to create savings beyond that figure. How much savings can you find? GAO said, well, you spent $330 million, and the savings were supposed to be $200 million annually. What was actually achieved was about $1.5 million annually. You spend $330 million, and you get back $1.5 million? That is not a good investment by the taxpayers. The District needs more focus on getting its own House in order. It is making progress, but it has not made near enough. It needs more focus on that, rather than accusing the Congress of not doing its job. Mr. Chairman, I ask support for this bill. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, drug problems in the District of Columbia are America's problem, because Washington, D.C., is America's capital. I am sorry to hear that the gentleman says that if you do not have a program to exchange drug needles, you are causing pain and suffering. No. Pain and suffering is caused by the use of drugs. Crime is caused by the use of drugs. Parents failing to take care of their kids is caused by the use of drugs. You are saying dirty needles cause pain and suffering? No, people injecting themselves with drugs cause pain and suffering. We are not talking about sewing needles here; we are talking about hypodermic syringes, needles for people to inject illegal drugs into themselves, and a program operating in broad daylight out on public streets to do these swaps. Bring in a dirty needle, get a clean needle, go shoot yourself up. I know a couple of people that the other day observed one of these sites, and it was an area where there were residences and small businesses. The van is there for a few hours, and just minutes after the van they used for the needle exchange pulls away, you know what pulled up? A school bus. It is a bus stop for school kids. The D.C. Council passed its own law declaring drug-free zones. The amendment of the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt) just says those areas that the District has already chosen to be drug-free zones should not be used for these programs to exchange drug needles. The D.C. Council defined them. For example, 1,000 feet around a youth center or public library or public housing or a swimming pool or an elementary school or vocational school or a video arcade, the D.C. Council says those sites are supposed to be drug free zones. The amendment of the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt) just says if that is supposed to be a drug-free zone, what are you doing with a drug needle exchange program taking place in the same spot? I urge support of the bill; and when the time comes, I certainly will support the amendment of the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt).

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I do not think 5 minutes will be necessary. I believe this amendment will be adopted by unanimous consent and neither of us will need the 5 minutes. This simply removes an item for a study of the future tax structure potential in the District and shifts the $100,000 in Federal funds that was allocated for it to support the new Metro station that is planned at the New York Avenue site. I believe there is no debate, and if that is the case I would ask unanimous consent that we yield back the balance of our time and adopt the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, any study that the District may desire to do certainly they have the authority and the capability of doing whatever study. I certainly would not agree with all of the characterizations of the gentleman, but I certainly appreciate his interest in the economic conditions in the District, as well as in the surrounding Northern Virginia area that he represents. However, I think we have all agreed that right now there is a high priority with the District of the New York Avenue Metrorail station, and if the District wants to do a study they can do it. In the meantime, we would like to put this Federal contribution of the $100,000 toward that Metro station at New York Avenue. Mr. Chairman, I ask adoption of the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order against the amendment as to the underlying merits. I will offer at an appropriate time a written statement for the record. Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order against the amendment because it violates the rules of the House since it calls for the en bloc consideration of two different paragraphs in the bill. The precedents of the House are clear in this matter: Amendments to a paragraph or section are not in order until such paragraph or section has been read. Cannon's Precedents, Volume 8, section 2354. Mr. Chairman, I ask for a ruling from the Chair.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order. I have no objection to the gentlewoman proceeding for, I believe, the agreed upon time was for 5 minutes to certainly explain her amendment and her position.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Petri).

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt). (Mr. TIAHRT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo).

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time. Certainly, as I said before, I agree with the concept that, if there are things in this bill that are carry-overs that serve no purpose any further, then they should join the two dozen provisions that we have already taken out that have been carried year after year in this bill. We will continue to work with the other side of the aisle and our own side to make sure that we do not carry anything that is not necessary. Of course, the other issues are policy issues such as we have talked about relating to drug needles, relating to contraceptive mandates that exclude a conscience clause. Those issues are going to be brought up in further amendments. But as to this one, Mr. Chairman, I would like to close the debate. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time. Point of Order Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order against the amendment because it violates the rules of the House since it calls for the en bloc consideration of two different paragraphs in the bill. The precedents of the House are clear in this matter: ``Amendments to a paragraph or section are not in order until such paragraph or section has been read,'' Cannon's Precedents, Volume 8, section 2354. I ask for a ruling from the Chair.

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for the opportunity to speak. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule, which enables us to go forward with this bill which, in addition to the District of Columbia's own tax revenue, and budget allocates $414 million from the taxpayers in the rest of the United States of America to the District of Columbia. Now one might have thought, from listening to people, that we are not doing anything for the District of Columbia, and here is $414 million, Federal money from the rest of the country, not going to New York City, not going to Chicago or Los Angeles or Oklahoma City, we do not make direct appropriations to those communities or to any others, only the District of Columbia. This is in addition to its own tax revenues and budget, in addition to qualifying for Federal grants from all sorts of other sources. In addition to those, the District of Columbia gets $414 million directly from the Federal Government. We do it year after year. Why? Because the District of Columbia is not just another city. It is the Nation's capital, so designated in the United States Constitution. As the Nation's Capital, it has a very different relationship. Now, I heard the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) in this House say, and I think these were the words, that what happens here should not concern anyone not a resident of D.C., and said people should not be concerned with a city not their own. If that were the case, we would not be talking about $414 million for Washington, D.C., but we are because Washington, D.C. is not just another city. The Constitution specifies it is the Capital of the United States of America, and as the Capital it has a distinct position. Article I, section 8 of the U.S. Constitution says that exclusive control over all legislation, in all cases whatsoever, for the District of Columbia resides right here in the Congress of the United States, because the Founding Fathers knew that the Nation's Capital would be distinct, would be different. One thing they wanted to be sure was that the Nation's Capital was in harmony with the rest of the country. We do not want one thing going on in what is supposed to symbolize and represent America that is totally foreign to the rest of the country. We do not want one set of standards in the Nation's Capital that is inconsistent with Federal law or that is inconsistent with the values of the Nation. So to create that consistency, the Constitution says legislative control over the Nation's city belongs to the Nation. I realize that is difficult sometimes for people that live here to recognize why it is set up that way, but to say that this should not concern people who are not residents or this is a city that does not belong to the rest of the country, I have to disagree. When one comes here and they see the best of Washington, they visit the Capitol, they see the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, the Jefferson Memorial, the new memorials to FDR, to Korean veterans, the Vietnam veterans, the one underway for World War II veterans, they see those things and they get a sense, they get an inspiration from it. Then to be told, oh, no, they are not a part of this, this is not their city, sure it is. It is the Nation's city. That is why we do things and will do things here today, to try to make sure that Washington, D.C. is in harmony with the Nation. If we are not the Nation's city would we have the hundreds of thousands of people that are employed here because the Federal Government is located here? No, the District of Columbia would not have that guarantee of employment, of revenue, of opportunity that comes with it. It would not enjoy that. The District also would not have the burdens that come with it; the Presidential inauguration, for example, coming up. One of the things in this bill is approximately $6 million to reimburse D.C. for special expenses that it will have when the presidential inauguration occurs, the security needs, all the influx of Americans coming here for the presidential inaugural. Now some cities would be saying, hey, that is great for business, that is great for tourism; we do not need the extra money to pay for these additional costs; that revenue itself is going to be enough. We have not taken that approach with D.C. We have said they have an extra burden. We want to help them with it. So some of the money which the gentlewoman complains about, and says I wish it were applied some place else, is to reimburse the District of Columbia for this expense when they have to have all of the overtime, all the extra work by their transit people, their public safety people, their people that work with waste disposal, with cleaning up afterward. It is a big expense, and we are trying to be responsible in taking care of that. Washington, D.C., in addition to $414 million of Federal money from the rest of the country under this bill, still qualifies the same as any other municipality and school district in the Nation to receive Federal grants, Federal assistance, Federal funds that help their schools. In addition, they get transportation grants. One of the riders of which the gentlewoman complains is to improve the ability of Washington, D.C. to fully qualify for grants from the Environmental Protection Agency, because they do have pollution problems, especially the Anacostia River. We provided special funding to help with cleaning that up. We are doing these things because we do believe Washington, D.C. belongs to all of us. We do not all live here. There is a difference between people who live here and people who do not, but that difference is not to say that the Nation's Capital does not belong to all of us. It does belong to all of us. It must belong to all of us, and if we want to have pride in the country we have to have pride and confidence in what is happening in Washington, D.C. If we find out that the District is going off in a totally different direction and thereby become the symbol for the whole country, we have to make sure that it is in tune instead. So sometimes the local officials do things and Congress says, no. If you were in New York, if you were Chicago, if you were Detroit, if you were Phoenix, if you were Tampa, if you were Wisconsin's Madison, any of these other communities, we would not do that because they are not the Nation's Capital. They do not belong to all of us, but we will do some things differently. This rule makes in order an opportunity to consider those things, and Members have had the opportunity to present them. Now I heard the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) say, well, we have riders on the bill and some of them have been there too long. Well, what was not mentioned was we went through and we dropped 25 provisions that have been carried year after year after year after year in this bill that we did not see where they served any further purpose. We knocked out 25 of them. Now, are there some others that still need to go? We are going to look at them and continue to make deletions as we go through the process. If something is actually outdated or covered by some other provision of law, we will continue working with people to do that. But the ones that remain are the ones in harmony with what I have explained, that distinct relationship between the Nation's Capital and the Nation. It is not just another city. We have in this bill, and this is a program adopted last year, we have in this bill millions of dollars to provide assistance to any student who has graduated from public school, or private school for that matter, in the District of Columbia. I think the cutoff date is since 1998. This program provides them assistance up to $10,000 a year to go to college. We have not done that for any other community in the country. We think there are good reasons why we have set it up, because there is not a State education system and there are definitely education problems, major ones, here in the District of Columbia. That program was started last year and every penny necessary for every student who qualifies is fully funded in this bill, plus a reserve fund of about an extra 12 percent. We hear people say but the President requested more. Well, last year we appropriated $17 million for the program. Guess what? Now that we have had a year to get the program in motion to find out how much it really costs, we found out that $14 million does the job. So there is a $3 million carryover. So we do not need to appropriate as much next year, but we have still gone 12 percent beyond what they figured they needed next year just to be sure. Just because we do not give the same amount of money as the President requests does not justify coming here and saying, oh, our budget is being cut. No, that simply is not true. We are not cutting a single penny from the budget submitted by the District of Columbia with the control board that has been helping it out with oversight. Not a single penny is cut from their budget. We have approved their budget, and we have $414 million of Federal money beyond that. The Federal Government, a couple of years ago, assumed new responsibilities. We are in charge of funding the court system. We are in charge of funding the probation and parole services. We are in charge of funding the prison system. That consumes most of the $414 million, and we fund that in here. Yes, sometimes Federal agencies submit budgets to us, and we make adjustments, but we have not adjusted the District's own budget. Now let us talk about this Metro station. We have put over $7 million of Federal money in this bill and allocated an additional $18 million from an account where the District deposits funds it gets from the Federal government and collects interest on those and other funds. We have said they can use the rest. Last year it was Congress that made the decision on how to use that same fund, to assist the District with buy-outs of its employees because they have a big problem with too many workers not doing enough work. To try to reduce the size of the work force the Mayor, Anthony Williams, who is a good man and a good mayor, says he needs to reduce the size by buying out people's contracts. And we provided money from the same fund last year, done by this Congress, to help them with what the Mayor said was his top priority. This year, we are told the top priority is the Metro station, we said fine, we will make that money available from that same fund for the Metro station, and suddenly we are told, oh, we are meddling; that they should not have to use that fund for the metro construction. Contrary to what has been claimed by some people before, that fund is not part of the District's budget. The District has not put any budget here that says this is a part of our budget to spend it. What they have done, since we said we will put it on their top priority then, they have come up with a laundry list and say, oh, we want to spend it on some different things instead. Some of those things are bonuses for people working in the Mayor's office. Some of those things are severance pay, perhaps golden parachutes, for this control board that has been helping with the fiscal responsibility in helping D.C. get its budget back in balance, which they have done and they deserve a lot of credit for that, both D.C. and the control board, because they were in deficit for so many years and now they are in their 4th year of having a budget surplus; and we want that to continue. As this control board goes out of existence, they want to double their budget in their last year, double their budget in their last year. They want to go into this fund, which we say ought to go to the New York Avenue Metro station, and they say no, we ought to help double the budget in the last year for the control board so we can have all of these real nice severance pay packages for them. That is what this debate is about. We have funded the priorities of the District. Every penny that is necessary for what has been authorized in this college assistance program is in the bill, paid for. We have provided the money for the New York Avenue Metro station. Now we were told those are the top two priorities, and we have been responsible and handled them responsibly. Had this been the top two priorities for any other city in the country, do my colleagues think they would get a direct Federal appropriation for it like this? No. They might qualify for Federal assistance through different grant programs and apply for this and so forth, but they would not just get it handed to them on a silver platter, saying because they are Washington, D.C. we are going to do something more for them. We are trying to be responsible and do that, and it really galls me to hear some people in the District griping; ``well, this is being done for us but we want more.'' The rest of the country does not appreciate that. The rest of the country, if they see somebody from Washington, D.C. in their State and the license plate says ``Washington, D.C., taxation without representation,'' what will they think? Something very different than people in the District will think. Others around the country will think, yes, they are taking my money and I am not getting enough representation for it. Let us have some perspective here. We have a special responsibility for the Capital of the United States of America. It has severe drug problems. It has severe crime problems. It has some decrepit public schools that need improvement for the future of our kids. It has major management problems and a huge bureaucracy that has more confusion and more complexity than the Federal bureaucracy, but still it is the Nation's Capital and we are doing things trying to help D.C. come back and rebound. And I hear people come up on this Floor and try to pretend, oh, you are not doing this and you are not doing that. Take a look at what we are doing. This is a good bill. It deserves support from every Member of this body. It deserves support from people who say, I do not want to give money to Washington, D.C., because I do not like a lot of the things they do there. I understand that; I do not like a lot of things the District does either. But it is the Nation's Capital; it was set up differently under the Constitution. They do not get the same tax base that some people do because of all of the Federal land here. There are restrictions on construction, for example, of high-rise buildings that do not exist elsewhere, because of national security issues. The District is different. We should be helping the District, whether one is on the right, or on the left, or in the middle. We are doing the right thing with this bill. Because it gives us a fair chance to consider the differences, the rule should be adopted, and the bill as well. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on the bill (H.R. 4942) making appropriations for the government of the District of Columbia and other activities chargeable in whole or in part against the revenues of said District for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2001, and for other purposes, and that I may include tabular and extraneous material.