Ernest Istook

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, how much time remains?

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I think it is important that we look at the heart of this matter and how we got here. The real issue is are there limits, are there boundaries on this spending of the Federal Government, or do we go back to the old days of the former majority where they just kept spending and borrowing as much as they wanted to? We have achieved a balanced budget. No matter who wants to take the credit, the fact is it has been done. And there is plenty of credit to share. We have set the standard. It ought to be balanced without spending out the Social Security Trust Fund. Many people agree with that in principle, but when it comes to practice, they do not want to accept the boundaries that it places on spending. So we had the President's budget that proposes tons of new spending. And he said, well, we will spend it by having more taxes, more fees, and taking a third of this year's Social Security surplus, spending a third of it. We said to the President, the proper standard is do not spend any of it and do not raise taxes, either. That means there is a limit on spending. And frankly, Mr. Speaker, we have an across-the-board cut to balance out spending, to make it fit within the available money because our friends on the other side of the aisle are not willing to accept limits. They are still asking for more money. I have heard them identify a lot of new programs they want to put in. They do not want to reduce things. We cannot get specific agreements on reductions rather than across the board because they will not agree that this is all the money that there is available. This is the only method left. We could do it different ways, but this is the only method left if we want to keep the budget balanced and not raise taxes and not raid Social Security. That is why we are in this circumstance. But the American people understand that, Mr. Speaker. They have dealt with family budgets. They have dealt with business budgets. They know that a 1 percent shave is not the end of the world. Now, for some people, of course, it is never enough. And I am really appalled hearing some people say, well, this will not extend the life of Social Security. What they want to do will shorten the life of Social Security. They want to raid the Social Security Trust Fund so that when old Mother Hubbard gets to the cupboard it is bare; the money is already spent out. We want to preserve as much as we can by controlling spending. That is the whole issue. Keep the budget balanced, do not raid Social Security, and accept the fact that there is a finite amount that this Congress can and should spend. If they would stop their new spending programs, it would be a lot easier. But, in the meantime, nobody is going to be hurt by doing a 1 percent across-the-board. If the American people have to do it, Uncle Sam should do it, too. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter), chairman of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I know we always hear some things that are long on emotion but short on facts or short on logic. One would think that what we were doing is cutting out or eliminating certain programs that the gentleman from Missouri referred to. That is not the case at all. What this bill says is for the discretionary spending of the Federal Government, let us reduce it 1 percent across the board. Not singling out any program for elimination, not singling out any department, not Meals on Wheels, not the military, not anyone but just saying overall in government, can we tighten our belt by 1 percent so that we do not jeopardize the Social Security trust fund any more. Because in the past, hundreds of billions of dollars from the Social Security trust fund were spent by Congress. And it happened even after the Republican majority took over because we were trying to make the change and now we are making it. Most of it, of course, in the prior years. But the time to use Social Security money for all these other things has stopped, and all you have to do is say to the rest of government, spend 99 cents instead of $1. That is it. And we do not touch Social Security benefits, we do not touch veterans benefits, we do not touch Medicare benefits. It is only the discretionary programs that are touched. Is that asking too much? Is that the end of the world? Of course not. Except to the people who claim what they do not want to do is spend Social Security, but what is their answer? Do they want to spend the same amount but just differently? No. Do they want to spend less so that we do not touch Social Security? No. They want to spend more. The Democrats want to spend more. That is what this is about. We are saying no. The CBO scoring documents, the Congressional Budget Office has given us in writing what they are not telling. They quote from the CBO and talk about the withdrawals from the government treasury, the withdrawals, the spending side, but they leave out what CBO has said about the deposits. It is in writing and CBO has given it to us based upon the things and the bill upon which we are about to vote, it will not touch Social Security, there will still be a billion dollar surplus without even counting Social Security money. They want to count the withdrawals of the account, they do not want to count the deposits. CBO, when you count the deposits as well as the withdrawals, says you keep the budget balanced and you do it without spending Social Security money. And it is about time that we do that. I am sick to hear these Cabinet officers stand up in front of the camera and say, oh, there is no way that we can trim back 1 percent. Tell that to the American families that have to do it constantly, adjustments a lot bigger than 1 percent, or businesses or anyone else. Do not tell me that Federal agencies cannot find the way to save one penny on the dollar.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young) for the opportunity to present this bill today and for the leadership that he has provided in the appropriations process, and also to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter), chairman of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, on which I also serve and which has been combined in this bill with the D.C. appropriation. Now, Mr. Speaker, there were a number of people who, frankly, have been proposing, and basically these are people on the other side of the aisle, they have been proposing that we get all the appropriations bills and put them in one big package. Well, we have not done that. But we have a smaller package with two sets of issues, those for the District of Columbia and Labor, Health and Human Services. I guess they do not like that either, but this is just the best way we believe to proceed. Now, why is that? Now, Mr. Speaker, we have had the D.C. bill on the floor before. We know the Nation's capital has a special relationship with the Federal Government. We have in this bill the funding, the assistance from the Federal Government to help the District of Columbia get some problems squared away, attacking the link between crime and drugs, incentives for the adoption of young people that currently are stuck for years in foster homes, incentives for the downsizing of the government in the District of Columbia. Because the city officials recognize it is bloated, it is too large, it needs to come down to size. We have the environmental cleanup. We have the incentives for college attendance. We have the approval of the budget of the District of Columbia. And get this, Mr. Speaker, the District of Columbia has a Democrat mayor and a majority Democrat city council, and a key part of their budget is reducing taxes and reducing the size of government, and the Republican members of the city council were major contributors to this effort. I have not heard anybody in the District of Columbia say, there is just no way they could handle a 1 percent cut in the size of their government. Instead, the Democrats in the District of Columbia and the District of Columbia city government are aggressively trying to reduce the size of their government and at the same time reduce taxes. And, yes, we heard within D.C. some people saying, oh, the tax breaks go to people with the wrong economic status. But D.C. recognized they needed to have the tax incentives to create jobs and to help their economy and they did not fall into this demagogic trap of trying to say they are giving it to the wrong group of people. No, the Democrats of the District of Columbia did not do that. And so, we have the approval of their tax cuts and their budget. We did not change anything about their proposed budget and their proposed tax cut. We endorse it. But now it is part of this proposal for the Federal Government programs. We hear people saying, now, when it comes to the Federal Government, though, there is no way we could reduce things by just one penny out of each dollar, not even one penny. I saw the Cabinet officers on TV the other day, Mr. Speaker, and they were saying, oh, there is no way we could do a 1 percent cut. They want to make it sound as drastic as possible instead of finding the administrative savings that businesses have to do when they do cuts, that families have to do when they do cuts. I remember former Democratic President Jimmy Carter who went on national TV to tell people to adjust their thermostats, wear sweaters if necessary, turn out some of the lights, but let us reduce some costs. But today we are hearing people on the other side of the aisle say, because this has a 1 percent reduction, not in Social Security benefits, not in veterans' benefits, not in Medicare, only in so-called discretionary spending, we cannot handle it. Even though spending will actually be up for so many of those agencies from what it was before, they do not want to take a hard look at the size of government. They do not want to tell these Cabinet officers maybe they should lead by example. The pay of Members of Congress is being adjusted one percent less under this bill than otherwise. I do not see the President or Cabinet officers trying to lead by example. This is important. First we have to agree on how much we have to spend. The sad thing, Mr. Speaker, is that my friends on the other side of the aisle when they say, oh, we want to balance the budget and we want to do it without spending Social Security money, but instead of saying that means we might have to make more adjustments, they do not want to make any at all. They want to spend more. They want to get more into Social Security, as happened for decades around here. And it should not have happened, and it is time to fix it. This bill fixes it. I want to commend the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young). I want to commend the gentleman from Illinois (Chairman Porter). I want to commend the people that have worked so hard, the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Kasich), who will speak in a moment, working on overall things. I do not think the American people believe that Cabinet officers will not find the way to make their adjustments, as they have the right to do, program transfers, adjustments, reprogramming of funds. They have those tools at their disposal to make sure there are no difficulties caused by simply saying they have got to save one penny out of each dollar. I urge adoption of the conference report. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present to the House today the conference agreement on H.R. 3064, the District of Columbia, and the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2000. The conferees met yesterday morning and resolved the remaining matters in disagreement between the House and Senate bills and filed the conference report, House Report 106-419, last evening. Mr. Speaker, this conference agreement includes the FY 2000 DC Appropriations Act; technical changes to the FY 2000 VA-HUD Appropriations Act; the FY 2000 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations Act; and an offset package that protects social security. Regarding the Labor-HHS Appropriations Act, the chairman of that subcommittee, the distinguished gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Porter, will be yielded time to explain that part of the conference report. The offset package was developed by the Budget Committee and the distinguished gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Kasich, is here to explain the offsets. Mr. Speaker, regarding the DC Appropriations Act, the conference agreement reflects the vetoed bill, H.R. 2587, with a few adjustments. The needles language has been adjusted to retain the prohibition on using Federal or local funds, but without the restriction on privately- funded programs. There is also a new provision, section 173 that allows the D.C. Corporation Counsel to review and comment on briefs in private lawsuits and to consult with officials of the District government regarding such lawsuits. All of the other social riders--marijuana, abortion, domestic partners--are the same as they were in the House- passed version of H.R. 3064. In summary, Mr. Speaker, the conference agreement endorses the budget and tax cuts approved by the District's Democrat mayor and majority Democrat city council, whose Republican members were important contributors to this effort. The conference agreement helps the District in its efforts to reorganize, cut costs, reduce overhead, and improve services. This conference agreement retains the initiatives that were in the initial House bill, such as Federal funding for the largest-ever effort to crack down on the link between drugs and crime, so the DC's streets and neighborhoods will be far safer. The conference agreement includes incentives to move children from foster care to adoption in a safe, loving, and permanent home, and $2.5 million in Federal funds to complete a community pediatric health initiative for high risk children in medically underserved areas of the District. We also retained the $17 million in Federal funds for tuition assistance so that D.C. high school graduates will have the same opportunities that exist for students in the 50 States who attend State-supported institutions of higher education. In addition, language in the initial House bill strengthening the popular charter school movement in the District has been retained. The conference agreement also includes Federal funding to clean up pollution in the Anacostia River and to complete all design and other requirements for the construction of expanded lane capacity for the 14th Street Bridge across the Potomac River. This conference agreement, as did the first one (House Report 106- 299), totals $429 million in Federal funds which is $24 million below the house bill, $18 million above the Senate bill, and $255 million below last year's bill. The reduction of $255 million below last year's bill is due to several non-recurring items funded last year. The total conference amount of $429 million is $24 million below our 302(b) allocations in budget authority and outlays. In District funds, the conference agreement provides $6.8 billion of which $5.4 billion for operating expenses is $7 million below the House level, $29 million above the Senate bill, and $284 million above last year; however, included in this $284 million increase is a ``rainy day'' reserve fund of $150 million. The conferees have included language under Defender Services that will allow the use of $1.2 million to pay attorneys for their services to indigents in FY 1999. Because the D.C. Courts underestimated the amount required for this program, language has been included in the conference report allowing FY 2000 funds for court operations and defender services to be used to pay for FY 1999 and FY 2999 attorney services for indigents in the event the regular appropriation is insufficient. This language will allow the appointments and payments to continue without disruption. Mr. Speaker, it is important to make clear that language in the conference report permitting the courts to use FY 2000 funds to pay excess FY 1999 obligations does not in any way waive any possible applications of the Anti-Deficiency Act to the courts on the grounds that the obligation to make payments to these attorneys exceeded the obligational authority available for making those payments. The courts are not absolved of their responsibility and accountability under the Anti-Deficiency Act. Title II of the conference agreement commends the District for reducing taxes and ratifies the city's action in that regard. One of the initiatives taken by local officials in agreeing to a consensus budget for fiscal year 2000 is to reduce income and property taxes by $300 million over the next 5 years, including $59 million in fiscal 2000. I want to acknowledge that Republican members of the District's city council, although outnumbered, contributed significantly to the tax reduction enacted by the District government. In fact, one of the two council members who spearheaded the tax cut was a Republican member. I will include a table showing the amounts recommended in the conference agreement compared with last year's enacted amount, the budget request, and the House and Senate recommendations. In closing, I want to thank all of our Members for their hard work and their contributions to this bill, especially the Chairman of the Committee, the distinguished gentleman from Florida, Bill Young. He has displayed an amazing degree of patience, good judgment, and resolve in getting us to this point. Mr. Speaker, I ask for an ``aye'' vote on the adoption of this conference report. I reserve the balance of my time. [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH28OC99.001 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH28OC99.002

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bonilla), another member of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. (Mr. BONILLA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks, and include extraneous material.)

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham).

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), the chairman of the full Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I was watching as the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth) was making some of the comments. Tomorrow on the floor of this House, as the gentleman has mentioned and so many other Members have mentioned, we are going to have a very, very important vote. I will be the one that will be handling this particular bill on the House floor, because it is a bill that not only appropriates money for operation of Federal agencies, but it says, okay, what is the final thing we need to do to make sure that the budget being passed by Congress, one, is a balanced budget? It does not spend more than we take in. Secondly, it does not spend any of this Social Security surplus to make sure that the money that we spend is only the money that comes from the other revenues of the Federal Government. Somebody said this is kind of like sanding a block of wood. When one is trying to make something and one has to get all the pieces to fit in, one gets that last piece, and maybe it does not quite fit right, so one sands it down and gets it down to the right size so it does fit in. This is going to be sanding down the Federal Government so it fits within the goals of balancing the budget and making sure that we do not spend Social Security money in the process. I think that is a worthy goal. I have heard my friends on the other side of the aisle say, oh, we share that goal. We want to balance the budget and not touch Social Security. The President of the United States stood here in this House chamber in January and said he was going to save 68 percent of the Social Security surplus and not spend it. Now, I know math; and I know that if one saves 68 percent, one spends 32 percent. So the President's plan was let us spend 32 percent of this Social Security Trust Fund. We as Republicans, the majority party in the Congress, said, Mr. President, the right thing is do not spend any of it. We know that for years it has been normal in Washington, D.C. under Democrats and then as Republicans as we were taking those final steps to balance the budget, yes, Social Security money was used in the process for far too long. But that time is over. Now we can balance the Federal budget without using any of that Social Security Trust Fund, without jeopardizing the future security of people who are now retired or who may be retiring in the future. At the same time, this will be reducing the national debt, so that people who are younger today will have the security of knowing that the national debt either will be smaller or nonexistent so they will not be stuck with paying it off; so people today will know that the size of government has shrunk. Now, that seems to me like that is what everybody is saying. Yet we had the meeting on the conferees of the bill this morning, the bill that comes up tomorrow, the meeting of the conferees; and I could not believe it, the things I heard from some other person. I will not even name the person who said this. One of the Members of Congress on the other side of the aisle today, he said, ``One, we cannot afford these cuts. We cannot do this 1 percent across the board cut.'' Then he said, ``And, by golly, you are spending money out of Social Security.'' I called him on the carpet, frankly. I said, ``One, I think everybody can afford a 1 percent cut. But, two, if you think that is not enough, if you think we would have to cut further to make sure we do not dip into Social Security, why are you not proposing larger cuts instead of opposing the 1 percent cut?'' He got kind of speechless at that point. I notice this same rationale or lack of logic in the President's comments. I was reading the transcript of his comments today, saying that he does believe in balancing the budget without using Social Security money, and he wants to claim that Republicans are dipping into Social Security. So we would think, therefore, he would say cut spending further. No, he says raise spending more. Wait a minute. If they claim we are spending Social Security money at this level, and they want to spend more, they would be spending more Social Security money. They ought to be helping us. They ought to be helping us reduce the size of government. They ought to be proposing more than 1 percent across the board to save money. But, instead, they want it both ways. That is not right. That is Alice in Wonderland-type thinking. I grew up knowing better. I remember all the meals that we had in my family, and it was a family of five kids, my mom, my dad. My dad was hard working. He would go to work during the day, come home for dinner, and go back to work. What we would commonly have for dinner, my favorite dinner when I was growing up, was beans and cornbread. If it was not that, it was sliced diced potatoes and white gravy or Kraft dinners, we called them, the macaroni and cheese. I thought that we had those meals so often because they were so good. Well, it took a while, until I had five kids myself, that I realized we had those meals so often because they were so economical. They were healthy. They were nourishing. We got by fine, but it saved money. The family needed to save. Maybe we have some Federal bureaucrats that need to be talking about beans and cornbread instead of doing the things that I have heard them say, Cabinet officers on TV, oh, there is no way that we can do a 1 percent cut. Tell that to Mr. And Mrs. America. Tell that to them when they have to sit around the table and have to balance the family budget, and they have to make decisions a lot bigger than cutting 1 percent. I remember when Jimmy Carter was President of the United States, and he said we cannot spend so much money and so much expense on energy. He said, turn down your thermostats in the winter. Turn them up in the summer. Do not use so many lights. Conserve electricity. Families do that all the time. Maybe bureaucrats need some leadership at the top saying conserve things instead of spending more. The President took 1,700 people on a trip to Africa, announced all these government give-aways, and, on top of that, spent, what was it, $50 million, $70 million for that huge entourage.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, it is especially appalling to see the Clinton-run Pentagon using Clinton- speak. We are putting more money into the Pentagon, even after the 1 percent cut, more money than the President proposed. He had the Pentagon people come to the Congress and say, under the President's budget, they can get along just fine. But now, under the larger budget they will be getting from Congress, the President has been claiming they cannot get by. That does not make sense. They can get by on less from the President. They can get by on more from Congress. They can handle this 1 percent cut like everybody else. I speak as a member of the Subcommittee on Defense that wants to strengthen our defense, and we are doing it because we are still strengthening it even after applying the same standard to them as to the rest of government.

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I just got on the House floor. Is it correct that the President vetoed this bill because it takes Americans' hard- earned money and he wants to give billions away to other countries more?

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. Is the gentlewoman willing to say publicly that she will accept the provision that does not permit the legalization of marijuana, Proposition 59, in the District of Columbia? Will the gentlewoman say that?

Mr. ISTOOK

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I wish we were here just talking, as the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran) was just mentioning, just about this lawsuit, which is frankly already in court and the District of Columbia says we want the right to pay the attorneys for the work they are doing for free. In fact, realizing that it is a highly symbolic issue, both with D.C. and some other Members of Congress, I sought to craft a compromise and get the House conferees to support a compromise in the earlier conference but was not successful. That is symbolism. When it comes to drugs, it is not symbolic, it is reality. If someone's kid is using drugs, that is reality, and it does not get any deeper than that. This bill has language that says, the District of Columbia cannot have laws that differ from the laws of the land. We are all bound by them. We are bound by article 1, Section 8, that gives us the responsibility for D.C. we do not have for any place else in the country. The Constitution, article 1, Section 8, says it is the Congress of the United States that has exclusive legislative authority over the District of Columbia. Now, in other places we are only in charge of enforcing the Federal laws. If California or Arizona, anyplace, puts a law on the books we still make sure the Federal laws on marijuana and other drugs are still being enforced and we are making sure of that, but we do not have the ability about what the laws say. Here in D.C., we do. We are responsible if D.C.'s laws are bad. The Constitution says we are responsible, and if I am responsible I want to do the right thing. The President of the United States, do not give me this business about saying the President of the United States does not want to legalize marijuana. Read the veto message he sent to us on this bill. He vetoed it because it prohibits the district from legislating with respect to certain controlled substances, controlled substances, drugs, marijuana. The only thing pending, of course, was the marijuana initiative. The President vetoed the bill and told us it was because we would not let D.C. legalize marijuana, and we should not. It is our responsibility. The police chief here in Washington, D.C. is not fooled. He has told the public, it will lead to more drug trafficking and abuse and more drug-related crime and violence in our neighborhoods. If this bill is voted against, it is a vote to legalize drugs in Washington. I urge a yes vote.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time to close.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Barr).

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 3064, and that I may include tabular and extraneous material.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I have not yielded for that purpose. Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman). (Mr. PORTMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica). (Mr. MICA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks, and include extraneous material.)

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. We are here, Mr. Speaker, on bringing back the appropriations bill for the District of Columbia that previously passed this House a few weeks ago and was vetoed by the President. It is because of the President's veto that we are still here. The President in his veto message mentioned several items which I will cover in a moment. But I think if we look first, as we should, at what underlies this bill in the appropriations, we will understand why some of these other issues that are raised as a barrier to the passage of the bill should not be raised against it. Mr. Speaker, this bill is important to the District of Columbia. It adopts and approves their budget as put forth to Congress by the mayor and the city council. We did not change their budget submission. We have a new mayor, a new council, we are trying to work closely with them. I have spent a great many hours working with them and other persons in the District of Columbia. I appreciate the fresh attitudes that many of them have brought to this effort. This bill has Federal funding, not required under any sort of formula, Federal funding to assist in drug testing and drug treatment for some 30,000 persons in the District of Columbia that are on probation and parole, that are a great source of crime in the District. It has the crackdown money for the open air drug markets; again not money that the Congress was required to provide to the Nation's capital but which we are doing because it is the Nation's capital, it has a serious drug problem, we are trying to help them with their problem of drugs and the interrelated problem of crime. We have extra Federal funding to help them clear the backlog of over 3,000 kids in D.C. that are stuck in foster homes that need to be adopted into permanent, stable, loving homes. We have funding for the incentives for that. We have funding for cleaning up the Anacostia River. We have a strengthening of the charter school movement which is taking great hold in D.C. in providing kids an alternative to some very troubled public schools in the Nation's capital. We have a scholarship program to help them attend college, several million dollars set aside for that purpose. We have funding for the court system, funding for the criminal justice system, funding for the prison and corrections system. This is a very important bill to help cure some of the accumulated problems of the Nation's capital. We are assisting them in reducing the size of the District government, to help them buy up employment contracts so they can shrink the size of the District government. We have approval for the tax cuts that the D.C. mayor and council have adopted, historic tax cuts and reductions to make the Nation's capital a better and safer place to live, to work and to visit. In the midst of all these, we also have some things that have been part of this bill for years, that nevertheless the President chose those things, to ignore all these other things which have had universal approval, to ignore all these others, and the President chose certain issues in his veto message. There are seven things in his veto message. First, he said he was vetoing it because it did not allow the District of Columbia to decide for itself whether marijuana would be legal. Of course, that is why we have national drug laws. Second, because it does not permit the District to be involved in providing free needles to drug addicts, he vetoed it over that. Third, because it has a restriction that has been in this bill for 21 years, saying you do not use taxpayer money for unrestricted abortion, only in the cases of rape, incest and life of the mother. Next, he vetoed it because it continues a restriction that has been in effect for 8 years, saying that you do not provide taxpayer-funded benefits to unmarried persons living together, you do not give them the same consideration as persons living together in marriage. Next, he said he vetoed it because it does not allow taxpayer money to be used to finance a lawsuit, which was filed and is already proceeding, but it does not let taxpayer money finance a lawsuit against the House and the Senate challenging the Constitution's restriction that does not give D.C. a vote the same as another State in the Congress. Next, he vetoed it because he said we should not restrict the salaries of the D.C. city council members. There was a lid on how much they could go up. And, finally, because it had a restriction on how much hourly rates could be for attorneys that sue the schools in the District of Columbia, which the D.C. schools had told us was important because millions of dollars were being drained away from the schools by those lawsuits. That was the President's veto message. What is different about this bill from when he vetoed it? We have taken away the restriction on the D.C. council members' salaries. We have made an adjustment, albeit a small one, on the hourly rate legal fees paid to attorneys. We have not changed the provisions relating to needles for drug addicts. We have not changed the provisions on taxpayer funding for this lawsuit which currently is proceeding with private funding. It is in the courts. Nobody's rights have been blocked. It is being funded with private dollars. They want to use taxpayers' money to pay attorneys that are right now willing to work for free. One of the leading law firms in the country, Covington & Burling, is handling that so-called voting rights lawsuit. We have not changed the provisions regarding abortion nor the so-called domestic partners benefits. And we have expressly retained the language saying the laws in the Nation's capital cannot conflict with the drug laws of the country. And we have expressly disapproved the initiative of the D.C. voters trying to legalize so-called medical marijuana. Mr. Speaker, I heard persons on the other side of the aisle say, ``Oh, these other things aren't issues,'' and sometimes it is one thing and sometimes it is another. But I have never, never, never, never, never heard them say, ``We will accept the provision that requires D.C.'s drug laws to be consistent with the drug laws of the country.'' They have never said that. They have never asked the President to withdraw his veto on those grounds. I have heard people try to say, ``Well, the President didn't really veto it over that.'' Yes, he did. These are excerpts from the President's own veto statement. He wrote to this Congress, it is in the Congressional Record, ``Congress has interfered in local decisions in this bill in a way that it would not have done to any other local jurisdiction in the country.'' What is he talking about? He said, ``The bill would prohibit the District from legislating with respect to certain controlled substances.'' Controlled substances. That is drugs. That is what the law talks about. That is how we define drugs in the law. Because it does not allow the District to legalize marijuana as they are trying to do. And he says, ``Congress should not impose such conditions on the District of Columbia.'' Congress imposes those conditions on Oklahoma City. It imposes them on Alexandria, Virginia. It imposes them on Grand Rapids, Michigan. Every place in the country is covered by the national drug laws. The President vetoed the bill because he says, ``King's X, Washington D.C. shouldn't be covered,'' that they ought to be able to adopt their own rules of this so-called medical marijuana. Mr. Speaker, that is greatly misleading. We have had testimony a number of times from the persons that we finance with a $16-billion-a- year effort to fight drugs in this country, including the White House's own office, the so-called drug czar, the Office of National Drug Policy. Here is the statement from the drug czar of the United States, General Barry McCaffrey: ``Medical marijuana initiatives present even greater risks to our young people. Referenda that tell our children that marijuana is a `medicine' send them the wrong signal about the dangers of illegal drugs, increasing the likelihood that more children will turn to drugs.'' Why did the President not listen to his own White House people about the effort to legalize drugs? And they have told the Congress before that this is just part of the national effort to legalize drugs, city by city, State by State, poking holes in the consistent Federal law against it. I would like to hear a clear statement from my friends across the aisle, ``We will accept that language in the bill. We will accept that the District of Columbia should be under the universal drug laws that cover all parts of the United States of America.'' That is all we are asking. They have not said it. Maybe they will today. But I hope it is clear and consistent that they ask the White House to retract this part of the veto statement by the President. Why do they do such a thing? I can only surmise that he is trying to pander to certain political extremists, perhaps to assist the Vice President in securing an important part of his hoped-for constituency in his race for President. That is my theory. That is the only reason I can understand for why this would occur. I believe that it is really absurd and ridiculous for the President of the United States to say drug policy in America is going to change from a consistent national policy to protect our kids, and instead we are going to let people shoot holes in the laws all over the country. I will place in the Congressional Record a copy of an April 1998 article from Readers Digest detailing the financed effort, using a lot of hype, a lot of misleading things, to promote the so-called medical marijuana. We had a hearing before our subcommittee. We had the officials from the Justice Department and the White House and the Office of National Drug Control Policy come and testify. They confirmed to us that it is never, never medically necessary or suggested that smoking marijuana is the best way to alleviate any health problem. We have had legal for over 20 years, under prescriptions, the active ingredient, THC, which people can get via a doctor's prescription with a drug called Marinol and they have consistently said, let us handle the issue of drugs through the Food and Drug Administration and through considered policy rather than use these anecdotes and sob stories that sometimes people use in political referenda. And certainly the police chief of Washington, D.C. is not fooled. Charles Ramsey, the chief of police of Washington, D.C., publicly issued this statement before D.C. had this vote. The police chief said, quote: ``Legalized marijuana under the guise of medicine is a sure fire prescription for more marijuana on the streets of D.C., more trafficking and abuse, and more drug-related crime and violence in our neighborhoods. This measure would provide adequate cover in the name of medicine for offenders whose real purpose is to manufacture, distribute and abuse marijuana.'' That is the police chief right here in Washington, D.C. All I ask my friends across the aisle and the White House is to withdraw their objections to that part of the bill that says you do not legalize marijuana in the Nation's capital. I am asking the White House to retract that statement. Then we could focus on other issues. Finally, in my comments at this time I recognize and will hear some about this voting rights effort to the lawsuit, trying to win through the courts, not through the Constitution, a vote for D.C. in the House and votes in the Senate. I understand their concern. The restriction in the bill does not say they cannot have such a suit; it says do not use taxpayers' money for it; that such a suit has been pending; it has been for many months, handled at private expense. The attorneys are handling it pro bono, which means they do not charge anything, and nobody's rights have been denied. The District officials said, ``Oh, we want to be able to pay the attorneys that are right now willing to do it for free.'' That is the issue. It has acquired some symbolism on both times. I made a good faith effort in the House/Senate conference to craft something that would satisfy D.C. and satisfy the Senate. The Senate has not at this time been willing to go along with it. I think symbolism has got people pushed on both sides, and I am not looking at the symbols, I am looking at the reality that the lawsuit is going to go forward with or without the funding; and nominal funding is one thing, large funding is another. Maybe we can work that out in conference because we are going to have a conference between the House and the Senate. We are not trying to ramrod anything. I have been in communication with the White House officials through the Office of Management and Budget; I have been in communication with my friends across the aisle, with the persons in the District, with a ton of other people. We have had lots of discussions on this. I hope nobody would believe anything to the contrary, and we are still going to have further discussions, but right now we need to move it along and get this bill passed. Then we will have the House/Senate conference, and we will try to work out the differences. I wish we could work them all out today. It will do no end of good if we could just have our friends across the aisle and the White House abandon their support of the effort of D.C. to legalize marijuana. [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH14OC99.007 [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH14OC99.008 Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, under the rule, I do not believe I am permitted to yield for any amendments.