Nancy Johnson

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I support this bill; and I particularly want to recognize its understanding of the importance of renewable, clean sources of energy for the future. I firmly believe that a national energy policy must include promotion of alternatives to traditional energy sources. Doing so will reduce our reliance on imported oil, give consumers greater choice, stabilize energy prices, and benefit the environment at the same time. The reason our constituents find themselves faced with out-of-control heating oil and fuel prices is because our nation has no long-term energy policy. I am pleased that the tax portion of this package includes my legislation to promote the use of fuel cells which remove the hydrogen from fossil fuels to create energy with virtually no pollutants. They function must like a battery except fuel cells do not require recharging and are far more efficient than a combustion engine or power plant. H.R. 4 proposes a fuel cell tax credit for five years to create a market incentive for this revolutionary technology, which is reliable and will provide economic and environmental advantages to traditional fuel sources. The bill will accelerate commercialization of this technology by providing a $1,000 per kilowatt credit for efficient, stationary fuel cell systems. Stationary fuel cells capable of running 24 hours a day, seven days a week for five years with only routine maintenance are currently in operation today. As a distributed generation technology, fuel cells address the immediate need for secure, efficient, clean energy supplies, while reducing grid demand and increasing grid flexibility. First used by NASA in the space program, they are now in hospitals, schools, military installations, and manufacturing facilities and may be available for homeowners by the end of this year. Although these early products have proven energy efficiency and environmental advantages, help in accelerating volume production is essential in realizing lower prices for consumers and the full benefits of fuel cells. I am also a strong supporter of another provision included in this energy package to encourage the development of projects that capture landfill gas (LFG) and use it as an alternative energy source. LFG is produced as waste decomposes in landfills that serve our communities. LFG projects capture and use the gas to generate electricity or directly as an alternative fuel. H.R. 4 would extend the Section 45 tax credit for wind energy, closed-loop biomass, and poultry waste to LFG projects. It is estimated that an additional 700 landfill gas-to-energy projects could be made economically feasible with such an incentive. Helping to bring these projects online would help the nation save more than 40 million barrels of oil annually. With that kind of potential, we must ensure that we are tapping into LFG, which is available in nearly every community in America. It is technologies like fuel cells and landfill gas projects that will help us decrease our dependence on foreign oil, conserve existing oil supplies, and reduce air pollution.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this amendment.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. That is right. Now, I would like to recognize my colleague from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth), also a member of the Committee on Ways and Means, and I appreciate his being with us tonight.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth) is absolutely right. This is about whether doctors will regain control of America's health care system. At the hearing before our subcommittee of the Committee on Ways and Means, every single example that the trial lawyers gave could have been solved more rapidly under the system in our bill and for $50. I ask, what is in the patients' interest? What is in the patients' interest is that they get the care they need and they get the care they need when they need it, that they do not go to court and face the long dragged out process of the court and face the high cost of a court case. It was really sad to sit there and hear every single example the trial lawyers' representatives gave and to see how this could have been resolved so much more rapidly, with so much less suffering and harm on the part of the patient and their whole family and of the caring physician under our system. My colleague is absolutely right. This is a big vote about whether patients and doctors are going to be at the heart of America's health care system in the future. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth) for joining us today. Mr. Speaker, I welcome my colleague from Pennsylvania (Mr. English), who has been very active in so many issues that touch on the heart and life of the people of his district, to this discussion.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for his comprehensive remarks on this issue. This is an extremely important debate we are going to have. I personally believe that every patient, everyone who has health insurance and needs medical care, has the rights of access to quality care that are guaranteed in our bill and in the other bills. That is the right for a woman to choose an OB-GYN specialist, the right to choose pediatric care, and other specialists, to emergency care, to continuity of care, to access to proper information about one's plan, access to treatment under clinical trials, something I fought 5 years for for Medicare recipients so they could have the benefits of clinical trials, protection from gag rules, and things like that. These patients' rights embodied in our legislation are extremely important. Yes, they can only be enforced if a patient who is denied access has the right to sue. I am proud to say that in our bill, a patient who is denied needed care and harmed by that decision has the right to sue and gets redress. But the program we put out to guarantee patients the right to sue under our bill is a legal structure that is simple, that is direct, that makes it clear to employers that they cannot be sued if they are not making medical decisions; and, therefore, it is affordable and will not push costs up. Mr. Speaker, we limit liability in a responsible fashion, just as they do in Texas and in many, many States that provide the right to sue. By doing that, again, we control costs and we protect the employers who are the primary folks who are providing health insurance to the people of our country. Mr. Speaker, I am very proud that the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Fletcher) and others have been part of the team that have developed this legislation, that it offers to the American people all of the access rights, all of the protections they need to both continue to enjoy health insurance through their place of work and to have the right to all needed medical care. This is a patients' bill of rights. This is a doctor-power bill. But if we do this wrong, if we do not really listen to what might happen if we write these provisions in a way that is insensitive to what happens when frivolous suits are brought to the table, when costs shoot up for all the wrong reasons, then in fact we will do damage to the rights of patients and we will deny many currently covered the great privilege and pleasure of health security through health insurance. I enter this week with high hopes that we in the House can do the right thing to provide access and care to all who have insurance. I am proud to say that the American College of Surgeons, the College of Cardiologists, the thoracic surgeons, the orthopedic surgeons, the neurologists, and I could go on and on, enough groups of doctors support this bill so that we have that same doctor power behind this bill as the AMA that supports the other bill. But it is very interesting. The groups that support our bill are the very groups who are most concerned about patient access to their services, because they are the specialist groups. They are the ones that under the current system most frequently are not able to reach the patients that need their care. So I am proud of this legislation. It will serve the people of America well. The bills have much in common. I hope working together we in this House and our colleagues in the other body can send to the President's desk a Patients' Bill of Rights that will serve patients, doctors and all Americans and maintain the strong system of employer-provided health insurance that has made the American health care system the best there is in the world.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. If they have a very sick infant and go to the emergency room, and in the opinion of the health professional, the prudent opinion of the health professional, that infant needs certain care, that infant can have the care that they need on the word of the health professional, as opposed to the prudent layperson's standard that pertains to me, if I were in pain or another adult if they were in pain.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much for his time tonight. It is a pleasure to know that the emergency physicians were very involved in writing that provision, and we have very strong coverage and protection for emergency room care. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins), from the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. My colleague, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins), has made a series of very important points, but the most important point is that health insurance is the most important benefit that employees receive from employers and that in fact the only place people can get affordable health insurance is through their place of employment. If we provide access to specialist care and all of those access rights that we provide in this bill, which both bills provide and which do not in themselves cause any of the problems the gentleman is talking about; and if we provide a national process of independent review of decisions made by insurers to guaranty that those decisions do not deny needed care, which both bills provide and 41 States provide, that will not have the consequences that the gentleman fears. But if we provide the right to sue wrong, we will have the consequences the gentleman fears. And if businesses think they can be sued for what are essentially malpractice decisions, they will drop their plans or increase costs. Just to give my colleagues a little example of how important this is, in last year's alternative bill we had a system for protecting employers. The employers, frankly, did not think we were right, and they did not support it. But it was the best we could think of at the time. It said if you did not directly participate in the decision, then you could not be sued. But direct participation turned out to be a pretty long chain, and a lot of people got swept into it. So this year, as we move forward, we thought harder about that issue of protecting the employer, who, after all, is only doing his employees the good service of having a plan and paying for it for them. So we came up with a new way of protecting employers. And one of the things about our bill, the Fletcher-Peterson-Johnson bill is that it has a simple, clean mechanism for protecting employers. The employer simply appoints a dedicated decisionmaker, and under his plan he then is protected from suit. Now, in the other bill, realizing what a good idea we had, in the Senate they added that designated decisionmaker into the bill. But they just laid it on top. So now their bill has two systems. What that does is to create court cases about which system. That is the kind of way in which the other bill, in its complexity, invites litigation, explodes litigation, drives up costs, drives up premiums or copays, or reduces coverage or, in fact, forces employers to drop their plans. So when we talk about the fact that our bill better protects employers and protects the employees' insurance, it is right there in black and white. It is in the provisions. Their provisions drive inappropriate litigation. Our provisions only help the person who was harmed by not getting the medical care they deserved. And that person, under our bill, has the right to sue. I thank the gentleman from Georgia for joining us and talking about this.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for joining us. I want to ask just one question to the gentleman, as a physician. Is it not true that under our emergency services section, where we guarantee people the right, if one's pain is severe enough that any prudent layperson would think someone needed to go to the emergency room, they can go to the emergency room and get care under our bill and under the other bill? But there is a unique aspect to our bill. That has to do with very, very young infants, where of course ``the prudent layperson'' rule is a little hard to apply. So we do take a different tack in that portion of the bill. If the gentleman would just talk about that, I think it would help people understand how thoughtful our legislation is.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. That is right, and that is very clear under our bill, that that is not a health care decision.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Fletcher-Peterson-Johnson bill, and I appreciate the opportunity to talk to people about the strength of our approach to providing people with the right to sue if they have been harmed by a plan or a decision that their plan made. It is absolutely wrong for an HMO to have the power to deny needed medical care to a participant in that plan. That is something that, frankly, we all agree on. What we do not agree on exactly is the process by which we achieve that goal. I want to make sure that at the same time we provide patients with a right to sue their HMO, we do it in a way that returns power and control over our health care system back to physicians. I do not want a solution to patients' rights that empowers lawyers over doctors, or puts in place such a complex system that resources hemorrhage out of our health care system into our legal system, diminishing not only the rights of patients but the possibilities of those who participate in plans for medical care. Mr. Speaker, I think through this discussion tonight we can make clear that our goal is to empower physicians, to return control of our health care system to physicians and patients, to doctors and the people they care for, where it ought to be; and to make sure that in the process of reform, we create new rights of access, we guarantee a new and objective external appeal process, but we do not transfer power that plans now have and should not have to lawyers for them to have, when they should not have it. So this is all about patients' rights and doctor power, and that is what we want to talk about tonight. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Fletcher), who is the lead sponsor of this legislation.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman for this opportunity to express my strong support for his bill and point out a small provision of it that is extremely important to the farmers of the northeastern part of the Nation, particularly to those in Connecticut. I strongly support the increase in funding for the EQIP program, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, because it will help us achieve our national attainment goals in the area of clean water. The AFO/CAFO regulations are expensive. My State has adopted all of the implementing policy to assure compliance with the AFO/CAFO regulations; and the only reason frankly, the only possible way that small farmers can survive these costly regulations is through the technical assistance that the EQIP funds provide to them to help them determine what projects will, in fact, contain runof. These funds give them some help in offsetting the costs of developing manure management programs and other modern approaches that will enable them to make a significant contribution to the cleanliness of our waterways and also, in the long run, to the revitalization of Long Island Sound. In New England, we have very steep, hilly farms. We also have more rainfall than other parts of the country. So the burden on us is, frankly, far higher than the burden on other parts of the country. We are not a part of the country that benefits much from the farm bill through its crop assistance and other programs, but so some of its conservation dollars, and these EQIP dollars, are extremely important to us. I thank the chairman for uncapping them and making more resources available for compliance with the AFO/CAFO requirements.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I thank Representative Skeen for yielding me time, and I appreciate the support that the subcommittee has shown for the NEA, the NEH and the IMLS. But I do rise in support of this amendment, because I think we as a Nation need to support the Challenge America initiative that the NEA has led. The Challenge America initiative has two primary goals: One, to literally press arts dollars down to the small communities. This is extraordinarily important, because these communities are far more conscious of their cultural life than they used to be. There are many more small theater groups developing, many more chamber groups, many more instrumentalist groups and choruses developing, and they need the help that small dollars can give them to organize, to publicize their concerts and to grow their position in the cultural life of our small communities. That is where the arts take on their greatest vitality. The second thing that these dollars do is to help their communities begin to record and cherish and revitalize their own knowledge of their heritage and to use that revitalization of their cultural heritage and the revitalization of current cultural institutions to develop the economy of rural areas, small cities, and those kinds of sectors of America that too long have had no support in developing the arts on a local and neighborhood and community basis. The third thing that Challenge America tries to do is to try to press these dollars down into our schools. If you have never stood in a school and had some kid tell you what a HOT school is, a Higher Order of Thinking school is, you really cannot get it, how important the arts are to developing our children's understanding of knowledge and how powerful knowledge is in our lives. Math can teach you certain logical truths; the arts can help you develop a level of intuitive thinking that is equally important. So I urge support of this amendment. I am proud to be a cosponsor of it. But I thank the committee for their general recognition of the importance of these institutions in our Nation's lives.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I stand in strong support of this legislation, and hope Members will help our constituents to see how much help it is going to give to young families getting started in life. It not only drops the taxation on part of their income to 10 percent, but it also gives them two 15 percent brackets before they move up into the higher bracket, so they will be able to earn much more income, give their family a much better start before they begin to carry the kind of burden they carried today. Not only will they get the double 15 percent bracket, the advantage of the 10 percent bracket, but they will have the double child tax credit over time, $1,000 per child. We are going to keep young families out of those mid ranges of our Tax Code for most of the years of their raising their young children. This is an enormous change in the sort of launching of children and families in our society. I am very proud that we are making it possible. Let me say lastly that I am sort of astounded at what I hear from the other side. It is absolutely as legitimate to, in a sense, spend the surplus through the tax vehicle as through the spending vehicle. I know many of them want to increase spending in this area and that area. Because we spend $80 billion a year through the Tax Code, America has a primarily employer-provided health care system. All that, the private sector health plans that employers provide to their employees, is made possible because we exempt those premiums through the Tax Code. We spend over $80 billion every year through the Tax Code. I want another tax bill that provides that same tax equity and tax support to everyone who pays their own health insurance premiums. That is every bit as intelligent and effective a way to expand access to health insurance as a subsidy program from Washington, which I know many of them support. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for the tax bill. It is going to make a big difference in people's lives.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I am proud to be an American. I am proud to be a citizen in the freest Nation in the world. We have the confidence in America that if everyone is allowed to speak up, to share their experience, to share their knowledge, we as a Nation will find the best and truest path into the future. I am proud that I am part of a country that trusts what is an extraordinarily difficult process, because it is difficult sometimes to trust the chaos that comes with public debate about difficult issues. And so I am humiliated as I stand here as an American to watch Members of this House impose on other countries a limit on their citizens' rights to speak up, to advocate what they think their government ought to do in governing themselves. Mr. Chairman, the underlying bill denies the use of American dollars for abortion; that is that. The underlying bill denies the right to counsel women to go get an abortion; that is that. I do not agree with it; but that is that. That is not the issue that so profoundly concerns me about the amendment, which I strongly oppose. If America's policy is to be no American funds for abortion, no American funds to counsel for abortion, so be it. But we do know that empowering women with the knowledge to space their children, to have healthy pregnancies, not only saves lives but produces healthy mothers and healthy babies. I am glad that there is money in the bill for family planning. This amendment is about whether we take the next step and we say to that country that the people who have experience in providing information and education to women may not raise their voice as citizens of their own country, to inform the debate in their own country about what public policy and public law ought to be. And worse than that, this bill says if you have an opinion that we approve of, you may speak publicly. If you have an opinion we disapprove of, you may not speak publicly. Are we going to send in the FBI? American troops? Are we going to be the censors of speech of people in other countries? It is one thing for America to say you cannot use our money for abortions; it is another thing to say and for us to export as a matter of American policy, we deny you the right to speak your opinion in your own country. We should be ashamed.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be joined on the floor of the House today by the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Clayton), who is my very dear friend and colleague. The gentlewoman and myself and the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle) and the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey) have been very active on the issue of teen pregnancy, and work closely with the campaign to end teen pregnancy to bring attention to the issue throughout the Nation. The newest data shows a very interesting fact: Teens listen to their parents. Often parents think their teenagers only listen to their teenage friends, and sometimes parents give up talking to their teenagers about difficult subjects like sex and sexuality and sexual activity amongst teens. But when your child is in their teen years, that is a time when you need to talk with your child. You need to listen to your son or your daughter. You need to hear what pressures they feel and face, because it is only through that conversation that you can help your teenager understand their own growth. Of course, they are growing in sexual awareness, but they are also growing emotionally towards independence and intellectually towards a level of personal power necessary for them to fulfill their dreams. When we talk to our kids about sexuality, we rarely talk to them about the terrible danger teen pregnancy poses to their growth and development, their ability to parent, their ability to provide for their child in the way they would want to. We rarely talk to them about the sheer lunacy of teen sex because of the devastating impact it can have on their lives. For young girls, particularly, inappropriate intimacy stunts their growth. Teenagers, by their nature, spend their teen years weaning themselves from their parents. That is what growing up is all about. It is about gaining your independence, gaining a sense of yourself, developing your own skills so that you can be your own person in the decades ahead. As one weans oneself from the control of one's parents, one also must gain that control oneself. For young women particularly, premature sexuality has the effect of transferring control to the young man. It is simply more true for young girls than it is for a young man. Yet, we do not talk with our girls about this at all. We do not help them to see that, if they want to succeed in the project of growing up, if they want to be their own person, if they want to be intellectually strong, they want to be morally strong, they want to have a sound body, a sound mind, a sound heart, they have to take responsibility for themselves. In seeking to leave their parents, it is particularly dangerous for young girls to shift that power of control through sexual intimacy to a young man. That is unfortunately exactly what happens, and we do not even talk about it. So it is important to talk to one's teens. It is important to listen to the pressures they face. It is important not to be afraid of those pressures because, through discussion, one will arm one's child with an understanding of the power that abstinence provides them over themselves and gives them in shaping their future. Now, growing up has always been tough. It is tough all through one's life to really grow up well. But it is particularly tough in teen years and during that process of adolescence. If we, as parents, cannot talk straighter with our children and cannot listen at a level that allows us to listen to things we never thought we would hear our kids say, then we cannot, with them, help them guide themselves through the difficult waters of adolescence in today's world and the many pressures that growing up imposes on teenagers. So kids need to talk to their folks and folks need to listen to their children. We hope that, by investing money in the research necessary to better understand teen sexuality and teen growth, we will be better able to help kids understand how it is that one becomes empowered to be oneself and to determine one's own course and how it is we establish healthy, strong, loving relationships throughout one's lifetime. By investing money in this very important research project, we will be able to talk from an increasingly sound and strong basis of knowledge ourselves. But we also hope that, through sheer publicity, we will be able to help teens understand that premature sexual intimacy is destructive of their future. I am delighted to be here with the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Clayton) today.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, 1851 was an extraordinary year. Our country was 75 years old and on the brink of Civil War. In the midst of all the chaos, a small group of Hartford, Connecticut's leading businessmen, religious leaders, cultural and civic leaders, applied for a charter for the formation of The American Temperance Life Insurance Company, which would become Phoenix Home Life Mutual Insurance Company. On Thursday, Phoenix celebrates its 150th anniversary. It has survived the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Great Depression, two World Wars and the societal upheaval of the late 20th century. Phoenix has endured because the company has always met the needs of its policyholders and customers while upholding its standards of integrity, and industry and community leadership. Phoenix has through the years been a leader in product innovations: it was the first to insure the temperate, the first to lower rates for women (based on actuarial science), the first to offer policies that covered total families, not just individuals, and the first to lower rates for nonsmokers. Phoenix has been a leader in business practice innovations: Phoenix was the first to require full-time dedicated agents and led the drive to make the sale of insurance a profession. Phoenix was also the first to develop a publication for its field force and the first company to use direct mail marketing. Phoenix has been recognized ten times by Working Mother magazine as one of the Top 100 companies for working mothers. It was recognized for its efforts in providing childcare, workplace flexibility, leave for new parents, and advancement of women. But perhaps most importantly, Phoenix's Chief Executive Officer, Robert W. Fiondella, has proven that the values of community and citizenship made good business sense. Phoenix encourages its employees to volunteer through a policy that allows them to devote 40 hours of company time per year to community activities, provided it is matched by the same amount of personal time. The company also rewards its top 20 professional advisors through its Donor's Award, a program that enables them to designate up to $2,000 to a local charity. Since its inception, the award has benefited many organizations, including the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, Lou Gehrig Baseball and the Make A Wish Foundation. Phoenix has spearheaded a $3 million ``Legacy Campaign'' to sustain and grow the Doc Hurley Foundation, the creation of Walter J. ``Doc'' Hurley, who has worked tirelessly for Hartford's youth. Phoenix contributed $250,000 at the start of the campaign and will contribute another $250,000 at the end of it. The campaigns endowment will help high school students go on to college through a scholarships and other support, such and help with purchasing books and completing paperwork. Foundation Trustees will help with mentoring and helping to complete necessary paperwork pertaining to college applications. Student attendance and mastery test scores have improved at Hartford's Fred D. Wish Elementary School as a result of Phoenix's partnership with the school. For 15 years, employees have worked one- on-one with students in grades three through six to sharpen math and language skills. Phoenix provides transportation each week for students to travel to their Hartford office for tutoring. Mr. Speaker, at a time when some businesses are scaling back their corporate giving programs, Phoenix is sustaining and even enhancing its involvement. In 1995, Phoenix made an eight-year commitment to Special Olympics International as its first Official Worldwide Partner, setting a standard for volunteerism and civic responsibility few companies can match. Please join me in offering congratulations on their 150th anniversary and in recognition of Phoenix Home Life Mutual Insurance Company.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the underlying bill and in equally strong opposition to the amendment before us. First of all, the amendment does not take into account the remarkable effect this bill is going to have on the availability of pensions to employees across America. It particularly does not seem to notice that by making pension plans far simpler to offer to your employees, stripping out a lot of the regulation, stripping out the cost, many, many employers are going to be able to offer their employees a defined benefit pension plan. We have seen a sharp decline in the number of defined benefit pension plans offered by employers in America in recent years because of the heavy regulation. They often require no contribution by the employee, and they guarantee you a benefit when you retire, as opposed to the defined contribution plans which only guarantee you what benefit your contribution was able to create. Why are we helping low-income people by offering them a defined contribution plan when by expanding the number of defined benefit plans, which often do not require any contribution, we are going to create a far better option for them? Furthermore, many defined benefit plans also do allow you to contribute. The very people that they are concerned about, the amendment is concerned about, the low-income worker who works for a small business, the person earning $10,000 to $15,000, they are the people who get the biggest bang from the tax cut. That is why our tax bill that gives those low-income workers the biggest tax break between the drop to a 10 percent bracket, the marriage penalty relief, the child relief, and the bracket drops, these are the very people who are going to get more dollars and can put those dollars into savings vehicles. But if they put them into savings vehicles like a defined benefit plan, they will get the expander effect of the employer contribution. So this bill is dynamite for low-income workers and small businesses. In a country where past pension policy has forced employers to drop their pensions because the regulations have been so heavy and so complicated, and the court costs so great, for a country that now has 50 percent of its working people working for employers who do not provide any pension plan at all for their employees, this bill is an imperative to pass now in the full form of its underlying legislation.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Lofgren amendment. I would like to point out to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Largent) that actually I want to hold criminals accountable for crimes against pregnant women. Twenty-four States have higher penalties for assault of a pregnant woman and, in Connecticut, for assault of an elderly person. That is right and justified. If that is what this bill, the underlying bill, did, I would strongly support it. It is what the amendment does and that is why I support the amendment. The amendment imposes much higher penalties, even up to the death sentence, on people who assault a woman who is pregnant. But it does something else. I do find it almost unbelievable that my conservative colleagues would advocate such a radical piece of legislation. This legislation is truly extraordinary, because it changes the fundamental concept of law that has governed America since its founding. What is radical about this bill is not that it wants to punish people who assault pregnant women; I want to do that, too. What is radical about this bill is that for the first time under our laws, it will define fetal personhood. The consequences are going to be extraordinary. What happens if a woman has a miscarriage because she worked too hard, she stayed up late, she drove herself, she did not take care of herself, and she has a miscarriage? Is she going to be a murderer? That may not be in this bill, but let me tell you, it is the next one down the road. What if, for good reason, for health reasons, she has to have an abortion? What if the doctor says, you will not survive if you do not have an abortion? Is the doctor then a murderer? That is the underlying goal of this bill. Do not hide it from yourself. If you vote for it, know that you are voting for a radical change in the American legal statutes.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to remove the name of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) from H.R. 1076, to which it was added mistakenly.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I regret that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are playing such purposeful politics with this budget debate. The bottom line is that the HI trust fund, that is the hospital trust fund, that is part of the larger fund, can only be used for Medicare and it can be used for Medicare reform as well, because this body, Democrats and Republicans, voted for the lockbox bill. In fact, we voted 407 to 2. Everybody voted for it, and it said that the money in the HI trust fund could be used for Medicare and Medicare reform. So that is just that. Also, in this resolution we have explicitly provided the funding for a proposal that the President might propose for prescription drugs and/or Medicare reform or that we in Congress might write. Where is the money going to come from? First of all, there is more money in this budget for prescription drugs than there ever was in a Clinton budget, and he talked about it all the time. So we have pretty good money in this budget. Remember that Clinton funded his entire first prescription drug bill from savings within Medicare. Now, I did not believe that was possible then and I do not believe it now, but it does remind us that we can make some savings within the program to also rededicate those resources to prescription drugs. Then there are 40 trust funds currently in surplus. Any one of those trust funds could be used to carry the money into Medicare reform or prescription drugs. In other words, there is money in the bill, there is authority in the bill for us to write the prescription drug bill that we think will serve seniors and their children and grandchildren in the future. If we just pay for all of the drugs, we are talking a trillion dollars over 10 years. Medicare is going to double its costs in the same 10 years. So now we are at a trillion five. The defense budget, at its biggest, will never exceed $300 billion. We simply have to bring a prudent drug bill to the floor because the seniors do not need just prescription drugs. They need chronic-disease management. They need much better preventive health services than Medicare now offers. Is it not pathetic that only last year we gave them coverage for pelvic exams and pap tests? So we have a lot of things we have to do to modernize Medicare, and we are obliged to bring back a disciplined, prudent prescription drug bill that meets the needs of seniors but also allows them the additional new services they need.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I rise in strong support of H.R. 3. The time is right. The time is now to give hard-working Americans substantial tax relief. It simply amazes me that Americans spend more in taxes than they spend on food, clothing, and housing combined. The tax burden on ordinary working people in today's America is higher than it has been at any time since World War II, and the average household pays two and a half times more in taxes than it paid in 1985. This is unacceptable. It is unfair. It is just plain outright wrong. Let us look at what is happening to those tax dollars that they are pouring into Washington. For one thing, they are building up a surplus faster than at any time in our history. Just yesterday, our Secretary of the Treasury said that right now, this month of March, our surplus is $75 billion. A year ago, in that economic year, at the same time, it was only $40 billion. So in spite of the leveling off of the economy, the surplus is growing more rapidly now than it was a year ago. The surplus dollars are our taxes. They are just the fruit of the hard labor of the American people. We can reduce the debt; pay it right down. We can spend on our priorities like education and health care; and, yes, we can and must reduce people's taxes. It is their money. They deserve a portion of it back, and they deserve that today.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, I came to the floor because I want to remind the Members, and I hope to remind the White House, that it is time that we wrap up our business. It is very important that we, as a body, deliver to the executive branch a plan for spending and for funding the priorities of the next year. I wanted to remind my colleagues that while there is some debate about the exact level, it is a rather minor number of millions and billions that have to be dealt with; that, in fact, in this bill are many, many things that many of us have fought long and hard for. There is a big increase in funding for teacher quality. Now that we know more about the lack of certified teachers in many of our classrooms, the lack of subject matter preparation of many of our teachers, particularly in the inner cities, it is really imperative that we pass a budget that puts that money out there so we can make some of the progress in public education that we know needs to be made. In this bill is 575 million more dollars for after-school programs, and I would like to say that in my little town of Enfield, the Enfield after-school care program that provides after-school care for only at- risk children has already had 10 of its children referred to DT out of our children family agency for neglect. This will be the security of these children as they move through a difficult time in their families and hopefully be the difference between these children. These are K through 6 kids. These are not high school kids. Six of the kids have already been referred to a juvenile review board only in the first 3 months of the school year. These really are at-risk kids, and this wonderful program has given these kids stability, is helping them improve their school performance and will be their security and their ticket out of juvenile crime, under achievement, low self-esteem and catastrophic consequences. Also in this legislation is a significant increase in the child care block grant. This body prided itself on passing welfare reform, but if we do not do things like we are doing this year, and this bill is $817 million more for those very child care certificates that working women coming off of welfare depend upon, if we cannot provide child care subsidies to a woman coming off of welfare into a roughly minimum wage job or just above she is not going to make it; not because she is not trying but because she has such heavy child care costs that she could not possibly make it on those entry level salaries. So in this bill we are following through on many initiatives in human services, in education, that do, in fact, give our people the support and the opportunity, whether they are children or adults, that frankly this body has striven long and hard to create on a bipartisan basis. So I would urge my colleagues to remember that in here is fuel assistance, a big increase for fuel assistance, going into a winter when we know things are going to be very tough; health care; education, and it is our responsibility to pass it. I would also remind my colleagues that it is going to be well over the President's request, over anything this House passed, and so we have the ability to rationally agree on some modest reductions from one agreed-on level and get this bill to the President. I hope that we can get an agreement before he leaves for Ireland so by the time he gets back we will have it passed and his signature on it very promptly. We owe it to those people who work for our government so they can deliver consistent quality service in a knowing, established context of supported funding. I thank the gentlemen for their hard work on both sides of the aisle, and I ask that we move forward and this be the last CR we be asked to support because I will support it only reluctantly.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I am very concerned that the Internal Revenue Service is taking a position in audits that has the possibility of undercutting all we have been trying to accomplish with the low-income housing tax credit program. Recently, a series of five IRS technical advice memoranda (TAM) were released under the Freedom of Information Act. These TAMs gave IRS national office legal advice to revenue agents auditing a particular low-income housing developer. The TAMs involved what costs may be included in the eligible basis of a property for the purpose of determining the amount of low-income housing tax credit that are allocated by a state housing finance agency. The TAMs are very technical, but they are inconsistent with current industry practice and have the potential of retroactively disallowing substantial amounts of credits that have already been allocated and used to finance affordable housing around the country. I am concerned that retroactive tax treatment to investors will have the effect of shaking the confidence that has been built up over the years in this program. Perhaps equally troubling is that the position the IRS has taken in these TAMs could change the economics of future affordable housing and could frustrate the goals of the low-income housing tax credit program to provide good quality housing to lower-income working people and senior citizens at the most reasonable rent possible. Since the low-income housing program is essentially a block grant program to the states operated through the tax laws and is fully subscribed, the position the IRS has taken in the TAMs will not save the Treasury any revenues. It simply will force the states to allocate the available credits differently and run the risk that the properties built in the future will not be able to be rented at rental rates as low as they are today. It is truly unfortunate that the first guidance from the IRS on these issues comes in the form of technical advice memoranda, purportedly limited to an individual taxpayer, rather than in the form of regulations after full opportunity for review and public comment on how the rules for allocating basis will affect the policy goals of the low- income housing tax credit program. I would urge the Treasury Department immediately to announce initiation of a regulation project on the subject of eligible basis and to give the project expedited treatment. We cannot afford to allow allocation of credits and construction of affordable housing to be hindered by the cloud of these TAMs. I would urge my colleagues to learn more about this issue. It may be necessary for us to act quickly in the next Congress to respond to these TAMs in order to protect the viability of the low-income housing credit.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I wish today to recognize a milestone in the life of one of Connecticut's most treasured citizens. After serving for over 40 years in virtually every officer position and on every committee of New Britain General Hospital, Angelo Tomasso, Jr., has decided to retire from the Hospital's Board of Directors. To read a list of Angelo's accomplishments and activities is to bear witness to a life spent in the service of others. Whether it was as a soldier, entrepreneur, parent, philanthropist, or dedicated volunteer, Angelo has brought to every phase of his life the caring and understanding of a man who embraces his responsibility to better the lives of his neighbors, community, and State. Angelo's impact on New Britain General Hospital goes far beyond the work he did as a member of the Board of Directors. As the president of one of Connecticut's largest construction firms, Angelo set an example of the sense of responsibility business owners should have in keeping healthy the communities they serve. In being so generous with his time, Angelo has always showed that there is no one who can honestly say they are ``too busy'' to serve. When we say that Angelo Tomasso helped build New Britain General Hospital, we mean so much more than the bricks and mortar of a new wing. Through his generosity, commitment and fine example of civic service, Angelo has proven himself to be a man who helped create the reputation of New Britain General as one of the finest hospitals in the area. I feel privileged to call him my friend and I thank him for all he continues to do for our hospital and city.