Nancy Johnson

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, as chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight of the Committee on Ways and Means that has direct responsibility for the IRS, I have held the hearings on compliance on the year 2000 matters for all of those agencies under our jurisdiction, which is more than half the Federal Government. I believe that many, many, many people in our government are working extremely hard to assure that on January 1, 2000, we will be able to pay the bills, that there will be no interruption in government services, that Medicare will go well, Social Security will go well, contractors will get paid, defense will move forward. I think it is our obligation, while we may not all agree on how to fund this at this particular moment, to let this bill move forward. So my plea is not just to those who might want to eliminate any agency that is vulnerable to elimination under this rule, like those that I mentioned. It is also, for a second thought, by some on my side who are not satisfied with how we are funding the Y2K challenge. There are many rounds yet in the public discussion within this body and in the Senate as to how we satisfy that, so I think restraint on both sides of the aisle to move forward on this very important bill is a responsibility we share.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, no one opposed the rule under which we are working more strongly than did I. No one regrets more keenly that that rule passed. However, it gives us extraordinary latitude, extraordinary freedom, and with that freedom comes a good deal of responsibility. I would call on my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to exercise the power that this rule gives us individually in the interests of the people of this country. I lost that rule fight. Those who opposed it lost that rule fight in the good old-fashioned way democracy works. I would hope that no one in this House would raise a point of order against the funding for the IRS, whose very structure and organization we have worked hard to reform. I would hope we would not raise a point of order against the Customs; against the Financial Management Services, that pays all the bills in this country; the GSA, responsible for building courthouses, some of them so desperately needed to administer justice in this country. I know the passions that underlie some of the controversial sections of the bill, like that referred to by my colleague, the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) in the section regarding the FEC. There certainly will be some sections struck as this bill goes forward. But I would hope that none of us would use the latitude granted under this rule in a punitive, vindictive, or destructive manner. It is extremely important that this House be able to exercise freedom responsibly. We tell our constituents to do it, and we have to do it. So I would hope that we would be able, at the end of the day, to come out with a bill that does appropriately fund the many, many functions of government that are encompassed in this appropriations bill. Mr. Chairman, as one who opposed the rule strongly, I ask my colleagues to not exercise the authority it grants except in a very, very narrow manner.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this rule. It pains me to do so since we defeated it a few days ago, but I believe there is a good rule that can protect the excellent work of this subcommittee, and I do believe that the subcommittee reported a fair and sound and thoughtful piece of legislation that would have served the appropriations process very well and would have done honor to this body. This is a rule that exposes all parts of this bill with a small exception of one section to points of order. It is also a unique appropriations bill in the sense that most of the sections have not been authorized, and for many years we have protected them against points of order. So it is true that under this rule the funding for the IRS could be knocked out. We just spent months and months and months passing the most significant reform of the IRS passed in the history of this body. And why would we then want to bring this to the floor under an appropriations bill that is not going to actually fund this important agency? Now, there is no need for this kind of rule. Honestly, we need to get ourselves together, come back with a rule that addresses the critical snarly areas of this bill that have caused the controversy. I regret that the passage of an amendment in the subcommittee that guaranteed Federal employees full access to contraceptives has caused such a hullabaloo in this body. Frankly, this same bill denies Federal employees access to abortion, which is a medical, legal procedure in America. But we have made the decision that Federal employees should not have access to this legal medical procedure. Well, it is perfectly rational then to at least guarantee that our own employees have access to the full range of contraceptives so that they do not get pregnant unintentionally, that is all. If we disagree with that, fine. Have a rule that allows a vote on that. We have offered, have a rule that protects everything except the Lowey amendment. Let that be struck on a point of order; just let that rule allow us to offer an amendment to reinstate access to contraceptives for Federal employees, and we will argue it here on the floor. Let it take its course. There is this controversy about the funding of the Y2K resources. Let that be up or down. Let us talk about it. Let us debate it. I am for how the bill does it. I think it is irrational to take the funding for Y2K compliance for the whole government out of one budget and thereby disadvantage all of the other important programs that that budget provides for all the people of America and for our important Federal functions. So let us have a rule that brings the primary controversies to the floor. My colleagues, vote down this rule. This is an overreaction to an unfortunate lack of communication that caused the defeat of the first rule. I urge a ``no'' vote.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, first I want to congratulate the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Archer) the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means for not only his long investment and commitment to this bill, but the depth of knowledge that he has of it, and of the issues addressed in it and of his leadership as a conferee negotiating a bill that will be good for the taxpayers and a credit to this Congress. Today is a great day for taxpayers. With enactment of the IRS Restructuring Reform Act, we are going to fundamentally change the culture of the IRS, and not a moment too soon. Earlier this year, I asked my constituents to evaluate the performance of the IRS in a survey of taxpayers in the 6th Congressional District. Fifty-four percent of the respondents gave the agency a D or an F. That is unacceptable. It is appalling. It is unfair to taxpayers, to the honest, hard-working people of America who support their government. But it is equally unfair to the conscientious men and women who work for the IRS, that the unchecked, irresponsible actions of a few have undermined public confidence in their work. We need stronger management, stronger congressional oversight and stronger taxpayer rights. The measure before us today provides all three. The IRS oversight board created by this bill will bring private sector knowledge into the management of the IRS, so the IRS can begin the 21st century as a state-of-the-art, customer-oriented service organization. Infusing private sector know-how into the technology development and the management of the IRS will create a model for revitalizing our government agencies. But reform of the IRS requires reform of the congressional oversight process. At the moment, no fewer than six committees, not to mention their subcommittees, on both sides of the Capitol, tug the IRS in different and often conflicting directions. This bill takes an important first step toward streamlining Congressional oversight. It provides for annual joint hearings by Republicans and Democrats from the House and Senate tax-writing, appropriations and government oversight committees. The hearings will focus on the IRS strategic plan, budget and performance. If we expect the IRS to change its ways, we in Congress must do no less. The measure builds on the protections provided in the Taxpayer Bill of Rights II developed by the Committee on Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight and enacted by the last Congress. I am especially pleased that the taxpayer rights provisions will strengthen the protections for innocent spouses. Of all the horror stories that have surfaced in recent years, none have been more heartbreaking than those involving innocent spouses, taxpayers who in many cases have been left to rear their children as single parents, only to find their former spouses have saddled them with crushing tax debt. Many of these horror stories have been going on for years without the IRS helping the spouses who are seeking relief from mounting tax liabilities, interest and penalties. I have seen dozens of letters from innocent spouses who find themselves in this kind of jam. In March of 1995, the Committee on Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight held a hearing to explore the development of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights II. In particular, we were interested in finding out whether the current joint and several liability rules were equitable and whether innocent spouse rules were adequate. The long and the short of it is, we required the Treasury Department and the General Accounting Office to study those rules, report back to us concretely, and using that information, this conference has taken the final step to provide significant broad-based, fair, honest, innocent spouse provisions to relieve the circumstances of these disadvantaged, unfortunate, hard-working taxpayers. But innocent spouse relief is not the only one of the more than 50 taxpayer rights we will enact in this legislation. The bill will shift the burden of proof to the IRS in court proceedings, as you have heard; prohibit the IRS from seizing a taxpayer's home without a court order, no less protection should be offered; expand the authority of the taxpayer advocate to assist taxpayers, and that is, after all, their job; strengthen due process rights for taxpayers in collection activities; suspend interest and certain penalties when the IRS does not provide appropriate notice to a taxpayer within 18 months after a return is filed; and extend the client-attorney privilege to accountants and other tax practitioners. Mr. Speaker, Mark Twain once said that everyone complains about the weather, but no one does anything about it. Perhaps the same could be said of the IRS. The complaints are legion. Today we are doing something about it.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, that may be the gentleman's impression now or what his intent is, but we all know how these things work in government. Frankly, it will have such a dampening effect on research that it will affect research on things that have a dual purpose or that could be perceived as having a dual purpose. That is my concern about it.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. I rise in strong opposition to this amendment. It is sobering that Saint Thomas Aquinas defined life as beginning at conception. I mention that only to remind us that this difficult issue of when life begins is an issue on which great religious leaders of the world have differed, and so it is an issue on which a Nation that believes in freedom, that enshrines freedom of religion in our Constitution, must have the courage to allow our own people individually to decide. I am a Republican in part because I take so seriously the issue of personal responsibility. I believe each of us has the responsibility to make wise choices, to support themselves, to contribute to their fellow citizens and their communities. And I believe family planning represents personal responsibility that is indeed one's obligation as a mature, free adult, to plan the number of children they have, the spacing between them. And so I believe contraceptives in general are very important to freedom in our Nation and to the health of women and the strength of families. The issue before us today is whether we in a free Nation will have the knowledge to use our freedom wisely and to take personal responsibility for our lives. We cannot pass this amendment and not do damage to the concept of freedom and the belief in the power of knowledge as the essential foundation for a free society. Many drugs, including chemotherapy and anti-ulcer medications, have the side effect of inducing abortion. Under this amendment, you could not do research on something, even if that was not its primary goal, because it might have the side effect of inducing abortion. I would remind this body that we spent months talking about fetal tissue research because people did not want to use fetal tissue for critical research that could cure critical and terribly important diseases in America, and the goal was not to ultimately use fetal tissue, the goal was to learn enough about it from the research to be able to create the artificial substances or the substitute substances that would allow us to create, to produce the drugs en masse that we learned were necessary from fetal tissue research. And the issue here is to learn enough from some of the rather crude, in the sense of their mechanism, drugs like that that is the subject of this amendment so that we can in time develop something that you take right away that does not interfere with, that is not an abortifacient in your definition because it has its effect before there is even fertilization. But we cannot get to that point if we do not allow science to move forward and we do not get better experience. Why should I, as an American woman, be told or my daughters be told that they must take contraceptive pills months and months and months, years of their life, when I believe, if we allow the research to go forward, we can provide something that will give them a much more direct control over whether or not conception takes place at implantation and the development of a fetus. I do want to conclude my comments by saying that wherever you block the path of science, you block the development of knowledge and you compromise the opportunity that only a free society can give you. In freedom, we depend on knowledge to empower us to make the right decisions. I trust the women of America and the men to whom they are married to make good decisions about whether or not to use one type of contraception over another. I do not believe that it is the government's responsibility to tell our citizens how or what mechanism they should use. We do not want HMOs to do that, and I do not want the government to do that. So I would urge defeat of this amendment because I think it cuts off essential research.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me. Mr. Speaker, this is truly a red letter day for disabled Americans, and I congratulate the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Bunning) and the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Kennelly) on this bipartisan legislation that is going to change so many lives. They worked together and closely with the disabled community to put together a bill that will begin to break down the barriers to work and personal fulfillment that are now so ingrained in our Social Security disability program. I am also pleased that the House has made passage of this bill a priority during this session. Mr. Speaker, it is our job to be sure that every American has the opportunity to develop the skills and abilities they have to fulfill their potential in our free society. It is our job to break down barriers in old laws so that people can create their futures. The current system has had very limited success in helping people, indeed even allowing people, to take the steps they desperately want to take to change their lives. Currently, less than 5 percent of beneficiaries return to work because the program barriers are so insurmountable, and this in spite of, as the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Bunning) alluded to, the dramatic changes that have taken place in our rehabilitative resources. One of the greatest of these barriers is lack of access to affordable health care once a person returns to work. People leaving disability usually find employment first in low-paying jobs that rarely offer employer-sponsored health coverage. H.R. 3433 takes a powerful step to address this problem by extending availability of Medicare coverage. However, Medicare does not provide coverage for some of the critical services that some disabled people depend upon. For example, traditional Medicare does not cover prescription drug coverage or provide prescription drug coverage or personal assistance services, services critical to disabled people and currently covered by Medicaid for low income recipients. In meetings with people and organizations in my district over the last year I have become keenly aware of the problems faced by people with severe psychiatric disabilities in their search for meaningful employment. The single largest issue affecting their ability to work is their ability to afford psychotropic drugs that help them manage their illness. Because traditional Medicare does not provide prescription drug coverage, this proposal still leaves many people with limited options. According to a letter I received from the Connecticut Northwest Regional Mental Health Board regarding H.R. 3433, they say persons with long-term psychiatric illness experience significant impairment in cognitive, behavioral, vocation and interpersonal skills. The impact of mental illness on these clients is usually lifelong, with vocational capacity varying significantly over the course of a client's illness. Mr. Speaker, this is an important piece of legislation, and I urge favorable action by the House.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 2676) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to restructure and reform the Internal Revenue Service, and for other purposes, with a Senate amendment thereto, disagree to the Senate amendment, and agree to the conference asked by the Senate.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, for those who are watching the proceedings of this House, I hope they are not missing the bipartisan enthusiasm for real, comprehensive, significant and serious reform of one of the most important agencies of the United States Government, the Internal Revenue Service. This is the product of 2 years of very hard work. It is a thoughtful product. It is a powerful product. Indeed, it is going to make an enormous difference to the opportunity employees of the IRS have as well as to the taxpayers that they serve. So I am proud to support the motion and join my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in urging prompt action by the conference so this bill can be on the President's desk in the very near future. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman), who was the cochairman of the commission that spent 1 long year studying in great detail the problems within the IRS and laid the blueprint for the reform that then we considered in our subcommittee and full committee and now is about to go to conference.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Coyne) for the spirit in which he offers his motion to instruct the conferees, to which I do not object. As the gentleman knows, it is reasonable to expect the conferees to go into conference with the other body and to fight for the House position. Indeed, I agree with him that the House bill is a thoughtful and effective piece of legislation. I am very proud of the House bill, and I know our conferees will work hard on its behalf. But, as the gentleman knows, the Senate is likely to consider, also, some of its ideas of importance; and there are, indeed, a few things in the Senate bill that I think we all will find in the best interest of the taxpayers. But I certainly appreciate the spirit in which the motion is offered, and I support it. I also would like to point out that the bill was introduced on October 21, 1997, and reported by the Committee on Ways and Means only 10 days later on October 31st. It passed the House the following week on November 5th. So this House has dealt with thoroughness and appropriate speed with the need to reform the Internal Revenue Service. I am very pleased that there is no longer any disagreement about the need for this kind of systemic, comprehensive reform. It is long overdue. We need to finish this work as quickly as we can, because, through it, we give the American people relief from irresponsible enforcement policies and harsh penalty laws. We need to launch the new forceful partnership between government and the private sector that this bill embodies because that new partnership alone can create an effective, customer-service-oriented IRS capable of serving this Nation and its people in the future. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Remember, space available, I have a lot of family in the military, is hard to get, and there is timeliness involved in this issue.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me the time. This amendment does not fund abortions with tax dollars. Let us get that very clear. Tax dollars under current law may not pay for abortions. Tax dollars under this amendment will not pay for abortions. This amendment merely assures that soldiers, sailors, Marines do not become second class citizens when they don the uniform of our great Nation to defend freedom. This amendment merely assures that our servicemen and servicewomen and their spouses do not have less freedom than the people they defend. All this amendment guarantees is that a servicewoman or a serviceman's wife has the same right any other American woman has to terminate a pregnancy in, for example, the first trimester, in a safe, clean health care facility. Any serviceman's wife or servicewoman who would want to would have to pay for the procedure themselves. This does not provide tax dollars for the procedure. In fact, this amendment only does three things: It provides equal rights to our military servicemen and servicewomen to legal medical care. It provides equal protection against care in substandard hospitals by substandard physicians. And thirdly, it provides equal protection under the law. Remember, the way the current policy is written, if you are a colonel, a major, and you are well paid, yes, you can fly back to the States to have care. If you are an enlisted man, frankly, you cannot. So this prevents discrimination on an economic basis and merely guarantees to servicemen's wives and to servicewomen exactly the same rights to access to medical care that all other Americans enjoy.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this bill. I appreciate the many changes that its sponsors have made to prevent it from having the devastating impact it would have had in its original form on our trade and security interests and on our ability to provide the leadership the world needs to prevent the very persecution the bill seeks to punish. I oppose the bill because it is fundamentally flawed. It would force the United States to treat government-sponsored or -permitted persecution, that is, killing, imprisonment, enslavement, forced mass relocation, rape, torture and the confiscation of property differently if these crimes were committed against people for their religious beliefs than if these crimes were committed against people for their political beliefs or for ethnic cleansing. That is just not right. American foreign policy has always opposed religious persecution, political oppression, ethnic cleansing policies. It is profoundly unwise to adopt a policy that implies that government-supported persecution is more acceptable if used for political oppression and ethnic cleansing than for religious persecution. This is what this bill would do. This bill sets up a very bureaucratic mechanism that encourages an automatic sanctions process without any consideration as to whether or not the sanctions would hurt American interests or have any effect on the sanctioned country. Most seriously, it discourages the broader range of diplomatic and multilateral actions that would have a far greater impact. Furthermore, government-sponsored persecution should provoke a far more comprehensive response than this bill envisions. Under current law we have the full range of diplomatic tools at our disposal, even recalling our ambassador and working to mobilize multilateral sanctions, always more effective a multilateral response than a single- nation response. I appreciate how deeply troubled my colleague, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), is by religious persecution, but I oppose setting up a separate bureaucracy, a rigid process to identify and respond to religious persecution as opposed to a comprehensive response to such violations of human rights for political and ethnic origin as well.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, the company does not have the right to give a tax break. The company must pay the taxes that we require them to pay.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this bill but particularly to converse with my colleague, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Moakley), on the issue of his concern about tax reductions. The goal of this bill is to put in place a far more accountable process in regard to government's mandating of expenses on other levels of government, which we did in the past, and now in the private sector. It comes from very deep bipartisan concern with government's rather casual attitude toward the costs of the legislation that it is passing and the way those costs tend to be borne by others than themselves in society. When we cut taxes, on the other hand, when we give a tax break, we are essentially talking about how we use our own resources, so we are mandating a cost on ourselves and we are paying for it by foregoing revenues that we would otherwise collect. So I do not think that the issue is the same when we forgo revenue through a tax break as the underlying issue that this mandates bill seeks to address. If we choose to spend our revenues by collecting them and then appropriating them, that is one thing. If we choose to spend our revenues by, in a sense, granting a tax exemption, that is also our right. But that is a separate issue from the issue that this bill addresses, which is making us accountable and making visible the costs that will follow from the responsibilities that we are imposing on our society.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Absolutely.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield, they are still getting taxed exactly the same. The goal of this bill is to make evident the costs we are imposing on the society, whether it is on another level of government or a private sector entity or an individual, the costs that we are imposing on them to carry out a public benefit. And I think all the vote on the House floor does, when the point of order is raised, is to make clear that I agree that this level of cost for a small businesses is worth it for our society to achieve a certain common goal. That is accountability.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, it is Spring, and we live in a glorious time of rebirth and renewal. We meet to celebrate Polish Constitution Day. And how appropriate it is that we celebrate as well the Senate vote approving NATO expansion. In 1791, enormous challenges faced Polish reformers. Prussia, Russia and Austria, aggressive, imperial states, threatened the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth. In 1772, they partioned the Commonwealth, and were threatening to repeat the disgraceful deed. The Commonwealth was but a Russian satelite, and its once powerful parliamentary democracy weakened by political corruption. The moment was now to transform Poland into a new nation, with the full benefits of liberty, equality, and fratenity available to every citizen. The reformers gathered in Warsaw on May 3, 1791, met the challenge. Motivated by a deep desire for freedom, they set about to liberate themselves ``from the disgraceful shackles of foreign influence.'' ``Prizing more than life and every personal consideration, political existence, external independence, and internal liberty of the nation,'' they adopted a constitution for ``future generations, for the sake of the public good, for scurring our liberty, and maintaining our kingdom and our possessions.'' \1\ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ ``New Constitution of the Government of Poland established by the Revolution of The Third of May, 1791.'' (London: J. Debrett, 2nd edition, 1791), 4. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The new constitution electrified Europe. Shunning the violence of the French Revolution, the Polish reformers revolutionized their government and their society. The King, Stanislaus August, was now a constitutional monarch. The political devices which had opened the way for the corruption of the Commonwealth--the liberum veto (free veto) and the confederation--were abolished forever. Religious freedom was proclaimed. The burgers acquired political rights. The new constitution also implied a radical improvement for the peasant serfs, the largest social class. Poland's rebirth threatened her feudal neighbors. In 1793 and 1795 they partioned the Commonwealth twice more. For 123 years, until the end of World War 1, Poland was missing from Europe's map. President Woodrow Wilson supported Poland's rebirth, and independence come again, but it was brief. In 1939, Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia repeated the crimes of their 18th century predecessors; they invaded and partitioned Poland. And at the war's end, Churchill and Roosevelt conceded Eastern Europe to Soviet control. The memories of May 3rd, of 19th century insurrections against Russia, and of heroism and martyrdom during the Holocaust of World War II, sustained the Polish people during the long-night of Soviet occupation. Poles objected to being cutoff from Europe and confined to an alien empire. In 1956, 1968, 1970, and 1976, Poles protested. Inspired by Pope John II, Poles underwent a modern rebirth. Solidarity and Lech Walcsa challenged the false Soviet ideology. The weapons were not guns and tanks, but the truth, human dignity and civil rights, and the eternal insistence upon individual freedom. The West hailed the Polish workers' heoric, non-violent struggle. In 1983 Lech Walesa received the Nobel Peace Prize. The patient struggle finally bore fruit in 1989. The countries of Eastern Europe regained their sovereignty, and the civil empire distingrated. The Soviet Empire collapsed because of internal pressures, but also because of Western resolve. Since 1949, NATO, a system of collective security based on shared democratic values, kept the peace and kept the Soviets in check. NATO is history's most successful alliance. Now is the moment to consolidate the western victory in the Cold War, and to take into NATO the new democracies of Eastern Europe. NATO expansion will enhance Europe's political stability. It will strengthen the new democracies. These countries can no longer be the target of Russian or other imperial ambitions. Since 1989, the countries of Eastern Europe have undergone a remarkable rebirth. the reconstruction of democracy and of democratic societies is underway. Free elections are a hallmark of new political cultures. The East Europeans have also begun to integrate themselves into Western economic institutions. They are on the way back to Europe. Membership in NATO is a culminating moment in Eastern Europe's political and economic rebirth. Today we gather here to celebrate Poland's constitution of May 3rd, 1791 and her rebirth in the 18th century. At the same time, we celebrate and recognize her modern rebirth. We welcome Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary as America's newest NATO allies. With a Europe renewed and re-invigorated, we move forward with confidence into the next millenium. In securing north Atlantic collective security, we secure and pass on to the next generation our common democratic values.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, in my 30 seconds, let me say I rise in strong support of this motion. I regret having to support this procedure, but in spite of my great respect for my chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Livingston) and for his fairness, there is no way we can get this issue of funding for the IMF on the floor as a clean debate, where we vote up or down on IMF funding, without unrelated issues that constitute legislating on appropriations bills, which is against our rules, but has been allowed in regard to this issue. Mr. Speaker, I strongly support IMF funding. It is definitely jobs in my district. This House bailed out the S&L's because we knew we had to minimize the damage, so we need to involve ourselves in this loan program to contain the Asian problem.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, it is with great pride and appreciation that I rise today to express my congratulations to CDR Donna Looney for her appointment to the command of the U.S.S. Platt by the United States Navy tomorrow evening. CDR Looney, originally from Simsbury, Connecticut, recently graduated from the U.S. Naval War College, in Newport, RI, and is being honored with the command of a U.S. Navy fleet oiler, the U.S.S. Platt. As one of the few female pioneers to command a Naval ship, CDR Looney has set herself apart as a fine role model for young women as well as fellow Naval officers. For her leadership and tremendous achievements in the United States Navy, CDR Looney deserves our praise and recognition. Today, I congratulate CDR Donna Looney for her appointment as commander of the U.S.S. Platt and I commend her for the hard work and sacrifices which were instrumental in attaining this meritorious position in the United States Navy.