Nancy Johnson

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to pay special tribute to a woman business owner in my district who is a shining example of the dramatic impact that women business owners are having on our economy. In the state of Connecticut there are approximately 104,000 women-owned businesses. This female entrepreneurship accounts for 35 percent of all firms in the state of Connecticut, employing 23 percent of all Connecticut workers. In June 1985, Betsy Perkins and her husband Jack opened the doors of Perkins Travel. Betsy, a former executive in American Express' travel division, had always wanted to be a business owner. She found herself ready to take the plunge into entrepreneurship when all of her children went off to college. One of her sons had unknowingly provided her with this golden opportunity when he chose to attend the Naval Academy. His decision gave his parents the financial flexibility to strike out on their own, and Perkins Travel was born. While Betsy maintained close ties to her old company, Perkins Travel struggled in its early years. Betsy called on many corporate executives who were concerned that her new company could not handle their $3 million dollar a year travel budgets. But, Betsy saw a need in the community and set out to fill it with determination. Perkins Travel created a niche serving small- and medium-sized companies that the large travel agents were not serving. By offering an unprecedented level of service, such as ticket deliveries 7 days a week/24 hours a day, she enticed clients and became essential to their business. However, Betsy remained committed to working with the community and developed a division to work with senior citizens and school groups to promote culture and the arts. Most recently, she was contacted by a local high school drama club. A teacher wanted to take his students to New York to see a Broadway show on a shoestring budget. Once again, through Betsy's determination, she was able to make this opportunity a reality for the drama club. One of the greatest testaments to Betsy's success is the stability that her business has brought to her workforce. Perkins Travel now has 17 employees, 4 of which were with her when the business opened its doors in 1985. Indeed, since that time only 2 employees have left to pursue other opportunities. Over the years, Betsy has also lent her support to other business owners by counseling and mentoring innumerable men and women about starting a business. Some have gone on to open successful businesses while some decided entrepreneurship was not for them. Unfortunately, Betsy notes that she has watched many of the women go on to struggle the way she did in her early years. When I asked Betsy what drove her to be an entrepreneur, she replied ``I didn't want to leave the earth wondering if I could do it.'' I applaud her pioneering spirit and that of the 8 million women business owners who have taken risks to secure the financial future for themselves, their families and the American economy. These women deserve our tribute during Women's History Month because they are actively shaping the world for our daughters and granddaughters.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from D.C. (Ms. Norton) and, indeed, I am proud to serve with my colleague as co-chair of the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues because it has made an enormous difference to restructuring the law over the years to recognize the needs of women and the rights of women to be free and equal participants in our democracy. We are all blessed to live in a land where individual freedom, individual responsibility, equal opportunity and equal justice are the principles that underlie our government. But those ideals cannot be realized unless they are reflected in the law and, indeed, the law changes and moves and has to be amended and reformed as our understanding of what it means to be free and equal changes. And so it took almost 100 years, well, I guess it was a good 70 years from the time that women really organized to get the vote at a tea party in Seneca Falls before they actually gained the right to vote in a Nation whose underlying document says we are all free and equal and that we believe in self-government. So it does take time. And today, as we use this special order to kick off Women's History Month, I would like to just talk a little bit about some of the major changes in the structure of law that governs us, that both reflect women's demand to be free and equal citizens in our great Nation, but also have enabled women to do so. Many of us remember the days before Title IX when women did not have any right to play intercollegiate sports. There was simply no money in it for it, and all the sports budget went to men and all the scholarships went to male athletes. Today, we have women competing on teams in the Olympics, in a great variety of sports, specifically because the Congress of the United States passed Title IX that guaranteed to women equal access to sports opportunities. That changed the physical education programs of our grammar schools, of our high schools and, very importantly, of our colleges. And it is for that sole reason alone, that change in Title IX under our education laws, that we as a Nation are competing in the Olympics in many, many sports and winning many gold medals. The equality that women have achieved, not quite, but we are moving in that direction, in the arena of sports has been reflected also in their opportunity for higher education. And we see an increasing number, in fact a very great explosion in the number of women who are lawyers and doctors and engineers and experts of all kinds, having graduated from college, having had access to the same education that men in our society have had access to many moons before. So our education statutes, as they were written, and rewritten then, have been a bridge over which women have traveled to gain the real equality that comes from the individual equality that comes from equal access to educational opportunity. Other areas of great achievement are in the areas of health research, and the Congress Women's Caucus has been a leader in the area of health research and women, not only to focus new research dollars on the areas of women's health, the diseases that were most threatening to women, because they were not getting nearly the research attention that the diseases that threatened men were receiving, but also to change the way we do health research so that research was focused equally on women with heart disease as well as men with heart disease; black women as well as white women; black men as well as white men; ethnic diversity, racial diversity and both genders in all of our research studies, in all of our clinical studies, so that knowledge advanced not just about cardiac disease in men but about cardiac disease in a diverse population in a free society. So the Congress Women's Caucus led that effort to change the way we do clinical trials, to change the way we do health research, as well as to include at the top of the Nation's health agenda those diseases that were most threatening to the lives of women. And in the area of retirement security, we simply had to change the law so that as a man earned a right to a pension over the years, he could not sign away his wife's right to a pension after his death without her knowledge or permission. So through the law we enhanced women's opportunity for retirement security as we enhanced women's opportunity to equal educational opportunity and as we have in many areas enhanced women's opportunities in the workplace to equal earning power. On this issue of retirement security, our first efforts were to make sure that a spouse could not sign away his wife's right to retirement, a small retirement pension; and thereafter to follow that with a homemakers' IRA and other things to equalize the opportunity for women, both women who were married to workers and women who worked, to have the equal opportunity to prepare for a secure and economically adequate retirement. But we also have had to change the law in many other areas to assure women's equal treatment under the law. So in the area of family violence, when I first was elected to public office, and now that goes back many years at the State level in the '70s, it was all right for a man to beat his wife. It was not all right for him to beat his neighbor's wife. He could be actually arrested and put in jail if he beat his neighbor's wife but if he beat his own wife, he could not be charged in the same way. And that is because way, way back, women were men's property. And our free society, in spite of our Constitution, in spite of our beliefs that we were all equal and free, was slow to apply that concept of equality to the concept of violence. So today if a man beats his wife he will be treated just the same as if he beat his neighbor's wife. And wives are equally protected against violence with any other woman not related by marriage to a man. So in the area of health, in the area of retirement security, in the area of violence, in the area of education, in the area of work force participation, women have made tremendous strides. But there is more to be done. The challenges ahead of us are real and we must achieve them if women in America are to achieve real equality of opportunity, real freedom and real personal responsibility, and in the equal justice under law. In the future, Federal day care policy must not discriminate between the benefits we provide to women who have to pay for out-of-home care and the benefits we provide to women in the same economic bracket, the same earning bracket who provide that care to their children at home. We have to better recognize in a society where research has shown that development from zero to 3 is so crucial, we have to provide a day care policy that does not discriminate against the parent caregiver. So we have much work to do in day care. But the Congress Women's Caucus has led the battle and won the battle for ever more money into the day care component of welfare reform and in the day care support that we provide working parents. But we have a long way to go in developing a nondiscriminatory policy that simply supports women in the very, very important work of raising children, and particularly in those critical years from zero to three. We have a long way to go in assuring that women have equal economic opportunity. And while we have made a lot of progress in some areas, 47 percent of the work force is female but only 5 percent is senior management. Seventy-five percent of those working women hold low-paying jobs with little security. Very few, for example, are successful in the skill trades. In fact, of all the areas, that is perhaps the area of lowest female achievement. Only .8 percent of the Nation's 1.2 million carpenters are women; only 1.3 percent of the Nation's plumbers and steamfitters and pipefitters are women; and only .7 percent of our mechanics are women. And yet those are jobs that are well paying; those are skill jobs that pay $23 to $27 an hour. And these are areas of nontraditional work where women need the right, if their skills and interest lead them, to participate on an equal basis. Finally, we have enormous challenges in terms of workplace policy. The gentlewoman from D.C. has talked about the leadership of the Congress Women's Caucus and the work of the Congress to provide family and medical leave and more equitable treatment of pregnant women. We also have to go further than that. I believe we need to provide protection for women who want to change, or men for that matter, who want to take time and a half off instead of time-and-a-half pay. People need to have the right to choose between time and money when it comes to bringing up their families. They need to be able to better balance the challenges of work and family in the interests of themselves and their own children. The law needs to be structured in such a way as we did in the Family and Medical Leave Act, that that individual employee choice is protected, and that the employee is protected from retribution in the course of employment by the employer. I am proud to say that, in the comp time bill, the protection is modeled on the protection in the Family and Medical Leave Act, but it is stronger. I think we have to recognize far more forcefully than we have women's need in the workplace for flexibility. We believe in personal freedom. We believe in personal responsibility. There could be no equal opportunity without women having the freedom and responsibility to better balance their work and family responsibilities. So there is much work to be done in many, many areas. But as we go forward in Women's History Month, we must make sure that we all understand not only the progress that women have made, but the degree to which that progress has come specifically as a result in changes in the laws that govern us so that we all do enjoy the same access to education, the same access to health research dollars, the same access to retirement security, the same access to job opportunities, and the same access to protection as employees. So it has been really a pleasure to join the gentlewoman of the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) this afternoon. It has been a great honor to work with my colleague these 2 years as co-chairs of the Women's Caucus. I am pleased to see that some of our colleagues have joined us.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, today the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Metcalf] and I are introducing the Affordable Housing Improvement Act, a measure that would: Increase the cap on the low- income housing tax credit, which has not been adjusted for inflation since it was originally enacted in 1986; index the cap for inflation; implement several administrative reforms recommended by the U.S. General Accounting Office and the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight; allow the use of the credit for developing community service areas for programs such as child care, Head Start, and job training, designed to serve individuals in the community who may not live in the credit-financed housing but who meet the income requirements of the housing credit program; and encourage the use of the credit to revitalize existing communities. Last year, the Oversight Subcommittee held two hearings on the administration of the low-income housing tax credit program. We learned that: The need for low income housing is greater than ever. Census data showed an unmet demand for affordable housing of more than 5 million units in 1996. The Census Bureau projects that this number will climb to 8 million units by the year 2000. The program provides better housing than traditional public housing programs because private investors have a stake in making sure the structures are well-built and maintained--a condition of receiving the credit. Investor demand for the credit has increased since its enactment in 1986. This greater demand has stimulated more competition, resulting in an increase in private equity raised per credit dollar. Nationwide, developer demand for housing credits now exceeds supply by more than 200 percent. This means States have a wider variety of proposals from which to choose. Mr. Speaker, this is a good program. It enjoys strong support on both sides of the aisle. It combines good public policy with private sector innovation and efficiency. But it can be improved. In our hearings, we learned that 43 percent of the households in properties placed in service between 1992 and 1994 were one-person households and 24 percent were two-person households. Only one-third of the units were occupied by three or more people. To encourage the States to allocate credits for developments for families with children, the bill will require allocating agencies to include ``tenant populations of individuals with children'' in criteria they use in allocating credits. The bill would also encourage the use of the credit to revitalize existing communities. In our hearings, we learned that most of the buildings--an estimated 73 percent--placed in service between 1992 and 1994 were newly constructed; the rest were existing and rehabilitated buildings. Many older neighborhoods have extensive stocks of housing that could be rehabilitated and converted to low-income rental use or improved for continued low-income rental use. However, these projects are often more expensive and more difficult to develop. The bill would create a preference for projects which contribute to ``a concerted community revitalization plan,'' and it would require States to include ``whether the project includes the use of existing housing as a part of a community revitalization plan'' in the selection criteria. The measure would allow combining the housing credit with HOME funds in high cost areas, and it would allow the use of the credit for community service areas for programs such as child care, Head Start, and job training. We also learned of several opportunities to improve the administration of the credit and they are included in this bill. The bill would: require the submission of a timely and comprehensive market study to the allocating agency for a proposed development, prepared by a neutral party commissioned by the developer and approved by the allocating agency; require that a written explanation be available to the general public for any allocation of credits which is not made in accordance with established priorities and collection criteria; require allocating agencies to include in their qualified allocation plans requirements for regular site visits and enforcement of habitability requirements; require that State agency fees be limited to no more than the costs incurred by an allocating agency in administering the tax credit program; and provide that States that over-allocate their share of credits will experience a reduction in the following year's tax credits. Mr. Speaker, the Clinton administration has proposed increasing the per capita cap, and the gentleman from Nevada [Mr. Ensign] has introduced a bill to increase the per capital cap and index it for inflation as well. I support their efforts. But we must improve the credit. I would encourage my colleagues to join the gentleman from Washington and me in sponsoring the Affordable Housing Improvement Act of 1998.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, this is an important resolution because in the process of making public policy in Washington, we have focused a lot of time, attention and resources on the cost of day-care, making day-care affordable for women coming off of welfare, helping families with the cost of day-care through, for example, the dependent care tax credit, but we have given entirely too little attention to the struggle of young families to try to stay home and take care of their own children. For those of you interested in this resolution, I hope you will take a look at the tax bill I introduced that would provide to stay-at-home moms during the years when their kids are 0 to 3, 50 percent of that tax credit for staying at home, so they get some economic relief for staying at home and providing that very important educational quality of care that is necessary to the strong development of children in their early years. Mr. Speaker, I support this resolution, and thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling) for bringing it to the floor.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I rise to support this legislation which is so important to the transportation system in my home State of Connecticut. Simply stated, this bill would permit the documentation of a Canadian-built ferry under the U.S. flag as a replacement vessel for essential ferry service in Connecticut. Because of the importance of this service, Governor John Rowland of Connecticut has urged our favorable consideration of this measure. Cross Sound Ferry Services, Inc., a privately-owned, non-subsidized ferry service in New London, would like to improve existing passenger ferry service across Long Island Sound by acquiring the Canadian ferry PRINCE NOVA. The prohibitive cost of the new construction and the lack of suitable U.S.-built ferries on the market necessitate this purchase. Cross Sound plans to spend well in excess of three times the purchase price for the PRINCE NOVA to upgrade the vessel in a U.S. shipyard. This upgrade is needed both to meet strict Coast Guard safety standards and to modernize the vessel. Cross Sound needs this legislative waiver to document the ferry under the U.S. flag. Granting a coastwise waiver for this vessel will create the following economic, job creation, and transportation benefits for Connecticut, other New England states, and Long Island: This waiver will result in 24 new merchant mariner jobs and 11 additional positions related to the vessel's operations. The bill's requirement to spend not less than $4.2 million will create 17 much-needed new shipyard jobs at the Thames shipyard in New London, as well as increased purchasing of goods and services. Unlike other ferry operations providing comparable service, Cross Sound will provide this service without the need for public funds or subsidies. With an upgraded ferry service through the acquisition of this replacement vessel, Cross Sound will be better able to adequately meet the growing transportation demands of the New England region as documented in numerous transportation studies. In addition to realizing these benefits, enactment of this legislation is needed as soon as possible to avoid very unusual transactional costs associated with any delay related to the purchase, including (1) the outlay of periodic option deposits to retain the right to purchase the vessel, (2) winter lay up charges if the vessel is not moved to the U.S., and (3) the loss of revenue if shipyard work for compliance with Coast Guard safety standards and other vessel upgrades is delayed. A similar waiver was included in H.R. 2204, the Coast Guard Authorization Act, passed by the House in the First Session of this Congress. Consequently, the substance of this bill is without controversy and objection. Therefore, I am pleased that we are to take up S. 1349 and for the reasons I have stated urge its adoption at this time.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to remove my name as a cosponsor of H.R. 2697.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, today my colleague, Nita Lowey and I are introducing the Community Employment Partnership Act [CEPA] which is designed to encourage the not-for-profit community to increase their participation in the national initiative to move more than 2 million Americans from welfare dependency into productive work. Through CEPA, not-for-profit employers, for the first time, will be allowed to participate in the work opportunity tax credit hiring incentives that are currently available to for-profit companies which hire entry-level workers. During the last Congress, when we enacted welfare reform, we embarked on a bold new initiative to move millions of able-bodied welfare recipients into the work force. At the time we understood this new initiative, many of us realized that if the private sector were to provide jobs for those leaving the welfare rolls, they would need an incentive to offset the added costs of hiring, training, and retaining a category of people who face significant obstacles to succeeding in the workplace. These obstacles include problems with minimal job skills, low self-esteem, and little, if any, work history. In order to encourage for-profit employers to hire welfare recipients, I strongly supported the enactment of the work opportunity tax credit which is designed to offset the added costs involved. Unfortunately, at that time, we did not develop a mechanism for extending these hiring tax incentives to the nonprofit community. In many cases, the largest employers in inner-city and rural communities, where most welfare recipients reside, are nonprofits such as hospitals, universities, museums, and community-based organizations. That they are not eligible is ironic since many nonprofit employers view as part of their primary mission service to those on welfare. As a result, nonprofits are often more acclimated to working with hard-to-employ individuals than their for-profit brethren. Another advantage of making not-for-profit employers eligible for WOTC is that they often provide full-time jobs with a career path, and generally offer their employees benefits. In addition, numerous stories have come to light regarding the time and financial burden faced by welfare recipients who must travel long distances from their homes in the inner city or in rural America to the suburbs where most new jobs are becoming available. For the welfare recipient, who generally does not have a car, this means long and costly trips on public or privately organized transportation. The long hours that newly employed welfare recipient must be away from home requires them to string together unreliable and often expensive day care arrangements, including relying on family members, friends, and day care centers. Allowing not-for-profit organizations eligibility for tax credits would, for those recipients able to find employment in their communities, significantly reduce the travel burden and in turn, help to reduce the critical day care problems faced by those hoping to move from welfare to work. Despite the ideal match between the mission, location, and type of jobs offered by not-for-profits, they have not participated in the welfare to work initiative to the extent we would like because insufficient resources have been made available to them to help offset the added costs involved in hiring those on welfare. CEPA would help to overcome this obstacle by reducing the largest tax burden faced by not- for-profits--the payroll tax--by allowing them to offset their total Federal payroll tax burden by any work opportunity tax credits earned for hiring an eligible worker. The Community Employment Partnership Act would: Track the existing eligibility standards for the work opportunity tax credit; and provide not-for-profits with a graduated tax credit against their total Federal payroll taxes of 20 percent versus 25 percent under WOTC from the date of hire for the first $6,000 in wages paid an eligible worker by a not-for-profit for those who work at least 120 hours and to up 399 hours; and 30 percent versus 40 percent under WOTC from the date of hire for the first $6,000 in wages paid an eligible worker by a not-for-profit for those who work at least 400 hours. The reduction in the credit amounts equalize the value of the credit between nonprofit employers and for-profit employers. This is because under WOTC, the amount of the employer's wage deduction is reduced by the amount of the credit which has the effect of reducing the value of the tax incentive to the for-profit employer. The credits would be taken against a not-for-profit employer's quarterly payroll tax liability. A payment to the Social Security trust fund would continue to be treated as having been made on the date it is ordinarily made. Both Congresswoman Lowey and I strongly believe that the enactment of the Community Employment Partnership Act is important if we are to enlist the not-for-profit community into providing good jobs to the millions of Americans who will be coming off the welfare rolls in the coming years.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to announce with my good friend from New York, Congresswoman Nita Lowey, the introduction of the Clinical Research Enhancement Act that will improve the quality of health care by enhancing our investment in clinical research. We introduced a similar bill in the 104th Congress, and I am once again glad to be working with Congresswoman Lowey and the health research community, led by the American Federation for Medical Research, on this proposal. Clinical research is the critical component we need to bring the discoveries of basic research to the patient in the form of medical treatments. Our Government makes significant investments each year in basic research through the National Institutes of Health. In fact, the Federal Government is the major source of investment in basic biomedical research. However, it is crucial that the Government focus not only on basic research but also on the translational research that utilizes the discoveries of basic research to improve our ability to prevent, treat, and cure disease and disability. While there is industry support for clinical research and clinical trials, private funding is very difficult to secure for the initial steps of translational research, which may have little or no commercial potential. Examples of this initial research include nutritional therapies, new approaches to disease prevention, transplantation techniques, behavioral interventions, and studies of off-label uses of approved drugs. These initial steps of clinical research used to be subsidized in part from patient care revenues to academic medical centers. As we heard in our debate on Medicare reform and graduate medical education, however, these teaching hospitals are more and more stretched for teaching and patient care dollars. They are finding it much more difficult to maintain their teaching role, let alone their investment in clinical research. Therefore, it is more important than ever that NIH devote greater attention and resources to providing support for clinical research. Without the important link of clinical research, the investment that our country makes in basic research does not have the impact on the quality of health care that it could have. We have heard concerns from the research community that clinical research based on our basic research discoveries is going on overseas because it does not have financial support in the United States. It would be ironic if our expanding commitment to medical research, as evidenced in by NIH's growing budget, should create jobs overseas because we fail to address the need to fund clinical research, the link between basic research and a vital biomedical industry on our soil. This legislation also will encourage more of our young researchers and physicians to pursue careers in clinical research. The data demonstrates that American physicians and researchers are choosing not to pursue careers in clinical investigation in large part due to the lack of positions and funding for such research. It is important that we take steps to rebuild our Nation's supply of well-trained physician scientists if the United States is to continue its leadership in the medical sciences. This legislation encourages physicians and researchers by establishing grant and loan repayment programs to support the training and research of clinical investigators. I encourage my colleagues to examine this legislation carefully and discuss the issue with clinical researchers in their district. Many of them will highlight the needs that we have heard from researchers and universities across the Nation. Numerous polls have also shown that health care research is strongly supported by the American public. This legislation will make that research much more powerful and real in their lives.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, for many years our Government has supported health care training programs to increase the number of health care professionals to serve our Nation's people. One of the most successful health training programs we have created is the National Health Service Corps Scholarship Program. Enacted more than 20 years ago, the purpose of this program is not only to encourage the training of top quality health care professionals but also to improve access to health care for Americans living in medically underserved areas. This program encourages the training of primary care providers, focuses on preventive care, and targets medical manpower shortage areas. The graduates of this program work in our migrant health centers and in both rural and inner city community health centers, such as the community health center in my hometown of New Britain. Program recipients are given a scholarship award, covering the costs of tuition and fees, together with a monthly stipend covering living expenses. In response to this award, the National Health Service Corps scholars are obligated upon completion of their training to provide a year of full-time primary health care in a designated shortage area for each year of scholarship funding. These areas are located in some of our Nation's neediest communities which are desperate for primary care providers. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, this successful program is now in jeopardy--not from lack of funds, but from the new IRS interpretation of section 117(c) of the Internal Revenue Code to treat these scholarship amounts as fully taxable income. Many scholarship recipients have tuition and fees amounting to more than $36,900; income tax withholding at the required 28 percent can eat up nearly all, if not all, of the stipend portion of the award. If the student has additional income--a part-time job for example--he or she could face an additional tax liability on that income, though their money available for daily living expenses has not changed. I have been contacted by a concerned student regarding this IRS interpretation. Jenny, a student at Yale University, is studying to be a nurse practitioner. As a recipient of a National Health Service Corps Scholarship, her $30,000 a year tuition is paid directly to the school; she receives $3,500 toward school fees, equipment, books and supplies, and a small stipend for living expenses for which income taxes are withheld. She was recently notified by the Department of Health and Human Services that income taxes would be withheld on the scholarship money as well. Jenny will now be taxed at the 28-percent rate because the entire scholarship amount will now be included in her income, even though she never sees the majority of this money that is sent directly to her school for tuition. Jenny is now worried about her living expenses, because the new additional withholding will almost eliminate the stipend that she relies on for her room and board. Since Jenny already has a lot of debt from her undergraduate student loans, this abrupt change in policy threatens her ability to afford to stay in school and makes it more difficult to fulfill her obligation to work as a nurse practitioner in an underserved area, where her wages would likely be lower. In my view, the IRS position regarding its application of section 117(c) is simply wrong. First, this money is not disguised future compensation. In fact it is the opposite. It is recognition of the compensation forgone as a consequence of going to work in an inner city or underserved rural area where wages are often low because there are not the resources needed to support a health care professional's income. Second, there is little difference between the obligations required under the National Health Service Corps Scholarship Program and the obligations required by the debt forgiveness provisions we enacted this summer in the Tax Payer Relief Act of 1997. And there should not be a difference in the tax treatment of the school scholarship or loan amount in terms of taxable income. Through the passage of the Tax Payer Relief Act, we in Congress affirmed our support for favorable tax treatment of medical student loans forgiven in exchange for future service in medically underserved areas. It seems inconsistent and arbitrary to tax a scholarship given in exchange for a future commitment of public service in a medically needy area, while exempting a student loan forgiven for a similar commitment from the tax. We need to correct this aberration in tax policy now before this successful program is destroyed. We need to take immediate action to clarify the Tax Code so that those students who wish to undertake the obligations of the program are assured stable, predictable financing of their academic program in exchange for a commitment to serve our underserved communities. It is also important to ensure that communities continue to have access to low-cost, quality health care services and that community and rural health centers will continue to have health professionals available. My bill will reverse the IRS position regarding the taxability of these scholarships. It will rectify tax policy inconsistency, and it will ensure that a well-run and successful program is not devastated by a bureaucrat operating in clear contradiction of the intention of this valuable, proven program. In addition, it will let people like Jenny continue with her studies and be assured that her scholarship and stipend are intact. I ask my colleagues to join me in cosponsoring this legislation to save the National Health Service Corps Scholarship Program.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. This is why we need fast track. Really, it is so very simple. We think of sitting down together as a family and we have a dispute and a problem, and one kid wants one thing, one kid wants another thing, one kid wants another thing, dad wants another thing, mom has another opinion. And we get together and decide, we are going to do this much because Jenny wants it; we are going to do this to consider Don's concerns; we are going to do this to consider the twins' interest, and mom and dad. And we get a package, and we all agree. It is not everything Jennifer wanted. It is not everything Don wanted. It is not everything mom wanted. It is not everything dad wanted. And the twins are kind of miffed because they did not get X, Y, or Z. But they all got something and they all could see that, while they got something, the other member of the family got something; and, so, this agreement was good for everyone. It was not everything anyone wanted, but it was something everybody wanted and would serve everybody's interest. Now, everyone has to commit to that agreement. If they do not commit to that agreement, it falls apart. Well, when we go to negotiate with 10 other countries or 20 other countries about how agriculture products are going to move in the world market, everyone has to trust that everyone at the table means what they say and is going to deliver on the agreement. And so, at the end, and this is always the way it is in international agreements, it is the way it is in families, it is the way it is at any level of negotiations, whether it is union or whether it is not union or wherever it is, at the end, there are a lot of things we can agree on, and then there are some things that are hard, and at the end there are a few things that are very, very hard. And people have to make hard decisions about what is most important to them, what is most important to you, and then you strike the deal that you know is in the end best for everybody and will serve everybody. It is at that point, it is at that point when we put the final nail in the deal, the final seal on the passage, that everyone has to know everyone who is part of that deal will be able to deliver. If our President does not have fast track authority, then he will not be able to deliver. The other countries that are parliamentary democracies automatically can deliver because their prime minister can just do whatever he has negotiated. Our prime minister, our President, has to bring the package back and we have to pass new law. Now, can the new fast track bill that came out of the Committee on Ways and Means, on which I serve, recognizing that we do want that negotiator to commit to something that we will not pass? It is true we could defeat it, but we want them to agree to something that will serve our interest and that we can support. So in the new legislation, we have structured a lot of consultation, a lot of involvement by elected Members of the House and Senate, so that, at the end, that deal will be struck in a way that will not only be in America's interest but broadly supported by America's representatives.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Let me just mention that one of the big issues in the NAFTA negotiations was the failure of Mexico to enforce their own labor laws. They look good on paper, but they did not enforce them, and we have learned something from those NAFTA negotiations. In those negotiations we made what is called a side agreement, and as a result of that, Mexican investment in enforcement of their own labor laws has increased 250 percent. In other words, we forced them to try to start enforcing their own laws, which were good on paper and lousy in reality, and in this new fast track authority we specifically include the right for the United States to negotiate the enforcement of domestic laws in labor and environment because lots of countries have good-sounding laws, but they do not enforce them, and that does make it harder for us to compete. So we have now expanded this negotiating authority to include enforcement of domestic laws because we did learn from those negotiations in Mexico the need for that breadth. So this time we are not only asking for the President to have negotiating authority, but we are asking for that authority to reflect the experience that we have in what defends America's interest and what strengthens our own future and creates opportunity for our people.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Right, so if you had 100 percent tariffs, I do not care how good you were producing in the United States, you could not sell in Mexico with 100 percent tariffs. Now, under NAFTA, Mexican tariffs have come way, way down. Yes, American tariffs have come down a little bit, too, but they were low to begin with. Now they are a little lower. Mexican tariffs were high to begin with. Now they are down low. Some of them are completely wiped out. One-half are wiped out. Others are there, but they are much smaller. So now you can sell into Mexico, and you can compete. You do not have to be there to produce. So lower tariffs means jobs stay in America. I gave you earlier that example of the Canadian company that got the big deal in Chile, though the American producer was lower cost and higher quality. But we did not have the tariff relief. We had to pay 11 percent tariffs. So we lost the deal. If we had the same tariff relief that Canada had had, if we had been able to be at the table and negotiate those tariffs down like Canada did, we would have gotten that order, and those orders feed jobs. So what is sad about this fast track deal is that those who oppose fast track think they are protecting American jobs when actually you protect American jobs by being at the negotiating table, opening markets and driving international standards to American standards, because American standards are higher in every area than most of the rest of the world. So if we can open markets, we can compete. If we open markets, our competitive companies go in, sell goods, and that allows them to hire and create jobs. So if you care about the jobs of your kids, you have to be in lots of markets, because remember, again, 96 percent of the consumers are outside the United States. So if your kids are going to have jobs, you have got to be able to sell into all the markets of the world, and that is what we are talking about. We are talking about letting the President be at that table with a power to negotiate agreements that are good for American producers. And if they are good for American producers, they are good for American workers because they will sell American goods and create American jobs and pay American salaries to good, solid Americans to sell American products made by American people. It is exciting. It has meant that we are a very prosperous Nation. It will bring prosperity to our children, and without fast track the possibility of a continual rise in our economic growth is truly, truly compromised. I do not want to be too pessimistic, but one could paint rather grim scenarios about economic growth without fast track.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Right, under the old rules, Mexico had tariffs of 20, 30 percent on a lot of it.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Right.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Well, I agree they are able to compete, but they have to be able to get into a market.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. You bet they did. Because it was a better work force, and a higher quality product.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Much lower. Because Connecticut is a high-cost State, and they pay high wages.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. One of the hardest things today and all of us feel it in every one of our districts, it is really hard to see plants that really are not producing a top quality good gradually have to lay people off and go under. But that has nothing to do with negotiating authority. It has to do with the fact that consumers today demand very high-quality products at a reasonable cost and they have a choice of products from all over the world. For America to be competitive and American companies to be successful, they have to be the best and the lowest cost in their own local market, around the Nation and across the seas. The exciting thing is that they have risen to this challenge. It took years to do it but I can tell the gentleman, I represent the best workers in the world. They do top quality work individually, they work together well as a team, they day in and day out, you walk into any factory in my district and they can tell you stories about how the latest move that some group in that factory has made to identify by thinking, by working together, to identify a way to cut costs, improve quality, improve productivity together, same men and women, same hours, same equipment, thinking smart, working as a team, and doing a far better job than we used to do. It is truly exciting and we are frankly in so many areas absolutely the best. So we are competitive. One of the things that makes me saddest in this whole trade debate is the idea that somehow trade policy sends jobs abroad. Any American company could establish their factory here or abroad 10 years ago, 5 years ago, 1 year ago, today. They will have that right tomorrow, they will have that right 10 years from now. If they were going to go to the lowest wage company, because some of my friends say to me, ``Well, gee how can we compete with 25 cents an hour?'' We have been competing with 25 cents an hour. We do compete with 25 cents an hour, and we win. Why? Because we are far better. We produce a far better product at a reasonable cost. So that is not the issue. Companies establish plants abroad for only two reasons: First, to feed their high-technology production capability here in America, and sometimes because trade laws force them sometimes to sell in a market, you have to be there. I had a company in Connecticut that had a plant in Mexico because under the old rules, they had to produce in Mexico to sell in Mexico. As soon as we passed NAFTA, they closed their plant in Mexico and came home. Why? Because they could produce better here. Now with the free- trade agreement, they could sell into Mexico without having a factory in Mexico.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. They will be delighted. And yet just in Connecticut, just Connecticut, manufacturing has increased. Connecticut manufacturing exports, $500 million more just during the first half of 1997 over the first half of 1996, $500 million, a half a billion dollars more in manufactured exports went out the door from Connecticut plants in just the first half of 1997. If you are expanding production at that rate, you are hiring people. And if you are selling abroad, your wages are higher than domestic companies. So in Connecticut, we are selling more abroad, the jobs we are creating in that sector, not all jobs. I absolutely acknowledge that, but more and more jobs are associated with exports and those jobs on average pay 16 percent more. So if you want your kids to do well, you want to live in a State that exports a lot so your kids can get into exporting industries so they can have the opportunity to have higher paying jobs and good livings.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. They are scheduled to occur and they are going to occur. These negotiations are going to go on whether we pass fast track or whether we do not pass fast track. Just last year, just in one year, we lost $2.3 billion due to copyright piracy; that is, people just outright counterfeiting American products, copycatting our products, ignoring our copyrights. That is just one year, $2.3 billion. These negotiations are going to go on. Who is going to be at the table? We are going to be at the table, too. But at the end when the deal has to be done at the end, when those hard decisions are made, those countries who pirate our products, who make a fortune off our research and development, who steal American jobs from our people, they are going to be able to do that final deal, and we are not. The deal they strike is going to be for a lower level of protection and many, many more years for countries to come into conformance. If we are at the table, we can say, ``Uh-uh.'' People who invent the idea have the right to own that idea, and their employees have the right to the jobs to produce that product, and we have the right to support our people as a result of our inventiveness, and we will set that standard higher and we will require compliance sooner if we are there to drive the final deal. If we are not, it will be our loss.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Can we make that a little clearer. A lot of countries have state-owned, state-operated companies that produce telephone equipment, transportation equipment, energy, and we are moving in the world toward privatizing those companies and letting anyone in the world compete. If we are not allowed to compete, we do not get those jobs, we do not get that production. If we are allowed to compete, we have to be very good to get the deal. But we need to be able to be there at the table, and if we are not at the table, then those countries who like having that government control, even if it produces a higher-cost product for their people and lower quality, they like the control. So if we are not there to push them and say, open that market, let us have a chance, let everybody have a chance, and it will make your industries better and raise the standard of living for your people, if we are not there to do that, then at the table we only have those countries who want a lower standard. And that is bad not only for our country, but for the world.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Our whole economy produces $1.5 trillion of goods each year. So $600 billion is more than a third of our whole economy.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. $600 billion.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. One of the things I think is not being noticed, and of course it is because most Americans do not have time to notice, they are busy and we are not at the table, but let me tell my colleagues what happens when we do not have fast track authority, because it is happening to us now. We do not have fast track authority, so we cannot negotiate with a lot of the South American countries that have traditionally bought American products, like to buy American products, are disposed toward doing business with us, but in the last couple of years have been making deals with other people because we are not positioned, we do not have the negotiating authority that they can trust. So, recently, Canada negotiated a very good trade agreement with Chile. It meant that there would be no Chilean tariffs on their communications equipment. That dropped an 11 percent tariff under Chilean law on Canadian communications equipment. Not long ago, we lost, an American company lost a very big deal in Chile, not because they were not the top quality producer, not because they were not the lowest cost producer, but because when we added their price of their quality product and the 11 percent tariff, they were higher cost than the Canadian company that was higher priced but did not have the 11 percent tariff. So our failure to have negotiating authority is already losing us customers in South American nations. And if that happens too much, we lose jobs. We do not just lose customers, we lose jobs.

Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. More dried milk if you are a dairy State.