Patrick Kennedy

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to welcome Father Joseph Escobar of St. Anthony's Church in Pawtucket, Rhode Island as our guest chaplain. Established in 1926, St. Anthony's has long served Rhode Island's English and Portuguese-speaking communities. The large influx of Portuguese immigrants to Rhode Island resulted in the first Portuguese parish in the State, Holy Rosary Parish in 1885. Next was St. Elizabeth's, in Bristol in 1913. It was soon followed by St. Francis Xavier in East Providence in 1915; and St. Anthony's was added in 1926, along with its mission at Little Compton. Father Escobar will soon be leaving to transition to be the pastor of Our Lady of the Rosary Church in Providence, his hometown. Father Escobar was educated in East Providence public schools before attending Providence College, my alma mater, where he received a BA in mathematics. He completed his seminary studies at the Dominican House of Studies right here in the Washington, D.C. area. He was soon ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Francis X. Roque in Washington, D.C. on May 20, 1988, and returned to Providence College where he worked towards a Master's Degree in the Religious Studies program. He served as assistant pastor at St. Pius the Fifth Church in Providence, and St. Elizabeth Church in Bristol, Rhode Island. Father Escobar has been the administrator of St. Anthony's Parish in Pawtucket since 1977. He was incardinated into the diocese of Providence in 2000. Mr. Speaker, I am sure that parishioners of St. Anthony's will miss him as much as his new flock at Our Lady of the Rosary are looking forward to greeting him. It was an honor and privilege to welcome Father Escobar to this United States House of Representatives, and I thank him for his invocation.

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island. Mr. Speaker, I am deeply saddened by the passing of Joe Moakley, who was a wonderful man and a great leader for his constituents of Massachusetts and for our Nation. He was an easy- going, good-hearted gentleman with a great sense of humor that I will always treasure. As the dean of the New England Congressional delegation and the ranking member of the House Rules Committee, Joe wielded a great deal of power. Yet when you were in his presence, you never felt out of place because he made you feel so comfortable and at ease. Joe Moakley is a House colleague that I have always tried to emulate. Despite his seniority in Congress, he was an `ordinary Joe' and a true man of the people. Spending a half-hour with Joe Moakley was a great way to get a lesson in old style politics, the politics of the people. And he always said it the way it was . . . Joe always got right to the point. When I talked to him a few weeks ago, he wasn't pondering his imminent death. Instead, he was celebrating his great life. It was terrific these past several weeks that Joe had the opportunity to enjoy many tributes to him. So many people from all walks of life had the chance to tell him how much he really meant to all of us. I know that Joe is already on the fast track to heaven. He was a treasure to the House and one of the most effective legislators this chamber has had the fortune to have. We wish him farewell, and keep his family and friends in our prayers.

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island. Mr. Chairman, on rollcall Nos. 136, 137, and 140, I was at a subcommittee on Appropriations hearing. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay'' on 137, ``nay'' on 136, and ``yea'' on 140.

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from California for his amendment and applaud him for his efforts. It is an important addition to this bill. I would also like to commend the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce on this landmark legislation. I had intended to offer an amendment that would have helped ensure that children arrive at school with all the tools that they need for success. I will instead engage the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Boehner) and the ranking member, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee), in a colloquy. On the basis of a growing body of scientific study, there is an increasing recognition that the foundations for learning are laid in a child's earliest years. Both the President's proposal and the bipartisan bill crafted by the committee took notice of this knowledge in providing for the Early Reading First Initiative to help the development of literacy skills in pre-school age children. My amendment would compliment the Early Reading First Initiative by promoting young children's emotional and social development, as well as their literacy skills, so they will be prepared for success when they begin school. This approach was recommended by the National Academy of Sciences, and also urged by kindergarten teachers. It is a proven method to reduce special education placements, grade retention, juvenile arrests, and school dropouts.

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island. Mr. Chairman, If the gentleman from California will continue to yield, I thank the gentleman from Michigan.

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. Mr. Chairman, this is part of a strategy to improve test scores and academic achievement. It has been proven to work. I know the chairman and ranking member of the Committee share my commitment to ensuring that children enter school with all the tools they need. Their dedication to the educational needs of our youth is evidenced by their hard work on this bill. I would ask if the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Boehner) would be willing to work with me in conference to address the goals of this amendment in the final legislation.

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional minute.

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 124, I was speaking at a Liberian rally and could not make it back in time. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and rise to support an amendment which outlines a 3- to 5-year trade, aid and security agenda with East Timor which, as everyone knows, is currently under United Nations control and is scheduled for full independence later this year. This legislation contained in the en bloc authorizes bilateral U.S. assistance to East Timor in order to promote civil society, independent media, job creation and economic development. It authorizes the establishment of a Peace Corps program in East Timor, requires that a developmental plan to establish full diplomatic facilities in East Timor be accomplished and mandates a series of steps to increase the involvement of U.S. trade and export agencies in East Timor. I had the honor of having the chance to travel to East Timor with Nobel Prize winner Bishop Carlos Belo, and this was just after he received the Nobel Peace Prize. As my colleagues know, for the last 30 years East Timor has been fighting for its independence. Finally it won it. Mr. Chairman, now we need to make sure that independence sticks and stability takes hold. In this Congress and many other places, we prepare for war. And when we prepare for war, we make sure that we make an investment in order to win war once we have prepared for it. Now we need to win the peace. We need to make sure that peace takes hold in East Timor. So we also need to make sure that peace takes hold, and this legislation within the en bloc will make that take place. Mr. Chairman, I encourage my colleagues to join me in support of this very important amendment which will help our relationship with East Timor and help it get underway.

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island. Mr. Chairman, maybe either the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) or my friend and colleague, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), could answer this question. And that is, if we do not sign this treaty, then we will not have primary jurisdiction over our soldiers; meaning if we do sign this treaty, our soldiers are under the jurisdiction of our courts; but if we pass the DeLay amendment our soldiers will be under the jurisdiction of another country and/or the ICC that the gentleman purports he does not want our soldiers to be subject to.

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island. Mr. Chairman, on the gentleman's time. I do not have the time. The gentleman has more time than we do.

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island. Mr. Chairman, on the gentleman's own time I will yield. It is his amendment. If he wants to answer the basic question.

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island. I control the time and I am not going to yield. I would like to ask the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), who is offering this amendment, to explain his amendment and explain to this House that what he is trying to do he actually does not do, because the very service member who he is purporting to protect actually will end up subject to other foreign nations' courts, and not our own, if we pass this DeLay amendment. I would ask the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) on his own time to explain why his amendment does exactly the opposite of what he purports it to do.

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island. Mr. Chairman, it is an honor for me to have this opportunity to talk with the gentleman from California and with my colleagues about the International Criminal Court. As a survivor of the Holocaust, he is a steadfast reminder to all of us that these kinds of war crimes are right in front of us every single day. It is amazing to me that we would be standing in the well of this House talking about this issue, the amendment of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Delay), when we have Rwanda, Burundi, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Cambodia, East Timor, Saddam Hussein, all of these places that need international criminal courts that do not have them. We are the leaders in the world in terms of human rights. We ought to be the leaders when it comes to the International Criminal Court. This amendment is a farce. I wish I could say as gently as the gentleman from California that the gentleman was well intentioned. This amendment is a lie, because this amendment makes you think that you are going to keep American servicemembers from being prosecuted when that is a lie. Right now if a servicemember under the American flag commits a war crime, they are tried by our own military court. If the DeLay amendment passes, they are going to be tried by the country in which they commit that crime. Who do we want trying our servicemember? Do we want some Saddam Hussein trying our servicemember if we do not sign this treaty? Do we want them to be the ones to try our servicemember? I do not. I would be able to go to bat with the gentleman from Texas in front of anybody on this issue because the facts are that if we pass the DeLay amendment, we are actually going to end up doing what the gentleman from Texas purports he does not want us to do. That is, if we do not sign this treaty, our servicemembers are tried by other countries internationally because that is the law of the International Criminal Court. Today's amendment, based on ``the American Servicemembers Protection Act'' sounds great--of course we all want to protect American servicemembers. As a former member of the Armed Services Committee, I have spent many days in markups and debates over bills to support our Armed Forces. But if we scratch below the surface, this amendment is not about protecting our military, it is about risking our current position of global leadership on human rights abroad. It will thwart the efforts of one of the most important international bodies that is about to come to fruition, the International Criminal Court. Since coming to Congress I have been highly supportive of an I.C.C., and I strongly believe in its principal which is that human rights abusers, who commit crimes against humanity or genocide, should be brought to justice. But even if you do not support an I.C.C., or feel that the Rome Statute needs complete revision, as I respectfully understand the gentleman from Texas does, you should oppose this amendment. It is crucial that we recognize, as the leaders of the free world, that the only way to achieve a Court that we can live with, is to stay engaged in the continuing negotiations over the scope, purpose, and construction of the it. A permanent international criminal court which can bring future perpetrators of war crimes to full and complete justice is in our interests. President Clinton recognized the importance of this effort and that is why he signed the Rome Statute in December; bringing us into the company of 139 other nations including 17 NATO allies who have signed the Rome Treaty. When 139 nations have signed this treaty and many have indicated that they are close to ratification, why would we alienate ourselves from this many of our global partners. This amendment would simply assure that the members of the ICC will feel free to ignore our concerns. I would also like to address the concerns about our Armed Forces or politically motivated prosecutions by the Court. There is no doubt that under the Rome Statute American soldiers who are accused of war crimes will never be impacted because we have a thorough system of military justice in our own Country that would prevent the need for any further review. The ICC won't take this power away, it cannot. In closing, I want to insure that everyone in this chamber understands the message that we will send to the international community if we pass this amendment. To quote, from Elie Wiesel, famous human rights advocate who opposed the bill that this amendment is based on A vote for this legislation would signal US acceptance of impunity for the world's worst atrocities. For the memory of the victims of past genocide and war crimes, I urge you to use your positions . . . to see that this legislation is not passed. Mr. Wiesel is right--let us think about the implications and the signal we will send--oppose this amendment.

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island. Mr. Speaker, it occurs to me that maybe the Senate copier was on to something when it split these two pages out. This conference report makes me want to gag when I think about what happened. The obfuscation and deception that has been the hallmark of this budget process is truly worthy of the conference report. The majority insisted on voting on a budget resolution before seeing the President's budget. That was the first thing. Then the majority shut out the Democrats from any consideration on this conference report and then tried to sneak a vote past the American people before they even had a chance to see their cynical handiwork. I do not blame the Republican leadership for trying to hide the details of this budget from the people. Nobody would be proud of this budget that pays for tax cuts with the futures of our children. Look at all the child-hostile measures in this budget. It cuts Head Start; it makes child care harder and more less affordable for working families. It cuts Individuals With Disabilities Education Act Part C, which helps prepare disabled infants and toddlers for school. It cuts the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program, which keeps kids safe and productive after school. It cuts the Mental Health Services block grant, which is what everyone tells me is what works in our States when providing that crucial community support for our most vulnerable children. It cuts all of these things, and yet we say that we have a President that wants to put his emphasis on education. It certainly is not relevant in this budget. We need to see the dollars, or else that will be a hollow promise of his being an education President. Deception seems to be the name of the game because the majority's irresponsibility for what is going on with this tax cut plan is what is making this such a vulnerable budget to begin with, because it will make it unable for us to meet our obligations long-term for this Nation while being able to cut the taxes for the most wealthy in this country. That is why I think that we should make sure these two pages are included, and we ought to know what the full impact of this budget is.

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island. Mr. Speaker, I submit the attached testimony that was given by Lydia Lewis of the National Depressive and Manic Depressive Association to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health, and Human Services and Education for the Record. National Depressive and Manic-Depressive Association, Chicago (Statement on Fiscal Year 2002 Budget, National Institutes of Health and National Institute of Mental Health--Submitted to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, March 21, 2001) Good afternoon. Chairman Regula, Ranking Member Obey, and distinguished members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Lydia Lewis, and I am the Executive Director of the National Depressive and Manic-Depressive Association (National DMDA). We are pleased to have this opportunity to testify on fiscal year 2002 funding for mental health research supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). National DMDA has been gratified to see the overall NIH budget increase over the past three years, including last year's nearly $2.5 billion increase, and we urge the continued full funding of these research priorities in order to maintain an active, progressive research agenda. We fully support President Bush's 2002 budget request of a $2.8 billion increase above the 2001 funding level for NIH, to a total of $23.1 billion, and we applaud the President's stated initiative to double NIH's 1998 $13.6 billion funding level by 2003. With nearly 400 patient-run support groups in every major metropolitan area, National DMDA is the nation's largest patient-directed, illness-specific organization. We are committed to advocating for research toward the elimination of mood disorders; educating patients, professionals and the public about the nature of depression and manic-depression as treatable medical diseases; fostering self-help; eliminating discrimination and stigma; and improving access to care. We have a distinguished Scientific Advisory Board of nearly 65 leading researchers and clinicians in the field of mood disorders which reviews all of our materials for medical and scientific accuracy and provides critical and timely advice on important research opportunities and treatment breakthroughs. While I am here today to testify on behalf of National DMDA, I know personally what it is like to battle depression every day, to fight the urge to end my life. I myself suffer from the disease. It's a dreadful way to live.

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island. Mr. Speaker, on April 4, 2001, I was in the First District of Rhode Island and consequently I missed six votes. Had I been here I would of voted: ``Yea'' on rollcall No. 79; ``Yea'' on rollcall No. 80; ``Yea'' on rollcall No. 81; ``Yea'' on rollcall No. 82; ``Yea'' on rollcall No. 83; ``No'' on rollcall No. 84.

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island. Mr. Speaker, we join here today to honor the memory of the Armenians who were massacred and the Armenian survivors who fled into exile during the Ottoman Empire's genocide from 1915 to 1923. On April 24th 1915, the Ottoman Empire began what can be called nothing less than a policy of ethnic cleansing. The U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Henry Morgenthau, stated that he was confident the treatment he observed of the Armenian people from 1915 to 1923 was the greatest atrocity the human race had ever seen. ``I am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such horrible episode as this,'' Morgenthau stated. We are very fortunate and blessed to have so many Armenian people connected to our Nation. In my home state, the Armenian community is great, and so too are the gifts and talents they bring to Rhode Island. Our Nation must continue to take the time to educate and remember the atrocities suffered by over one and a half million Armenians during the Armenian Genocide. Future generations must understand what the community has been through to truly appreciate and honor all the talents they share with our Nation. Over eighty-six years later after the tragedy began, Turkey still denies the Armenian Genocide despite overwhelming documentation of these atrocities. We cannot allow such ethnic violence and genocide to simply be covered up or ignored. Continued Congressional support to provide assistance to the people residing in Nagorno-Karabagh and upholding section 907 of the Freedom Support Act sends a strong, powerful message to Turkey that we will not allow Armenian communities to be threatened again. The Armenian Genocide serves as a reminder to us all that we must do more to protect peace and human rights for all those around the world.

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island. Mr. Chairman, this is really a debate about our Nation's priorities. What do we want this country to be in the next 20 years? Do we want it to remain the strongest country on the face of the Earth or do we want it to slip back into third world status? If this country is to remain strong, we need to invest in our people. That is the single most important investment this country can make in the future. One in four children in my district in Rhode Island, in my first district, grows up in poverty; one in four. Yet, this Republican Congress would propose giving nearly half of the $2 trillion surplus to the richest 1 percent of our country. Let us look at it, right here, choosing how we spend $280 billion. Are we going to invest it in our kids or are we going to invest it in a few millionaires who already have made it? I might add, to anyone who thinks that everyone who has made a million dollars earned it, let me just say something. I made a million dollars, and I did not earn it. I was given it by my parents and my grandparents. Know what? Wealth is now transferred from the rich to the rich. Know what? People who are working for a living are not even earning enough to make it rich because this Republican Congress is gutting education; it is gutting job training; it is gutting those things that we know help people earn a living. One of the things that this budget cuts is actual child care subsidies. Hello. I thought that this Congress was family friendly. What are they doing? They are eliminating over 50,000 subsidies for child care. Now what does one think those parents are going to do without the child care? Oh, they will go back on welfare. No, we do not want welfare, the Republicans say. Okay, well, give me a solution. I will say that this budget is all wrong for this country. The President of the United States says he wants to leave no child behind, but in this budget he will end up leaving millions of children behind. Know what? Those kids out there do not even know it today. Those parents do not even know it. The people in this gallery may know it, but there are going to be millions of children who are never going to even know that the vote we make today is the vote that is going to seal their future. It is going to seal their future either in poverty or it is going to brighten up their future, like the Democratic plan would have it by investing in the programs that will make them strong people. The thing that made this country so strong after World War II was the GI bill. It invested in a whole generation of Americans. Let us not miss the lesson of that importance of education; let us invest in the Democratic budget.

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island. Madam Chairman, like the gentleman from California, I ought to be thrilled about this tax cut, because rich families like mine will have even more money. In fact, I think my dad might be able to buy an extra boat down at the Cape; that might be a good thing, and then we could fit so many more people that we would like to have down there. This is an absolutely incredible budget in that it reverses the age- old priority of helping working families in this country. The President claims that he wants to leave no child behind. Well, that is not reflected in this budget. This budget, in fact, increases education at less of the rate than the number of students that are going to be enrolling in schools, despite the fact that we have crumbling schools. This budget even makes sure that subsidies are taken away from 50,000 families on child care. I mean, I thought we were family-friendly in this Congress; we wanted to make sure people could go to work and have child care. So this budget has less affordable housing, fewer child care tax subsidies, fewer dollars to support our aging and crumbling schools, fewer dollars for Medicare and Social Security; and all the while it gives the top 1 percent nearly half of the $1.6 trillion tax cut. I mean, it does not take much more understanding than that. Half of the tax cut goes to the top 1 percent of this country, and who pays for it? All of these programs. That is who pays for it. Madam Chairman, it is said that actions speak louder than words, and this budget resolution is deafening. It fairly shouts that the single most important thing this government can do is redirect our national wealth to those who are already affluent. Not educate our children, not provide affordable prescription drugs to seniors, not save Social Security, not even give tax relief to the working poor. This budget is built around a huge tax cut, and to pay for it, the President would raid Medicare and send the bill to working Americans. Madam Chairman, this budget resolution trashes a century-old priority of helping working class Americans into the economic mainstream. It would slash the Public Housing Capital Fund, making affordable housing even more scarce. It would take child care subsidies away from 50,000 families at a time when only 10 percent of eligible families are receiving them in the first place. It suggests significant cuts to job training programs, making it harder for workers to keep up with the changing economy. Even on education, which the President supposedly cares so much about, it dramatically cuts the rate of increase and eliminates funding to rebuild crumbling buildings. This despite the fact that the Department of Education anticipates student enrollment to grow by another four and a half million over the next 4 years. Less affordable housing, fewer child care subsidies, less job training, inadequate support for schools, and of course weakened Medicare and Social Security systems--this is a budget that will stifle economic opportunity for tens of millions of Americans in order to pay for a disastrous tax cut to benefit the very wealthy. We should be taking advantage of this era of unprecedented prosperity to update our social infrastructure for new economic and demographic realities, not squandering it on a cart-before-the-horse tax cut that doesn't help the people who need it most.

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island. Madam Speaker, it is with great pride that I join with my colleagues in celebration of the 180th anniversary of Greek independence. At this time, I would like to thank my colleagues from Florida and New York who have once again shown great leadership in initiating this Special Order and organizing the Congressional Caucus on Hellenic Issues. Greece has often been called the ``cradle of democracy,'' and rightfully so. In an address that could have been written by one of our founding fathers, Pericles wrote over 2,000 years ago, ``Our Constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of the minority, but of the whole people . . . equal before the law.'' The dream that was born so many years ago in ancient Athens is still alive and well today, here in the United States, and around the world. Without the example of Greece, the United States might not even be in existence today. As we looked to them for inspiration and guidance in our early, fragile years, so they looked to us on March 25, 1821, when they shook off the repressive bonds of the Ottoman Empire and declared themselves a democracy once again. Since then, they have developed into a strong ally and stabilizing force in their region of the world. The United States has felt the impact of Greece in many other ways, most notably in the dedication and hard work of its sons and daughters who have immigrated to our nation. These immigrants have contributed greatly to their communities. In my home state of Rhode Island, there are thriving Greek communities in Providence, Pawtucket and Newport. There--as they have done across the United States--they became active participants in their community, and we are richer today because of their great contributions. Because of all that Greece has given to not only the United States, but also the entire world, it is fitting that we honor our strong ally and its sons and daughters within our nation. Once again, I commend my colleagues for their dedication in making this annual Special Order possible, and look forward to continuing my work with the Hellenic Caucus.

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this Reaganesque, trickle-down tax cut that will not spur the economy and will further deficits. We are debating here today more than what the IRS's next batch of forms will look like. President Bush is proposing a major shift in our national priorities. The real debate here is over the sort of society we want to have, about the degree of responsibility we as a community are prepared to accept-- for each other, and for the future. The question of taxes is merely a vehicle for this larger question. I believe that the President's tax plan is a betrayal of the rhetoric he has used to cloak himself as a moderate. He claims that he is determined to leave no child behind, but he will leave millions behind if his plan becomes law. He talks about instilling a sense of responsibility, but proposes to saddle future generations with tremendous deficit. He touts help for working Americans while dramatically widening the income gap. This bill, and the tax plan of which it is a part, is bad for America. I understand the House leadership's desire to pass it as quickly as possible, before the American people take a close look. Because if they examine it, they will see that it rests on pie-in- the-sky economic forecasts. No responsible family would commit itself to spending patterns based on guesses about its income in ten years, and neither should the government. They will realize that we have been here before, we have experimented with enormous tax cuts with disastrous consequences. The country cannot afford a return to the discredited supply-side, trickle-down economics of the 1980s. They will notice, as the Republicans wish they wouldn't, that the tax cuts are appallingly tilted to the wealthy. Our nation has rarely been as polarized between rich and poor as it is today, yet the Bush plan would direct 43 percent of the tax cuts to people earning more than $300,000 per year. And they will, I believe, agree that we have higher priorities as a nation than unfair, economically suspect tax cuts that will return the country to deficits and prevent investment in our people and our future. To put the choices that we face in context, I'd like to ask you to imagine you had a brother. Imagine your brother graduated from college and got a good job with a decent salary. But your brother has expensive taste. In the years that followed he lived high on the hog. HIs earnings weren't enough and he borrowed to keep that lifestyle going. At 35, your brother was pretty much maxed out on the credit cards, the mortgages, and the car loans. He was swamped with debt and spending nearly twenty percent of his income just on the interest. So your brother, bless his soul, changed his ways. He tightened his belt, reined in his extravagant taste. Over the next eight years, your brother was paying down his enormous credit card balances, slowly. Although he's a long way from paying off his debt, he's finally started bringing in more money than he's spending, by a little. Of course, his new approach was not without cost. He has been unable to put money away for his kids' education, or save for retirement, or pay for needed home repairs. But at least he's now in a position to do so in the future. And now imagine that your long, lost Aunt Millie has died and left him a big pile of dot-com stock options that vest in five to ten years. He calls you up, really excited. ``I'm back in the money!'' he says, imagining himself at the wheel of a Lexus, already plotting his new spending spree. How are you going to respond to your brother? He's 43 now. He's spent eight years digging himself out of the mountain of debt created during his youthful indiscretions. He has been unable to provide adequately for his children or invest for the future. But in those stock options, he sees a big glittering pot of gold--never mind that you never know what the stock market might do. So what will you tell him? I've belabored this little story enough, but it does illustrate the juncture at which our country stands. The choices we make tell a lot about our values. This country is your fictional brother, poised to head off to Vail. What will we say? The language of this debate is tax policy, but the substance of it runs much deeper. This debate is about priorities. It is about the sort of community we choose to make for ourselves. It is about our young children and our elderly parents, about the working poor and the uninsured, about creating an America we can be proud of. We live in a national community that allows forty-three percent of its children to grow up poor enough to qualify for free or reduced lunches. Forty million of our citizens go without health insurance. Our public education system frequently consigns children to classes of thirty or more in crumbling buildings, without textbooks, where everyone including the students knows they will not learn what they need to know to escape poverty. How can we possibly look at our society and conclude that addressing poverty and health insurance and education are less important than huge tax cuts? If we as a nation do reach that decision, what does it say about our American community? What does it say about us? This choice is real. President Bush and the majority may try to spin it otherwise, but there is not room for both massive tax cuts and plans to address needs like health care, education, and Social Security in any meaningful way. Underlying this new tax-cutting mania is the famous surplus. Let's look at that surplus. The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated the ten year surplus at five-point-six trillion dollars. But nobody, including the CBO, knows what will happen five or ten years in the future. If you want proof, just go back to some old CBO projections. Only five years ago, the CBO was predicting deficits as far as the eye could see. The estimate for fiscal 2000 alone was off by almost half a trillion dollars! And that was only four years later. The prediction made five years ago for a single year, 2006, differs by nearly a trillion dollars from the estimate made this year. As you can see, these numbers are not exactly rock solid. The estimated surplus is not money in the bank. In fact, more than 70% of the surplus that the President proposes to spend is projected in years six through ten. But if the CBO's five year projection is off by a half-trillion dollars again, there is no surplus. So point one is that we are playing with dot-com stock options here. We are as reckless as your zany brother if we spend trillions of dollars now on the assumption that the ephemeral surplus will materialize as predicted. It's also important to realize that more than half of the surplus predicted by the CBO belongs to the Social Security system and to Medicare. We shouldn't spend that money on tax cuts. And we need to be prepared for future growth. The CBO estimates and the Bush tax plan assume that spending will increase only at the rate of inflation. This assumption is unrealistic because the population keeps growing. Every year there are more cars on the road, more travelers in airports, more students in college, more children eligible for Head Start, more kids in our public schools. We need to increase spending just to keep up with the increasing demand on government services. The Bush tax plan ignores these considerations. Not only does it rely on untrustworthy numbers, it threatens to dip into Social Security and Medicare and it ignores the need for increased spending. And nobody in Washington is talking about the ripple effect that this will have at the state level. As federal taxes are cut, state and local taxes, which are often at least partially tied to the federal tax rate, are going to have to be increased to make up the difference. In addition, because the federal government will have to cut back even further on services, pressure will mount on the states to pick up the slack. In a small state like Rhode Island, that prospect is particularly ominous. So this bill and the Bush tax plan, first, rely on numbers nobody in their right mind would count on, and, second, spend even more than those numbers estimate to be available. If this sounds eerily familiar, that's because it is. Like your hypothetical brother, this country has spent the better part of two decades trying to put its financial house back in order after the massive Reagan tax cuts of 1981. We have watched more and more kids wind up in poverty, counted the steady increase in the number of uninsured Americans, seen schools deteriorate, pleaded poverty as students struggled to keep up with escalating college costs, buried our heads in the sand about Social Security and Medicare's coming demographic crisis--all in order to slowly, painfully, clean up the mess caused by the last giant tax cuts. But like your spendthrift brother, George W. Bush and the Republicans in Congress can't help themselves. The instant gratification of tax cuts overwhelms common sense borne of twenty years' experience. We are witnessing the restoration of Reaganomics. The Republicans were wrong in the early '80s when Ronald Reagan promised that the huge tax cuts would balance the budget by 1984. Instead, we had the biggest deficits in history, the accumulation of a 4 trillion dollar debt, and higher interest rates. They were wrong again in 1993 when they insisted that raising the rates on the wealthiest taxpayers to pay down the deficit would cause economic disaster. Bill Clinton and the Democrats passed that budget without a single Republican vote and it began the biggest economic boom our country has ever seen. For most people who lived through the last twenty years, supply-side economics has been thoroughly discredited. After the Reagan tax cut passed the House in 1981, short term interest rates shot up two full points in ninety days. The Dow fell 11 percent in the two months after the tax cuts became law. Within a year, four million Americans were out of work and the unemployment rate was in double digits. Even David Stockman, who orchestrated the Reagan tax cuts, admitted in his 1987 book that the ``fiscal wreckage'' of that time was the result of the ``basic assumptions and fiscal architecture of the Reagan Revolution itself.'' It unfortunately appears, however, that George W. Bush missed the lesson about the folly of supply-side economics. Not only is he going back to the supply-side policies that brought on massive deficits, he is advertising this tax cut plan as tonic for the economy. But this is just old wine in a new bottle. Long before the warning flags went up about the slowdown of the economy, he was saying gargantuan tax cuts were needed. You can tell his plan is not intended to be an economic stimulus by its structure. If you wanted to help the economy now, you would put more money in the pockets of working class people, the people who are having trouble meeting their bills, as soon as possible. Not only are the Bush tax cuts mostly back-loaded, due to take effect six or more years down the road, but they are heavily tilted towards the wealthy. They are not economic medicine, they are economic poison. It is a question of priorities. Are we going to rely on numbers that nobody thinks are accurate and then squander the entire surplus that might or might not materialize? Are we going to gamble away your future in the hopes that the budgetary roulette wheel comes up black? Are we going to tell the children on Head Start wait lists, the seniors unable to afford prescription drugs, the families made homeless by the lack of affordable housing that they have to wait another twenty years? What sort of community do we want? And if we do cut taxes, we must ask for whom? Under the Bush tax plan, 43 percent of the tax savings would go to the wealthiest one percent of Americans. That means people earning more than $319,000 are receiving a huge windfall. What about working folks, the forty percent of our citizens who earn less than $25,000? They get a measly 4.3 percent of the President's largesse. The President touts his big income tax rate cuts, but four out of five American workers pay more in payroll taxes than they do in income tax. In fact, most workers earning under $35,000 per year don't pay any income tax at all. Therefore, a typical family who could really benefit from a tax cut is left out. Even the Wall Street Journal, hardly the mouthpiece of the left, has written that the affluent stand the most to gain from the Bush tax cuts. Take a home health aide in Woonsocket, in my district, struggling to make ends meet on $13,600 per year or less. The President's helping hand to her is a tax cut totaling $42--I hope she doesn't spend it all in one place. I know it's not a lot, but that's all that's left after giving Bill Gates, Ross Perot, and the rest of the richest one percent their average $46,000 tax cut. Don't be misled by the $1,600 average tax cut that President Bush advertises. Remember, that includes the hundreds of thousands of dollars that the Bill Gateses of the world will save. You're not likely to see $1,600. Eighty-eight percent of taxpayers--or virtually every family making less than six figures--will receive less than that. In fact, a quarter of all taxpayers will see zero benefit from the Bush tax plan according to the Washington Post. Another pillar of the Bush tax plan is the elimination of the estate tax, or inheritance tax. This tax is currently paid only by the wealthiest two percent of families. If a couple's estate is worth less than $1.3 million, they pay no estate tax. In other words, one of the Republicans' highest priorities is $50 billion per year in tax relief for millionaires. By ending the estate tax, the President would be allowing the richest Americans to avoid paying any tax ever on over a third of their wealth, on average. Over half of the value of the average estate worth more than $10 million has never been taxed. A working, single mother here in Bristol has to pay tax on every dollar she earns, but the Republicans are proposing to let millionaires and billionaires go tax-free on a substantial portion of their earnings. Plus, eliminating the estate tax is likely to sharply curtail charitable giving, further hurting the poor. Some estimate that donations to charity could drop by 90 percent. Even provisions that could help working people if done right are skewed towards more affluent taxpayers. The Republican plan to eliminate the marriage penalty in the last Congress was structured in such a way that 89 percent of the benefits would go to those making more than $75,000 per year. The increase in the child tax credit the President proposes is nonrefundable, which means most working class families will not see the benefit of it. If you were serious about helping working people, why would you not make the child tax credit refundable? A credit against your income taxes isn't helpful if, like most working families earning less than $35,000, you don't pay income tax. Again, it's a question of choices. As MIT Economics Professor and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has written recently, it is not class warfare to point out that the Bush tax cut disproportionately benefits the very, very affluent. It is, instead, a debate over priorities. George W. Bush ran like Bill Clinton but is already governing like Ronald Reagan. He talks a good game, but his actions belie his words. He trotted out working folks for photo ops, but if those appearances had anything to do with his tax plan, he should have been standing there with some of his wealthy friends who stand to gain twenty to sixty times the families brought in as props. The Republicans justify this reverse Robin Hood approach by saying that the affluent get the biggest share because they pay the most in taxes. Well I say that they also gained the most from this economic expansion. The wealthy have already received the upside of the economic growth. It's time that the working men and women who made this surplus possible saw some of the benefit. During the booming '90s, from 1988-89 to 1997-98, the poverty rate in Rhode Island increased by 3.9 percent. A far greater percentage of Rhode Island children qualify for free and reduced school lunches now than at the beginning of the '90s. In other words, the benefits of the expansion have gone predominantly to the wealthy. In fact, it wasn't until halfway through the expansion that regular working folks saw their incomes rise at all. And even today, the bottom twenty percent is still earning nearly nine percent less in real dollars than they did in 1979. And now the President is proposing to give 43 percent of a multi- trillion dollar tax cut to people whose incomes average $900,000 per year. The income gap is already the widest it's been in decades. The wealth gap is even wider. I want to ask George Bush and the Republicans in Congress, how wide must that gap be before tax cuts are shared fairly? This discussion is not just about the arcane minutiae of the federal budget. This discussion is about people's lives. It is about asking ourselves what matters most. Are we the kind of people who will cause our children to go without, who will blithely blindfold ourselves to the needs of the future, to gratify our short-term wants? Before we pass any tax cuts, we first must take a long, national look in the mirror. I look at our society and I am not satisfied. I see a failing education system, skyrocketing rents, uninsured children, and critical shortages of quality childcare. I see a retirement system that we know for a fact will soon require large infusions of cash to maintain the status quo. I see millions and millions of our fellow citizens working 160 hours more per year for less money than they earned a quarter of a century ago. I see an America with many needs more pressing than massive tax cuts for the wealthy. Medicare needs a prescription drug benefit. Students need help affording college. Children need day care and Head Start programs. Our schools need teachers and textbooks. Our workers need health insurance. Social Security needs reform. Families need affordable housing. A community, like a garden, requires tending. We are finally in a position to give our garden some of the water and sunshine so long denied. We have labored for years to put our fiscal house in order, so that we would be able to do things like responsibly reform Social Security before it's too late or help communities build new schools. We are in a position to invest for the future, but like a happy-go-lucky big spender, the very prospect of money is burning a hole in some politicians' pockets. Twenty years ago we closed our eyes to hopelessly optimistic economic predictions, and allowed an affable President to gamble our future on a dubious economic theory that promised us the moon. He told us we could afford to eat dessert before dinner, we could get big tax cuts and a balanced budget. We made some decisions about priorities that led to trillions of dollars in national debt, the biggest deficits in our nation's history, more poverty, and fewer federal investments in people. Are we going to make those decisions again?

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island

Mr. KENNEDY of Rhode Island. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) for their work on this legislation. It is an important piece of legislation. I think anyone listening to this debate today, though there is not much of a debate other than we need to do more in the way of giving organs to people who need them, everyone should recognize the need to sign up. First things first: everyone should sign up as an organ donor right now or make a note to themselves to go up and sign up. This is an easy thing to let pass: Oh yeah, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. If it were not for one of our own colleagues, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Moakley), I would not have signed up. I recall when the gentleman from Massachusetts got this organs donation caucus together. We have several colleagues on both sides of the aisle who are beneficiaries of organ donations. There is nothing like hearing a story from someone who has benefited from an organ donation to make someone a believer and feel that they ought to sign up themselves. So I encourage everyone to do it. Most people can go down to the registry of motor vehicles in most States, as in my State of Rhode Island. A form is signed which makes an individual an organ donor, puts them on the list, and makes sure the individual's license reflects it. So in a time when we are no longer on this earth but our organs are, we can help someone else to live. I think that is the kind of thing we would all want to have made possible. So I hope we all support this organ donation legislation. In my State, there were 71 organs donated last year, although there are 36,000 still on the waiting list in my State of Rhode Island. We have a tragic shortage of organs and we need to pass this legislation, H.R. 624, so that we can help expand awareness of this important process of donating an organ. I encourage everyone to find someone that has benefited from this or log on and learn more about it, because I believe if people learn more about it they will become organ donors. It is an absolute tragedy that more Americans of good conscience and good will just are not because they have not gotten around to doing it. So anyone listening to this, please make sure to sign up to be an organ donor.