Dennis Kucinich

Mr. KUCINICH

Mr. KUCINICH. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. KUCINICH. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman.

Mr. KUCINICH

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I submit the following for the Congressional Record. Star Wars II Here We Go Again (By William D. Hartung and Michelle Ciarrocca) If you stopped worrying about the bomb when the cold war ended, you were probably surprised to learn that two of the hot-button issues of the eighties--arms control and missile defense--will top the agenda at the Clinton/Putin summit on June 4-5. A central issue in Moscow will be how to reconcile Russian President Vladimir Putin's proposal for deep cuts in US Russian nuclear arsenals with the Clinton Administration's fixation on developing a National Missile Defense (NMD) system. Clinton has pledged to make a deployment decision this fall, after the Pentagon and the White House analyze the results of the next ``hit to kill'' test of the missile defense system, slated for late June or early July. The system failed its most recent test, conducted in January, while an allegedly successful test conducted last October was made possible only by the fact that the kill vehicle was guided to the right spot by a large, easy-to-find decoy balloon. The Clinton/Gore proposal is a far cry from Ronald Reagan's Star Wars scheme, which was designed to fend off thousands of Soviet warheads at a cost estimated by former Wisconsin Senator William Proximire at up to $1 trillion. In contrast, this missile defense plan is meant to deal with a few dozen incoming warheads launched by a ``rouge state'' like North Korea, at a projected cost of $60 billion. But despite the NMD's seemingly more modest goals, it is every bit as dangerous and misguided as the Reagan scheme, threatening to unravel thirty years of arms-control agreements and heighten the danger of nuclear war. NMD's surprising political revival is rooted in the three Cs of contemporary US politics: conservative ideology, Clintonian cowardice and corporate influence. These short- term pressures are in turn reinforced by an ambitious long- range military objective: the misguided quest for a state of absolute military superiority. The strongest push for missile defense has come from Reaganite true believers in conservative think tanks, especially the small but highly effective Center for Security Policy. On Capitol Hill, the NMD lobby is spearheaded by new- look conservatives like Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, who led last fall's successful Republican effort to defeat the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Fresh from that victory, the NMD lobby is now seeking to destroy the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty as the next target in its campaign to promote ``peace through strength rather than peace through paper,'' as Kyl put it in a recent speech. The right-wing crusade for missile defense has received aid and comfort from Bill Clinton and Al Gore, who have decided that looking ``tough'' on defense is more important than protecting the world from weapons of mass destruction. Support has also come from the lumbering behemoths of the military-industrial complex: Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Boeing, which are desperately seeking a new infusion of taxpayer funds to help them recover from a string of technical failures and management fiascoes that have cut their stock prices and drastically reduced their profit margins. NMD's military boosters see the system primarily as a way to enhance the offensive capabilities of US forces, not as a defensive measure. In its revealing ``Vision for 2020'' report, the US Space Command--a unified military command that coordinates the space activities and assets of the Army, Navy and Air Force--sings the praises of outer space as the ideal platform for projecting US military dominance ``across the full spectrum of conflict.'' Pentagon hard-liners have a more immediate military goal: using NMD as a shield to protect US forces in interventions against states like North Korea (whose missile development effort, it is worth noting, has been on hold for almost two years). A growing number of moderate-to-conservative Democrats are also supportive of a limited NMD system. Whether or not missile defense is an effective response to alleged threats, it seems to offer a sense of security to some members of Congress, who lack the expertise and inclination to question the fevered threat projections of the US military and intelligence establishments. While at least some of the motives of NMD advocates may be understandable, they are also disastrously misguided: Even Clinton and Gore's ``limited'' system is unnecessary, unworkable and unaffordable. The mere pursuit of an NMD system could pose the most serious threat to international peace and stability since the height of the cold war. Russian President Putin has emphatically stated that any US move to withdraw from the ABM treaty will lead Moscow to treat all existing US/Russian arms agreements as null and void. And China's chief arms negotiator, Sha Zukang, has warned that if Washington goes ahead with an NMD deployment designed to intercept ``tens of warheads''--a figure suspiciously close to the eighteen to twenty single-warhead ballistic missiles that represent China's entire nuclear deterrent capability-- Beijing will not ``sit on its hands.'' In short, the official Clinton/Gore Administration position on NMD is that we should jeopardize the best change in a generation to reduce the world's nuclear arsenals in order to preserve the option to deploy a costly, technically dubious scheme designed to defend against a Third World missile threat that does not currently exist and may not ever materialize. To understand how we got into this mess, we need to take a look at the genesis, ``death'' and resurrection of Reagan's Star Wars dream. a smile and a shoeshine When Reagan gave his March 1983 Star Wars speech, in which he pledged to launch a program designed to render nuclear weapons ``impotent and obsolete,'' he was acting primarily on the advice of Edward Teller, the infamous ``father of the H- bomb.'' In closed-door meetings organized by the conservative businessmen in Reagan's kitchen Cabinet, Teller sold Reagan on a new nuclear doctrine of ``assured survival'' based on the alleged technical wonders of his latest brainchild, the X-ray laser. As New York Times science writer William Broad pointed out in his 1992 book, Teller's War, the X-ray laser was largely a figment of Teller's imagination, composed of scientific speculation, wishful thinking and outright deception. But Reagan was buying into the concept of missile defense, not the details, so he forged ahead unaware of these inconvenient facts, his enthusiasm reinforced by his desire to counter the nuclear freeze movement. But, as Frances FitzGerald shows in her new book, Way Out There in the Blue (the title derives from Arthur Miller's line in Death of a Salesman in which he describes Willy Loman as ``a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine''), Reagan's Star Wars proposal was more than just a political con game; it was also a potent symbol that served radically different purposes for the different factions within his Administration. For hard-liners like Caspar Weinberger, Richard Perle and Frank Gaffney--a Perle protege who went on to found his own pro-Star Wars think tank, the Center for Security Policy--Reagan's missile defense plan offered a chance to promote their two main goals: sustaining the Reagan military buildup and thwarting progress on US/ Soviet arms control. For White House political strategists, the Star Wars plan was a way to boost Reagan's flagging popularity ratings, which had plummeted in the face of the deepest recession since the thirties and a growing fear that the President's aggressive anti-Soviet stance was moving the world to the brink of a nuclear confrontation. The most constructive response to the Star Wars speech within Reagan's inner circle came from his Secretary of State, George Shultz. Rather than trying to convince Reagan of the manifold flaws in his pet project, Shultz treated the Star Wars speech as an opportunity to press Reagan to engage in his first serious discussions with Soviet leaders on nuclear weapons issues. Shultz found an unlikely ally in Paul Nitze, the old cold warrior who was appointed as a special envoy to the US/Russian nuclear talks at Schultz's request. Nitze honed in on the fatal flaw that has plagued all missile defense schemes to date, which is that it is much cheaper to overwhelm a defensive system with additional warheads or decoys than it is to expand the defensive capability to meet these new threats. As a result, Shultz and Nitze were able to prevail over the Weinberger/Perle faction and persuade Reagan to endorse historic agreements to eliminate medium-range nuclear weapons from Europe and implement substantial cuts in long-range weapons under the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). Star Wars was a security blanket that allowed Reagan to engage in serious negotiations with the ``evil empire'' without being perceived as some sort of weak-kneed liberal arms controller among the conservatives who formed his core constituency. When George Bush took office in January 1989, Reagan's Star Wars fantasy was rapidly overtaken by the reality of sharp reductions in the US and Soviet nuclear forces. Both sides ratified the START I arms reduction pact and followed up with a START II deal that called for cutting US and Soviet strategic arsenals to one-third their Reagan-era levels. On a broader front, the demise of the Warsaw Pact and the dissolution of the Soviet Union between 1989 and 1991 made spending billions on a high-tech scheme to defend against Soviet missiles seem irrelevant and absurd. Despite the decline of the Soviet ``threat,'' however, the Bush Administration and Congress continued to cough up $3-$4 billion per year for missile defense. The project's new focus was protection against an accidental nuclear attack. Soon yet another rationale appeared in the form of the ``rouge state'' strategy, developed by Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Gen. Colin Powell, and based on the notion that the United States should be prepared to fight two heavily armed regional powers like Iraq and North Korea simultaneously. In the 1991 Gulf War Saddam Hussein came to personify the rogue-state threat; Iraqi missile attacks on Tel Aviv and a devastating direct hit on a U.S. military barracks in Saudi Arabia prompted calls for more effective defenses against medium-range ballistic missiles. But even that was not enough to sustain enthusiasm for a major new program. A few months after Clinton took office in January 1993, Defense Secretary Les Aspin proclaimed the Star Wars program dead (though the Pentagon continued to spend $3- $4 billion per year on missile defense research). Enter Newt Newt Gingrich is gone from the political scene, but the most dangerous plank of his 1994 Contract With America remains: the section that calls for ``requiring the Defense Department to deploy antiballistic missile systems capable of defending the United States against ballistic missile attacks.'' That plan was added to the contract by Gingrich and his fellow Republican co-author Dick Armey at the urging of Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy. Efforts to turn the contract's rhetoric into viable legislation proved unsuccessful in the short run, but in mid- 1996 the Clinton Administration decided to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by offering a missile defense compromise known as the ``3+3'' plan--three years of research and testing followed by a three-year crash program to deploy a system--if the President decided it was necessary, feasible and affordable. The ``3+3'' gambit allowed Clinton to push off a politically controversial decision on missile defense until a later date that fell well past the 1996 presidential election. Unfortunately for Al Gore, that ``later date'' is now smack in the middle of his second run for the White House. As John Pike of the Federation of American Scientists put it, ``This is a political decision driven by the need to defend Al Gore from Republicans rather than defend America against missiles.'' While Clinton was yielding ground, Capitol Hill Republicans were regrouping for their next offensive--one result of which was an amendment in the fiscal year 1997 defense authorization bill calling for the establishment of a blue- ribbon panel to ``assess the nature and magnitude of existing and emerging ballistic missile threats to the United States.'' The Republicans wanted their new commission to be viewed as an authoritative and objective body, not just a partisan project. Bearing that in mind, House Speaker Gingrich and Senate majority leader Trent Lott, who were empowered to nominate the majority of the panel's members, chose former Ford Administration Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to head the commission, in the hopes that they could capitalize on his reputation as a moderate Republican with pragmatic views on military matters. Rumsfeld proved worthy of Gingrich's and Lott's confidence when he hammered out a unanimous final report with the appropriate aura of bipartisanship, complete with signatures from Democratic appointees such as former Carter Administration arms-control official Barry Blechman of the Henry L. Stimson Center and eminent physicist and longtime missile defense critic Richard Garwin. Just two weeks after the report came out, Garwin placed an Op-Ed in the New York Times denouncing the misuse of the report by missile defense boosters, asserting, ``I am alarmed that some have interpreted our findings as providing support for a new national defense system.'' The Rumsfeld Commission report was unveiled in July 1998 amid hysterical cries from Gingrich that it was the ``most important warning about our national security system since the end of the cold war.'' Hysteria aside, the report's primary finding was that given enough foreign help, a rogue state like North Korea could acquire a missile capable of reaching the United States within five years of making a decision to do so--one-third to one-half the warning time projected in the CIA's official estimates. The Star Wars lobby finally got what it needed: an official, government- approved statement that could be interpreted as endorsing its own exaggerated view of the Third World missile threat. While the Rumsfeld report drew heavy editorial fire in papers like the Chicago Tribune and the Milwaukee Sentinel, the Wall Street Journal applauded it as a long-overdue clarion call for missile defense, and Washington's newspaper of record, the Post, published a measured response that endorsed the panel's findings as ``useful and plausible.'' Inside the Missile Defense Lobby Upon reflection, it is clear that the Rumsfeld report's Republican backers had always intended to use the panel as a tool to advance their pro-missile defense agenda. All the report actually says is that if a country like North Korea gets major foreign assistance--including the extremely unlikely possibility that a country like China would simply give Pyongyang a fully operational ballistic missile--it will achieve the capability to hit the United States much more quickly than if it had to build the missile without outside help. As Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace demonstrated in Congressional testimony delivered this past February, the Rumsfeld Commission's conservative backers have used the report as a vehicle for changing the intelligence community's traditional means of assessing the ballistic missile threat, from one that attempts to predict the likely pace of missile proliferation in a given nation in the light of political, economic and military factors, to a ``worst-case scenario'' approach that asks how quickly a given nation could achieve a threatening missile capability if it had no economic or political impediments. As Cirincione also demonstrated, the ``sky is falling'' approach has been used to obscure the underlying reality that the ballistic missile threat to Just as the Rumsfeld Commission turned out to be less objective than it first appeared to be, so did its chairman. Far from being a moderate, Donald Rumsfeld is a card-carrying member of the missile defense lobby. Prior to his appointment to head the commission that bears his name, he was publicly singled out as a special friend in the annual report of the pro-Star Wars think tank, the Center for Security Policy. As a further sign of his commitment to the missile defense cause, Rumsfeld has also given money to Frank Gaffney's group. If Gaffney's organization were just an abstract ``study group,'' that would be one thing. But it is a highly partisan advocacy organization that serves as the de facto nerve center of the NMD lobby. Gaffney's center, which now has an annual budget of $1.2 million, was started in 1988 with support from New Right funders like Richard Mellon Scaife and Joseph Coors. Since that time, Gaffney has turned it into a sort of working executive committee for the missile defense lobby. The center's advisory board includes representatives of larger conservative organizations, including Ed Feulner, president of the Heritage Foundation; William Bennett, co-director of Empower America; and Henry Cooper of High Frontier, the original Star Wars think tank, which was launched during the early years of the Reagan Administration. Other CSP advisory board members include Charles Kupperman and Bruce Jackson, who serve as vice president for Washington operations and director of planning and analysis, respectively, at Lockheed Martin; key members of Congress like Republicans Curt Weldon, Christopher Cox, and Jon Kyl; and a who's who of Reagan-era Star Warriors like Edward Teller and former Reagan science adviser George Keyworth. Unlike most think tanks concerned with military issues, the Center for Security Policy receives a substantial portion of its funding from weapons manufacturers. Three out of the top four missile defense contractors--Boeing, Lockheed Martin and TRW--are all major corporate contributors to CSP, which has received more than $2 million in corporate donations since its founding, accounting for roughly one-quarter of its total budget. Rumsfeld's link to CSP is not his only affiliation with the Star Wars lobby. He's also on the board of Empower America, which ran deceptive ads against anti-NMD Senator Harry Reid of Nevada in the run-up to the November 1998 elections. In recognition of his service to the missile defense lobby, in October 1998-- just three months after his ``objective'' assessment of the missile threat was released--CSP awarded Rumsfeld its ``Keeper of the Flame'' award for 1998 at a gala dinner attended by several hundred Star Wars boosters. In accepting the award, Rumsfeld joined the company of Reagan, Gingrich and several Congressional NMD boosters. NMD Resurgent: Fast Track to Oblivion? In a reprise of the political two-step that preceded the 1996 presidential elections (Republicans lead, Clintonites follow), the Clinton Administration moved closer to the Republican position on missile defense with a January 1999 announcement that the President would seek a six-year, $112 billion increase in Pentagon spending. The proposal included $6.6 billion in new funding for procurement of missile defense equipment before 2005, the new target date for NMD deployment established by Defense Secretary William Cohen. Clinton's decision to accelerate NMD funding was propelled in part by the furor caused by North Korea's August 1998 test of a two-stage ballistic missile, but the trump card in the Republican-led effort to jack up both overall military spending and NMD ``deployment readiness'' funding was the backlash from the Monica Lewinsky affair. Long before the Lewinsky scandal, Clinton decided that throwing money at the Pentagon was the best way to shore up his credentials as Commander in Chief and divert attention from allegations that he had dodged the draft during the Vietnam War. By the fall of 1998, the combination of a growing federal budget surplus and the President's perceived political weakness resulting from the Lewinsky matter emboldened Congressional Republicans and Clinton's own Joint Chiefs of Staff to press him for billions of dollars in additional military funds. In mid-September, the Joint Chiefs invited the President to a closed-door briefing where they read Clinton their wish lists on everything from boosting military pay and weapons procurement to applying fresh coats of paint to underutilized military bases. Within a week's time Clinton sent the Chief a letter pledging a Pentagon budget increase that would insure that ``the men and women of our armed forces will have the resources they need to do their jobs.'' In October, Congressional Republicans did the Joint Chiefs one better, loading up Clinton's $1 billion Pentagon supplemental appropriations bill aimed at addressing the military's newfound ``readiness crisis'' with what analyst John Isaacs of the Council for a Livable World has described as ``a $9 billion grab bag of pet projects'' that included an additional $1 billion for National Missile Defense. Clinton's apparent embrace of NMD prompted Helle Bering of the conservative Washington Times to complain bitterly that ``Clinton has appropriated yet another set of Republican issues.'' In mid-January Cohen took the Administration's NMD commitment one step further when he made the highly provocative statement that if the United States deemed it necessary to withdraw from the ABM treaty in order to field an effective defense against rogue-state missiles, it would do so regardless of Russia's reaction. Meanwhile, back on Capitol Hill, NMD advocates were rallying around Senator Thad Cochran's National Missile Defense Act. In March 1999, aided by the votes of moderate and conservative Democrats who had been persuaded in part by the Rumsfeld Commission's official (albeit misleading) depiction of the North Korean missile threat, the House and Senate both passed bills calling for the deployment of a national missile defense system ``as soon as it is technologically feasible.'' Clinton signed the bill into law that July. Although his signing message made it clear that the Administration will consider economic, technical and arms-control factors before deciding whether to deploy an NMD system, Star Wars boosters in Congress have been portraying the legislation as a firm national commitment come hell or high water.

Mr. KUCINICH

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, today I celebrate the Golden anniversary of the Lake Erie Nature and Science Center. For 50 years, this asset of Greater Cleveland has provided the community with invaluable educational opportunities, wildlife resources, and a natural preservation of a beautiful environment. Among the many accomplishments the Center is responsible for are wildlife rehabilitation, education for youth and teens, wildlife gardens, a preserved nature facility, and a planetarium. By providing the community with these assets the Center continues to encourage a living connection between people, science, and wildlife in order to create a better commitment to the welfare of our natural world. As the Center has grown throughout the years, the community it serves has benefitted greatly from its existence. Thousands of children have been exposed to the world of science through observing living displays and participating in hands-on experiences. Today, the museum has become a tool for the old and young, as families utilize its programs all year round. My fellow colleagues, please join me in thanking and honoring the Lake Erie Nature and Science Center for the 50 years of contribution it has made to science and wildlife and for the 50 years it has been a service to its community.

Mr. KUCINICH

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, today I celebrate Mr. Lou Trebar. On Wednesday May 3, 2000, this Cleveland polka legend celebrated his 80th birthday with 1,500 of his closest friends. Gathered at the Slovenian National Home, thousands of polka fans and eighteen polka bands payed tribute to this local artist by giving him ``the greatest day of [his] life.'' Throughout Lou's life, he has made significant contributions to Cleveland's culturally diverse community. This Slovenian neighborhood native has enhanced Northeast Ohio's culture, and has added to the quality that makes Cleveland a polka city. Lou has a lifetime of dedication to promoting Cleveland-Style polkas and waltzes and to preserving the rich Slovenian heritage from which Cleveland evolved This ``Waltz King'' is a true dean of Cleveland-style music. He was a pioneer in adapting Slovenian folk music into America's musical mainstream as the first Cleveland-style bandleader to create a multi- part harmony with all types of instruments. His vision and talent have greatly decorated the heritage of the Cleveland area. I salute Lou for these many artistic accomplishments, and I join in with his many fans who wish him a happy 80th birthday.

Mr. KUCINICH

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, today I honor Elmer W. Rogozinski, who passed away on June 5, 2000. Elmer Rogozinski was born on May 14, 1918 to James and Martha Rogozinski and was the oldest of their five children. Elmer Rogozinski graduated from East Tech High School, and then studied at the Cooper School of Art. During World War II, Elmer Rogozinski served for four years with the 9th Air Force as a radio operator. He married Kay Sot in 1947, and together they had two daughters, Diane and Janice. Elmer Rogozinski was an active member of St. John Cantius church since 1947. He was a Mass server and committeeman, as well as a member of the St. John Cantius Mom's & Dad's Club. In 1958 he joined the 4th Degree Bishop O'Reilly of the Knights of Columbus as a member of the Color Corp. Since 1961, he served as the scribe for the Knights of Columbus Trinity Council paper, the Recorder. In 1963, Elmer Rogozinski was the Trinity Council Knight of the Year, and in 1984 he was the 4th Degree Bishop O'Reilly Knight of the Year. Elmer Rogozinski was a man who enjoyed the little things in life. He bowled in the Trinity Council bowling league since the 1960s. Elmer loved to go bike riding and play baseball with his four grandchildren. He enjoyed packing food bags at the Tremont Hunger Center and teaching art classes during the summer to young children at St. John Cantius. My fellow colleagues, please join me in paying tribute to Elmer W. Rogozinski, a great man whose loving and giving nature are an example to us all.

Mr. KUCINICH

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support today of H.R. 3916, the Telephone Excise Tax Repeal Act. This tax is a regressive tax that now collects over $5 billion each year from local and long distance phone calls. The working families of this country deserve lower taxes and this tax repeal will benefit them the most. This tax cut is also an issue that people care about. I wish to express my appreciation to Robert Fuchs, a constituent from the 10th District of Ohio, for bringing this issue to my attention. This tax cut is fair and is long overdue. The taxation of Americans is necessary to pay for the service of our government. The difficult question is how to structure these taxes. Regressive taxes, which levy taxes regardless of one's ability to pay, are not fair. The telephone tax is a regressive and unfair tax. Progressive taxes, which levy taxes proportional to one's ability to pay, are much fairer. The income tax is a type of progressive tax. I believe that the current budget surplus is large enough to consider repealing other regressive taxes that harrn lower- income Americans. As such, I remain committed to creating a more fair tax system.

Mr. KUCINICH

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, when Congress passed the Workforce Investment Act, we believed that we were making a statement about the importance of investing in the American worker. Because by investing in the American worker, we are investing in the future of America. We are investing in developing skills for American workers. We are investing in the hopes and dreams of American workers. We are investing in the hopes and dreams of those who are dislocated, those who are disabled, those who are young, those who are ex offenders, to those who want to fully participate in what we call the American dream. We are investing in assisting American business in helping to provide American business with a well-trained workforce. We are investing in the jobs of tomorrow. We all know that unemployment is low, but unemployment is low among trained workers. Everyone knows that. But unemployment remains a crisis among teenagers, minorities, and dislocated workers. I represent the State of Ohio and the City of Cleveland. Our manufacturing economy is in transition. Over the last year, we have seen representatives from the State of Ohio, from the State of Michigan, the State of Indiana, the State of Pennsylvania take to the floor of this House to talk about the impact of our trade policies on the steel industry. We sought protection for our steel industry because tens of thousands of jobs have been at risk because of dumping. But in some cases, the job loss was felt, and in manufacturing industry after manufacturing industry, we have seen a dislocated workforce with people hungry for retraining. We saw over 400,000 American jobs lost in NAFTA. We will see hundreds of thousands of jobs lost in our trade deal with China, where we have a $70 billion trade deficit. That job loss will not only be in manufacturing where we need people retrained, but that job loss will be in high-tech industries where people who are currently working in high-tech industries will need to be retrained.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

Mr. KUCINICH. Reclaiming my time, this is the tax break issue. We are going to get into that. Yes, there is no offset, but there are some who are being very insistent on passing tax cuts for the wealthy. If there was not this insistence, there would be money in the budget to invest in working families. We are told a rising tide lifts all boats. But what if people are not in the boat? What if they do not know how to swim?

Mr. KUCINICH. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

Mr. KUCINICH. I thank the gentleman. The point being that not only have we a challenge with respect to the existing workforce but the workforce of tomorrow is going to be severely impacted by policies which do not take a strong stand for worker retraining. The Workforce Investment Act called for one-stop shopping, for helping people make applications, getting them into a program, getting them into retraining. So we go from a one-stop system to a full-stop system. The legislation which we will be voting on absent the Jackson amendment cuts $21 million from job opportunities for young people. Now, I know there have been people on this floor talking about the summer jobs program just being some kind of a slush fund. How dare this House of Representatives attack opportunities for young people who otherwise would not have a job. It is the moral obligation of government to stand as a guarantor of employment for our young people if the private sector does not or cannot provide the jobs. It is our moral obligation. We need to show our young people that it pays to work. We need to develop in our young people the work ethic. We need to stand strong and to say that wherever we can provide more opportunities for our young, that we provide those opportunities. We need to make sure that we look at the implications of welfare reform here. We are taking people off welfare, and we are cutting job training programs. There is something wrong with this picture.

Mr. KUCINICH

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this rule and to this bill. The committee unfortunately included a prohibition on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, this is hard to believe, to stop OSHA from implementing protections against repetitive stress disorder, carpal tunnel syndrome, and the litany of physical injuries workers sustain every day because of the dangerous design of their jobs and workplace. Many of these workers are women. They are our mothers, our aunts, our sisters, and our daughters. Each year, according to the AFL-CIO, 400,000 women workers suffer injuries from dangerously designed jobs. Sixty-nine percent of all workers who suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome, and I think everyone knows this, are women. The bill therefore represents a betrayal of promises made to the women of America. In fiscal year 1998, the Committee on Appropriations report stated that ``the committee will refrain from any further restrictions with regard to the development, promulgation, or issuance of an ergonomic standard following the fiscal year 1998.'' In the following year, Chairman Livingston and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) signed and sent a letter reiterating Congress' promise. The letter stated, ``It is in no way our intent to block or delay issuance by OSHA of a proposed rule on ergonomics.'' So why does the bill before us prohibit OSHA from protecting women workers who are hurting and being crippled by dangerous workplace? A promise was broken, and Congress is on the verge of leaving America's working people, the vast majority of our citizens, unprotected from dangerous workplaces. I urge my colleagues to vote no on the rule and no on this bill.

Mr. KUCINICH

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, section 103 of the bill says ``none of the funds made available in this Act may be used by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to promulgate, issue, implement, administer or enforce any proposed temporary or final standard on ergonomic protection.'' Earlier in this debate, I rose and went to that well to speak to what was wrong with that section, and I joined my good friend, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), in stating that I am opposed to this bill; but I am going to support this amendment. And the reason I am going to support this amendment is because in my district in Cleveland, when I go out and meet the people, as I do all the time and as many of us do in our own districts, I always study people. And when I go out to shake hands and hands reach out, I want to tell my colleagues how many times I would see over and over a scar on somebody's wrist, mostly women I might add. And my colleagues know what it is more often than not. Someone has had surgery to correct a carpal tunnel condition. So we see a hand reach out; and if there is a scar on that wrist, more often than not, that person has had a repetitive motion injury, carpal tunnel. Now, if we shake that hand of that person who had that injury and had surgery to correct the condition, we might consider the moral statement of joining hands with someone who has had that injury and then at the same time be willing to sweep aside any attempt to stop others from being able to be protected in the workplace. Now, I know about one such person because it happened to be my Aunt Betty. She helped to raise most of the children in our extended family. And Aunt Betty did it by working her 40 hours a week in a large corporation in downtown Cleveland as an executive secretary and spent 30 years on the job typing away and then finally took retirement because her hand would not work anymore. That is why she quit. She would still be doing it, just that her hand would not work anymore. So she had surgery. And now she is in her seventies and enjoying life retired. She would have kept working as long as she could, but her hands would not work anymore. Well, I can tell my colleagues there are a lot of Aunt Bettys out there. And when I go and reach out in the crowd, I can see the little marks on their wrists. We need ergonomic standards. We need to have the Occupational Safety and Health Administration be able to promulgate and issue and implement and administer and enforce temporary or final standards on ergonomic protection. That is why I am going to be supporting this amendment. Arguments to the contrary attempt to reduce all workers to the status of cheats. I think most Americans who have a job want to work; they do not want to find a way out of work. I think most businesses who have well- trained workers want their people to stay on the job; they do not want to waste the human capital. This is an issue about human beings and our dedication to them. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Traficant).

Mr. KUCINICH

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I would state then my insistence that this amendment is in order. That if the Parliamentarian had reviewed it, or did review it, he would see that the amendment has an effect on outlays per year, but does not change the overall end effect of the bill. It is outlay neutral.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I would like to state my affection for the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon), my respect for his sagacity, his knowledge of these issues. I think this is an important debate. I think that those of us who, for the last 15 years, have been watching this who perhaps have not had the opportunity to attend any of the gentleman's meetings can still develop a point of view based on information that we receive independently that can achieve a level of debate which this House is entering into. Of course my main point is what we know right now. We have a lot of information that suggests there is serious questions as to whether the system works or not which is even before we get into the feasibility of it on a national defense basis. But I want to reiterate my great respect for the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon), and my appreciation for his commitment to the defense of our country.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I do.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, on a matter currently before this House where we are ready to appropriate nearly $2 billion for an antimissile system which does not work. We have a classification label slapped onto this to cover up what? Fraud? Not only has the system already cost $60 billion. At this very moment, this House and the taxpayers are going to fork over another $2 billion now and another $58 million later? The American taxpayers and this Congress have a right to know about claims of fraud, about claims of a tricked-up test result, about whether those tests have been rigged to defraud the American taxpayer. The House has a right to know. The taxpayers have a right to know. Why the secrecy about claims of fraud on the taxpayer? Mr. Chairman, if my colleagues are for this antimissile system, it is their obligation to find out if it works and if there is fraud. Point of Order

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, my amendment would reduce spending for research, development and testing for the National Missile Defense System by 10 percent, about the same amount of the increase made by the committee for the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization over the budget request. It would increase the budget for the Defense Health Program by the same amount. This bill includes a provision for $1.8 billion for a boondoggle called the National Missile Defense System. First, the system is a fraud on the taxpayer and a danger to arms reduction. Second, the technology is not feasible, not testable, and therefore not reliable. Third, it does not protect against real threats. Fourth, it will destabilize our relations with our allies worldwide and will spark a new and expanded armed race. Fifth, it violates years of work towards disarmament and nonproliferation. And sixth, its sole purpose seems to be to line the pockets of military contractors. Let me deal with a few of the many reasons why this whole idea is wrong. As many of my colleagues know, the National Missile Defense System depends on the system's ability to discriminate between the target warhead of an incoming missile and decoys. But according to the New York Times, the system failed those tests. Quote from the Times: ``The Pentagon hailed the first intercept try as a success, but later conceded that the interceptor had initially drifted off course and picked out a decoy balloon rather than a warhead.'' That is because according to the Times, the system cannot tell the difference between warheads and decoys. Experiments with the National Defense System have revealed that the system is ``inherently unable to make the distinction,'' and that is between the target warhead and decoys. The New York Times characterized the MIT scientists as saying that the signals from the ``mock warheads and decoys fluctuated in a varied and totally unpredictable way, revealing no feature that could be used to distinguish one object from the other.'' Indeed, The New York Times reported that ``the test showed that warheads and decoys are so similar that sensors might never be able to tell them apart.'' So in other words, Mr. Chairman, the National Missile Defense does not work and cannot work because it inherently cannot tell the difference between warheads and decoys. While the National Missile Defense is a technological failure and a fraud, it could potentially succeed in setting the stage for a worldwide arms race and dismantle past arms treaties. The NMD violates the central principle of the ABM Treaty, which is a ban on the deployment of strategic missile defenses. It will undermine the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It will negate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. It will frustrate SALT II and SALT III. It will lead directly to proliferation by the nuclear nations. It will lead toward transitions toward nuclear arms for the nonnuclear nations. It will make the world less safe. It will lead to impoverishment of people of many nations as budgets are refashioned for nuclear arms expenditures. That the United States would be willing to risk a showdown with Russia or China and the rest of the world over the unlikely possibility that North Korea may one day have a missile which can touch the continental United States argues for talks with North Korea, not the beginning of a new worldwide arms race. President Clinton has recently returned from Russia and Europe in an effort to convince our allies that a U.S. Star Wars system is in their best interest, but many say this is simply not true. Many officials in the intelligence and scientific community have said otherwise. According to an article in the L.A. Times, high-ranking intelligence officials are set to offer a report that states deploying a Star Wars system could result in destabilizing events worldwide. I think this is significant, when the President's advisors and the intelligence community are saying that it could result in instability and insecurity worldwide. The Times indicates that the report is expected to state, and I agree, that such a deployment may result in a buildup of nuclear missiles worldwide and the spread of missile technology. Mr. Chairman, we spent over $60 billion as a Nation on this failed system since 1985. Why spend another $60 billion? This system does not work. Here we are 15 years later, a scientist conducting a review says he could prove it does not work. Worst, claims have been made that the tests were fraudulently interpreted, which means that not only is there a question of fraud on the taxpayers, but a fraud on our national defense. Scientists have sent letters to the White House regarding the fraud. The New York Times has printed articles about claims of fraud. After the articles were published, the Department of Defense slapped a ``classified'' label on the letter, so I cannot read that letter. I cannot read about the claims of fraud to this Congress, even though the claims have already been reported on by national newspapers of record, even though documented claims of fraud have been made by reputable scientists on a matter currently before this House.

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I would like to respond. This amendment is merely perfecting the number on an unauthorized account by increasing it. This is within the rule, because it merely perfects a number. The rule waives points of order against provisions in the bill for failure to comply with clause 2 of rule XXI prohibiting unauthorized or legislative provisions in a general appropriations bill and prohibiting reappropriations in a general appropriations bill. Therefore, an appropriations bill put in breach by the rule is allowed to remain. Mr. Chairman, I will read that again. An appropriations bill put in breach by the rule is allowed to remain, so amendments that increase are permitted. Clause 2(f) of rule XXI states that when we are reaching ahead to increase a program, the CBO must determine budget authority and outlay neutrality. This amendment has been scored by the CBO and has the CBO- determined budget authority and outlay neutrality. This amendment is within the rules of this House. I have the CBO table for the record. On the note of that according to CBO, if one looks at the entire effect of this amendment, it is outlay neutral. In the end, there is no outlay effect. But for each individual year, there may be an outlay effect. I would ask a question of the Parliamentarian, and that is if an amendment has an effect on outlays per year but does not change the overall end effect of the bill, is it outlay neutral?

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Chairman, I reclaim my time and I respect the gentleman's suggestions. As a matter of fact, I have been following this for 15 years. And the United States taxpayers have paid $60 billion over that 15 years, and we do not have a system that works. Now, think about that. Mr. and Mrs. American Taxpayer has paid over $60 billion. Here, it is warheads up, missile comes up, shoo, $60 billion. How far can this keep going before it becomes a farce? I think we are already at that point. That is why I support the amendment of the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney). Mr. Chairman, I followed this for 15 years. This is not Buck Rogers, folks. This is real tax dollars going for a system that does not work, and now there is claims of fraud on the only test that was said to have worked. I think that the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney) raises a good point about cutting procurement. I think that the issue of destabilization of our relations with China and Russia ought to be of concern. I think that we could conclude that national security is being diminished here; that it would diminish global stability; that it is technologically unproven; that the threat is exaggerated; and that it would undermine arms agreement.

Mr. KUCINICH

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States when it speaks of we the people of the United States, it goes on to speak of forming a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, securing the blessings for ourselves and our posterity. Providing for the common defense is something that we as Members of Congress need to do. But we also have to ask when $24 billion extra is put into a defense budget, when the defense budget today is in excess of $300 billion, we have to ask whether or not some of the other promises to the people of this country are being ignored. Because certainly the national defense should include the ability to provide for decent health care for all, for a decent education for all, for decent jobs for all. That too should be part of our national security. If that is not, then we should in the alternative make sure that in this huge Federal budget that we meet the economic and social needs of the people. Now, this bill, Mr. Speaker, includes a provision for $1.8 billion for a boondoggle called the National Missile Defense System. This system is a fraud on the taxpayer, and it is a danger to arms reduction. First, the technology is not feasible. It is not testable, and, therefore, not reliable. It does not protect against real threats, but it does richly line the pockets of military contractors. It will destabilize our relations with our allies worldwide and will spark a new and expanded nuclear arms race. It violates years of work towards disarmament and nonproliferation. This national missile defense, so-called defense, is a technological failure. A recent New York Times article gives Congress an inkling to the truth about this missile defense. This Times analysis, which was based on a report from an MIT scientist, goes on to state that, well, the national missile defense system depends on the system's ability to discriminate between the target warhead of an incoming missile and decoys, something has gone wrong with this system. According to the New York Times, the system has failed those tests, that it cannot discriminate between the target warhead of an incoming missile and decoys. This is a quote from the newspaper, ``The Pentagon hailed the first intercept try as a success, but later conceded that the interceptor initially drifted off course and picked out the decoy balloon rather than the warhead,'' end of quote, that is because, according to the Times, the system cannot tell the difference between warheads and decoys. Experiments with the National Missile Defense System have revealed that the system is, quote, ``inherently unable to make the distinction,'' and that is between the target warhead, and decoys. The New York Times characterized the MIT scientist as saying the signals, quote, ``from the mock warhead and decoys fluctuated in a varied and totally unpredictable way,'' that is inner quotes, revealing no feature, inner quotes, ``that can be used to distinguish one object from another,'' end quote. Indeed, the Times reported the test showed that warheads and decoys are so similar that sensors might never be able to tell them apart. In other words, Mr. Speaker, the national missile defense which we are about to appropriate close to $2 billion for does not work and cannot work because it is inherently unable to tell the difference between warheads and decoys, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpaying America. Now, listen to this, Mr. Speaker. After this report appeared in the New York Times, Defense saw to it that this letter that was sent was classified. Now, it was classified before we had a chance to have a debate over this on this floor; that classification tactic was simply, I believe, to chill the debate. I am going to be called on the appropriate legal enforcement agencies to investigate this whole effort to cover up a system that does not work, to trick up test results, because there is fraud and deceit here. The taxpayers are being cheated. I am going to offer an amendment that seeks to, as other Members will, deal with this subject, because the national missile defense does not address the real threats that exist, and the system will simply line the pockets of major defense contractors. It is wrong to cheat the taxpayers of the United States. And that is what this so-called phony missile defense program does. We have already spent $60 billion in the last 15 years on antimissile defense research, and it has not produced a weapons defense system that can work. It is wholly ineffective. It is a lie, and it needs to be exposed and it will be. [From the Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 6, 2000] Missile Defense Is Political Fiction (By Frances FitzGerald) The debate over national missile defenses has been nothing short of surreal. On the one hand. President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore have been promoting a limited defense system to protect the nation against attacks by rogue states, though the system has not been proven and may never work reliably. They have also been asking Russia to agree to amend the anti- ballistic missile treaty to permit such a system, though the Russians have always adamantly opposed such an amendment and continued to do so at the summit meeting last weekend in Moscow. On the other hand, Gov. George W. Bush has promised a much more robust national missile defense, though based on technologies he has not yet named. In addition, he has promised deep reductions in the American and Russian strategic arsenals. The Russians, however, have already told us that they see a larger defense effort as a threat to their nuclear deterrent. The idea that they would make deep reductions in the face of such an effort defies logic. Everyone in Washington knows all of this, so what is going on? The answer, of course, is politics. But it is a politics that cannot be understood apart from the history of the debate, a debate that has never been about reality. On March 23, 1983, President Ronald Reagan, whose hard-line anti-Soviet policies had by then given rise to the largest anti-nuclear movement in Cold War history, personally--and almost in secret--wrote an insert to a routine defense speech, calling on the scientific community to turn its great talents to the cause of world peace and to give us a means of rendering nuclear weapons ``impotent and obsolete.'' In background briefings after the speech, there was talk of such Buck Rogers weaponry as space-based lasers that could destroy the entire Soviet missile arsenal. Reagan's own officials, among them Secretary of State George Shultz, were appalled, and some speculated that the president had gotten the idea from a science-fiction film. It took them almost a year to discover what a stroke of political genius the speech insert was. Since 1946, opinion polls had shown that the vast majority of Americans believed that scientists could develop a defense against nuclear missiles if they put their minds to it. Indeed, except when the issue of vulnerability was front and center in the news, most Americans expressed confidence that the United States had a defense against nuclear weapons already. Just two weeks after Reagan's speech, a White House poll asked respondents whether they believed scientists could come up with ``a really effective way to destroy Soviet nuclear missiles from space.'' The answer was, as always, a resounding yes. Reagan certainly expected this answer. In addition, he and his close aides recognized that, because of its inherent ambiguity, a defense initiative would appeal to conservatives as a way to develop a weapons system even while it appealed to the public at large as a means to eliminating the nuclear threat. By the time of Reagan's re-election in November 1984, all of his top officials had lined up behind the Star Wars concept. A number of existing research programs were cobbled together, and the Strategic Defense Initiative was launched with great fanfare and much rhetoric about the potential of lasers and other exotic technologies. Shultz, Robert McFarlane and other moderates in the administration wanted to use SDI as a bargaining chip for Soviet strategic weapons. ``It would be like giving them the sleeves off our vest,'' Shultz told the president. However, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, his aide Richard Perle and their fellow hard-liners had other ideas. They saw SDI as a way to block offensive-arms reductions, to tear up the 1972 ABM treaty and to begin an arms race in defensive as well as offensive weapons. The two sides brawled for the rest of the Reagan administration, and neither succeeded in gaining its ends. In the meantime, however, SDI became extremely popular in the polls. While the hard-liners pleased knowledgeable conservatives by blocking strategic talks, Reagan pleased the public by offering to share SDI technology with the Soviets and promising the elimination of nuclear weapons. The anti- nuclear movement, its rhetoric stolen, gradually faded away. In the past 15 years, the United States has spent $60 billion on anti-missile-defense research and has yet to produce a workable weapons system. An effective defense of the country remains wholly elusive. Yet Republican conservatives have continued to speak as if exotic technologies were ready to jump off the assembly lines, and have continued to press for a deployment of something--anything--that would irrevocably commit this country to an open-ended process of developing national missile defenses. Congressional Democrats tried to resist the pressure, but their ability to do so waxed and waned with their own political fortunes and those of the Republican right. In early 1998, or around the time the Republicans took their impeachment case against President Clinton to the Senate, the Democrats gave way. The previous fall a commission headed by Donald Rumsfeld, a former defense secretary, had concluded that ``rogue states'' could acquire ballistic-missile technologies, and North Korea had test-fired a long-range missile out over the Pacific. In January the Clinton administration pledged financing for the deployment of a national missile-defense system to cope with this threat. In March the Senate, with administration support, overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling for a deployment. At the time, White House officials commented that the administration's support for the bill would help to defuse a potent political issue for the Republicans in the campaign of 2000. Last fall Clinton announced that he would make a final deployment decision this summer, in the very midst of the presidential campaign. This determination clearly had little to do with technology, for the schedule did not permit time for adequate testing--and since then one of the two tests has failed. Rather, it had to do with the fear that the Republicans would call Democrats weak on defense. In their unsuccessful attempt to persuade the Russians to agree to the deployment, administration officials assured them that they could defeat the system if they kept 1,000 or more strategic nuclear weapons on full alert. This was hardly a bargain for either country, given the decay of the Russian early-warning system and the increasingly real threat of an accidental launch. In the midst of these technological and diplomatic embarrassments for the administration, Bush revived the political issue by calling for the entire Reagan program: Star Wars, radical nuclear-arms reductions, the de-alerting of nuclear forces and the sharing of anti-missile technology with our allies and possibly the Russians as well. The proposal is, of course, self-contradictory. It is also wildly implausible, in that the Pentagon is no more likely to agree to give away advanced American technology than it ever was, and no country except the United States can afford an open-ended missile-defense program. But then, the majority of Americans did not notice any of these problems when Reagan made the proposal 15 years ago.