Jim Leach

Mr. LEACH

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, speaking personally, I am in full concurrence. My problem, reserving the right to object, is that I have been informed that leadership is very concerned about the bill to follow and would like to stick with what I understood was an agreement of 20 minutes total, 10 minutes to be divided between each side. And based on that, I would be constrained to object to 20, but I am very pleased to assert 20 minutes to divide it 10 and 10.

Mr. LEACH. I yield to the gentleman from West Virginia.

Mr. LEACH. Again, I am personally in full agreement, but I am informed that this is a leadership decision and therefore would be constrained to object.

Mr. LEACH. Further reserving the right to object, I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. LEACH. Yes. I think that is very reasonable.

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to yield one-half of my time to the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos).

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the remaining time. In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, this resolution is about two subjects-- violence and peace. On point one, the Congress cannot be equivocal in condemning terrorism. On point two, this resolution unequivocally commends the President for a vision of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security. This is the first President to assert legitimacy of a Palestinian state, and this resolution not only implicitly endorses the President's road map for peace but breaks affirmative ground in a congressional resolution on the Palestinian legitimacy issue. Peace is the goal. Diplomacy, not violence, must be the means. On this basis, I urge this resolution's passage.

Mr. LEACH. Further reserving the right to object, I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, it is my understanding the leadership concurred with the notion of an additional 20 minutes to be split 10 minutes for and 10 minutes against.

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the thrust of this resolution is four-fold: A, it reflects America's concern for terrorism as an instrument to advance political advantage. B, it expresses sympathy to the families of both innocent Israelis and Palestinians who have lost lives in this struggle. C, it commends the President for his vision of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side-by-side and, thus, implicitly affirms the peace process that the President has so wisely helped precipitate. D, it is implicitly designed to empower the new government of the Palestinian Authority. The goal is to strengthen those who have the best chance of negotiating a long-term resolution to the Palestinian- Israeli issue. Here let me note that at the Aqaba summit, King Abdullah of Jordan turned to the Israeli and Palestinian Prime Ministers and said, ``Prime Minister Sharon, Prime Minister Abbas, I urge you today to end the designs of those who seek destruction, annihilation, and to have the will to begin to realize our dreams of peace, prosperity, and coexistence.'' This sentiment is what we ask the international community to follow. This direction is where our President, as well as the king of Jordan, is leading, and this is the direction we want this Congress also to go in. Speaking personally, I would like to stress full support for the President's road map, for peace, but I would underscore that the road has been traversed before, but proved full of cavernous holes and multiple detours. The end is in sight. Everyone knows it will relate to a resolution along the lines of Camp David and subsequent talks at Tabba. But the slower the process, the more likely terrorists will be empowered. The issue is speed. Three weeks or 3 months are vastly preferable to 3 years or 3 decades. The violence may not end with a political resolution, but it has no chance of ending without it. Therefore, I think it should be the goal of this Congress to stress that violence is an evil in and of itself, but a resolution of this particular circumstance in international affairs, which is the most difficult, possibly, in the history of man, is an imperative. All of us identify with all reasonable people who are attempting all reasonable techniques to bring a resolution to this issue. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher).

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. LEACH

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. I want to thank him for bringing this amendment. It is a very thoughtful amendment. It is a very small amendment. On the other hand, it relates to few airports in the country, and it relates to techniques to bring rationale indeed to how one devises standards. It happens to affect one airport in my district in the town of Ottumwa; and Ottumwa is a wonderful, small American community, and there are those of us that truly love this community and its airport which can be knocked out of service with great ease. In fact, it largely is today, based upon certain definitional issues. This helps to address those definitional issues. It helps to bring rationality to government programming, and it helps people in a very real way, and so I want to thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts) for his thoughtful leadership, and I would hope the committee would sympathetically concur in the gentleman's amendment.

Mr. LEACH

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Chairman, this bill is a great credit to the gentleman from Alabama's (Mr. Bachus's) leadership. Also, as indicated, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte) and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) have worked on this for years, and I am very grateful for their support. Mr. Chairman, the bill as it comes before the floor today is, frankly, not as comprehensive as I would have liked. It would have been better if the Committee on the Judiciary had updated the Wire Act. It would have been better if we had been more precise in allowing certain law enforcement ties to the financial system. Nevertheless, this is a very credible first step to slowing the growth of Internet gambling. The issue has been raised on the floor, and I think it is worthy of serious review, the question of is this an individual issue, a libertarian issue or is it a social issue? I believe very firmly that it is far more than a libertarian issue. We ignore gambling at our peril. It is simply not good for the American economy to send billions of dollars overseas. It is not good for American national security to allow Internet gambling to provide the ideal basis for money laundering, for narco-traffickers and for terrorists. But most of all it is not good for the American family. Anyone that gets hooked on Internet gambling or any form of gambling, but particularly Internet which is gambling alone, will lose virtually all of their assets. Anyone that gets hooked will, in all likelihood, lose their family. Divorce is a serious element of the gambling problem. In very many cases the extraordinary circumstance of suicide is contemplated by gamblers that get this as a virtual disease. It is a libertarian myth that only the individual, only the gambler is affected. Its effects spill over to the financial systems. When there are losses, everybody else has to pay higher interest rates. They spill over to the social welfare system where people have to pick up the costs of broken lives. It spills over to the economy where suffering has to be picked up elsewhere; and they spill over into national security concerns. Internet gambling serves no social purpose whatsoever. It is a danger to the American family. It is a danger to the American society. It is a danger to the security of the United States. It should be ended, and this is a credible beginning.

Mr. LEACH

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, on May 31st in Kathmandu the Government of Nepal turned over to senior diplomatic representatives of the People's Republic of China 18 Tibetan asylum seekers, including several minors, to be forcibly repatriated to China. In so doing, the Nepalese authorities flouted both international law and repeated strong representations by the United States and other concerned parties. This action also reversed long-standing Nepalese tolerance toward Tibetan asylum seekers, which in the past has allowed access to ``persons of concern'' by local officials of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. According to the Department of State, our Embassy in Kathmandu has informed the Nepalese Government at the highest levels about this specific incident. The status of Tibetan refugees in Nepal is a long- standing issue of concern to both the Executive Branch and Congress, and is often raised by American officials in Kathmandu. In addition, senior U.S. officials recently met with Nepalese and Chinese officials to raise our strong concerns about this issue. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has stated that the forcible return of the 18 Tibetans to China without a status determination constituted refoulement (forced return), which is in fundamental contravention of well-accepted international norms. Congress joins with the Executive Branch in condemning the behavior of the Government of Nepal and senior Chinese diplomats for their role in forcibly returning the asylum seekers to China. In the strongest terms, we urge Nepal to cease this inhumane conduct and return to its previous long-term practice of allowing Tibetans to seek protection in Nepal for onward resettlement.

Mr. LEACH

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, tax cut initiatives must meet two tests: appropriateness and fairness. On appropriateness grounds, the question is whether the country can afford $400 billion a year deficits over the next decade, $600 billion a year if Social Security is removed from the equation. On fairness grounds, the question is whether the $93,000, which will be saved by an individual with a million dollars of income, is credible when the savings for a middle income carpenter is likely to be substantially less than 1 percent of this amount. While tax cuts, of course, benefit those who pay taxes, higher income individuals particularly, the approach the House is advancing today may be the most regressive in American history. For the past century the American consensus has been that our tax system should have graduation. The well-to-do should pay a somewhat higher rate than the less well-to-do. This tax cut reverses this consensus. The middle class will pay more than the poor, but the rich will pay at a lower rate than the middle class and in some cases the working poor. This is not fair. Indeed, it is unconscionable. Wealth divisions in America will be accentuated by this tax approach and the burden of supporting government will be so shifted that according to Warren Buffet, it will amount to class welfare for high income Americans. There are in this bill certain attractive features. But on balance and on the whole, the case for it is thoroughly uncompelling. It may be good politics, but it is dubious economics.

Mr. LEACH

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, it is with great reluctance that I rise to oppose this tax cut at this time. I do so recognizing that the bill contains a number of attractive features--a reduction in capital gains, greater flexibility for business depreciation schedules, for instance. I also acknowledge that the Ways and Means Committee has markedly improved on the administration's initial proposal, reducing by several hundred billion the magnitude of the tax cut and tying dividend income to capital gains rates rather than eliminating taxes on dividends entirely. But as appealing as all tax cuts are, they must meet tests of appropriateness and fairness. These tests are not met. It is true that the national and world economy is to some degree stalled. It is not true, however, that fiscal policy changes are always stimulative, particularly in the short run. Monetary policy--the interest rate and money supply controls of the Federal Reserve--are more effective short term stimulus instruments. They must, however, work within the constraints of fiscal policy. To the degree they are blunted by deficit financing, stimulus may be weakened. Here, it should be noted that deficit financing is definitely linked to interest rate hikes. While deficits that are tax cut driven may not be as harmful to the general economy as those that are spending related, they nevertheless have cost of capital implications. Here it should be noted that liberals in Congress in general favor stimulating the economy with substantial programmatic spending increases. Conservatives, on the other hand, tend to favor tax cuts. I find the conservative case preferable to the liberal one, but I believe the case for a steady rudder is more compelling than either. I voted for the House budget resolution which sets limits on how much Congress can appropriate and reduce taxes because I believe the case for holding spending increases to levels near or at inflation levels is reasonable, but I have grave doubts about a significant tax cut at this time. Whether one believes the war with Iraq was wise, or will prove to accelerate or decelerate international terrorism, it and its aftermath must be fiscally accommodated. Wars cannot be paid for with tax cuts. Advocates of the tax cut properly point out that in relation to the GNP the tax cut might be considered more modest than the hyperbolic rhetoric that has been associated with it. This may be true, but at some point a difference in degree can become one in kind. For a variety of reasons related to foreign challenges and a weakened domestic economy we have returned to deficits at the Federal as well as State levels of government. But there is a profound distinction between a $50 to $100 billion deficit and a half trillion dollar one. Legislative budgets, like family budgets, must be subjected to common sense discipline. At the governmental level this is particularly the case in the coming decade which will be characterized by a three to four Americans of working are relative to retired. In the decades after, significant demographic changes will take place in our society and the number of retired citizens relative to working age Americans will increase. If we cannot operate with fiscal prudence today, we will have a calamitously difficult time managing our economy in the future. One aspect of the economy today makes deficits and the attendant need for debt repayment even more problemsome. Debt management is generally easier at lower rates of interest but in deflationary times such as the 1930s debt repayment even at low interest rates become the singularly most difficult challenge in the economy. Today we have general deflation and sectoral deflation, but the intertwining of international politics, particularly terrorism, with the competitive pressures wrought by the global living will make general deflationary pressures real. In this circumstance prudent debt management is critical for government as well as the family. Deficits might have to be contemplated but interest rates could be more difficult to manage than in inflationary times when dollars become cheapened and easier to acquire, whether in business through profits or government through taxes. As for fairness, I have always believed there is a compelling case for tax simplification--a reduction in rates tied to the elimination of the vast majority of deductions that have come to dominate our tax code. But I also believe in credible progressivity. A well-to-do citizen should pay a somewhat higher rate than a less well-to-do individual. So I have had doubts about flat taxes. But what the proposal before us today does is invert the curve. Not only will taxes not be flat, but high income citizens who receive dividends will pay a lower rate of taxes than the working middle class. Economists call this regressive taxation. Some Americans will benefit. Others will consider it unfair. Tax systems depend on social acceptance. The approach before us today may undercut the faith of a lot of Americans in the system and as importantly take pressure off the need for fundamental tax reform. The precept that an extremely well-to-do person who receives dividends and may not hold a job should pay taxes at a substantially lower rate than a middle class citizen who works for a living demands review. At issue is the question of wealth distribution and wealth divisions in society. In the decade of the '90s the divisions between rich and poor widened. What this tax bill does is accentuate these divisions. Government tax policy will be redistributive in ways never before countenanced. Burdens will be shifted from the rich to the middle class. At the risk of presumption, let me turn for a minute to the problems State governments are having, which the changes contemplated today may exacerbate. Many State income tax codes are based on a percentage of the Federal obligation, so a tax cut at the Federal level becomes one at the State, too. Perhaps State governments will react by cutting services further or raising taxes, but they, like the Federal Government, seem inclined to take the less disciplined way out and deficit finance. In my home State, in the name of ``economic development'' a lot of new funding is being proposed subject to bonds being issued. The problem is that just as tax cuts are advanced by conservatives as ``stimulative,'' bonding is proposed by liberals as good for ``economic development.'' But precepts are conjectural. There is, of course, a profound case in a State like Iowa for bonding facility construction for public services such as a new hygienics lab or dormitories for students, but States should not presume to be banks, sources for credit that would otherwise be available to the private sector. Iowa, for instance, has more a jobs than a credit crunch. What attracts business to come to or stay in the State is less likely to relate to availability of State development funds as it will to whether the State has quality services and competitive levels of taxation. All States have a budget crunch. To the degree Iowa can distinguish itself with fiscal balance, it will be the long term beneficiary. My concern is that if common sense fiscal discipline is abandoned by legislatures at all levels, there will be a run on governmental confidence. A run on governmental confidence can produce a run on our economic system. What is needs is a sense of proportion. Good ideas must be measured against social costs. To grow an economy we must recognize that discipline is essential. Good tax cut ideas, just as good spending initiatives, cannot always be afforded.

Mr. LEACH

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Perspective is the most important and most difficult thing to apply to issues of the day. If one were to look at the 14th century, clearly the seminal event was the Bubonic plague in which some 20 million people died. Now, as many have died from AIDS as of the plague. Within a decade it will be a multiple of that figure. If sitting on the Moon, one might suggest that the most important public policy issue of our day is dealing with disease control, most particularly AIDS. In a very moral sense, it is probably the deepest philosophical issue of our time. Indeed, the global AIDS epidemic might be considered an epidemic of Biblical proportions. Everyone in this Congress understands that foreign assistance is controversial, but we are, after all, our brother's keeper and we must be concerned for the global family. We also have to be concerned for our own families. To the degree AIDS is not thwarted abroad, it threatens our own shores. As a Congress, obviously we have to be concerned with the allocation of the people's resources. This bill is a lot of money, but it is an extraordinarily sparse amount compared with the need; and I think of all the bills we are going to vote on in the near future, this is going to be the most justified financial expense the United States Congress has undertaken. In conclusion, let me just say we are all indebted to a lot of people from the outside, the President of the United States; the singer, Bono; and then our colleagues, the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos), the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee), and from a distinct perspective the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts) for raising concerns of America's faith-based community. But most of all I want to simply express my appreciation for the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde). This is the most important bill he has ever shepherded through Congress. It is going to be a seminal mark in his career, and we are all in his debt.

Mr. LEACH

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of the House of Representatives to express my respects to a renowned international educator, Mr. Raja Roy-Singh, on the occasion of his 85th birthday. As a member of the House Committee on International Relations and as a former Co-Chairman of the United States Commission on Improving the Effectiveness of the United Nations, I can attest that improving the quality of education in the world is a prerequisite to the establishment of effective cooperation and mutual understanding in the international community. In this context, the career-long dedication of Mr. Roy-Singh to international education deserves the attention of Congress. Raja Roy-Singh was born on April 5, 1918 in Pithoragarh, a remote town in the Himalayan foothills near India's frontier with Nepal and Tibet. One imagines that the young Roy-Singh was inspired by panoramic views of snow-topped mountains that framed the beautiful valley of his birthplace. These same mountains were the source of many streams and rivers that flowed southward onto the plains of India. Perhaps as he walked the long mountainous paths to school he wondered where those rivulets and mountain streams flowed and dreamed about following them one day. His father was a Methodist preacher who worked in a number of mission assignments along the Himalaya territory almost 250 miles from end to end. His mother's Rajput forbears had lived in the Pithoragarh district for generations. His father died early leaving Raja and his mother alone in Pithoragarh while his older sisters were away at boarding school. As a boy Raja Roy-Singh attended the district school by day and read by kerosene lamp at night. Under the watchful eye of his mother and Mary Reed, a dedicated Methodist missionary from California, he won a series of district scholarships that sent him off to college at Agra and finally to Allahabad--a sacred place for Hindus and Buddhists at the confluence of the Ganges, the Yamuna and the Saraswati Rivers. Achieving distinction in philosophy and English, with a particular interest in T.S. Eliot, Mr. Roy-Singh took his bachelor's and master's degrees as the convulsions of the Second World War began. Placing high on the civil service exams, he entered the Indian Administrative Service in 1942 and was assigned to Agra where he met his wife Zorine Bonifacius. In the vibrant period immediately following Indian independence his civil service postings took him to Kanpur, Bombay, Mathura and Lucknow. These assignments afforded him valuable experience at various levels of government. In 1954, he was appointed state director of education in Uttar Pradesh. Thus, he entered the educational service, initially as a ``posting,'' but soon his dedication to his profession took on the dimension more of mission than occupation. Mr. Roy-Singh was appointed education adviser at the Federal Ministry of Education where he served from 1957-1964. In a period of changing demands on education in India, Mr. Roy-Singh focused his energies on developing new ways to harmonize educational activities between the Federal and the state governments. This effort led to the establishment of the Counsel of Educational Research and Training, a network of educational institutions for research, training and service. Several prominent U.S. educators were closely associated with its planning in the founding years, notably the Teacher's College formed under the direction of Columbia University. In the last four decades, the India Council of Educational Research and Training, which Mr. Roy-Singh provided such visionary leadership, has played an innovative role in advancing education and educational opportunity in India. Another significant program he helped to found was the Science Talent Search begun in 1959, Boys and girls ages 15-17 with high science aptitudes were identified through specially devised tests and awarded full scholarships through their entire schooling, including higher education. In its early years, there was close technical collaboration between this India program and similar ones in the United States sponsored by the Ford Foundation. From a modest but promising beginning the program greatly expanded in subsequent years and substantially increased the number of science teachers and the quality of science education in India. Mr. Roy-Singh was invited to join UNESCO in 1964. For the next 20 years, he served as UNESCO's Regional Director of Education in Asia and later as Assistant Director-General of UNESCO for Asia and the Pacific. In 1985, after completing his service with UNESCO, he retired to the United States, taking up permanent residence in Evanston, Illinois. At UNESCO Mr. Roy-Singh's principal responsibility was to coordinate the educational agenda in member Asian countries. The Asian and the Pacific region is extensive and diverse. It comprises 30 countries extending from Iran and Afghanistan in the west to Korea and Japan in the east, to Mongolia in the north and Australia and New Zealand in the south. Mr. Roy-Singh's strategy was to manage this far-flung region by focusing on common educational problems and fostering inter-country cooperation. He carried out this strategy by recognizing the unique cultural differences within and between countries yet encouraging each to share educational experiences and expertise. This approach found its full expression in the Asian and Pacific Program of Educational Innovation for Development which continues to make significant contributions to educational development in the Asian region. Mr. Roy-Singh will be remembered as a pioneer in the educational field in Asia having encouraged cooperation between national and local governments and education ministries and with international organizations. His life to date has spanned two major wars and several continents. His career has brought him into contact with heads of government as well as with educators throughout the world. In the course of his career Mr. Roy-Singh has authored numerous publications including Education in Asia and the Pacific (UNESCO/ Bankok, 1966), Adult Literacy as an Educational Process (Internal Bureau of Education, Geneva, 1990), Educational Planning in Asia (UNESCO--Internal Institute for Educational Planning, Paris, 1990). Of particular interest to this body is his educational philosophy. In ``Changing Education for a Changing World'' (1992), Mr. Roy-Singh outlined how we might prepare young people for life in an ever-changing world: There are two universes of change. One is change in the world of objects, externality. Science and technology and socio-economic organizations are examples of externality. The truths of the external world are non-cumulative; a new discovery may wipe the slate clean of all that went before. Continuity in this kind of ``universe'' is fortuitous and certainly minimal. The other kind of change is pivoted on the human being, individual or group. Change in the interior `universe' of human existence is cumulative; it is expressed in culture, in the quest for knowledge, and in the striving for heightened moral awareness. What could change and what has to continue and what continues even in change are issues of judgment and discernment. This is where education has a role. The Asian societies in transition have to find for themselves a path which does not traverse the wasteland of rootless modernism on the one hand and mindless conservation on the other. The best in the living tradition of the Asian cultures, their moral loftiness, their universality and their profound insights into human nature, may provide the continuity in the flux of change that must necessarily come in the wake of science and technology and the liberating human spirit. Change is a dominating force in the world. Some welcome it and see it as an opportunity. Others fear change because it threatens the established order. Like a powerful rush of water crashing down a mountainside, the force of change can wash away all living things in its path. To survive we all need strong roots with which to cling. Education is a life preserver. It allows us to harness the creative energy of change by instructing us what to keep from the past, what to undertake in the present, and what to seek in the future. All societies have strengths and weaknesses in their education systems. The need for self-examination and improvement is a constant. But as the anarchy of terrorism has demonstrated, no country is an island, invulnerable to the frustration and despair of those who are not provided the ability that education provides to lead their own societies in progressive directions and manage or at least cope with the discombobulating challenges of modernity. One of the many lessons of the international traumas of the past few years is that Americans cannot be concerned solely with the education of our young. If we ignore the educational inadequacies of other cultures, we jeopardize our own security. There is no simple or single methodology, but there must be a singular commitment to advance the most powerful force for constructive change in the world: a decent and universal concern for educating every generation in every society. For his dedication to international education and for his wisdom of purpose we thank Mr. Roy-Singh and congratulate him as well on reaching the ripe age of 85.

Mr. LEACH

Mr. LEACH. Madam Speaker, it is with a great deal of reluctance that I rise in opposition to this bill. It contains many reasonable provisions, most importantly, the payment of interest on business checking, with my only concern on that point being that it does not immediately go into effect, but rather is put off for several years. It also contains a very reasonable provision that interest be paid by the Fed on sterile reserves held by institutions. But deeply embedded in this bill is a philosophical umbrage of very profound proportions. There is a small charter, as referred to by the gentleman from Utah, called the industrial loan corporation (ILC) charter. For the first time, the Congress is moving in the direction of giving this kind of charter the powers that make it the functional equivalent of banks. While the gentleman from Utah is correct that there is no effort to offer demand deposits, there is the authorization of business checking accounts which are their functional equivalent. This particular charter countenances, and indeed there are a number today, the merger of commerce and banking; that is, nonfinancial institutions may own ILC charters. There is also no prohibition about new charters being granted, so new charters presumably can be offered on passage of this act. What this does is move the American financial system in the direction of the Japanese financial system where they have financial firms intertwined with commercial enterprises and with obvious conflicts of interest. I would alert this body to the fact that Chairman Greenspan and the Federal Reserve of the United States strongly have come out against this provision, and despite my request, there has not been allowance on the House floor for an amendment relating to this amendment to be proffered. I personally consider it a philosophically difficult circumstance that no amendment was allowed to be offered and that this bill, instead, is being brought up under the Suspension Calendar with exceedingly brief notice. Having stated that, the big issue is whether or not we want to change the nature of American finance, and I would again alert this body, Chairman Greenspan has written that this will change the structure of American banking in ways that would have allowed, for example, Enron or Tyco to own an ILC with expanded powers. In fact, Tyco does own an ILC. It would have allowed the prospect, with ILCs now becoming the functional equivalent of banks, for such companies to take over enormous sectors of the American banking community. I think this would be a mistake. I think this Congress ought to be deeply skeptical of this kind of circumstance, particularly given the history of the last few years in this country and the last several decades in other countries. So despite the fact that this bill is reasonable in many respects, this particular provision outweighs the entirety of the bill and, in my view, should cause the bill to be defeated.

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this. And let me say that the brunt of this bill is a wonderfully thoughtful approach, and I congratulate the gentleman and the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Kelly) on this. I would only come back to the one provision which I would like to have changed, and that is the industrial loan corporation provision, and to point out to this body that only a handful of States are authorized, such as the State of Utah, to have industrial loan corporations. They are not trivial institutions. In the State of Utah, for example, their assets are double that of banks, S&Ls and credit unions combined. If this bill passes with this provision and becomes law, the vast majority of States will see deposits swept from their States to this handful of States. That alone is a philosophical circumstance that in my mind should lead people to raise serious doubts about this particular provision of this particular bill.

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for the gentleman, and he is right about what companies can now do. However, what is not fully described is that they will now be able to buy a charter with an enhanced set of powers, which has not been offered before. It is the enhanced power of this obscure charter that makes this legislation difficult, and that is my concern.