Barbara Lee

Ms. LEE

Ms. LEE. I thank the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings). We must seize the time. We cannot wait any longer.

Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, first let me thank our chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus once again for his leadership not only in unifying the Congressional Black Caucus around such an important issue but also in terms of insisting that we move forward not only in terms of our position but in terms of trying to make sure that we are actively involved in trying to help save lives, and that is really what we are doing. So I thank the chairman very much for his leadership. This has been, as it relates to Haiti, in some respects a very sad time for many of us. Just last night we were here again talking about the fact that we wanted our government to actively engage in attempting to forge a cease-fire, to insist that the rule of law be adhered to, and to insist that the Haitian constitution be complied with. We were told again last evening at about 5 o'clock that we needed another extension, that the opposition was not going to comply with any political agreement. And here we are again tonight. Still the opposition has not agreed to a political settlement. More lives are being lost. The thugs are moving into Port-au-Prince. And at least tonight, however, under our chairman's leadership, we have had a chance to talk to the President directly and to Dr. Rice and to Secretary Powell to convey our sense of urgency, which I hope they understood and felt during our meeting. Because we are witnessing right next door the world's oldest black nation deteriorate. We are witnessing right next door in our own hemisphere thugs carrying M-16s and M-50s, weapons, I understand, that probably are made in the United States of America. Where they are getting these weapons from, who knows. Here we are witnessing once again tonight, as we felt last night and witnessed last night, the lack of action by our government to stop and to prevent a violent overthrow, a violent coup d'etat of a duly-elected, democratically elected President. We would not tolerate that anywhere else in the world. We just would not tolerate it. So today I believe our meeting put forth the Congressional Black Caucus's sense of urgency to the President, and also I believe, Mr. Speaker, what it did was convey to him that we understand that saving lives and not allowing a violent overthrow of a government that is duly elected is not a Democratic issue, and it is not a Republican issue, but this is a bipartisan issue. It should be nonpartisan. It should be nonpartisan. We are talking about saving lives and preventing bloodshed, preventing a possible civil war from erupting. This is serious business, and there is no way we should sleep, really, and I am very glad that my colleague, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), has called for a Haiti watch, 24 hours. As co-chair with the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) of the Haiti task force, I cannot think of anything that is more important right now. We have written to the President. We have communicated with Secretary Powell. Not just this week, but the Congressional Black Caucus has been sounding the alarm for months really with regard to this unfortunate moment with which we are faced. And so now is the time that our great country can step up to the plate and can say to both sides that peace is the only option. There are no other options. Again, as I said earlier, how does one negotiate a political settlement with thugs carrying M-16s and M-50s? So we do not need any more extensions with regard to the political settlement that President Aristide has embraced, that CARICOM has embraced, that the international community has embraced. I mean, this is useless at this point. Tomorrow, I understand, the Security Council will meet. They may consider a resolution calling for international security forces; and if that happens, I sure hope that our government does not block that. In fact, I wish and I hope that we support that effort. But minimally we should allow the world community to come together to say no to this violence and insist on a cease-fire and insist on upholding a democratically elected government. Eight million Haitian lives are at stake, Mr. Speaker. There is no way that any of us should allow any of these people to die on our watch, on our watch. History will record whether or not we just stood there and said, so be it. We did not especially like this policy of the Aristide government or that policy and hands off at this point. History is going to record if we took that position and did nothing that the lives of these 8 million people are in our hands and the blood will be on our hands if, in fact, the bloodbath occurs, which is what we tonight are trying to prevent. So let me just say to the Speaker, to the chairman, that I think the President, and I know Secretary Powell and Dr. Rice, got it. I know they got it. But what is important is what are they going to do with what they got. They cannot just say we abhor the violence and it is bad and it is wrong for folks to kill each other. We are the most powerful country in the world. So the question is, what are they going to do tonight? What are they going to do? So I want to thank again the Congressional Black Caucus for stepping up to the plate. Hopefully, the rest of the House of Representatives at least will step up to the plate tomorrow and join us in our efforts. I think we need to make sure that every Republican and every Democrat in this House stands for democracy in our own hemisphere, stands for an end to the violence, and stands for United States support for a cease- fire and an end to this carnage that is taking place in Haiti. I thank the chairman for his leadership, and let us hope that we are waking up America. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to call on the Bush administration to lead the international community in supporting efforts to pass a U.N. Security Council resolution, provide international forces, and do everything possible to prevent violence and save Haitian lives. At any moment, the democratically elected President of Haiti could be overthrown any minute and at risk is the safety of over 8 million lives in Haiti. Time is of the essence, and the Bush administration has failed to adequately address the dire need for a solution. Far too many lives have been lost, too many children have been orphaned and fear has begun to set in. Nevertheless, our administration has minimized their involvement to diplomacy--which to date has been inadequate. The Bush administration has done nothing to help Haiti since coming into office except embargo economic, social, and most importantly now political assistance to Haiti. Even if we look directly at the support the administration has given since January, I believe they have done nothing to save one Haitian life. The administration was well aware of the political stalemate facing the country and the need for elections, yet they did nothing to bring the opposition to the table and on January 12, the term of the 47th legislature came to a close with the departure of 83 Deputies and 4 senators left. Later that week, on January 15, the CARICOM community came out and said, ``We are all committed to free and fair elections, dedicating resources from our respective countries, with the help of other countries in the hemisphere, to create a framework from which we are able to guarantee free and fair elections.'' CARICOM held talks on Haiti in an effort to end the political impasse and unrest and developed the CARICOM proposal that we are still asking the opposition to accept an agreement which was endorsed by the president over a month ago. The administration still bided its time, and allowed the opposition to impede the democratic process. The administration allowed the Organization of American States to do its diplomatic duties toward Haiti, and the OAS convened an emergency meeting to discuss Haiti. OAS endorses the CARICOM proposal, condemns the escalating violence in Haiti, and adopts Resolution 861. After allowing even more time to pass, the Bush administration finally felt pressure from the international community and this Congress to act. A team of international diplomats from the United States, Canada, France, CARICOM, and the OAS traveled to Haiti on February 21 in an attempt to broker the same peace plan that the opposition parties had rejected over a month ago. Why was it a surprise that they would reject is again on February 23. Why did our administration allow the opposition another 24 hours to say no--again? Many have speculated that the additional 24 hours to accept the CARICOM plan was necessary because the opposition was in a position to accept it, but the ultimate outcome was: More violence, more lives lost, more cities burned, and more fear spread throughout the country. President Aristide accepts the peace plan and opposition are given until February 23 to accept or reject it. Any legitimacy that the opposition had is gone. They have repeatedly refused to support the democratic process by continually rejecting any offer to resolve the conflict peacefully. Now is the time to move toward averting a disaster and stop the violence by pushing our administration to lead the international community in protecting the dually elected President, the people of Haiti, and upholding the Haitian Constitution. If we allow this coup to occur, we will be responsible for the deaths of thousands because we sat on our hands and refused to bring light on the real criminals, killers, and antidemocracy forces involved in this coup d'etat. We, the members of the Congressional Black Caucus, friends of Haiti, and supporters of democracy will not allow the current crisis in Haiti to be ignored. We marched up to the White House today, and refused to leave until our urgent message was heard. We met with Secretary Powell, Dr. Rice and ultimately President Bush. We told them that the time is now to enforce a cease fire, laying down arms, honoring the rule of law, and honoring the Haitian Constitution. Bush must show some leadership and speak out against the violence and disregard for the rule of law in Haiti. President Bush should speak out in support of the democratically elected President of Haiti and provide President Aristide the assistance he needs to promote peace on the ground, allow free and fair elections to take place, and uphold the Haitian Constitution. Democracy in Haiti is in grave danger. Turmoil rages on the ground, in the streets, at the university, through the halls of the government, and in the homes of Haitians. Haitians are dying, and it is apparent that the hope for peace is diminishing. If we believe in the power of democracy and the potential for global peace we must not turn a blind eye to our neighbor and long-time ally. The United States must stop dragging its feet, lead the charge at the United Nations' Security Council meeting tomorrow, and answer the call for assistance from President Aristide. The United States of America cannot give more time for more people to get killed. Haiti, our neighbor and a sovereign democracy, has stood by us through thick and thin. Haiti remains the world's oldest independent Black nation. We must work with our neighbor, to secure peace in our region, and uplift Haiti's proud history.

Ms. LEE

Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to ask the Bush administration why in the world our country appears to be allowing a violent coup d'etat to occur in Haiti. Through a wink and a nod, our administration is allowing this violence to occur, and we must not stand for it. The democratically elected President of Haiti could be overthrown any minute. At risk, of course, is the safety of over 8 million lives in Haiti. We cannot play politics with rebels and with thugs. They are trying to change their government through the use of force, not by democratic elections. We do not allow coups to take place in the United States, and we should uphold that standard for neighboring countries, neighboring democracies, especially one in our own hemisphere. Throughout Haiti's 200 years of independence, it has experienced 32 coups, but it seemed that the tragic cycle ended in 1991 with President Aristide's first Presidential victory. After a coup, the United States helped restore then-exiled President Aristide in 1996, and later he ran and was reelected in the fall of 2001. Tonight as we speak, President Aristide is warding off yet another coup attempt and a potential civil war, and democracy is under fire again in Haiti. Two weeks ago now I wrote to Secretary Powell and asked the following questions: One: Does the State Department support the democratically elected Government of Haiti? What practical steps is our government taking to support the democratic process? Two: Is our country supporting and sanctioning an overthrow of the Aristide government by giving a wink and a nod to the opposition? There are also reports that we are covertly funding the opposition. Third: Is it true that the Haitian opposition parties and leaders have received USAID funding? Fourth: We understand the Haitian Government made several requests over the last 2 years for equipment and training of Haiti's police force. Why were these requests never responded to? Secretary Powell said, and I quote, ``We cannot allow thugs and murderers to overthrow the democratically elected government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide,'' but now there appears to be a major disconnect between the Bush administration's words and actions. Their rhetoric says one thing, and their actions say something else. This Friday, prior to the international diplomatic team traveling to Haiti, members of the Congressional Black Caucus asked the administration to act immediately and prevent the rebels from taking over more cities in Haiti. We are awaiting a response to both of these letters. We are working to protect democracy in Haiti day and night, but unfortunately people in Haiti are still dying as a result of rebel attacks, hunger and the like. The ongoing negotiations to broker a peace plan are failing, and it is not at all a result of President Aristide. President Aristide has shown good faith by accepting the Catholic bishops' plan, the CARICOM plan and now this peace plan. Haiti is embroiled in violence. Armed rebels are burning down jails and pillaging villages, toting M-16s and M-50s. Haiti only has 3,500 police for over 8 million people. It is only common sense that disarming thugs and murderers and forging a cease-fire go hand in hand. The United States cannot sit back and watch a country especially in our own hemisphere spiral further down into a state of turmoil. Bush must show some leadership and speak out against the violence and the disregard for the rule of law in Haiti. President Bush should speak out in support of the democratically elected President of Haiti and provide President Aristide the assistance that he needs to promote peace on the ground, allow free and fair elections to take place, and to uphold the Haitian constitution. How can we sit back and witness a violent attempt to overthrow a government? Is this part of the Bush administration's regime change policy? Democracy in Haiti is in grave danger. Turmoil rages on the ground, in the streets, at the university, through the halls of government, and in the homes of Haitians. Haitians are dying, and it is apparent that the hope for peace is diminishing. If we believe, if we truly believe in the power of democracy and the potential for global peace, we must not turn a blind eye to our neighbor and long-time ally. This is an urgent cry to our administration, specifically President Bush, to formally request a meeting of the United States Security Council with the hope of bringing the world community's resources to bear in support of the government of Haiti. The United States must stop dragging its feet and answer the call President Aristide made again yesterday. He said, ``Should those killers come to Port-au-Prince, you may have thousands of people who may be killed.'' We need the presence of the international community as soon as possible. Congress of the United States, House of Representatives, Washington, DC, February 20, 2004. President George Bush, The White House, Washington, DC. Dear Mr. President: Thank you for your Administration's new initiative to resolve the current political crisis in Haiti. The Congressional Black Caucus agrees that we cannot allow ``thugs'' and ``murderers'' to overthrow the democratically- elected government of President Jean Betrand Aristide, as Secretary Powell stated on February 17, 2004. Additionally, we are pleased that the United States, France, Canada, CARICOM, and the OAS will meet with the Government of Haiti to discuss how we can work together to secure the country, stop the escalating violence, restore the rule of law, and take steps forward to implement the CARICOM proposal. There must be an immediate cease-fire, and as these talks move forward, we hope that the United States insists that all parties lay down their arms and stop the violence. Haitians are dying every day, and the United States must do its part to guarantee a cease-fire, uphold democracy, and promote stability in a sovereign nation in our own hemisphere. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus agree that these emergency talks will be critical to ending the current violence. We respectfully encourage you to invite experienced, independent observers to travel to Haiti to monitor and observe the meeting. Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter. We look forward to working with you to help resolve this crisis. Sincerely, Barbara Lee; John Conyers, Jr.; Donald M. Payne; Bobby L. Rush; Sheila Jackson-Lee; Elijah E. Cummings; Maxine Waters; ------; Diane E. Watson; Gregory W. Meeks.

Ms. LEE

Ms. LEE. That means that crime will increase. I thank my colleagues for joining me tonight.

Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to join my colleagues from the Congressional Black Caucus to discuss the President's reckless, very reckless budget for fiscal year 2005 and to really examine the terrible toll that it will take on our country as a whole and specifically African Americans. And, Mr. Speaker, I would now like to yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings), our distinguished chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, let me thank the chairman again for his diligence, vigilance, and really helping the Congressional Black Caucus educate the public and hopefully many of our colleagues on the other side about the most pressing issues confronting our constituents and our country. I want to thank the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) for his leadership and for, once again, I will say helping us to wake up America. Mr. Speaker, let me just say a few things about this budget tonight. First of all, no documents are more important to the health and the welfare of American people than our Nation's budget. It can give the 44 million Americans without health insurance access to affordable health care, including the 7.4 million African Americans without health insurance. It can put the millions of unemployed people back to work, including the 1.7 million African Americans and the 1.4 million Hispanics seeking work. It can honor our commitment to veterans instead of raising their health care costs, including over 2.6 million African American veterans, and the list goes on and on. Instead of sending us a budget for the American people, this President has sent us a budget that turns its back on people and on our future. It sacrifices our children, our senior citizens, our security, our veterans, our environment, our economy in order to advance special interests and to promote tax breaks for the wealthy. Incredibly, the budget does all of this damage to Americans at home and does not even include the cost of our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, a clear failure, a very clear failure to come clean with the American people about the staggering costs of the war. I think we all know, and we heard that today, that we can expect another very large supplemental appropriations request for the war after the November election. The President, I believe, needs to really stop playing politics and to start paying attention to our needs right here at home. To merely call this budget a reflection of misplaced priorities really does not go far enough in describing the injustices that it promotes. It represents nothing less than an assault on the American people. The Bush administration is at war with the working poor, the middle class, working families and, yes, people of color. This budget, I tell my colleagues, is proof of that. The repercussions of this budget will be felt in cities and towns and rural communities across America. They will certainly be felt in my district in northern California where the high-tech economy has struggled and where housing costs are sky high, where seniors and veterans are struggling each and every day just to pay medical costs and grocery bills, where crime is taking the lives of our young people and threatening our communities, where infrastructure is crumbling, where our first responders and our ports are still not receiving the Federal funds that they need to keep our homeland safe and prepared, and where the State budget is being squeezed and slashed, and the repercussions of this budget will be felt for decades to come due to the record deficits that it creates. It is truly mind-boggling to think how the administration turned a $5.6 trillion surplus, projected just 3 years ago, into record deficits as far as the eye can see. Our children and our grandchildren will be paying off the reckless tax cuts for the rich, the lavish breaks for offshore corporations, and the huge overpayments to HMOs that are in this budget. They will be paying for this for the rest of their lives. This $4 trillion deficit will haunt our children for years to come. These outrageous and very reckless breaks for special interests and the wealthy help explain why this budget leaves so many behind. It explains why this President decimates housing programs in his 2005 budget. It represents a $350 million cut compared to last year's funding level. The budget cuts are again focused on section 8 and public housing, the program that serves the Nation's poorest families, seniors and the disabled. The budget is $1.6 billion below the level needed to renew all section 8 vouchers; and it proposes to block grant the voucher program, dismantling low-income tenant protections. It eliminates funding for HOPE VI programs, a program that Congress reauthorized last year on a bipartisan basis; and it cuts the McKinney- Vento homeless prevention grants by $2 million. Mr. Speaker, instead of spending billions on missile defense and other Cold War inventions, we could put more resources into housing, which is a national emergency and a national disgrace; and instead of spending $1 trillion in tax breaks, we could put more resources into our communities by providing the tools that they desperately need to combat crime and to deter crime. Let me just tell my colleagues for a minute a little bit about violent crime in my own district. Last year, in Oakland, 114 lives were ended in senseless killings, and 17 people have already been killed in the first 6 weeks of this year. It is not unlike any other urban area where opportunities just do not exist. It is a vicious and deadly cycle, and it must end. But to end the bloodshed and the pain, not only in Oakland but throughout our country, we must have a comprehensive approach and put the resources to address the root problem that fuel the cycle. We know many of the factors that contribute to violence among young people: drugs, the lack of job training, employment opportunities, and a lack of options. The hard truth of the matter is that young people have no hope, and homelessness breeds anger, despair and crime, so we need to offer hope. By sending jobs offshore, out-sourcing, moving manufacturing, technology and service jobs offshore, today I asked Mr. Greenspan in our Committee on Financial Services, what do we tell our young people? What do they go to school for and for what jobs? These jobs are nonexistent, so what are our options for our young people? What does the President offer to our law enforcement agencies to help them combat and to deter crime? The administration has offered cuts, cuts and more cuts. The budget cuts juvenile justice and delinquency prevention grants by 43.9 percent, and it eliminates the Edward Byrne formula and discretionary grants, the State criminal alien assistance program, and local law enforcement block grants. The budget cuts $655 million from the COPS program which provides grants and other assistance to help communities hire and train and retain police officers and improve law enforcement technologies. I can say that this directly harms our community where every night 9 out of the 35 beats in Oakland are not covered because they simply cannot afford the staff. In addition to community policing, we need to make a local and a national investment in violence prevention. We need a real plan, a real plan for the reentry of ex-offenders. There are 1.4 million inmates in America's State and Federal prisons, and more than 600,000 will be released to return to their communities this year. These inmates are parents to 1.5 million children. If adults recently released from prisons and jails and those on parole are included, the number of affected children more than doubled to an estimated 3.2 million. Clearly, the President's meager offering of a $300 million 4-year program, or $75 million a year for reentry, is a drop in the bucket. We could use that just in my congressional district. This program amounts to about $125 per inmate leaving prison this year. What in the world is that about? Mr. Speaker, the Bush budget underfunds our communities and our country. We need a jobs program. The unemployment rate among African Americans rose to 10.5 percent last year, significantly higher than the unemployment rate at the beginning of the Bush administration. The unemployment rate for Hispanics rose from 6.6 percent to 7.3 percent in 1 month. This rate is 24 percent higher than when Bush took office. Despite these realities, the Bush budget squanders an additional $1 trillion over the next 10 years on additional tax cuts for the wealthy. The President's budget does nothing to create jobs, to create good- paying jobs here at home. We also need job training, yet the President's budget contains $286 million in cuts for job training and employment services. These cuts come on top of $1.5 billion in cuts to job training and related services already enacted that President Bush has proposed since he took office. We need to invest in education and after-school programs. But, instead, this President's budget underfunds Leave No Child Behind by about $9.4 billion. It leaves 40 percent of children eligible for Head Start out in the cold, and it provides only half of the funding promised to after-school programs, meaning the 1.3 million children who were promised after- school services just will not get them. We need to invest in basic health and mental health services, but, instead, this budget freezes funding for the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant title 10 family planning program and also the Healthy Start program. It freezes all of this funding. It also proposes an additional $25 billion in tax breaks for health savings accounts, a proposal which benefits the healthy and the wealthy and will raise premiums for most Americans. The President's association health plans will raise premiums for about 20 million Americans and reduce benefits for millions more. Mr. Speaker, this President is really more interested in the future of the bank accounts of the rich in this country than he is about the future of our communities. It is really about choices. We could choose to invest in the future, grow our economy, enhance our security, look out for our children and our seniors and those who are struggling economically, the poor. Or we could provide tax cuts for multimillionaires and special interests. That is the choice the Bush budget offers; and, unfortunately, the choice is very grim in terms of this budget, which is a road map, which is a budget that speaks to, really, the values of this administration which I believe are very unAmerican values. I urge my colleagues to continue to spread the word about this dangerous Bush budget and to let them know in November what we think about his budget priorities. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Ballance).

Ms. LEE. I want to thank the gentleman from North Carolina for his very eloquent and very clear statement. One thing that the gentleman from North Carolina pointed out was that this unemployment and the fact that poverty is rampant now speaks to rural, as well as to urban, communities. This is something that I do not think the President has recognized in this budget. I do hope he accepts the gentleman's invitation to come to his district because maybe then we will see a revision of this budget to speak to some of those issues.

Ms. LEE. I want to thank the gentleman from Florida for really laying it out in terms of his very clear presentation. As I was listening to him explain the relationship between the Federal budget, local budgets and State budgets, he was really talking about the dismantling of America as we know it. I think that his voice and his breaking it down like that helps the public understand that what this budget does is not what America is, is not what we stand for. I just want to thank the gentleman for coming this evening and for being a part of this.

Ms. LEE. Let me now yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson- Lee), a member of the Committee on the Judiciary, someone who is a strong fighter in terms of protecting our Constitution, who works tirelessly not only for her constituents but for children and families throughout our country and throughout the world.

Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Texas for really calling the roll and for putting it out there and for reminding the country that, yes, the President did indicate that, for the most part, that the economy and our job crisis would just about fix itself. How do we tell young people that as we encourage them to go to school to develop skills and knowledge to get a job when, in fact, the economy does not allow for that? Again, I must repeat that today we talked with Chairman Greenspan, and his response in essence was the same thing. It will just have to fix itself. How do we allow a government as great as ours to just give those kinds of responses when we know that tax cuts for the wealthy are there, we know that the war, as the gentlewoman indicated earlier, is being funded to the tune of billions and billions and billions of dollars? I think that what the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) talked about tonight shows us that it cannot just fix itself. It is a matter of misplaced priorities, and we have got to demand that our priorities be reordered.

Ms. LEE. Yes, Mr. Speaker, and Hope VI is being dismantled based on the President's budget. I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Corrine Brown), member of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, a member of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, who fights each and every day for the protection of our democracy, for our veterans, for jobs, for the economy, for children and families throughout, again, our country and throughout the world.

Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman, first of all, for a very powerful statement. Secondly, just to paint a picture very quickly, my area is an area that is a very vulnerable area. We have a great port. We have a major transit system. We have laboratories, universities, a very high-risk area. We are severely underfunded. Our first responders do not have the resources, our schools do not have the resources, our ports still do not have the resources. We need to be able to check containers before they are put on the ships and brought over to our country. Our police officers are getting cut. We do not have the funding for police officers. Our county submitted an excellent application 2 years ago. It is still not fully funded. I believe for the most part the majority of California has not been funded in terms of homeland security. This budget I do not think steps up to the plate. Domestic security should be our first priority in terms of the fight against terrorism. Again, I do not believe that our budget and this budget reflects that. So I say to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Corrine Brown), we are going to have an uphill battle this year. But I think the American people are waking up and understanding that we do have some issues with regard to national security. But those issues should be prioritized in terms of our domestic security, and this budget and last year's budget did not fund our first responders, our firefighters, police officers and homeland security efforts in my arena.

Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my good friend from Florida (Mr. Meek), a leader in the Committee on Armed Services, who has truly and is truly making his mark here in the House of Representatives.

Ms. LEE

Ms. LEE. Mr. Chairman, today I rise in strong support of the Woolsey and Miller amendments and to highlight the immense need for anti- poverty and poverty-reduction programs, currently executed by communities through the Community Service Block Grant program. Unfortunately today, far too many of us are blinded by the politics of service instead of viewing the need for it. As we debate the merits of this legislation's language, its impact on civil rights, and where funding can be squeezed out of the administration's budget for actual communities to invest in people, we negate the intent of this bill and the work that must be done. This bill should be about people not politics. The truth is we are in an ongoing struggle for human dignity, basic human rights and real people living in poverty which this bill has provided resources and support to. Ending poverty should be our obligation, and President Johnson launched the Community Service Block Grant program back in the 1960s hoping that we would step up to our commitment. How many of us can argue that we have challenged this chronic problem, while our country has 35 million people living in poverty, 43 million people without insurance, 14.4 million families with critical housing needs, at least 2 million Americans without jobs, and while hunger and homelessness continue to rise with over a million homeless people on the street any given night--nearly a third of whom are veterans. The Community Service Block Grant is part of a comprehensive, community centered approach to helping those most vulnerable in our country. The CSBG grants funding and resources to groups that: weatherize homes or provide emergency assistance; teach parents on parenting and connect parents to reliable child care; work with elderly and youth after school programs; provide transportation to those with disabilities; teach people about credit and financial literacy; provide crisis assistance to victims of domestic violence; fill food pantries for the hungry; and the list goes on and on. Mr. Chairman, today the debate over the Community Service Block Grant authorization should go much deeper than mere dollars and cents. The domestic agenda of the Bush administration is crippling America and Congress cannot stand for it. Our challenge and our obligation to eliminate poverty and guarantee basic human rights and dignity to all men and women must be championed not only by this bill but by some real money and attention. I stand in support of ending poverty through the reauthorization of this bill, and if my colleagues feel the need to politicize poverty today, then I along with many other Members, will shed light on those malicious maneuvers. The centerpiece of this debate should be, where there is justice for all men and women, we find peace and respect for human dignity and rights. Today this country needs leadership that will ensure and protect that dignity and our basic and most treasured human rights.

Ms. LEE

Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I sincerely do wish former President Reagan and his wife well on his birthday, and my thoughts and prayers are with them as he deals with the terrible disease of Alzheimer's; however, the resolution went well beyond a simple birthday wish. I could not in good faith cast a vote for a bill that stated that the Reagan Administration ensured renewed economic prosperity when millions of Americans were hurt by its economic policies and the Federal government incurred massive deficit spending.

Ms. LEE

Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a great leader, a woman of distinction, and a good friend, Alice Huffman. This month marks Alice's 30th year of leadership in her efforts for equality and justice. The ninth Congressional District salutes and thanks Alice for her tireless and spirited service. Alice Huffman was elected president of the California State Conference of the NAACP in October 1999, where she is the first woman to hold this post. In this role, Alice leads 67 local branches, and more than 30 college chapters and youth units. With her leadership, they are continuing to fight for civil rights and equality for people of color all over California. In 2002, she was elected to the NAACP National Board of Directors, representing Region I. Her past experience includes serving as an appointee in Governor Jerry Brown's administration where she was Chief Deputy Director of the State Parks and Recreation Department and, later his Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, a cabinet level position. Ms. Huffman has also served as the Associate Executive Director for politics for the California Teachers Association and State President of the Black American Political Association of California. Alice is founder and president/CEO of A.C. Public Affairs, Inc., a public affairs firm that specializes in public and grass roots advocacy. She served on the Democratic National Committee as the cochair for the Site-Selection Committee for the 2004 Democratic Convention. She is also a member of the Rules Committee for the California Democratic Party. Currently, Ms. Huffman serves on the board for Capitol Focus, as well as serving on T-CAP, which is a consumer advisory panel to SBC/Pacific Bell. In addition, she serves on the ``Commission for One California,'' a forum for diversity and understanding headed by Lieutenant Governor Bustamante. She has recently been appointed to Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson's Commission on Police Conduct. Ms. Huffman graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with honors in Social/Cultural Anthropology. She then advanced her studies at the University of Pennsylvania, University of California, Davis, and University of Southern California. Her long-standing tenet is that learning is a life-long process. Alice was inducted into the Los Angeles African American Women Political Action Committee's Political Hall of Fame in April 2002 for her outstanding achievements as a social activist in the minority community. Ms. Huffman is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Alpha Kappa Alpha, and also the Sacramento Branch NAACP. The Los Angeles Times called her one of the most powerful people in California. The California Journal listed her as one of the top 50 individuals who had the greatest impact on California over the past 25 years and her local African American newspaper, The Sacramento Observer, annually includes her in its 100 most influential citizens. Finally, as we honor Ms. Huffman today, I want to thank her for being an exemplary role model, hero, and friend. I take great pride in joining Alice's family, friends, and colleagues to recognize and celebrate the accomplishments and contributions of the marvelous Alice Huffman.

Ms. LEE

Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor an Irish Catholic and New Deal Democrat, Jim Rush. Beloved husband of Joan, Jim passed on January 2, 2004 after a hard-fought two year battle against cancer, surviving much longer than the doctors had ever predicted. James Rush was born December 9, 1938, at Providence Hospital in Oakland, to two veterans of the Oakland General Strike, Eugene Rush and Esther Kelly-Rush. He attended and graduated Sacred Heart and St. Elizabeth's High School in Oakland. Just like his father, he lived his entire life at 472 & 474 W. MacArthur Boulevard, in the houses his grandfather, Owen Code Rush built sometime near 1870. After high school, Jim was the night-manager at Doggie-Dinner's in Oakland. In 1962 he joined Teamsters Local 70 and was elected Chief Steward at Sears in 1969. He was arrested 3 times in the Coors Strike in Alameda in 1970. In 1972, he led the Sears Strike and was also elected Recording Secretary of Teamsters Local 70. Jim was injured on the job in 1980 and joined the law offices of John E. Hill, investigating ``Serious & Willful Fraud of Injured Workers by Employers & Insurance Companies.'' In 1981, Jim became interested in Palmistry & Tarot Card Reading, eventually becoming a world-renowned spiritualist and author. Published and broadcast under the name Jay Owen Swift, he founded Oakland's Palmistry Academy of Ancient Wisdom and until 2001, hosted the ``Mystic-Eye,'' a spiritually oriented radio show on KEST in San Francisco. In 1985, Jim was elected to the board of directors of the Instituto Laboral De La Raza, a non-profit community organization dedicated to assisting Latino immigrant working families in San Francisco, where he remained an Advisory Board Member until his death. In 1996, Jim was elected to the Executive Board of SEIU Local 616 after organizing the staff of his law firm into the union. He was appointed as a delegate to the Central Labor Council of Alameda County AFL-CIO in 1997 and elected by his fellow delegates to the Council's Union Label and Credentials Committee. On September 20, 2002, Jim was awarded the Instituto's ``Santo Patricio Award.'' James P. Hoffa, General President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters traveled from Washington D.C. to make the presentation. Finally, I want to honor him for being an exemplary role model, community leader, and friend. I take great pride in joining Jim's family, friends and colleagues to recognize and salute the accomplishments and contributions of James Owen ``Jimmy'' Rush.

Ms. LEE

Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, once again let me just thank the gentleman from Maryland, the Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, for his leadership, and for calling these special orders to discuss the real state of the Union. I thank the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) for once again attempting to wake up America. Today I hope that people listen very carefully to the President as he tells us about his vision of America. I hope that they listen and ask themselves just what America does George Bush see out there? Who gets left behind in his vision, and really just where does it take us? I want to remind the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) and the entire country of what President Bush told us, I believe it was the year before last, in terms of creating the ``axis of evil.'' Then last year he told us that the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Of course, that has been questionable, but it did serve, however, as a very central and very critical piece of the spin campaign that led the country into war. I must remind you this was last year in the State of the Union that this critical piece of information was put forward. So tonight I hope the country listens very carefully to what the President says. Of course, in preparation for the upcoming election, the President is again getting ready to tell the Nation something that really should be questioned. According to news reports, the President will declare victory in the fight to provide the Nation's elderly and the disabled with health care. He will point to the Medicare bill that he and the Congressional Republicans pushed through Congress. But there is one small problem: The Medicare bill will not help Medicare, and it will not help seniors. In fact, it is designed really, if you ask me and ask many of us, to do the program in. He will claim that the economy is surging ahead; but will he talk about the millions of jobs that have been lost during his presidency? He will talk about homeland security; but will he talk about the insecurity in our ports and elsewhere, about first responders who still lack vital resources? So let us all listen very closely to what he says. What is the state of the Union today? We have about 130,000 American troops in Iraq, sent there in a preemptive war that we did not have to fight. We face an economy here at home that has been dominated by tax cuts for the wealthy and job losses for the rest of the country. We have an administration that seems eager to expand these tax cuts for the rich, and just as eager to privatize one of our most successful programs in history, Social Security. We have a healthcare system marked by disparities and deficiencies which leaves 44 million Americans without any health insurance and which the President seeks to reform, not by expanding benefits for the public for universal health care, but by expanding profits for the insurance industry and the HMOs. And we have health care problems, including skyrocketing asthma rates, which will only grow worse as the administration erodes fundamental environmental protections such as the Clear Air Act. That is the real state of the Union: A foreign policy based on preemption, not cooperation; an economy based on tax cuts, not job creation; a health care and retirement system that promotes corporate benefits, not individual care; and an approach to the environment that protects polluters and oil companies, rather than promoting public health or developing alternative energy sources. How did we get in this situation? We got here really not by accident, but through a series of choices made by the administration and the Republican majority in Congress. We have to begin this discussion by confronting the question of war. Understanding this war and preventing future foreign policy disasters requires us to understand how we got here and to demand answers about the abuse of intelligence in the process so that it never happens again. Over 500 Americans have died in Iraq. Over 3,000 have been wounded, many of them suffering terrible injuries. We owe it to them and we owe it to the unknown number of Iraqi men, women and children who have been killed to ask how we got there, how we can get out and how we can prevent future tragedies. This Nation went to war not because we were attacked, not because we were in imminent danger, but because this administration was just determined to do so. They have captured Saddam Hussein, but they have yet to find a single weapon of mass destruction, although the administration told us with absolute certainty last year that there were tens of thousands of them and they were aimed at us. This war of preemption without justification goes against both American ideals and international law, it has made the world a more dangerous place, and it has carried with it enormous costs in both lives and treasure. Yesterday, this past weekend, we celebrated the 75th anniversary of the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King knew all about the danger of war and the terrible toll that it exacted here at home. Dr. King said, ``In the wasteland of war, the expenditure of resources knows no restraints.'' Dr. King said, ``A Nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.'' Mr. Speaker, I think it makes a real mockery out of Dr. King's life to place a wreath at his tomb one day, appoint a segregationist to the Federal bench the next day, and then come forward with a plan for military expenditures that, again, will wreak havoc on the areas in America which need the kind of help that our resources could provide in terms of alleviating poverty and helping young people with their college education. This Nation, the state of this Nation, Mr. Chairman, is approaching, as Dr. King said, spiritual death. What then would Dr. King say? What would he say about the $87 billion supplement passed last year, and the fact that the $87 billion came on top of the $78 billion that Congress already appropriated for the war, on top of the $400 billion defense budget? What would he say about the priorities and choices that led to a preemptive war abroad and social and economic distress here at home, for as we confront the war, we must also confront the domestic choices that this administration has made that have led to the present state of our Union. The economy, health care, Social Security and the environment are all at stake, and, yes, they are all at risk today. First the economy. This Nation has lost nearly 2.5 million jobs since President Bush took office. That is the worst job creation since Herbert Hoover. Reports indicate that in his address tonight, the President will propose $120 million, I believe that is what I understand, in new job training grants. That sounds fine. But this President has sought over $800 million in cuts to job training and vocational education since moving into the oval office. This same administration has refused, refused, to extend unemployment benefits, at the very moment when millions of Americans are desperately looking for jobs but simply not finding them. Almost 90,000 jobless workers are running out of regular State-funded unemployment benefits each week. As we speak, almost 400,000 Americans are jobless and have no unemployment compensation. We are all excited about economic growth in the last quarter, but we want to see real economic development, real jobs and real economic opportunities for all Americans, and we want to see poverty rates in America reduced, rather than go forward. We want to see those rates go down. We want to see homelessness conquered; we want to see hungry children fed; we want to see a real commitment to end poverty in the President's State of the Union address tonight. Secondly, just as the Americans are concerned about the economy, they are deeply and justifiably worried about their health care. We have raging health care disparities in this country that separate black from white, rich from poor, African Americans, Asian Pacific Americans, Latinos, all from the poor, from the middle-class. This really is a national disgrace in the wealthiest country in the world. Forty-four million Americans have no health insurance. Four million of those have lost their coverage since President Bush took office. Americans who are fortunate enough to have health insurance are not only facing massive premiums hikes, but also live in constant fear of losing their insurance, and those fears, sadly, unfortunately, are warranted. Minorities have an even greater reason to be insecure and to listen closely to what the President will propose tonight. Minorities are sicker, and when they finally make it to the emergency rooms of this country, they get poorer care. Like the uninsured and the under-cared for, our seniors are also left out of the so-called Bush recovery. The Medicare bill passed this fall will leave the seniors who have the gravest chronic diseases with the highest out-of-pocket costs. But, again, there are beneficiaries to these policies. The insurance industry, the drug manufacturers and the HMOs, they will make billions. Thirdly, there is Social Security. This program was one of the great inventions of the 20th century. It has made enormous differences in the lives of millions and millions of Americans. But the Bush administration seeks to partially privatize this program. The New York Times says this would cost $100 billion to undertake. It would also make the seniors of tomorrow subject to the whims of the stock market. Privatization presents risks that we cannot afford and that we do not need. We must not dismantle this vital program. Finally, I cannot leave without addressing what this administration has done and seeks to do to our environment. Like Social Security, environmental protections exist to safeguard all, but this administration has refused to enforce existing laws and has even worked to strip them away, including such absolutely critical protections as the Clean Air Act. It has failed to create an energy policy that matches the needs of the 21st century. We could be reducing our dependence on foreign oil, fighting global warming and creating new jobs all at the same time, but, instead, this administration subsidizes big oil and big coal, refuses to address concerns such as MTBE, and tells Americans that all the answers to the energy crisis and problems lie in the drilling of the Arctic wilderness. So the common theme running through all of these domestic policies is that the Bush Administration has signed a contract with corporate America at the expense of the American people. That is the real state of the union today, and it sounds pretty bleak. In fact, I am pretty optimistic about the future of America, because these things can be fixed. We can forge a foreign policy based on international cooperation that truly enhances our own security. We can get our troops home from Iraq and end the daily news reports that another two or three or 16 Americans have been killed. We can craft domestic policies that create jobs, expand health care, protect Social Security, reduce poverty and safeguard our environment. And, yes, we can invest in health care and education and affordable housing. We can redirect our resources and realign our priorities. We can do better. Dr. King, again, left us a road map of how to do it better. So tonight, Mr. Chairman, I hope the country listens very carefully to the President's picture that he will paint of the state of the Union and raise some of these very critical questions as we enter this next year, to make certain that his State of the Union is not the state of the Union that we want to see for the American people.

Ms. LEE

Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church, and its Bishop, John Richard Bryant. On Sunday, November 23, 2003, St. Paul AME will celebrate seventy years of serving the greater Bay Area community. The Reverend E.N. Elliott developed the foundations for the Berkeley Mission in 1933. He was very proud to report his three members to the African Methodist Episcopal 69th Annual Conference. Early developmental meetings were held in the home of Rev. and Mrs. Speese, but the needs of a rapidly-growing congregation led to the establishment of a temporary church headquarters at the corner of Grove Street and Russell in Berkeley. The Sunday school was set up during the very first week at that site. Later on, the property at 1630 Fairview was purchased under the leadership of Rev. H.C. Claybrook. The name, Berkeley Mission, was changed to St. Paul AME Church, and the Seal of Incorporation was secured in early 1937. In 1953, St. Paul moved to the current location at 2024 Ashby Avenue. The St. Paul AME family has come a long way from its humble beginning. The congregation has expanded to over 1,100 members and continues to grow today. St. Paul enjoys the distinction of being the only African Methodist Episcopal Church in Berkeley, California. Its ministries provide a wide spectrum of service, offering food, clothing, and housing referrals for those in need. Additionally, its doors are open for meetings of Narcotics Anonymous, Alzheimer's, and diabetes support groups. Children in the Berkeley community are served through education, tutorial and Saturday programs, as well as exercise classes. Today, St. Paul AME is under the guidance of Presiding Prelate Fifth Episcopal District Bishop John Richard Bryant and Episcopal Supervisor Reverend Dr. Cecelia Williams Bryant. Reverend Dr. Vernon Steven Burroughs is the Presiding Elder and Reverend Dr. Allen Williams is the Pastor. I take great pride in joining friends, family, and the congregation to salute St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church and its leader, the extraordinary Bishop John Bryant, on the seventieth anniversary of service.

Ms. LEE

Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Mayor Willie Brown of San Francisco on his upcoming retirement after 40 years of dedication and spirited service to the community. As we honor Mayor Brown, I want to thank him for being an exemplary role model, leader, and friend. I take great pride in joining his family, friends and colleagues to recognize and salute the accomplishments and contributions of Willie L. Brown, Jr. Mayor Brown's personal story is an inspirational one. He was born into poverty on March 20, 1934, in Mineola, Texas, a small, racially- segregated Texas town, where he earned his first dollar as a shoeshine boy. Throughout his high school years, he worked as a janitor, a crop harvester and a messenger. On graduating, he moved to San Francisco, bringing with him a little more than a cardboard suitcase and hope in his heart. He worked his way through and graduated from San Francisco State University and from the Hastings College of the Law. He was admitted to the State Bar of California and built a thriving law practice in what was then a pre-dominantly white legal world. Brown was elected to the California Assembly in 1964 and was re- elected 16 times, serving a total of 31 years in the Assembly. In 1980, he was elected Speaker of the Assembly, a position of power second only to that of the governor. The state's only African American Speaker, he held the position for an unprecedented 15 years. Mayor Brown's personal experiences in the realm of racial discrimination have made him a tireless advocate for affirmative action. During his years as a state assemblyman, dozens of his bills became laws, including the passage of the most comprehensive educational reform and financing bill in 20 years. He also passed bills that requested the United States Congress to grant citizenship to Filipino veterans of WWII and eliminated criminal penalties for private sexual acts between consenting adults, a bill that was introduced before the Assembly five times before its ultimate passage. While in the Assembly, several organizations awarded Brown for his tireless work on behalf of minority groups; he received the California Association of the Physically Handicapped Special Service Award, the ACLU Human Rights Award from the Gay Rights Chapter, the Tree of Life Award from the Jewish National Fund, the Japanese American Bar Association Award, and was honored by the California Advisory Commission on Special Education. As mayor, he has continued his career-long commitment to civil rights and higher education, notably by designating the address of the refurbished City Hall as Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place after the recently-deceased San Francisco NAACP Chapter president and community activist. During the renaming ceremony and in front of a crowd of 7,000 people gathered at the 13th annual Martin Luther King Holiday rally, Mayor Brown restated his dedication for the betterment of education, his continued fight for civil rights, and his dedication to representing all of the minority groups that make up San Francisco. Mayor Brown continues to make good on this promise. He championed and signed legislation requiring all companies doing business with the city to grant equal benefits to their workers' domestic partners. As mayor, he presided over seven domestic partner commitment ceremonies, the latest taking place in City Hall. His administration is also working toward guaranteeing universal health care for its 130,000 residents currently without medical coverage. Thanks to commitment from the City and the private sector, the University of California at San Francisco will break ground on its first new campus in over twenty years. During his seven years at the helm of one of America's most diverse cities, Mayor Brown has shown continued leadership, creating continued vitality and economic energy in San Francisco. Respected in the ethnically diverse neighborhoods as well as in the burgeoning business community, a San Francisco Chronicle reporter said of Brown, ``He's been magical in his ability to unite the city. There's been this unbelievable camaraderie between camps that have been at war for years.'' As the city's first African American mayor, Mayor Willie L. Brown, Jr. continues to represent the past, present and future of civil rights and the cultural and intellectual diversity that symbolizes San Francisco's history of acceptance. Mayor Brown has been a mentor and a friend since the early 1970's. He has been consistent in championing the rights and the plight of those shut out of the American dream, and he has never forgotten his humble roots in Mineolea, Texas. I had the privilege to serve with Mayor Brown while in the California Legislature. As speaker of the Assembly, Mayor Brown led our state through many challenging years. He was my ``shadow Governor'' and made sure that communities of color, women and the poor had a seat at the table. As a skilled legislator, Speaker Brown guided me with my very aggressive and successful legislative agenda, which I continue to embrace with pride and humility. Mayor Brown leads with his head and his heart. His intellect, his wisdom and his spirit is something to behold. As one whose life and work has been enriched by this giant of a man, I say thank you, and Godspeed. Enjoy this next glorious chapter of your life.

Ms. LEE

Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks on this sham Republican prescription drug bill because it will harm, not help, elderly women. I did not come to Congress to dismantle and privatize Medicare.

Ms. LEE

Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I am glad that the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) raised that because this legislation is bad for America. I am glad that he cited the Heritage Foundation's comments and their opposition because I believe that we need to make sure that America understands that in spite of the leadership of AARP and in spite of the fact that the pharmaceuticals and the insurance industry for the most part wrote this bill, that there are, all of us, primarily, with the exception of a few, those who really believe that this will begin to dismantle Medicare and privatize Medicare. And if no one believes us, they sure should believe the Heritage Foundation. But I think that the Congressional Black Caucus, our tri-caucus has an unbelievable track record in telling the truth. So I am glad that the Heritage Foundation has joined us in that tonight.

Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, first, let me thank the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, once again, the gentleman from Maryland, (Mr. Cummings), for his continued leadership and for ensuring that the Congressional Black Caucus continues to have the opportunity to wake up America, and for continuing to stand up for our seniors' rights to an affordable, quality, and guaranteed prescription drug benefit. Also, to really protect Medicare as a vital institution. So I just want to thank the gentleman again for giving us this opportunity. Now, I did not come to Congress to dismantle Medicare, and I will not stand by quietly while my Republican colleagues do just that. Last night, I came to the floor and detailed my very strong opposition to the Republican prescription privatization plan, which does represent a giant kickback to the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. Tonight I come to the floor again to reiterate my opposition and to discuss the other inadequacies in our health care system that are addressed in the Health Care Equality and Accountability Act, H.R. 3459, a bill which my colleague, the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs. Christensen), has guided and has led and has brought us together through her tireless work to introduce on behalf of America. I just want to thank the gentlewoman for her leadership in providing us a real vision and a real alternative and a real roadmap to quality health care for all of our communities in America; specifically, our communities of color. Now, our constituents realize that the cost of prescription drugs are really crippling our seniors, and this Republican prescription drug bill is a real joke, a cruel joke on seniors and the disabled. This bill will only raise false hopes that real help is on the way from the drug prices that are currently crushing our seniors. But nothing could be further from the truth. This bill not only weakens benefits by creating major gaps in coverage; it actually prohibits, mind you, it prohibits the Secretary of Health and Human Services from negotiating lower drug prices on behalf of America's 40 million Medicare beneficiaries. It is a shame that not only will the government be prohibited from lowering the prices of medicines, senior citizens cannot even benefit from lower prices through drug reimportation, which this body actually passed. But, of course, any measure to reduce the cost of prescription drugs does not meet the approval of the pharmaceutical companies. So, quite frankly, these provisions are not in this bill, which really is their bill. Now, in California, almost 250,000 Medicare beneficiaries are projected to lose their retiree health benefits. Nearly 300,000 fewer seniors in my State will not qualify for low-income protections because of the assets test and qualifying income levels. When we get right down to it, the 300,000 low-income seniors will disproportionately be older women who, as we all know, have fewer financial assets, tend to live longer, have more chronic health conditions than men, and ultimately are more dependent on Medicare than men in their later years. And, of course, women are more than twice as likely as men to face poverty in retirement and account for more than 70 percent of the elderly poor. This bill is harmful to the poorest and the sickest. And their out- of-pocket costs would increase above what Medicaid currently allows, and co-payments would dramatically increase further in future years. A constituent from Oakland wrote to me and said, and I quote, ``I am on Medicare and do not like this bill. I cannot understand why Congress will not allow anyone to bargain for better rates. I don't understand why Medicare must be privatized. The proposed deductible is too much. And I will not be able to afford medication for my disabilities if this bill passes. This bill amounts to another Republican publicity thing.'' I agree with her. H.R. 1 punishes people for getting older and for needing to use prescription drugs and for being disabled. In 2002, for example, the Kaiser Family Foundation found more than 33 percent of seniors without drug coverage did not fill the prescriptions that their doctors prescribed. That is a rate twice as high as those with coverage. Lower-income Americans really do deserve better. On July 24 of this year, the Wall Street Journal reported that black Medicare beneficiaries are more than twice as likely as white beneficiaries to go without a prescription drug because they could not afford it. Nearly 40 percent of elderly African Americans lived in poverty in 2001 compared with 10 percent of whites. As a result of the disparities in our health care system, African American seniors are more likely to be in poor health and to report having one or more chronic health conditions, while only 26 percent of whites on Medicare report their health status to be fair or poor. While the Republicans punish seniors, particularly women and minorities, with this bill, California drug companies will make out like bandits. More than 860,000 Medicaid beneficiaries pay more for the prescription drugs that they need, pay more. This bill is really not just, however, a gift to the drug companies, it is the beginning of the end of Medicare. And it is the beginning of the privatization of Medicare. Under this Republican bill, beneficiaries dropped from one plan may face a period of noncoverage before they are picked up by traditional Medicare or another private plan, if one is available at all. During this time, all beneficiaries lose continuity of care and may not even be able to get the care that they need. Secondly, beneficiaries even in a new private plan may not be able to use the same doctors, services, and prescriptions due to the plan limitations. African Americans face a disproportionate risk under such a coverage gap since they are more likely to have serious health problems. Prescription drugs are not a luxury for our seniors; they are a necessity. And our seniors cannot afford to pay more than the outlandish prices for prescription drugs that they are already paying. Also seniors with income levels below the poverty level are nearly three times as likely as those with incomes of more than $17,000 to go without prescription drugs. The pharmaceutical companies cannot continue to get rich off the poorest of the poor. Let us be clear, this bill really is a fraud and really is an embarrassment. We stand here today with a Republican bill that is not affordable, is not comprehensive, and is not guaranteed. On behalf of all people who see through this bill, I call on my colleagues to join us in opposing the sad attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of our nation's Medicare beneficiaries. Further, I think that the President and the Republicans should really look at how to really provide a meaningful benefit and also to get at other pressing issues facing our health care system today: the cost of drugs, the lack of access to any health care at all, and the horrific disparities in access and the quality of care for communities of color and the needs to move forward with the system where health care is a basic human right provided for all. Today African American Medicare beneficiaries are more than twice as likely as white beneficiaries to go without prescription drugs because they could not afford it. Nowhere in H.R. 1 are these beneficiaries considered. So now is the time to expand the health care safety net which will increase the availability, quality and affordability of health care coverage options. The Healthcare Equality and Accountability Act, as I mentioned earlier, H.R. 3459, reminds us that now is the time for diversification of the health care workforce which will reflect the communities that have been neglected while incorporating a real understanding of the backgrounds, experiences, languages, and cultures of minority people. H.R. 3459 reminds us that now is the time for an aggressive collection of data and dissemination of data on people of color so that that becomes a priority in terms of the health care of our communities. And H.R. 3459 reminds us that now is the time for a complete assault on HIV and AIDS and other diseases that are disproportionately killing minority communities. So now is the time for Congress to take a real look at our health care system, diagnose our weaknesses and our illnesses, and prescribe a system where everyone will have quality universal guaranteed health care. Again, as I said, I did not come to Congress to dismantle Medicare, and I cannot stand quietly while that happens. So I just want to thank our chairman again, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings), for giving us this opportunity to really allow our senior citizens and the entire country to hear our views in spite of what AARP has told individuals with regard to this very terrible bill. I want to thank the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs. Christensen) once again for her leadership to ensure that we have an alternative that makes sense for universal health care.

Ms. LEE. Well, Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) has summarized what this bill does. And I think our senior citizens understand that Medicare has been that safety net and has provided the foundation for really the quality of life that they deserve in their golden years. And to see that safety net being tampered with and to see it put up on the chopping block at the whims of the insurance industry and pharmaceuticals is very shameful and very disgraceful. And I think that all of us have the duty and responsibility to fight against this. Because this is, I think, a basic value that America holds dear, and that is protecting and ensuring, I would say, the comfort of our senior citizens. And we cannot play around with that.

Ms. LEE

Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding me this time and also for this motion to instruct and for her tremendous leadership on this issue. This bill of course we have yet to see but have heard a lot about what will essentially privatize Medicare. Not only will the bill begin to dismantle a program that has worked for over 30 years; it does fatten the pockets of the pharmaceutical and the private insurance industry donors, leaves over 9 million rural Medicare beneficiaries with no access to affordable prescription drugs, and really does pit seniors one against the other based on their income through means testing. I hope we say no to this Republican bill. Under this bill, Republicans have eliminated Federal Medicaid funding to fill in the gaps in the Medicare drug benefit, disproportionately affecting rural beneficiaries who are 20 percent more likely to have incomes below 150 percent of poverty level. This means that up to 1.7 million beneficiaries could have their current drug coverage reduced. Under this bill new, untested private insurers are authorized to provide a prescription drug benefit. Under this bill Republicans cap Medicare spending for the traditional programs and also for private plans, of course shifting the greater risk and cost to our senior citizens. It does not make any sense to provide a $12 billion slush fund to keep private insurers in Medicare, which is really anticompetitive. It is costly and it is unfair to seniors. Also, as I understand it, under this bill, Republicans leave seniors who spend between $2,200 and $3,500 for prescription drugs without any cost assistance or sharing for Medicare. And again, not having seen the bill, but from what we hear, under this bill, and of course the administration and the Republican leadership have weakened all of the measures to control the costs of these drugs; policies to promote access to generic drugs and reimportation of U.S.-made drugs which, of course, we passed in this House, those provisions have either been watered down or just totally disregarded. To put it simply, a senior who receives $2,200 worth of drugs in a year will pay about $420 in premiums, $275 deductibles, and $481, which is about 25 percent of drug costs from $276 to $2,200. So the total cost is somewhere between $1,700 and $2,200 in drugs. Also, with this gap or what we call the ``doughnut hole,'' the Republicans have left that in this bill, of course. Seniors whose drug costs fall above $2,200 and $3,500 will pay 100 percent of the cost. Seniors with $3,500 in annual drug costs will pay too much. Mr. Speaker, this is really the beginning of the end of Medicare as we know it. This is an attempt really to dismantle Medicare. We cannot allow that. We must stand up for our constituents. We must stand up for our senior citizens and provide a prescription drug benefit which is helpful, not which is harmful. This bill is not comprehensive, I guess. I mean we have not seen it, but from what we hear, it is terrible and it is very incomplete. So I think we need to be honest with our senior citizens. It does privatize Medicare. It does begin to dismantle Medicare. It is much too costly for our senior citizens to buy drugs which are already too expensive.