Carolyn McCarthy

Mrs. McCARTHY of New York

Mrs. McCARTHY of New York. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commend the women of the Long Island Ladies of the Court. Recently, this four woman basketball team from Nassau County participated in the U.S. National Senior Olympics in Tucson, AZ. I am pleased to announce that our Long Island team made up of women between 55 and 60 years of age, captured the Silver Medal at the games--a very strong showing in a competition where over 10,500 men and women at least 50 years old from 48 States participated in 20 sports. We are very proud of our seniors and their basketball abilities. I am a strong believer in sports, team participation and competition. I played basketball as a young girl growing up on Long Island and eventually played for Mineola High School. I experienced what recent studies have demonstrated that participating in team sports is essential for developing self-esteem and social skills in young women. Self-confidence grows with each successful lay-up, jump shot and slam dunk. And for seniors, exercise is a proven benefit--it slows down the aging process and helps people live longer and healthier lives. The Ladies of Long Island's excellent showing in the Senior Games clearly demonstrates that we can all benefit from team sports. Mr. Speaker, I join today with my fellow residents from Long Island in offering a hearty congratulations to the Long Island Ladies of the Court and all participants at the U.S. National Senior Games. Great job to all of you!

Mrs. McCARTHY of New York

Mrs. McCARTHY of New York. Mr. Chairman: I rise in support of H.R. 2014, the budget reconciliation tax legislation. When I talk to my constituents back home, they tell me overwhelmingly that taxes are by far their biggest concern. The median household income in the Fourth Congressional District is 50 percent higher than the national average, but we are not rich, because taxes and the cost of electricity take so much out of our pockets. It is not uncommon for a two-income household in my district to make over $70,000 a year and still just get by, having trouble putting their kids through college. Long Island is a great place to live and raise a family, but the tax burden is driving young people and businesses away from our region. My constituents tell me that the best way to ensure Long Island remains productive and healthy is through tax relief. The bill we are debating today is far from perfect, but I cannot in good conscience deny my constituents much-needed relief from taxes by letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. This bill will make a positive difference in the lives of people in my district, and for that reason alone, I plan to support it. The family tax credit will provide relief for families struggling to make ends meet. The capital gains tax reductions will provide direct tax relief for the Fourth District, where the average home value is $173,600. The bill also provides needed estate tax reform, increasing the exemption from $600,000 to $1 million. This will help family-owned businesses in New York, a State which has over 600,000 small businesses. Most importantly, this bill will provide tax incentives for higher education. My constituents believe very strongly in the importance of education, and they tell me that they want the Federal Government to help prepare young people for the future. As a member of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, I believe expanding access to education will lead young people to success in life and away from crime and gun violence. As I said, there are several provisions in this bill which trouble me. For one thing, I am deeply concerned that section 931 will threaten the economic well-being of thousands of bakery drivers and their families. This provision, which would drastically overturn longstanding Federal policy, was attached to this bill with no debate or discussion in committee or the full House. in addition, I oppose provisions which would reduce the retirement savings of current and future college and university retirees by removing the tax-exempt status of the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association-College Retirement Equities Fund [TIAA-CREF]. Furthermore, I am afraid that provisions of this bill unfairly penalize graduate students by repealing section 117(d), which makes remitted tuition tax-free, and by failing to extend the section 127 exclusion for employer-provided tuition assistance for graduate students. As a cosponsor of H.R. 127, legislation to permanently extend section 127 for both undergraduate and graduate students, I will work to make this provision fair for all higher education students. I pledge my continued efforts in the coming weeks to address these concerns, and I am hopeful that the bill will be improved in the conference committee. More importantly, I plan to work hard to ensure that Congress passes immediate, meaningful tax relief for the families and businesses of the Fourth Congressional District and the entire Nation.

Mrs. McCARTHY of New York

Mrs. McCARTHY of New York. Mr. Speaker, this past Friday on June 6, 1997, Long Island lost a true champion. The loss of this person was a tremendous blow to people from all walks of life he lent a helping hand to. Daniel A. Lehner was an entrepreneur who ran a successful newspaper delivery business and a restaurant. However, he was more than just another successful businessman--he was a person who used his business acumen and prosperity to benefit the community he lived and worked in. His generosity shined through his efforts to help Long Island while president on the Nassau County Council of Chambers of Commerce, a member of the Association for a Better Long Island, and a member of the Long Island National Guard. Long Islanders will remember his unceasing efforts to revive Nassau County's mom and pop type retail establishments. Nonviolent offenders will remember their Christmas present of freedom when he posted bail for them. Charity organizations will remember a certain Phantom of the Opera performance whose proceeds were dedicated to them by Mr. Lehner who bought out the performance. Nassau County's Chambers of Commerce will not soon forget the advocacy work he did by bringing the importance of Long Island's small businesses into the media spotlight and into the minds of politicians and ordinary citizens. His selfless actions in life were rewarded by the joy he brought into the hearts of so many. The people of Long Island will truly miss the man we all referred to as Long Island Danny.

Mrs. McCARTHY of New York

Mrs. McCARTHY of New York. Mr. Speaker, I am here today to talk about the Irish deportees. I come from the great State of New York. We have the Statue of Liberty in front of us. That Statue of Liberty is there because we take immigrants here. We have people that are living in this country and now we are trying to take them out of the country. I am sorry, Mr. Speaker. We are here to protect the families of these Irish-American families. I am sorry, sir. We have to protect the wives and children. If we do not take a stand now, how often will it happen? That is what is great about this country. We stand up for those things that we believe in. Mr. Speaker, please. Mr. President, hopefully you will listen to our voices. Let these people stay here in peace. They are part of us. We are part of them.

Mrs. McCARTHY of New York

Mrs. McCARTHY of New York. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 5. As someone that has learning disabilities, I knew what it was like to grow up and not have the educational opportunities. Luckily, my son was able to go to school and at that time they dealt with learning disabilities. It was during that time as he went to school I learned how to read, I learned how to study. What this bill does is give children hope, certainly, but it gives them an opportunity to go out in the work field. The most important thing, though, it does allow the children to have self-esteem, and I think that is the most important thing. I stand here because I am a Member of Congress now. I want the children out there to know, even though you have learning disabilities, you have a chance to learn and certainly you can do anything with your life that you want to. I am pleased that H.R. 5 addresses concerns that my constituents have raised. It provides financial relief to school districts that struggle with the high cost of educating students with disabilities. It also addresses the issues of transportation training, which ensures that students have access to education and to jobs later in life. Most of all, I am pleased that this bill is the product of bipartisan process. Educating children with disabilities is not a Democratic or a Republican issue, but a priority for all of us that must be addressed. It has been a pleasure working on this bill with both sides of the aisle and my colleagues. I think everyone did a wonderful job and everyone should be commended. But the bottom line is, we have remembered the children, and they are our best product for this country and they are the future of this country.

Mrs. McCARTHY of New York

Mrs. McCARTHY of New York. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule. The rule to H.R. 3, the Juvenile Crime Control Act of 1997, does not allow Members to engage in a full and fair debate about reducing juvenile crime and making our schools safe. The closed rule denies Congress the opportunity to discuss child safety lock legislation. Child safety locks can help make our schools and our streets safer for our children. The loaded and unlocked guns are being taken from our homes continuously and used to commit juvenile crimes in our schools. Failure to allow this debate on safety locks is expensive for the American people. We in the health care system know that it costs us almost $3.5 billion, but, more than that, we are losing our children. According to National Safe Kids Campaign Chairman C. Everett Koop, locks and load indicators could prevent more than 30 percent of unintentional firearm fatalities. Child safety locks are not expensive. Child safety locks will reduce the cost to the American taxpayers associated with juvenile crime. This is not the same old debate about gun control. This is about reducing violence and its associated costs. The amendment we would like to debate would simply require federally licensed firearms dealers to sell child safety locks with firearms. Nobody's guns are going to be taken away. There will be no further Federal requirements for purchase. It is a simple safety lock. We have bills that make it impossible for children to get into an aspirin bottle. Do my colleagues not think we should do the same thing with a gun? Therefore, I urge my colleagues to oppose this rule. Let us try and save some kids these days.

Mrs. McCARTHY of New York. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to H.R. 3. This juvenile justice debate is personal and emotional to me because it is a debate about saving lives. As I visit schools in my district in New York and talk to the kids in grade school, middle school and high school, I hear firsthand that they are sick of living in fear of violence. In order to reduce violence and save lives we have to effectively attack juvenile criminals. H.R. 3 does not effectively address basic juvenile crime issues. Rather, the bill before us tonight is a collection of overly prescriptive, top-down, Washington-knows-best mandates. Furthermore, the legislation completely fails to address the gun issues, and we cannot seriously discuss juvenile crime without the gun epidemic facing this country. In order to save lives we have to allow our States and local governments to utilize programs that they know work best. This bill will not even let New York take advantage of the money that we need. This legislation ties the hands of local judges and prosecutors. If our State and local governments want to access badly needed Federal funds, they must submit to certain requirements in this bill. Unfortunately, statistics show that the prescriptions that we are forcing down our local governments' throats may not be the best option for local crime problems. In fact, recent success in local communities such as Boston may not even qualify for Federal funding under this bill. Under this bill, Congress is saying, We will take your tax dollars but you cannot take them back. It does not matter if you have already committed to saving kids' lives by getting tough on juvenile crime, you have to do what we say or else you will not get your hard-earned tax money back. That is wrong. There is another important personal issue for me that has been completely left out of this bill. We have taken a pass on the high priority issue of reducing gun violence. The sponsor of this bill states that we can wait for a while and deal with this issue later. I rise to say that we cannot wait. Juvenile justice is about saving lives, and I support certainly not this bill.

Mrs. McCARTHY of New York

Mrs. McCARTHY of New York. Mr. Speaker, I have only been here 3 months, and what I hear today upsets me greatly. I am against late-term abortion. I am against any kind of abortion. I am also a nurse. We have 435 Members in this Congress. Two, I believe, are doctors; two, I believe, are nurses; and yet here we are making decisions on women's health and lives and the children. I am sorry, there is not one person in this Chamber that wants to see a child die, but I feel we are hypocrites. I am on the Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities and I am fighting for every dollar to certainly take care of those children that have severe disabilities. I am on the Juvenile Task Force trying to protect the children that are alive. If we cannot take care of the children that are chosen to be born in this country, because women do want children, who are we to have the right to have that decision? Further down the road we will have bills here that we are going to be voting on so doctors can have the choice of saying what is good for a patient that has breast cancer, and yet here we stand making these choices. No one wants to take a child's life. Nobody. Who are we to make a decision for that woman? We cannot make that decision for the woman. We are not in her shoes. And as it seems we are going to make those choices, I am not even allowed to vote on a bill that would certainly take away late-term abortions. I am being forced to vote for a bill that I do not want. Those are the choices that I am being given here. I think that is terrible.

Mrs. McCARTHY of New York

Mrs. McCARTHY of New York. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Miller-Clay substitute to H.R. 1. When I talk with my constituents, they tell me they want Congress to put aside partisan fighting and find commonsense solutions to important issues. On comp time, they tell me they want a bill which provides workers true flexibility and a true choice of when to use it. I understand this issue firsthand. Before coming to Congress, I was a nurse. I still am a nurse. Comp time would have been very attractive for me, since I put in long hours that kept me away from my family. But I also know that without real choice, there would have been many times when I would have been asked to work, wanted to take time off and been denied it. Instead of flexibility, I would have been left with no overtime pay and a comp time bank from which I could never withdraw. The fact of the matter is the vast majority of employers will treat their workers right under comp time. But a small number will not, and any law we pass must protect the most vulnerable workers whose bosses will try to abuse the law. I am proud to be an original cosponsor of the Miller-Clay substitute, because I believe it strikes the right balance between the needs of the employer and the employee. Under the Miller-Clay proposal employees get to decide when to use the comp time they have earned as long as it does not cause substantial or grievous injury to the employer. More importantly, the Miller-Clay substitute provides sensible protections to employees who choose comp time. Under this plan comptime counts as hours worked for overtime so employees will not be forced to work long hours later in the week. Employees can be assured that if their business goes bankrupt, the comptime hours they have accumulated will not be lost forever. Finally, the Miller-Clay substitute gives workers 24 hours of leave to attend a parent-teacher conference or take a sick parent to the doctor. By helping workers who are struggling to make ends meet while caring for their family, the Miller-Clay substitute is truly family oriented. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to vote yes.

Mrs. McCARTHY of New York

Mrs. McCARTHY of New York. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pascrell].

Mrs. McCARTHY of New York. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island [Mr. Weygand].

Mrs. McCARTHY of New York. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mrs. McCARTHY of New York. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mrs. McCARTHY of New York asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mrs. McCARTHY of New York. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from New York [Mr. LaFalce], the distinguished ranking member of the committee. (Mr. LaFalce asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mrs. McCARTHY of New York. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of H.R. 852, the Paperwork Elimination Act of 1997, which the Committee on Small Business reported out unanimously last week. I commend the chairman and the ranking member for bringing this bipartisan legislation to the floor. In approving this legislation, the Committee on Small Business, which has long been a forum for and a voice of the small business community, took another step forward, responding to one of the principal ongoing concerns of small business owners: the paperwork burdens imposed on them by the Federal Government. Mr. Chairman, the ambitious title of the legislation notwithstanding, I do not foresee a day in my lifetime when we will eliminate paperwork. Nor do I foresee the day when we will altogether eliminate regulations. What we can do, however, and what this bill does, is take advantage of existing technology capabilities and ease the regulatory burden on small businesses by reducing the amount of paper they must fill out, mail, and file. This legislation itself imposes no burden. It has no mandates. It allows those small business owners, educators, State and local governments and others the option of communicating with the Federal Government via computer. Mr. Chairman, I see much progress and no problems accompanying this bill, and therefore I urge all of my distinguished colleagues to support it. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mrs. McCARTHY of New York. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Davis]. (Mr. DAVIS of Illinois asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mrs. McCARTHY of New York

Mrs. McCARTHY of New York. Mr. Speaker, today the House of Representatives will vote on term limit legislation. I have always believed in citizen legislators who work hard for the people, who accomplish things to make their communities a better place to live and then step aside after a few terms to let others into office to achieve new goals. It is what I have believed in and the kind of representative I am. At the same time, I also believe in devoted public servants, citizens who dedicate their lives to learning the laws and doing good things for others. I believe Congress needs people like Senator Bob Dole and Patrick Moynihan, people who spend their lives working to improve our lives. Term limits will deprive people of their choice between citizen legislators and public servants, and we do not need that. Term limits come from the voters at the election booth and from the legislators themselves, not from the Congress.

Mrs. McCARTHY of New York

Mrs. McCARTHY of New York. Mr. Speaker, I have spent the last week traveling throughout my district in Mineola, Garden City, Uniondale on Long Island, and meeting with hundreds of children. I have visited their classrooms, met their teachers, and watched them work on computers, listened to their lessons and heard them read their books. These children are full of enthusiasm and spark. They want to learn and they are enjoying it. These are visits that have made more clear to me that our children are one of our Nation's most precious resources. I saw a bumper sticker recently that said, ``I touch the future. I teach.'' In Congress we can also touch the future by improving our educational system and making college more affordable for working families. And those who choose not to go to college, let us not forget them. We want to make sure that they have good and well-paying job opportunities. Let us pass President Clinton's 8-point educational plan, which includes a $10,000 tax deduction for tuition and training as well as a plan for 2-year, $1,000 Hope scholarships. It is important for our children's future. Let us do it.

Mrs. McCARTHY of New York

Mrs. McCARTHY of New York. Mr. Speaker, it was an honor to sit in this Chamber last night and take part in the State of the Union Address by the President. I was extremely pleased that President Clinton focused so much of his speech on education. As I watched the response of all my colleagues, both Democrats and Republicans, to the President's educational proposals, I realize that we have a lot of common ground to work in. Making education opportunities more available to working families is a goal that is both bipartisan and crucial to the future success of our country. We must improve our educational systems for the children, college students, and adults who need to go back to school to learn new skills. We are about to begin the 105th congressional session and this session must be about taking care of the needs of working families, and the only way we can take care of working families is by working in a bipartisan manner. The American people expect no less and certainly deserve no less.