Jim McDermott

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, jazz often has been called the only musical art form to originate in the United States. Beginning in the late 1800s, the music grew from a combination of influences, including black American music, African rhythms, American band traditions and instruments, and European harmonies and forms. Much of the world's best jazz is still being written and performed right here in the United States. One of the key elements of jazz is improvisation--the ability to create new music spontaneously. This skill is the distinguishing characteristic of the genuine jazz musician. Improvisation also raises the bar for soloists. They must not only be performers and reproducers of others' ideas but true composers as well. This is what gives jazz ``fresh'' excitement at each and every performance. Jazz soloists are exceptional, undeniably unique individuals. I am fortunate to represent a district, encompassing the City of Seattle, which has produced more than a few of these. Ernestine Anderson is one such person, and on March 1st, the Rainier Club of Seattle honored Ernestine Anderson by bestowing upon her the title of Laureate. ``A voice like Honey at Dusk'' . . . that's the way legendary music producer Quincy Jones described her . . . and, he ought to know! Jones began his career in Seattle right around the same time Ms. Anderson launched hers. Anderson, Jones and Ray Charles were all part of the vibrant Seattle music scene in the 1940s and 50s. Born in Houston, Texas, Ernestine Anderson grew up listening to and singing blues and gospel music. When she was 12, she entered a talent contest and so impressed bandleader Russell Jacquet that he hired her to sing with his band. Relocating to Seattle with her family when she was 16, she soon discovered Jackson Street, the hub of Seattle's jazz scene, and started singing with the bands there. At 18, Ms. Anderson left Seattle to tour with the Johnny Otis band and, a few years later, joined Lionel Hampton's band. She settled in New York City in the mid- 50s and recorded with saxophonist Gigi Gryce--bringing her greater acclaim in the jazz world. She recorded her first solo album, ``Hot Cargo,'' in 1958 for Mercury Records, and that same year was featured at the very first Monterey Jazz Festival--now the oldest continuous annual jazz festival in the world. It goes without saying they have invited her back numerous times, including the 40th anniversary celebration four years ago. One year later, Ernestine Anderson was named Best New Vocal Star by DownBeat critics, and was featured in TIME Magazine. Musical tastes change, however, and individual singers or groups and the type of music they perform periodically go out of style. There was no exception for American jazz artists during the early mayhem of the Beatles, Rolling Stones and other rock groups who spearheaded the ``British Invasion'' of the mid-60s. To make a living many, including Ernestine Anderson, migrated to Europe, where jazz appreciation was still strong and growing. After a few years, however, she returned to Seattle and went into semi-retirement--performing only occasionally in local clubs. Ernestine was special. The people of Seattle and the Pacific Northwest had recognized that early on. It was only a matter of time before other jazz enthusiasts around the country realized that again. One who did, bass guitarist Ray Brown, was instrumental in bringing Ernestine to the attention of Concord Records. He resuscitated her career, gave her backing, and produced her first albums for the label. From that second beginning, Ernestine has gone on to greater heights, including more than 30 albums, four of which have received Grammy nominations. She has performed at all of the major jazz festivals in North America, Europe, Japan and Australia. She was one of 75 women chosen by Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Brian Lanker for the book, I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America, a work which put her in the company of Rosa Parks, Leontyne Price, Barbara Jordan and Toni Morrison. In October of last year, Ernestine Anderson was named one of Seattle's most influential citizens. She has been featured in an exhibit at the Experience Music Project along with Ray Charles and Quincy Jones as part of the history of jazz in Seattle. She also was named one of Seattle's most generous philanthropists by Seattle Magazine for her donation of time and talent to numerous charities including Rise 'n' Shine, the Detlef Schrempf Foundation, the Alliance for Education, the Garfield High School Jazz Band, and many other youth organizations. An avid sports fan, she frequently has sung the national anthem at major sports events across the country. Her annual appearances at Dimitriou's Jazz Alley during the week between Christmas and New Year's are eagerly anticipated, and New Year's Eve with Ernestine consistently ranks as one of Seattle's premiere events of the year. The Rainier Club has made a wise choice in naming Ernestine Anderson, Laureate. She is undoubtedly one of the best ambassadors of and for the arts in the Pacific Northwest. I congratulate her on a long and distinguished career, and wish her nothing but success for many years to come.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, one of the architects of the growing diplomatic relationship between the United States and India received some long overdue recognition last weekend when Murli Deora was elected to the Raja Sabha, the Upper House of India's National Parliament. As our colleagues may recall, relations between the United States and India went through difficult times during the 70's and 80's because of the Cold War. We were, as former Ambassador Dennis Kux declared, ``estranged democracies.'' Yet, even during the weakest of times in our relationship with India, Murli Deora worked hard to bring our two nations together. His views were often times at odds with the foreign policy establishment in his country. Only during the past decade did the United States' democracy finally draw close to the world's largest democracy. In the process, Murli Deora was vindicated. Mr. Speaker, Murli Deora has a long and distinguished career as a politician in India. Murli began his career in public service more than twenty-five years ago as the Mayor of Mumbai, India's largest city. Although Murli's public life has taken him to all parts of the world, he has never forgotten his roots or his love of this city of more than twelve million people. A long time member of the Congress Party, Murli remains President of the Mumbai Regional Congress Committee, a grassroots party organization renowned in Indian politics. Upon completing two terms as Mumbai's mayor, Murli was elected repeatedly to the Lok Sabha, the Lower House of India's parliament. During his many years as a Parliamentarian, Murli distinguished himself as a skilled legislator. Among his many accomplishments was passage of landmark legislation to open India's insurance market to foreign investment. Murli also used his tenure in the Lok Sabha to become a tireless advocate for stronger India-U.S. ties. He founded the India- U.S. Interparliamentary Forum and headed the Indo U.S. Initiative. When members of this body decided to band together to create the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, Murli offered his encouragement and support. As the current Co-Chairman of the Caucus, I can attest first hand to Murli's dedication, energy and foresight. Mr. Speaker, the world has always been Murli's forum. A former President of the Parliamentary for Global Action, Murli has spent the last three years working as a senior official of the Indian Red Cross and as International Vice President for the Red Cross in Geneva. Therefore, it is both fitting and appropriate that Murli has been elected without opposition to the Raja Sabha. All of us who know Murli congratulate him and welcome his induction into this senior most legislative body in India. I am confident that Murli will continue to immerse himself in the pressing problems of hunger, disease, the underclass and economic development. And, I am certain that relations between our two countries will also continue to occupy a central place in Murli's busy world. As a result, we have much to look forward to, and relations between our two countries will be the clear beneficiary.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, here we are for round three of the shell game. This is Humphrey-Hawkins, and we are supposed to be talking about employment. We have got people who are getting off welfare, right? We have got all these women, we want them to go out there, and we are increasing the number of hours they have to work. So we are getting them out there, staying away from their kids even longer. HHS says under this shell are 15 million children who need day care. Under this shell we find out what the Republicans take care of, 2.7 million children. One would think that if there were 15 million who needed it and they were only covering 2.7 million that they would put in some additional money. I mean they are not going to leave any child behind certainly. They really do care about children. I have heard them come out here and get almost weepy eyed over children, but there is only 2.7 million. What is under this shell? Nothing. They flat-lined it. They said the money we gave last year is exactly what we are giving this year. What that means, according to the Children's Defense Fund, is 30,000 more kids are going to be out from under this shell. They are not going to be covered by day care, and at the end of 10 years of this they are going to have 114,000 more kids if they keep flat-lining it. Now, we can try and confuse people, but when a mother leaves the house in the morning and she is going off to a job, she wants to work, raise her level of dignity. She feels good about herself, but she does not feel good and cannot concentrate on what she is doing if she does not know her kid is in good child care, and if we do not supplement what people making $7 an hour in those jobs making beds in the hotels are making, they cannot get good child care. Do not come out here with that rhetoric about leave no child behind. Vote no on this resolution.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Baldwin). (Ms. BALDWIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to myself. Mr. Chairman, here we are with another variation of the three shell game. This budget purports to offer a prescription drug benefit. Now if we take the numbers of last year's program and look at how much the Congressional Budget Office says they will cost, it is $400 billion. Do we have $400 billion? No, we have $350 billion. But in Sunday's New York Times, many doctors say they are refusing Medicare patients because they are not being paid enough. Out of that $300 billion, we are going to pay for drug benefits, and we are going to pay for provider reimbursement. We are going to give more money to doctors and hospitals. If we use the Congressional Budget Office figures, we have only $124 billion. So the reason the other side uses the OMB figures is because it is $350 billion. Which number would Members take? Of course the other side would take the $350 billion. If we look at this chart, we can see if we pay back the providers what we said we are going to give them, it costs $174 billion out of that $350 billion. If we are using the $124 billion, we cannot even cover the providers. The doctors alone cost $128 billion. So there is not enough money under this one to provide even for the doctors. Now, let us say we take the $350 billion and we say we are going to do only the doctors, so we are going to do $128 billion. That gives us what, 225, 222. Now, is that enough for a drug benefit? Remember, I said it was $400 billion to do a decent benefit? That is a benefit where seniors pay 50 percent and the government pays 50 percent. Do Members think that is an adequate benefit? There are 9 million widows in this country who live on Social Security. They make less than $10,000 a year off Social Security. They are supposed to come up with half the drug benefits. If they just have a few things, that is fine. But where are they going to get $1,000 or $2,000 to pay while the government pays the other $2,000? This simply is an inadequate benefit that they are talking about. Yet the other side tells the people, the President said in the campaign, we will have a prescription drug benefit. The President stood in this well twice and said we are going to have a prescription drug benefit. But there is no money. It is a shell game. They are hiding it and confusing people with statements, but the figures do not lie. Vote ``no'' on this thing.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, we are here on a historic day. This is the first time in 19 years we have had a totally closed rule on the budget; no amendments, no alternatives, one shot, Republican, that is it. Now, why is that? Well, you have come to the second annual meeting of the county fair where they play the three walnut shell con game. We are playing it again. We played it last year. The fact is that the first shell here is the budget estimates. Are we going to use OMB or CBO? These people closed the government down in 1995 over whether or not we are going to use OMB or CBO. They said CBO is the only numbers. Now this year, it is OMB. Well, they moved that around. Then they said last year, we have a lot of money, oh, gosh, we have a lot of money. Look at them 10-year projections. Then things went to pieces. So this year they said let us just look at 5 years. That is enough. That is sufficient enough. That is a second shell. If you think about it, they have understated the cost of mandatory spending. They talk about the stimulus package we passed last week with $100 billion in it, and they ignore it, totally ignore it. And there is a budget coming within 2 weeks of our getting back here, we will have a supplemental budget out here for the military, and they act in this budget as though that does not even exist. It is like, well, it has to be that third shell. It is somewhere in there, I do not know. They do not cut the tax cuts they plan to offer. The President put a budget out and said we are going to repeal those tax cuts. And he says no, I want to repeal the repealer. They voted no in the committee on that issue. They are not going to do that, they say. Right now there are 3 million people paying the Alternative Minimum Tax. Within 5 years you are going to have 30 million people having to figure their income tax twice, and they are just closing their eyes to it. ``Do not show me.'' They just hide everything. Now, this is the slam-bam-thank-you-ma'am budget. It is going to go through here. It means absolutely nothing. It is a total sham. But what it really is is a generational mugging. It is a mugging of our kids. This shell game is trying to hide from our kids what we are doing to them. We are starting down the same thing we did in the Reagan years. It was 1983 with a closed budget, a closed rule, and we started down like a rocket. And it took us 20 years to dig out of it. And here we are today, going down that same road. Now, I hope the kids are watching, because they are playing a shell game on you. They are simply hiding what this costs. They do not want you to know. And they are taking it from Social Security. There is no plan in these shells for how you are going to get out of using Medicare and Social Security. Everybody here knows that 40 million people are coming down the road toward Social Security and Medicare, and there is nothing.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate we have to come out here and put Bandaids one after another on this unemployment benefit. Where the other body has passed 26 weeks, we ought to do 26 weeks; but I guess we will get a chance to do another bill. What is really missing here, though, is the health care benefits if someone is drawing unemployment. The average in this country is somewhere around two and a quarter a week. I am sure in New York it is a little higher than that. Let us say it is $300 a week. So they get $1,200 a month. Now, if they had health care benefits before, they do not have enough out of $1,200 to go out and pay the premiums for health insurance. So they have the double hit of no money to live on and no health care if something happens to them. Most of the working Americans in the situation in New York that they got into were covered with insurance, and they have been able to build up little bit of equity and little bit of future for themselves. All it takes is one illness, one injury and they are wiped out; and there is a bill here, it is Discharge Petition Number 6, that is for House Resolution 3341, which gives 75 percent of COBRA benefits, plus it gives additional money to States for their Medicaid programs so that they can cover the other 25 percent. We could cover everybody in health care, but 6 months after the incident on 9-11 we still have not done anything on health care. Now, if we care about those people, it is nice to talk about unemployment benefits, and I am for this bill; but where is the plan to help them get covered with their health care? Are we counting on Medicare in New York to take care of it? I will bet that the New York legislature is struggling with that. The next issue ought to be House Resolution 3341, which is a discharge petition. We have got 177 signatures. So anybody who really wants to help New Yorkers, go sign 6.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I am really pleased that we finally got the hunting season settled for mourning doves yesterday so that we could finally get down and do something important. Since September 12 when we tried to give $15 billion to the airline executives and stockholders, we have refused to deal directly and simply with the unemployment question. We have always had to have it wrapped with a whole bunch of tax cuts. Now, we are out here today to pass a bill, and the price has gotten down low enough that a lot of us will support it. It will go out of here almost unanimously. We are going to give $14 billion over the next 3 years to the unemployed and $100 billion to the employers in the form of tax cuts. We had a famous member of the other body from our State who used to say, I would like to find a one-armed economist, because on the one hand they say things are going up and on the other hand they say things are going down. I do not know whether this bill is for the going ups or the going downs, because I hear that the recession is all over, that we have pulled out of it already because of all of the great things we have done. So why do we need this stimulus package? Why are we putting in $100 billion taken from the Social Security money? Over the next 3 years, the workers in this country are going to be paying Social Security so they can give a tax break to their bosses to buy more machines. Now, if we are out of the recession, then why do we need this stimulus package? We clearly need the money for unemployment for the 1.1 million people who have lost their jobs and lost their unemployment since 9-11. That is clear. But there is not any evidence that I see, at least from my State, that says they are all coming back to work now. Now, if a guy has a plant and he has equipment, why is he going to go out and invest in more unless there is a market? If you have, as we have, an 8 percent unemployment rate in Seattle, anybody investing to make more, I guess it can just sit in the warehouse. That would be good business, I guess, although I have never run a business, so I would not know if it is a good idea. But it does not seem very smart to buy a bunch of machinery for something that one cannot sell. Until the economy starts and people are back working, it is going to be very hard to convince people to go and buy more high-priced electronic equipment and all of the things that have gone down. Now, what is really aggravating about this is you will not give us a chance to have a pay-for, no chance to pay for it. No, no, no. This is the plan that says, if you are in a hole, keep digging. We are in a hole, and we are going to dig another $100 billion deeper, and we could reverse that. We could do something about that if we could have hearings and actually have meetings on this, but these things keep popping out of the committee without anybody ever having a chance to talk about them. We find out that, after all of these months, the State of Washington, we have to have a letter from the Department explaining how it is going to work. I urge everyone to vote for a bad compromise.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, it may be great comfort to the unemployed in this country to know that we have gathered here in the House of Representatives today to debate whether or not there should be a mourning dove hunting season. The Speaker made us very comfortable back in September saying we would do something about the unemployed. We have not done anything since then about it that can get through both the House and the Senate. The Senate sent over a clean unemployment bill that should be brought to the floor and sent back to the Senate and become law. Since September, 1.3 million Americans have exhausted their benefits. In January alone, 356,000 people exhausted their benefits, the single largest loss of benefits in almost 10 years. Why is it that you have to bring a bill out here today with another poison pill tied to it? There are 222 press secretaries right now in those Republican offices with their thumb right over the send button to send out the press release that we have done something about unemployment. You know it will die in the Senate because you designed it to die in the Senate. I do not think that is fair, and I think that we ought to bring the Senate bill out here and pass it with no problems.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Con. Res. 304. Before I was elected to my first term in the Congress I was stationed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a Regional Medical Officer for the Foreign Service, so I am very familiar with this wondrous yet volatile area. The eruption of Mount Nyiragongo is the latest in a line of tragedies suffered by the Congolese people. Since the attempted coup of the late President Laurent Kabila in August 1998 the Republic has been embattled in a bitter civil war between the government and opposition rebel groups. Now, with the eruption of Mount Nyiragongo, the Congolese people are witnessing a new level of suffering. The results of the eruption are staggering. 46 people were initially killed, according to The International Federation of Red Cross Societies. 10,000 people are left homeless in the city of Goma. Hundreds of thousands are out of work as a reported 13% of the city was destroyed from the 110 million cubic yards of lava erupted from the volcano. Further complicating things is a cholera outbreak that is hindering humanitarian groups from reaching the 35,000 people in need of food. Yet despair occasionally brings hope. This most recent disaster has cast attention on the war-torn nation, and this week, at the urging of President Thabo Mbeki, South Africa is holding a summit in an effort to bring peace back to the Republic. We can only hope that in the wake of this tragedy the warring factions can set aside their differences, begin forming a transitional government, and set a date for future elections that will bring unity and peace to the Congolese people.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, forty years ago January 1962, in Seattle, Wash., a major development in health care occurred with the opening of the Seattle Artificial Kidney Center as the world's first out-of- hospital dialysis unit. Two years previously, Dr. Belding Scribner, head of the Division of Nephrology at the University of Washington, together with surgeon David Dillard and engineer Wayne Quinton, inserted a small length of bent Teflon tubing into the forearm of Clyde Shields who was dying of chronic kidney failure--now known as end-stage renal disease (ESRD). This device, known as the Scribner shunt, first made possible the long- term treatment of ESRD patients by the artificial kidney. Several other patients began treatment shortly thereafter and also survived, and so it soon became obvious that this was a successful treatment for a previously fatal disease. Because of Dr. Scribner's concern that funds were not available to provide this expensive treatment, in 1961 he approached Dr. James Haviland, then President of the King County Medical Society, to consider development of a center to provide dialysis for ESRD patients in the state of Washington. As a result of the efforts of these two physicians, the King County Medical Society, the Washington State Medical Association and the Seattle Area Hospital Council cooperated with private individuals to open and out-of-hospital, freestanding community-supported dialysis center in Seattle. This was the first time that dialysis was provided outside a hospital and supervised by nurses rather than by physicians. the Seattle Artificial Kidney Center, now the Northwest Kidney Center, served as a prototype for the development of dialysis units around the world. Over the next several years, the Center developed training manuals for physicians, nurses and technicians. At the same time, and for years thereafter, physicians and other health care personnel from this and many other countries came to Seattle to visit the Center and learn from its program. Continuing concern about the high cost of dialysis led to the development of home dialysis in Seattle. London and Boston in the early 1960s. This proved highly beneficial for patients and became a major treatment alternative at the Seattle Artificial Kidney Center. Today, the Northwest Kidney Centers still has the largest home hemodialysis program in the United States. Also in the 1960's and early 1970's, Dr. Scribner, Dr. Christopher Blagg and other physicians worked with Senators Jackson and Magnuson to introduce national legislation to assist in the support of ESRD patients. These efforts culminated in 1972, when Public Law 92-603 was enacted into law and extended Medicare coverage for dialysis treatment and kidney transplantation to almost all ESRD patients in this country. Over the last 40 years, the Northwest Kidney Center has been a leader, respected both nationally and internationally, for providing high quality care for ESRD patients. It has treated many thousands of patients over the years, and now serves more than a thousand dialysis patients in eleven dialysis units throughout Kind County. Together with the University of Washington, it has played an important role in research and the development of dialysis techniques and technology, and in the training of kidney specialists from around the world. The efforts of its staff have also been influential with the Congress, agencies of the Federal Government, the Washington State Government and various of the health care organizations involved in the care of ESRD patients in helping to see that the Medicare ESRD Program meets the aims of its founders. At this time, there are more than 350,000 dialysis patients and more than 3,500 dialysis units in this country, and about one million patients on dialysis worldwide. It thus seems appropriate today to honor the 40th anniversary of the world's first dialysis unit and its founders, Drs. Belding Scribner and James Haviland.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I would say to my friend from New York (Mr. Houghton) if he were the chairman of this committee we would probably have a bill here we could pass. But when we have a situation where the chairman of the committee talks for about 5 minutes about this bill, tells us it will be on the floor tomorrow, we never have a hearing on it, we do not know what is in it, how could we possibly know what is in it? We must have hearings. Now, this bill for those Members on my side who cannot figure it out, this does two things. This is a fund-raising stimulus bill. That is all it is. They do it just before they go home so they can stimulate fund- raising when they are back in the district. That is why they did it in December when they did it. But also this is a bill for PR. If we do not get this out of here in the next half hour, a lot of those press releases that have already gone out about what we have done for the unemployed will be a little bit premature. The fact is that if Members wanted to do something about the 8 million people who are unemployed and the 11,000 per day that are going to be exhausting their unemployment insurance and the 2,000,000 that are expected to exhaust their unemployment benefits by the end of the first 6 months, Members would have accepted the Senate bill and do something about it. We all know that 62 percent of the people who are unemployed are not even covered by the unemployment insurance. If they want to make reform in unemployment insurance, we are glad to sit down and talk. But do not wrap it in this stuff and tell us that we have to eat all these fund-raising deals to get it for the unemployed. That is simply DOA. This bill is dead on arrival. It is DOA when it arrives in the other body. Now, do they want to do something for people who are unemployed or not? It apparently has not occurred to them that if they do something twice and it has not worked, doing it a third time is not going to work. That is a sign of mental illness, that they do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I rise to join with my colleagues to welcome General Musharraf to the United States. The friendship exhibited by the General's government has been an important component of the war on terrorism. Moreover, the courage that General Musharraf has shown in taking a stance against Pakistan's traditional ally, the Taliban, has been especially welcome. While we welcome General Musharraf to Washington and congratulate him on his commitment to participating in our war on terrorism, we must also ask our friends in Pakistan some hard questions. For instance, we must ask Pakistan to show the world that it does not support cross- border terrorism into India. Pakistan must clamp down on the dozens of fighters that cross daily into Jammu and Kashmir from Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK). If, as the General claimed last week, the fighting in Jammu and Kashmir is indigenous to India, will he order that his borders are tightly sealed against the radical Islamic militants who are based on Pakistani soil and wage war in India? The General's government would gain tremendously in the international community if it also divulges to the world the status of the ``Twenty Most Wanted''--the list of international terrorist leaders that are accused of being sheltered in Pakistan. There can be no doubt that terrorism is alive in Pakistan--we have only to look to the case of the journalist, Daniel Pearl, to show us the Pakistan has not been able fact clamped down on terrorism. Without a sincere, public and tangible series of steps on the part of the General and his government, Pakistan's commitment to fighting terrorism is questionable. We must also ask the General when he intends to move Pakistan towards democracy. General Musharraf has ignored or had changed Supreme Court orders regarding local elections, and other distinct steps towards a return to democracy. Pakistan has had a long history of democratic instability, and I do not believe that the current global upheaval can justify delay in the return of democracy to Pakistan. We all hold the ideals of democracy and personal freedoms as sacrosanct, and we should not allow our friends in Pakistan to lapse in their progress towards democracy. I truly extend my gratitude and hand of friendship towards General Musharraf during his visit. But I also must extend my concern that he and those of his ruling stratocracy are not committed to the same goals of peace, stability and democracy that we are. I ask the General to dispel my hesitations and declare loudly that he is truly moving Pakistan towards democracy and that he is staunchly against all international terrorism. Until he stops bizarre diversions like blaming India for the kidnapping of Daniel Pearl and gets serious, it is going to be hard for us to take Pakistan and its interests as anything but dubious. [From the Washington Post, Feb. 12, 2002] Mr. Musharraf in Washington Gen. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan arrives in Washington today for what likely will be, at least in part, a celebration of his readiness to join the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism. Any political boost he reaps from his scheduled White House meeting with President Bush will be largely justified; Mr. Musharraf's cooperation has been instrumental to the military campaign in Afghanistan, and his strong public initiative to arrest and reverse the mounting influence of Islamic extremists in Pakistan may prove even more important over time. But the general's visit needs to be more than a love fest. For all he has done in the past five months to advance the counterterrorist cause, the Pakistani leader has much more to do; and the Bush administration should match the political and economic rewards it offers him with concerted pressure to move ahead. The need to keep pressing Pakistan's ruler seems all the more urgent because of the worrisome signs he offered in the days before his visit. Mr. Musharraf promised in a landmark speech last month to end Pakistan's support of terrorists who have been crossing its border to carry out attacks in India, including an assault on the Indian parliament in December that brought the two countries close to war. But last week he delivered another address that restated Pakistan's longstanding official position that the fighting in Indian- controlled Kashmir is the result of an ``indigenous'' rebel movement that deserves Pakistan's support. At face value, that stand might look legitimate; but the problem is that Pakistani governments for years have used that formulation as a cover to foment and supply the Kashmir insurrection. Mr. Musharraf has formally banned the Pakistani militant groups dedicated to the Kashmir cause, including several with close ties to the Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda as well as to Pakistan's military intelligence agency. But some in Pakistan suspect that despite hundreds of reported arrests, his crackdown has not been uncompromising, that many of the militants have been allowed to remain free in exchange for lying low. Those fears could only be heightened by the president's statements to The Washington Post last weekend about the kidnapping of American journalist Daniel Pearl, which Pakistani police believe was orchestrated by a well- known member of one of those extremist Muslim groups. Rather than blame the Pakistani terrorists, or the evident failure of his new campaign to stop them, Mr. Musharraf suggested that India might somehow be behind the kidnapping--an irresponsible and implausible suggestion that is not backed by evidence. Mr. Musharraf's forthright public condemnations of Islamic extremism, which began well before Sept. 11, leave little doubt that he genuinely would like to fashion a moderate Muslim state that would resemble Turkey rather than Taliban- ruled Afghanistan. But the general faces strong opposition to his project, some of it within his own military; and where the extremists' cause intersects with that of Kashmir, a focus of Pakistani nationalism since the country's foundation, Mr. Musharraf may feel tempted to pull his punches. That is where the Bush administration should intervene: It should make clear to the Pakistani leader that he must decisively break with the terrorists on this front as on others. Mr. Musharraf wants U.S. help in persuading India to begin negotiations on Kashmir, and the Bush administration should weigh whether it can help galvanize a peace process without compromising its longstanding neutrality in that conflict. But it must be clear, too, that continued collaboration between Islamabad and Washington depends on Mr. Musharraf's campaign Islamic extremism proving aggressive and unambiguous in deeds, as well as in words.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I was unable to be in Washington, DC, today because I was participating at a conference hosted by the International Justice Mission (IJM) in Salt Lake City, UT. As a result, I missed three votes. Had I been able to vote, I would have voted in support of H.J. Res 82 (rollcall No. 11) and H. Res 340. I would have voted against H. Con. Res. 312 (rollcall No. 10).

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) for yielding me time. Looking at this bill makes me think of the Enron Corporation. Republican handling of the economy in this House has been just like Enron. We start the year with a $5.6 trillion surplus, and 12 months later we are broke, and we are borrowing to give tax credits and tax cuts around the country. Sounds just like Enron to me. Fortune 500, broke at the end of the year. How did they do it? Well, they gave big stock options and whatnot to their board of directors. So did you. You gave a tax credit of 1.3 or 1.8 or 2 billion, who knows exactly what it was, or 2 trillion, and ultimately you have disseminated our whole base in this country. Now we come along again, you blow the bottom of the tax, the lock box. We do not have any pensions left, just like Enron. They have 18,000 people out in with nothing because of their fiscal management and that is more of the same in this bill. But the part that is really irritating is this whole health question. Now, there is nobody on this floor who has ever been broke, I guess, or they have forgotten what it was like not to have money. We all make $11,000 a month. Now, just imagine if we suddenly were without employment. And we were getting the average benefit for unemployment in this country which is $224 a week. That is a little less than $900 a month. Going from $11,000, right, down to $900. Now, we got to still pay the house mortgage, right? That is easy. And the next thing is we want to have a little food, right? And then we want to go pay for your health care benefits. Now, we are going to get 60 percent of the premium from the government. We just have got to come up with 40 percent of it, right? How many of us think that we would be able to pay for our rent and pay for our food, and put clothes on our kids' backs and put gas in the car while we look for a job and pay 40 percent of our health care benefit? This is a fraud. I do not care how many dollars you put in it, it is not going to be any good to give a guy a voucher for, I do not know, $600 and say, okay, go out now and find yourself a health insurance plan. Because he hasn't got the other means to put with it to pay for it. It is simply a fraud. You are not guaranteeing health benefits to anybody. You could have done something. You could have said let us put them all in the Medicaid. That would be one way. You would guarantee they had some health care. Or you could allow them to buy into Medicare as has been suggested for people between 65 and 50. Let them buy in. But you do not want to give anybody a guaranteed program. You want to throw them into the free enterprise system and say, good luck. It is a fraud and it should be defeated.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill. I got on a plane to come out here from Seattle on Tuesday morning, and sat down next to a man and asked him where he was going, what he was doing. He said my name is Viggo Bertelsen. I am the national commodore of the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary. Mr. Speaker, I know that they are in town meeting with the commandant from all around the country and talking about the needs of the Coast Guard. Being from Seattle, I am well aware of what the Coast Guard does. They control shipping in Puget Sound, and have a very big responsibility to prevent collisions in narrow spaces. They are dealing with all of the Customs problems and smuggling in the islands, bringing in drugs and everything else. The Coast Guard has been given many, many very difficult missions, and has not been recognized by the Congress for what they have done. When I was a psychiatrist in the Navy in the Vietnam era, I had a sailor from the Coast Guard, or Coast Guardsman brought to me one day who had been hung over the side on a chair to paint the insignia on the side of Coast Guard ships. As mentioned before, the motto of the Coast Guard is semper paratus. This man was a little unhappy with the Coast Guard, and had written ``simply forgot us.'' Unfortunately, in many instances in this House, we have simply forgotten the Coast Guard's needs, and I think this is, while not a perfect bill, a step in the right direction, and I hope that all Members will vote for it, and not forget the Coast Guard and what they do.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, neither the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) nor I think Saddam Hussein is a nice man or good for the world. However, we rise in opposition to this resolution because of the way it is being done, the time in which it is being done, and what is implied by this resolution, but not clearly stated. No one disputes Iraq's behavior. We encouraged the Kurds to rise against them, and then we abandoned them. We encouraged the Shia down in Bosnia to rise against them, and then we abandoned them. But we have not in this place forgotten what Saddam Hussein is about. The question is, Why is there sudden rush to do this 48 hours before the Congress adjourns for a month, giving the President apparent unlimited ability to act? Now, after September 11, with the exception of one person on this floor, we authorized the President to do what needed to be done with respect to the acts of 9-11. Things have gone reasonably well. They are not through yet. We do not know where Osama bin Laden is. We do not know whether we are precipitating further problems by al Qaeda going into Pakistan. We now have India on the borders, armed. We have all kinds of questions being raised about that area that have been precipitated by our actions. I think, certainly, we knew that some of that would happen, but we were willing to take that risk. Now we come out here to pass a resolution. This resolution says: the President of the United States should insist on monitoring weapons development in Iraq. Nobody out here disagrees with that. Iraq should allow U.N. weapons inspectors into Iraq as required by Security Council Resolution 687. No once disagrees with that. Iraq remains a material and unacceptable breach of international obligations. No one disagrees with that. And now we come to it. The refusal of Iraq to admit U.N. weapons inspectors into any facility covered by the provisions of Security Council Resolution 687 should be considered an act of aggression, an act of aggression against the United States and its allies. This is the resolution that is laying on the table out here as the one that is being passed on this floor. I know someone is going to stand up and say, we have changed it. When we are doing it at 100 miles an hour, it is no wonder that Members who care cannot figure out what is going on. So I would say to everybody here who is going to come down here and vote on this, just ask ourselves, are we back in 1964 in the House of Representatives when they brought the Gulf of Tonkin out here? They brought the Gulf of Tonkin into the Senate; and they were about to vote on it, and only two Members of that body voted against it, Earnest Gruening of Alaska and Mr. Morris from Oregon. A third member raised a question. His name was Nelson, Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin, and he said, I want to put in an amendment here that says that this does not authorize the putting of troops on the ground in Vietnam. Now, Bill Fulbright went down to the White House and said to Lyndon Johnson, Lyndon, old Gaylord is going to put an amendment on here that we cannot put troops on the ground. And Lyndon Johnson said, well, you just go up there and tell old Gaylord I have no intention of putting any troops on the ground. Mr. Speaker, 500-and-some-odd thousand later, 55,000 deaths, and Lyndon Johnson did not have any intention of putting anybody on the ground. We can understand why Gaylord voted no. I do not know what the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Graham) and his colleagues mean by this: a refusal by Iraq to admit the United States weapons inspectors be considered an act of aggression against the United States. Is that a declaration of war? Well, if it is a declaration of war, then maybe the Geneva Convention should now be called in. The President of the United States, when we gave him this carte blanche in Afghanistan to do whatever he thought necessary, now we have military tribunals, secret tribunals. We have people all over this country being held without charge, in secrecy, with no access to attorneys, because the President deems that is what we are going to do. Now, I do not want to go home having given the President carte blanche to do whatever he wants for the month of December and January in Iraq.

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

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the gentleman from Illinois should know that this was picked up in the Speaker's lobby on the table where it is his responsibility to put the bills that are being considered on the floor. If this is not what it is, then he is going too fast, and that is the whole point of what the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) and I are saying. We may not disagree. We may agree ultimately we need to go to Iraq, but not at 100 miles an hour without anybody understanding. Because this is what the gentleman put out there for me to read, and I learned to read in about the first grade, and I am reading what was here. If that is not what was supposed to be out there, I certainly would like to see people explain why this was put in on December 12, passed out of committee on the December 12, and is here, and we cannot get the right version printed to be in the House. My colleagues do not care about the process, and the United States Congress is losing its power by this kind of action. When my colleagues walk away and allow people to put stuff out here without anybody reading it, they do not know. We may soon have a package of stimulus out here that repeals some parts of the campaign finance law. We are all watching carefully to see if we can catch it; but when we do it at 100 miles an hour, I have to vote against it.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, is it the gentleman from Michigan's understanding that the intention of this bill is to make benefits available for Boeing workers who have been laid off after September 11 and for 100,000 airline employees who have been laid off since September 11?

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. McDERMOTT. I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt). (Mr. SPRATT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, could the Speaker tell me how much time I have remaining?

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee). (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks and include extraneous material.)