Jim McDermott

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I think this issue of Medicare is one that I think people have a lot of interest in, and earlier today we have talked about some of the kind of shell game aspects of this whole business. I brought this out here. The gentleman knows this, of course, is the blueprint for New Beginnings. That is what President Bush stood up here and outlined for us a few weeks ago. On page 14, he says that we have a $645 billion shortfall over the next 10 years in Medicare. That means we are $645 billion short of paying for what we actually promised people. I put this chart up here because he says right on page 14 of his budget that we are $645 billion short. But if we read further, and we always have to read the whole thing, if we go back to page 51, and by that time most people are asleep, but if we read it, he says, I am going to put in $156 billion. Mr. Speaker, we do not have to be a rocket scientist or a CPA or a great investment banker or anything to see that that is not enough money to fill that hole. I do not know how they could put something together like this and have it be so obvious. Now, that is for the program of Medicare that already exists. Now, they play another game here which is a sort of interesting one. They talk about the fact that they are going to have this surplus in the Medicare plan of $526 million. It is interesting, that is what the House says they have, but the President says they only have $392 million. So we have CBO and OMB giving different figures about all this business. But the President says, we have this $526 billion. He is going to put it in a contingency fund. He is going to save it, use it in the future only for Medicare. Then he comes out here and proposes a $153 billion Medicare prescription drug benefit out of that $500 million. Now, we saw that we have a $600 billion problem, which the $500 million would seem to fill, almost. But no, no, they are going to use some of that money for the drug benefit. Last year the gentleman and I sat through on the Committee on Ways and Means when we passed a bill, or I am on the Committee on Ways and Means, and the gentleman is on the Committee on the Budget with me, but we sat in our committees and watched them propose out here a prescription drug benefit for $153 billion, for $153 billion. He says he is going to put $156 billion into it now, but the CBO has already said that that is really $200 billion that it would take to do that. They reestimated the figures. So what they are promising people is not even going to be there. It is the most complicated shell game. I got going today in thinking about how this works. When I was a kid, we went down to central Illinois or southern Illinois, and there was a county fair. There was a guy there who had this game. We had to guess where the pea was, a little tiny pea. He had these four walnut shells. He put the pea down, put a walnut shell over it, he had these three there, and he started moving the shells around. Our job, we would bet $1, was that we would be able to figure out where it is. Members have all seen me put it here, so they know where it is. They have not forgotten. If I move it around over here, bring this around over here, Members would still be able to find it, right? That is what this game is. They are double-counting. They are moving the money around between a contingency fund and fixing Medicare and buying a prescription drug benefit. They are going to use the same money for three different things. If I was sitting at home, and my mother watches this stuff, she is 91, she is sitting there wondering if she is going to get a prescription benefit or not. The answer I would have to give her is, I do not know which pea it is going to be under, which shell it is going to be under, because they are using it to buy benefits, they are using it for shoring up the whole issue, and they are still saying, we are going to give a wonderful drug benefit. The Democrats in our budget today offered $330 billion in drug benefits, twice as much as the Republicans. It is what CBO says we would have to put into the program to actually make it work. What the President is proposing with that $153 billion is to give little bits of money to every State; he calls it Helping Hands. What that means is he gives the Governor of Texas or the Governor of Oregon, as my colleagues are here, or the Governor of the State of Washington, gives them some money and says, ``Put together a program to help the poor old people in your State.'' So if one's mother is poor and has drug needs, pharmaceutical needs, she has to go down to the State and say, ``I am poor, and I need some money to help me pay for my prescriptions.'' What kind of dignity is there in that? The Democrats are spending $330 billion because we want it to be for all seniors. We do not want to make old people say, ``I am poor, and I need help.'' Most of these people, they have raised us, they have put us through college, they have taken care of us, and now when they get old, we say, we will help you if you are poor enough. That is what the Helping Hands program of President Bush is. It is not a program that goes for everybody in Medicare. The gentleman's point made earlier was absolutely correct. If we do not keep this half a trillion dollars for use between now and 2011, we are going to have a bigger hole. It is easy to explain why that is true. If there is a diet, let us say I am going to lose 10 pounds between now and the first of the year. I am going to lose 1 pound between now and the first of September, and then by the first of November I am going to lose a second pound, and then I am going to lose 8 pounds in the last 2 months of the year, through the Christmas and Thanksgiving season. If I said that, everybody would laugh. They would say, ``That is a stupid diet. You have to lose 1 pound a month and get into a rhythm of doing it.'' If we do not start saving money now, when those baby boomers, those people who are right now about 55 years old, when they come to 2010 and they get on the Medicare program, the numbers in Medicare are going to go from 40 million to 80 million, double. That is what is happening to us. We know it. They are all out there living, paying taxes and so forth. They all believe that Medicare is going to be there for them. If we do not save this money now, we are not going to have it when they get there and come to need their hospital benefits. I think that the hardest thing for those of us who are in the Congress, and the gentleman has been here almost as long as I have, people do not want to think about something 10 years out. It is kind of too far out beyond. I am only elected for 2 years. I could be gone in a year. My term ends next year. I have to get elected four more times to get down to 2010. People tend to think, let us give them a big tax break. That is why the President has given $1.6 million. He is looking at the 2004 election. That is the only thing on his mind, is how do I give this money back to the people, and they will think I am a wonderful guy, and they will reelect me in 4 years. That is what it is all about. As an additional benefit, though, for the Republicans who do not want to do social services, there will not be any money left. This particular thing, which says that we start with a $5.6 trillion excess and take out the $2.5 trillion for Social Security the gentleman was talking about earlier, and then we take out the half a trillion for Social Security, then we only have $2.5 trillion left. Then we take the $1.6 trillion that the President is promising as a tax break for everybody, take it and run, have a good time. What he does not tell us is that if we do not use that money to pay off debt, we wind up paying another $400 million in interest, because the government has to borrow that money. So if we do not take the $1.6 and pay down the debt, we wind up having to borrow more money. The second thing that happens with this new proposal of the President that he never tells anybody about is that because of the tax law, there are going to be about 28 million people who start to have to figure their income tax twice. We have something called the AMT. That is the adjusted minimum tax. That is put into the law because we do not want rich people to some way figure out how to not pay anything, so we have said that everybody ought to pay at least a minimum tax. All this machination is going to wind up with 25 million people, instead of 2 million today, 2 million have to figure it twice. Suddenly it is going to 25 million. If we fix that in the Congress, which I think we will, it is going to be $300 million. Now, that leaves us $200 billion for everything else that could happen to the country in 2010, if we believe this estimate, as the gentleman showed in this chart. Who knows what is going to be in 10 years? But if we believe that there is going to be $5.6 trillion, we have $200 billion to deal with all the problem. The President has promised this prescription drug benefit. He has promised defense. There is not anybody in this building who believes that defense is not going to get a boost up. How about if we are going to do something about education? Everybody says we cannot leave any child behind, and we have to do educational things, so that is going to come out of that $200 billion. Conservation; shall we save land, save parks and so forth? Or dealing with crime, that all has to come out of that $200 billion over the next 10 years. That is $20 billion a year. If we want to give tax cuts to people for long-term care, that is, buying nursing home insurance, and if someone buys their own health insurance, that is another $40 billion. And then we have the faith- based initiatives. We are going to give money to churches to do various things. That all comes out of the $200 billion. That does not talk about crop failures. My good friend, the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Clayton), is going to be here to talk about agriculture. It does not say anything about crop failures or earthquakes, like we just went through in Seattle. It does not say anything about any natural disasters or wars, or any kind of military action we get into, like Bosnia or anything else. Every bit of that has to come out of this $207 billion. That is just reckless. This is a reckless plan because of that $1.6 trillion. It is particularly reckless for a program like Medicare. I appreciate that the gentleman would take the time to come out here and run this special order here tonight, because I think people need to sit and think about the three shells: How much can they move this money around? Can they confuse the people? It really is based on making the people believe something is over here when, in fact, we are also using it in two other places. People get confused. Even listening to me, I am sure people do not really understand all the technicalities. I am telling the Members that I have been doing this for 30 years. This is the biggest shell game I have ever witnessed. The people are the ones who are going to suffer.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the remainder of the time. I just want to say in benediction here that it did not have to be this way. We had no hearings at which the Secretary of Defense would even come up to the committee and tell us. There is not anybody on this floor who does not think there is going to be more money in the defense budget, but he would not even come up and talk to us about it. There was no talking with our side about this budget. What we have here is a sham budget from the Republicans. They get full credit for it. God bless them.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton).

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 45 seconds. Mr. Chairman, I would say that the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson) brings out the walnut shells in me because when she starts talking about the fact that all of the money is going to Medicare and do not worry, it is in a lockbox, anybody who reads that lockbox bill and can read the English language can realize that one can call anything reform and the money comes out of it. That is all that bill says. What it means is benefits are either going to be cut or provider payments are going to be cut, or something is going to be taken away if they are not going to cut down. The President says we are $645 billion short, and we are still talking about modernizing, which means cut. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt).

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown).

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews). (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett).

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Davis).

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Chairman, I heard people talking about a shell game, and I listened to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), and I thought of having seen this shell game actually played in the State of Illinois, southern Illinois. I want to use one example so my colleagues will understood it. In the budget that is being proposed, the American people have paid, or will pay, $526 billion more than is necessary over the next 10 years to cover Medicare. So that $526 billion is represented by this little coffee bean, and we put it underneath the contingency fund. We also say we are going to use it for Medicare, and we are also going to use it for the drug benefit. The Republican budget uses that same $526 billion in two different places. They use 239 billion over here and 153 billion over there, and they still say, that we have a contingency fund over here. Now, that bean cannot be under all three of these shells. It simply is not possible. It can, however, be moved around, and that is why the game is like a county fair. You keep moving the bean or the money around, and the public guesses which one of the shells that bean is under. The Republicans are figuring that the public is not smart enough to know that we are going to move it around and move it around and keep talking, and they will never know that they are spending it in three different places. Now, the Democratic alternative, which is very simple, says we are going to use that money for advancing the long-term strength of Medicare. It is to be used after 2010, when the baby boomers start coming on the rolls, rather than spending it on the contingency fund for things in the next 10 years, or using it for the drug benefit. We are going to keep it for the time when the baby boomers come on line. Additionally, out of the money that we save from not cutting so many taxes, we put an honest-to-God $330 billion benefit for prescription drugs. This is the foolishness of what they have done. The President says $153 billion for prescription drugs. The bill they had on the floor last year was for $159 billion, now estimated to be $200 billion. So they are not even funding what they offered last year. And what we--the Democrats--are saying is that is not an adequate benefit. $330 billion is what we are offering to the American people, and we are not going to play a shell game with them. We are saving the Medicare surplus for Medicare as we know it, and we are adding to it a benefit.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Chairman, what the gentleman is saying is that the President's budget says this, and this is the one he brought up and stood up here and talked about, that Medicare over the next 10 years is going to be $654 billion short. The Republicans's plan puts nothing into that. They put $153 billion into drugs and another a bunch of money, they call it modernization, $239 billion in modernization; whatever that means, I do not know. It does add to the $640 billion.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Chair, during the break I found the symbols of this budget; I found three walnut shells and a pea here. If we watch this budget, we are going to watch these guys play that old country- fair game of moving it around. I want to talk about the numbers, because we have talked about the principles, all the principles; but let us talk about dollars. The President says, and we agree, there is $5.6 trillion in surplus. Now, if we take away the Social Security and the Medicare and put it into those trust funds and leave them there to deal with Social Security and Medicare, we are down to $2.5. We take $3 trillion out with those two issues. Now we have $2.5 trillion; we can just spend it any way we want. So the President says, let us spend $1.6 trillion on a tax break, let us give it back to the people. That sounds good. Everybody in favor of that, all right. But, let us think a minute. When we change the tax structure, we change the whole tax structure. Right now there are 2 million people who have to figure their taxes twice under the AMT. With the President's changes, there will be 25 million people who will get the pleasure of figuring their taxes twice. If we want to change that and fix the AMT, it costs $300 billion. Ah, and, if we spend this 1.6 trillion and do not pay down the debt, we wind up having to pay another $400 billion in interest. Now, if we add all of that up, that leaves $207 billion to deal with all the needs of this country over the next 10 years. The President has said he wants to give prescription drugs. That is $153 billion. So we are getting down to $60 billion for 10 years, remember; and then he wants to do something about defense, maybe $5 billion a year for 10 years. That is 50. So we are down to $10 billion, folks, left to do everything this country needs. He says he wants to do something about education. I have to get my walnut shells out here again because that man is going to have to have these to start moving it around. He says he wants to do something about conservation, wants to save the land and the trees and whatever, wants to deal with crime. But the walnut shells must have the answer, because the tax cuts for health care coverage is another issue. There is no money for the President to do what he says he is going to do. The numbers are right here. All Americans sitting at the kitchen table, take it down, $5.6 trillion minus $2.5 trillion, minus $500 billion, we have $3 trillion gone. That only leaves $2.5 trillion. It is not there. Vote against it.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Chairman, I am up here to talk about one issue, the prescription drug benefit that everybody says they want from Medicare. Now, sometimes the Republicans, when they do budgets, tell the truth. There are some people who actually come out and say what it is. A Republican acknowledged today that the $153 billion that President Bush set aside would not be enough. Let me quote him, he said ``everybody knows that figure is gone. That is what the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin) said. He said it was set before the CBO estimated last year's House bill, which he said has already gone to $200 billion. The President put $153 billion in the budget, and the bill we passed last year was $200 billion. Now the Republicans know that we have $392 billion in surplus in the Medicare plan. People pay their taxes. Everybody gets a pay stub that says HI on it, and that is the Medicare trust fund; that is we have $392 billion more than we needed. The Republicans say, well, we will keep $239 billion, and we will take $153 billion away and put it into the drug bill. That is the $153 billion, the President says. We know last year's bill was $200 billion, so we already know they are going to cheat. They are not going to give you what they promised last year. What the Democrats promised is the other one over here, where we add $330 billion out of the surplus in addition to what we put into Medicare. As I said before, this is a shell game. These walnut shells, you can move them around, but the fact is this is a walnut shell. You cannot get two things out of the same money; and, my friends, if you are counting on a prescription drug benefit, you better hope the Democratic bill passes.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I am here to oppose any tax cut until we get a budget. Now, the last speaker, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth) said we do not need a budget. Let me tell you why we do. I sit on the Budget Committee, as well as on the Ways and Means Committee, and we had the wizard from Wisconsin appear before the Budget Committee. That was former Governor Thompson who is now head of HHS. He did not answer a single question that comes from the budget book ``A Blueprint For New Beginnings which the President sent to us and told us about. On page 15, this book says that Medicare is going to be $645 billion in the hole over the next 10 years. On page 51, the President says we will put $153 billion into Medicare. Now that is $400 billion that will not be there for Medicare. Better yet, the wizard says I am going to give you a prescription drug benefit. In that $153 billion they are sticking in, somewhere they are going to come up with $159 billion for the prescription drug benefit this House passed in the last session. Those numbers do not add up, and that is just one part of this budget. I was in Seattle the other day listening about whether I should come back from the earthquake which nobody predicted. The projections on earthquakes are kind of bad. They said there was going to be 2 feet of snow here, so I got on the plane in Seattle, and I arrived here and walked off and there were two flakes. Anybody who votes for this tax budget is reckless. I will not support a tax cut without a budget. i. need budget first argument I went to the Budget Committee hearing yesterday where Secretary Thompson testified. He could not answer a single question about how we are going to meet our financial obligations for Medicare. The President allocates $153 billion to modernize Medicare--this includes a prescription drug benefit and his Immediate Helping Hand program. This ``modernization'' effort will not give the Medicare program the infusion of dollars it so desperately needs. This amount will not even be enough to fund a prescription drug benefit, let alone have any success in so-called modernization. Last year's House Republican plan alone carried a 10-year price tag of $159 billion. But according to many health care analysts, even this amount is inadequate. The administration puts Part A HI surplus into a $842 billion contingency fund. This fund must be the same ``one trillion additional reasons'' to which the President referred in his speech last week as to why we should feel comfortable with his budget. But the administration promises the HI fund will be used only for Medicare. So really, this fund is worth only about half of that amount. The administration combines Part A and B and tells us we are really in a deficit. Using the administration's own numbers, I asked the Secretary, how are we going to meet these obligations--is it through increasing the payroll tax, decreasing benefits, decreasing payments to providers? He could not answer the question. The program needs an infusion of money, but the Secretary does not know how to achieve that. Of course not--the administration is trying to ram a tax cut down our throats before considering the budget. Where is the allocation of money for the President's tax credit proposal to help the uninsured? I suppose that is one of the trillion reasons why I should feel comfortable with his budget. ii. economic stimulus argument We are told that the reason that this tax bill was rushed through the Ways and Means Committee, and rushed to the floor is because our economy is in dire need of a tax cut. We must stimulate the economy--we are told. But this tax cut was proposed in 1999. It had nothing to do with the economy then. Furthermore, the principle reason CBO's budget projections show larger surpluses in their latest estimates is that CBO now believes the economy generally will be stronger over the next 10 years than previously thought. This completely undermines the argument that a large, permanent, and growing tax cut is needed to help ward off the impending arrival of a weak economy. His tax cut will give $360 to families in the first year--this is a dollar a day. If you're lucky, you can buy a cup of coffee. How can we expect one dollar a day to stimulate the economy? Supporters claim that knowing your marginal rates will be increased will cause people to spend which will in turn stimulate the economy. All that will increase is their personal debt! Not to mention, this tax bill is dead-on-arrival in the Senate, where they will wait until after they've passed their budget. iii. government spending is good argument There has been much focus on Chairman Greenspan's testimony and the peril of reaching zero debt. There is a misconception that government spending is a bad idea. Republicans ask--who needs the money more--the American people or Washington, DC. But this is a completely misleading question and not the choice with which we are faced. Government spending is money spent for the people--for the welfare of our citizens and includes social goods that individuals independently would not have otherwise purchased. Take for example the latest disaster in my district, in Seattle. We just experienced an earthquake registered at 6.8.--6.8 in India leveled buildings and caused massive loss of life--thousands of people. But in Seattle, we were extremely lucky. There was no loss of life. I was just there. I saw the extent of the damage with my own eyes. While there was an estimated $2 billion worth of damage, it could have easily been so much worse--had we not prepared. But we did prepare--with the help of a government program called Project Impact. Seattle was one of seven cities chosen for $1 million pilot programs in 1998. This forward-looking program linked community leaders to corporations interested in blunting the economic fallout from natural disasters. The government provides the initial seed money and suggestions to get various stakeholders involved and invested in prevention and investment efforts. Project Impact began with seven pilot communities and quickly became a nationwide initiative as more communities began to see the value in disaster planning. Today there are nearly 250 Project Impact communities as well as more than 2500 businesses that have joined Project Impact as partners. As I surveyed the damage myself, I said--``This initiative worked!'' This is a prime example of government spending for the public good. But unfortunately, this administration wants to abolish it to save $25 million, as they try and find the funds to pay for their $2 trillion tax cut. This is also a perfect example of why government spending is good, and why I will not vote for a tax cut before I know the budget. iv. tax cut is biased and unfair argument The tax cut proposal from President Bush is biased and unfair, giving disproportionately less money to working poor families. Bush supporters talk in terms of marginal tax rates and percentages, but not dollars. They will tell us that the poor receive a large reduction in marginal tax rates in order to help them obtain access to the middle class. But they do not tell us that one in three families receive no benefits. Twelve million families with children would not receive any tax cut. One-third of all children and more than one-half of black and Hispanic children live in excluded families. But 80% of these families have workers. In other words, they pay taxes, payroll taxes. They have contributed to the very surplus President Bush is trying to raid. Why shouldn't all Americans benefit from the economic growth and prosperity that has resulted in our surpluses? Yes, I believe in a lockbox for both Social Security and Medicare, but there are ways to give breaks to lower income families with no tax liabilities. If President Bush really wants to help hard-working individuals obtain access to the middle class, why does he reduce rates across only the first 25% of income within the 15% bracket income tax rates--to 10%, while all other income amounts within all other tax brackets experience the rate reduction. Why am I not surprised?

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, due to the 6.8 magnitude earthquake that struck my district yesterday I have returned to Seattle with the FEMA Director and was unable to vote today. I would have voted against agreeing to the resolution to consider H. Res. 71 (rollcall No. 22). I would have voted in favor of the Jackson-Lee amendment (rollcall No. 23). I would have voted in favor of the motion to recommit (rollcall No. 24). I would have voted against passage of H.R. 333, the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (rollcall No. 25).

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support H. Con. Res. 15, the concurrent resolution to express sympathy to the victims of the earthquake and the Indian state of Gujarat. It is really with a very heavy heart that the gentleman from California (Mr. Royce), my colleague and Indian Caucus cochair, has introduced this bill. I went down to San Francisco on Friday to celebrate Republic Day with the Indian community. I have never been in such a sad place filled with people who had spent the day or the night trying to get through to find out if their families were still alive. For those of us who live on the West Coast, a 7.9 earthquake is truly terrifying. I have never been through anything that strong, and I have been through some tough ones in Seattle, and I know the gentleman from California (Mr. Royce) has in Southern California. The devastation was, of course, clearly going to be a bad earthquake. But no one realized that this was going to be the worst natural disaster in several centuries in India. Several high-ranking government officials have already stated that the death toll is probably going to reach 100,000 people. Conservative estimates on property damage suggest a $5.5 billion toll, and that is before there has really been an assessment of the problem. This resolution simply expresses our sympathies and our support for efforts by our own country in relief efforts. The physical devastation of Gujarat will not be erased for many years, and the psychological scars may never be eliminated. Gujarat is where Mahatma Gandhi came from. It is where independence sprang. His first nonviolent act was to walk from Ahmedabad, the city that was destroyed, down to the sea. This is a time of tragedy, then, for our friends in India and all its people. In recent years, we have grown increasingly closer to India. The President visited India. The Prime Minister visited the United States last year. It was truly an amazing year last year. Those ties have become tighter and tighter in large measure because of the strong Indian-American community who has made an amazing impact in our country. It has been this community that has come together to truly lead the American people's response to this natural disaster. I was in Seattle for the Republic Day celebration on Sunday, and they had already pledged a million dollars from Seattle. India is a trading partner, a strategic partner and certainly an ally in democracy. I truly hope that our token of support is received by India and the people of India with our deepest sympathies. This resolution, I am sure, will be unanimous on all sides of the aisle. I am happy this House has acted so quickly. I want to thank Speaker Hastert and the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) for acting so quickly and especially to thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) for waiving their jurisdiction so that we can vote on it today. I would like to close by offering a Sanskrit benediction: ``Sarva Mang-alam Bha-vantu,'' peace to everyone.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, in the history of the world, there are very few issues that strike us so hard as what went on during the Holocaust, but life goes on. I was noticing this morning that 100,000 people have died in India in an earthquake, and it is off the front page of the New York Times. We pass on to the next event and the next event, and people tend to forget. Mr. Speaker, and what is important, not only for us as human beings in the Congress, but for the American people and the world, to not forget is what happens if people who care are not vigilant. People who know what is going on must speak out. When I think about what will go on over there, I always think of the statement made by Martin Noemuller, who said, ``When they came for the Communist, I was not a Communist, so I did not speak up. And when they came for the trade unionists, I was not a trade unionist, and so I did not speak up. And when they came for the socialist, I was not a socialist, and I was not a Jew. And when they came for me, there was nobody to speak up.'' I think that the decision by the House of Representatives to take the time to make a day of remembrance in the Rotunda is a very small step towards helping us to remember. We, all of us, know people whose families were affected by it, and when you listen to their stories, one of the things I do on the 4th of July is give a liberty award to the immigrant to our country who has done things for the people of Seattle. About 3 years ago, I gave an award to a woman who came, when all of her family was lost, she was the only one who came to the United States. She opened a successful business, but she spent all of her extra time and money educating people of Seattle about what this is about. And I think that the House is to be commended, the leadership is to be commended to put this first on the agenda. Because if we ever forget what our democracy is really all about, we are in danger of losing it. Mr. Speaker, I am very glad to be rising in support.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I was absent and unable to vote the evening of December 15, 2000. I would have voted against H.R. 4577 (rollcall No. 603).

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I was absent and unable to vote. I would have voted in favor of H.J. Res. 126 (rollcall No. 600).

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, T.S. Eliot said: That is the way the world goes, not with a bang but a whimper. It seems like an apt description of the end of this session. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record an article from Slate, which is a magazine, an online magazine, entitled ``Ralph the Leninist.'' The article referred to is as follows: [From Slate magazine, Oct. 31, 2000] [Ballot box] Ralph the Leninist (By Jacob Weisberg) Over the past 10 days, liberals have been voicing shock and dismay at the imminent prospect of their old hero, Ralph Nader, intentionally throwing the election to George W. Bush. A first, eloquent protest came 10 days ago from a group of a dozen former ``Nader's Raiders,'' who asserted that their former mentor had broken a promise not to campaign in states where he could hurt Gore and begged him to reconsider doing so. Others, including Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter, have expressed a similar sense of disappointment and betrayal. Nader's response to all this heartfelt hand-wringing has been to scoff and sneer. On Good Morning America, he referred contemptuously to his old disciples as ``frightened liberals.'' The Green Party nominee is spending the final week of the campaign stumping in Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Oregon, and Washington--the very states where a strong showing stands to hurt Gore the most. Nader has said he wants to maximize his vote in every state in hopes of attaining the 5 percent of the vote that will qualify the Green Party for $12 million in federal matching funds in 2004. Speaking to foreign journalists in Washington yesterday, he explicitly rejected Internet vote-swapping schemes that could help him reach this qualifying threshold without the side effect of electing Bush president. In various other TV appearances, Nader has stated bluntly that he couldn't care less who wins. This depraved indifference to Republican rule has made Nader's old liberal friends even more furious. A bunch of intellectuals organized by Sean Wilentz and Todd Gitlin are circulating a much nastier open letter, denouncing Nader's ``wrecking-ball campaign--one that betrays the very liberal and progressive values it claims to uphold.'' But really, the question shouldn't be the one liberals seem to be asking about why Nader is doing what he's doing. The question should be why anyone is surprised. For some time now, Nader has made it perfectly clear that his campaign isn't about trying to pull the Democrats back to the left. Rather, his strategy is the Leninist one of ``heightening the contradictions.'' It's not just that Nader is willing to take a chance of being personally responsible for electing Bush. It's that he's actively trying to elect Bush because he things that social conditions in America need to get worse before they can get better. Nader often makes this ``the worse, the better'' point on the stump in relation to Republicans and the environment. He says that Reagan-era Interior Secretary James Watt was useful because he was a ``provocateur'' for change, noting that Watt spurred a massive boost in the Sierra Club's membership. More recently, Nader applied the same logic to Bush himself. Here's the Los Angeles Times' account of a speech Nader gave at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., last week: ``After lambasting Gore as part of a do-nothing Clinton administration, Nader said, `If it were a choice between a provocateur and an anesthetizer, I'd rather have a provocateur. It would mobilize us.' '' Lest this remark be considered an aberration, Nader has said similar things before. ``When [the Democrats] lose, they say it's because they are not appealing to the Republican voters,'' Nader told an audience in Madison, Wis., a few months ago, according to a story in The Nation. ``We want them to say they lost because a progressive movement took away votes.'' That might make it sound like Nader's goal is to defeat Gore in order to shift the Democratic Party to the left. But in a more recent interview with David Moberg in the socialist paper In These Times, Nader made it clear that his real mission is to destroy and then replace the Democratic Party altogether. According to Moberg, Nader talked ``about leading the Greens into a `death struggle' with the Democratic Party to determine which will be the majority party.'' Nader further and shockingly explained that he hopes in the future to run Green Party candidates around the country, including against such progressive Democrats as Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, Sen. Russell Feingold of Wisconsin, and Rep. Henry Waxman of California. ``I hate to use military analogies,'' Nader said, ``but this is war on the two parties.'' Hitler analogies always lead to trouble, but the one here is irresistible since Nader is actually making the argument of the German Communist Party circa 1932, which helped bring the Nazis to power. I'm not comparing the Republicans to fascists or the Greens to Stalinists for that matter. But Nader and his supporters are emulating a disturbing, familiar pattern of sectarian idiocy. You hear these echoes whenever Nader criticizes Bush halfheartedly, then becomes enthusiastic and animated blasting the Green version of the ``social fascists''--Bill Clinton, Gore, and moderate environmentalists. It's clear that the people he really despises are those who half agree with him. To Nader, it is liberal meliorists, not right-wing conservatives, who are the true enemies of his effort to build a ``genuine'' progressive movement. He does have a preference between Republicans and Democrats, and it's for the party that he things will inflict maximum damage on the environment, civil rights, labor rights, and so on. By assisting his class enemy, Nader thinks he can pull the wool from the eyes of a sheeplike public. If Nader's goal were actually progressive reform--a ban on soft money, a higher minimum wage, health-care coverage for some of the uninsured, a global warming treaty--it would be possible to say that his strategy was breathtakingly stupid. But Nader's goal is not progressive reform; it's a transformation in human consciousness. His Green Party will not flourish under Democratic presidents who lull the country into a sense of complacency by making things moderately better. If it is to thrive, it needs villainous, right-wing Republicans who will make things worse. Like Pat Buchanan, Nader understands that his movement thrives on misery. But the comparison is actually unfair to Buchanan (words I never thought I'd write) because Buchanan doesn't work to create more misery for the sake of making his movement grow the way Nader does. From a strictly self-interested point of view, Nader's stance is the more rational one. So Gore supporters might as well quit warning the Green candidate that he's going to put George W. Bush in the White House. Ralph Nader is a very intelligent man who knows exactly what he's doing. And they only seem to be encouraging him. Mr. Speaker, this article lays out, I think, the basic premise by which this Congress failed to deal with the Patients' Bill of Rights, education, prescription medicines for senior citizens. In talking about the Ralph Nader campaign, it said that Mr. Nader has made it perfectly clear what his strategy was. It is the strategy of Lenin; that is, to ``heighten the contradictions.'' That is in quotes. Now, the whole idea of bringing down the political process to make things better out of the ashes is one that has been very actively pushed by Mr. Nader in his campaign. He said it very directly in many places. He said, ``We are hoping that we will destroy the Democratic Party, and that from that will rise a new party on the left.'' This House and its failure to deal with these major issues today and in this session are a direct result of a strategy very similar announced by Speaker Gingrich. His idea, when he was in the minority, was to destroy the House; to do everything possible to discredit the government, to discredit the House of Representatives, to bring it into ill repute with everybody in the public. Now we come to this session. He started it 6 years ago. He tried it for 2 years. He lost seats in the next election. He tried it again. He lost seats in the next election. And the third time they tried it, they lost seats in the next election. Now, what we have got here is a situation where the Congress simply did not function. All that lovey-dovey kissy-face that was going on a few minutes ago is basically to obscure the fact that, although the Republican leadership said, ``We will pass the budget and all its parts by a timely date the first of October,'' but in fact, we stand here today, 1 month after the new fiscal year is in, and we have not passed three major bills. The Senate and House Republicans could not get their act together and get it down to the President. They say, well, the President was not going to sign it. They never could get an agreement among themselves to send the bill down to the President and veto it if he chose. They sent some down, which he vetoed. But if they cannot decide among themselves, maybe they should go down and sit down with the President and negotiate and get the people's business done. They could not do it. They could not bring themselves to. Having created these contradictions and all the fighting in here, they could not then sit down with the President and negotiate how to deal with tax relief for the middle class, how to deal with educational financing for schools. They could not deal with the Patients' Bill of Rights. They could not deal with prescription drugs for senior citizens. I do not know how any State is going to plan their budget when they have no budget from the United States government. They are just sort of sitting out there waiting. There are hospitals. The BBA give-backs, that is, the restoration of the unfortunate cuts that were made in Medicare, which have put hospitals all over this country in serious problems, have not been done. We are going into an election with a hospital in every one of the 435 districts represented in this House where they do not know how much money they are going to have, or if they are going to have any money to make up for the deficits they are running now. This comes from this idea that somehow they can radically rip this government up and start over new. It is a fallacious idea that Mr. Nader is using, and it was a fallacious idea that Mr. Gingrich used in this House. We must come back here and work together in the future, or this country will suffer immensely.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, it is my honor to serve as Congressional Co-Chairman of National Bible Week with Senator Conrad Burns. It is fitting that National Bible Week occurs the week of Thanksgiving, a week used by many to reflect on the past and give thanks for their blessings. Whether you consider the Bible a book of comfort, guidance, or literature, I hope this week will be one of reflection and study of the Bible. I have read and studied the Bible for as long as I can remember. I memorized passages for Sunday school as a child. As an adult, the Bible has become an important source of guidance. I have always found the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 25:31-46, most helpful as a guide to setting public policy. But even more important is Matthew 16:26 which says, ``For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?'' This verse is especially relevant to today's national leaders who are increasingly faced with votes of conscience. I commend the National Bible Association for setting aside this week to encourage others to read and study the Bible. The Bible has influenced Western art, literature, music, and even our laws. I encourage you to read and study it this week.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, as we draw to the close of this legislative year, I wanted to highlight what has been perhaps the best year in U.S.-India relations. This first year of the new century has been a year of record setting in a wide range of categories, all highlighting the steadily improving relationship between two of the world's great democracies. On September 14, 2000, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee became the first, and only, foreign Head of Government to be invited to address a Joint Meeting of Congress in the 106th Congress. The fact that this unique invitation was extended to Prime Minister Vajpayee is evidence that the Congress recognizes that Indo-American ties will continue to emerge as one of our most urgent foreign policy priorities in the 21st century. I'm proud that both Houses of Congress came together in a bipartisan manner to adopt Resolutions welcoming Prime Minister Vajpayee, and stating in strong terms the commitment on the part of the Legislative Branch to work for closer U.S.-India relations. I'm particularly encouraged that the House Resolution contained a provision urging that the U.S. Government ``consider removing existing unilateral legislative and administrative measures imposed against India, which prevent the normalization of United States-India bilateral economic and trade relations.'' The year 2000 witnessed the first State Visit by an American President to India in more than 20 years. This year actually marked the second time that India's Prime Minister and the United States President exchanged summit visits in the same year: President Jimmy Carter traveled to India in January of 1978, and Prime Minister Morarji Desai came to the U.S. in June of that year. With all the changes that have taken place in both nations during the past 22 years, the exchange of top-level visits between the U.S. and India was particularly momentous this year. President Clinton's highly successful and productive visit to India in March helped to cement Indo-American relations as no other single act could have. Additionally, the joint statement that was signed by the two leaders also produced many substantive firsts. It establishes a framework for long-term, institutional cooperation in many areas, including a Joint Working Group on Counter-Terrorism, an Indo-American Financial and Economic Forum, a bilateral Commercial Dialogue, and an Indo-American Working Group on Trade. Agreements were signed on energy and environmental and scientific cooperation. Recognizing the unique similarities of both Indian and American security concerns for Asia, both countries pledged a new partnership on regional and global security issues. The Joint Indo-American Statement, which was issued during the Prime Minister's visit to Washington in September, reaffirmed all of these unprecedented agreements. These unprecedented agreements were reaffirmed, and expanded by the Joint Indo-U.S. Statement issued on September 15, during the Prime Minister's visit to Washington. Indeed, during the five short months between summits, significant progress was made. We have seen regular foreign policy consultations at the ministerial and senior policy levels. Our two countries have played a major leadership role in the launch of the Community of Democracies. In the economic arena, three ministerial-level economic dialogues and the High-Level Coordinating Group are working to improve the bilateral trade environment, facilitate greater commercial cooperation, promote investment, and contribute to strengthening the global financial and trading systems. In their September summit meeting, President Clinton and Prime Minister Vajpayee welcomed the progress of the Joint Working Group on Counter-Terrorism, and agreed that it would also examine linkages between terrorism and narcotics trafficking and other related issues. They noted the opening of a Legal Attache office in New Delhi designed to facilitate cooperation in counter-terrorism and law enforcement. The two leaders expressed satisfaction that the joint consultative group on clean energy and environment met in July and agreed to revitalize and expand energy cooperation, while discussing the full range of issues relating to environment and climate change. They welcomed the establishment of the Science and Technology forum in July and agreed that the forum should reinvigorate the traditionally strong scientific cooperation between the two countries. In that connection, they noted the contribution of the two science and technology related roundtable meetings held in March and September. The two leaders also welcomed the recent initiatives in the health sector, including the joint statements of June 2000, as examples of deepening collaboration in improving health care and combating AIDS and other major diseases of our time. They pledged their strong commitment to addressing the global challenge of the prevention and control of HIV/AIDS through the close involvement and cooperation between the governments and civil society in the two countries. They expressed support for the collaborative program for research in various areas, including HIV/AIDS vaccine development, through the Joint Working Groups of scientists envisaged by the Joint Statement of June 2000. They agreed to encourage the formation of a business council to combat HIV/AIDS with the active involvement and participation of business and industry to raise awareness in the industrial workplace. While relations between India and the United States have generally been cordial over the past half-century, the agreements signed this year in New Delhi and Washington represents a new chapter in bilateral cooperation. During Prime Minister Vajpayee's visit to Washington, the Official Dinner hosted by President Clinton was the largest banquet at the White House during the eight years of the Clinton Presidency, with more than 700 guests in attendance. This number reflects the growing size and success of the Indian-American community, a community which finds itself at or near first place in terms of levels of education, income and professional attainment among ethnic groups in our country. The guest list also demonstrates the growing interest and support among Americans from all backgrounds of closer ties with India. A final marker of the strong relationship that has been formed was seen with the dedication of a statue of Mahatma Gandhi across from the Indian Embassy on Washington's Embassy Row. The ceremony to dedicate the statue was led by President Clinton and Prime Minister Vajpayee. For Americans, Gandhi's influence on the civil rights movement has a special place in our collective memory. It is one of my most profound hopes that the relationship between the United States and India continues to deepen and expand as we move into the years to come. I have full confidence that our policies towards Asia will recognize the importance of India to our National economic and security well being.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, as we consider the Lott-Hastert grab bag bill today, I appreciated the fact that the Speaker came on to the floor, because he is the only person who could possibly have any idea what is in this. Now, what we hear is people saying, well, there is this thing that one committee did, and there is that thing that one committee did, and there is this thing that another did, and everybody should vote for it, because one of those things might be in here. But there is nobody here who has the least idea what is in this. They put five bills in yesterday, the conference report says the minimum wage bill, taxpayer relief bill, the Medicaid-Medicare and ship benefit improvement bill, the pain relief bill and the small business bill. They dropped them in yesterday, rolled them together, tied them with a knot and brought them out here and said, vote for them; we have got to go home. Now, the public policy that is produced by this stuff is what happened in the BBA bill in 1997. The reason we are out here fixing the program of Medicare again is because you did that bill the same way. This bill has the bill that is going to destroy our overseas trade if we do not get it right. But the chairman of the committee, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Archer), who I do not always agree with, but I agree with him on the process, there should have been Committee on Ways and Means people in that conference committee looking at what got rolled into this 960 page pile of legislation. Now, if you take any one of these issues, the fact you cannot find anything in all this money to do anything about prescription medications, but you can find some money to help the drug companies push the Justice Department away from fixing price problems that they have got and discovered in the law, is, in my view, silly and unfair to the American people. I urge my colleagues to vote against it. The President will veto it. We will have a bill.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I was absent and unable to vote. Had I been present, I would have voted in favor of the motion to suspend the rules and pass H. Res. 646 (rollcall No. 551).

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill, but I think that it is important for people to understand what is going on here. The leadership in the Republican Party has got us in a slow dance here. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) has gone out and said that he does not intend to negotiate with the President of the United States about education or anything else. So today, a little later, we will work on a continuing resolution. This continuing resolution takes us until next Wednesday. That is 13 days before the election. Now, we slowly waltz out of here with Everglades in our arms and everybody goes home tonight sometime and goes to campaigning. And we will show up next Wednesday, and we will have another continuing resolution for another week so that we are here 6 days before the election. Because the leadership of the Republican Party does not want to negotiate with the President, these bills are going to be vetoed. We are never going to see the Health and Human Services budget out here because it has education at the center of it and the Republican Party does not want to do anything about education. They do not want to deal with the President because they know his proposal is right, and so we are softly being slow danced out of here. Now, some people may like that. They may think that they can go home and, if they have got the Everglades in their arms they can get reelected. They can say, well, I did this. But if we do not deal with issues like the balanced budget amendments give-backs, that issue is still there. Our hospitals are out there waiting to figure out what is going to happen. The President has said the bill that is on the table is going to be vetoed because it is wrong and it is bad public policy. But the Republican leadership does not care. If they did, they would bring it out here, get the veto, then sit down and start negotiating. But they do not want to do that. They want it as a campaign issue. The same is true with education. They want to wait and sort of slow dance education out of here and then say that they would have given us all this for education, but the President would not do it. So I would say that people today ought to vote ``no'' on the continuing resolution.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I should start first by thanking the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Chairman Shuster) and the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar) for delaying this process, or extending it. Whatever you want to say, the delaying action was in. Mr. Speaker, it is a particularly important moment for Seattle, because in 1941, at the time of the height of the Second World War, the United States chose to send to concentration camps all over the West Japanese Americans. One of them was Private First Class Nakamura. His story is largely unknown, really was unknown in Seattle, and designating this courthouse in his name is really a fitting way to acknowledge not only his memory as a true American hero, but also to acknowledge a blot on our political situation that many of us have tried hard to remove over the years. Naming this courthouse after him will certainly begin or continue that process. Bill Nakamura was born and raised in an area of Seattle called Japan Town. In 1942, while attending the University of Washington, he and his family and 110,000 other Japanese Americans were forcibly relocated to Federal internment camps. While living at the Minidoko Relocation Camp in Idaho, Nakamura and his brothers enlisted in the United States Army. They were assigned to what was to become the most decorated unit in the United States military, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. The courageous service of this unit is matched by no other unit in our history. Mr. Nakamura distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism and action on the 4th of July, 1944 near Castellina, Italy. His platoon approached the city; and as it did, it came under heavy fire. Acting on his own initiative, PFC Nakamura crawled within 15 yards of an enemy machine gun nest, used four hand grenades to neutralize the enemy fire which allowed his platoon to continue its advance. Nakamura's company was later ordered to withdraw from the crest of the hill, but rather than retreat with his platoon, PFC Nakamura took a position to cover the platoon's withdrawal. As the platoon moved towards safety, they suddenly became pinned down once again by machine gun fire. PFC Nakamura crawled toward the enemy position and accurately fired upon the machine gunners, allowing his platoon to return to safety. It was during this heroic stand that PFC Nakamura lost his life, an enemy sniper got him. He was immediately nominated by his commanding officer for a Medal of Honor, but the racial climate in 1944, 1945 prevented him and other soldiers of color from receiving the Nation's highest honor. This year, 56 years later, after he made the ultimate sacrifice for his country, he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor as the part of the process by which a number of soldiers records were reviewed. Naming the courthouse in his honor will put really an exclamation point on how we treated him and other Japanese Americans and how they repaid us, how they fought to protect the country that had done them not so well. Mr. Speaker, I do not want to take all the credit here, Steve Finely, one of the people in my district came up with the idea, the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Dunn) has worked very hard in getting the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Chairman Shuster) to bring this bill through. This bill has not been on the docket for more than about 3 weeks. So this is a rather rapid transit through this House, and I want to thank again the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Chairman Shuster) and his staffer, Matt Wallen, for their efforts, as well as the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar). There are a whole list of organizations in Washington that participated in making this possible, one person I think that needs to be recognized is June Oshima, who is Mr. Nakamura's sister. She was part of the group that asked and persuaded the Department of Defense to look at these men who had served bravely and had not been recognized. Mr. Speaker, this is a very important thing, not a big thing in the history of the world, but it is important that people who are willing to do the right thing, even when other people have not done the right thing to them, they need to be recognized. For that reason, I urge the passage of the bill. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 5302, legislation which designates the United States courthouse in Seattle, Washington, as the ``William Kenzo Nakamura United States Courthouse''. This legislation has the strong support of the entire Washington State delegation, Robert Matsui, Representative Patsy Mink, and Representative David Wu and locally elected officials in the Pacific Northwest. The legislation is broadly supported by veterans groups including the Nisei Veterans Committee, Northwest Chapter of the Military Intelligence Service, Mercer Island VFW Post 5760, Lake Washington VFW Post 2995, Renton VFW Post 1263, The Seattle Chapter of the Association of the U.S. Army. Pfc. Nakamura's story is largely unknown; designating the U.S. Courthouse in his name is a fitting way to acknowledge the memory of a true American hero, who for so many years was denied the honor he so justly deserved. William Kenzo Nakamura was born and raised in an area of Seattle that used to be known as ``Japantown.'' In 1942, while attending the University of Washington, William Kenzo Nakamura, his family, and 110,000 other Japanese Americans were forcibly relocated to federal internment camps. While living at the Minidoka Relocation Center in Idaho, Nakamura and his brothers enlisted in the United States Army. William Kenzo Nakamura was assigned to serve with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. The courageous service of this unit during World War II made it one of the most decorated in the history of our nation's military. William Kenzo Nakamura distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism in action on July 4, 1944, near Castellina, Italy. As Pfc. Nakamura's platoon approached Castellina, it came under heavy enemy fire. Acting on his own initiative, Pfc. Nakamura crawled within 15 yards of the enemy's machine gun nest and used four hand grenades to neutralize the enemy fire which allowed his platoon to continue its advance. Pfc. Nakamura's company was later ordered to withdraw from the crest of a hill. Rather than retreat with his platoon, Pfc. Nakamura took a position to cover the platoon's withdrawal. As his platoon moved toward safety they suddenly became pinned down by machine gun fire. Pfc. Nakamura crawled toward the enemy's position and accurately fired upon the machine gunners, allowing his platoon time to withdraw to safety. It was during this heroic stand that Pfc. Nakamura lost his life to enemy sniper fire. Pfc. Nakamura's commanding officer nominated him for the Medal of Honor but the racial climate of the time prevented him, and other soldiers of color, from receiving the nation's highest honor. This year, fifty-six years after he made the ultimate sacrifice for his country, William Kenzo Nakamura was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. I would like to acknowledge June Oshima, Pfc. Nakamura's sister. This legislation confirms what she and the Nakamura family have long known, William Kenzo Nakamura is an American hero. William Kenzo Nakamura embodies the American spirit--an individual who faced enormous inequity imparted on him by his country, yet nobly volunteered to protect it paying the ultimate sacrifice. The ``William K. Nakamura Courthouse'' will stand to remind us all of his and other Japanese-American's contributions and sacrifices for this country. Naming the Courthouse in his honor of William Kenzo Nakamura would be a fitting honor for him and other Japanese Americans.