Scott McInnis

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, it is with great sorrow that I now ask that Congress take a moment to pay its respects to a leader in the Grand Junction community. Mildred Hart Shaw passed away on March 25, 2001 at the age of 91. Mildred has been a model citizen of the Western Slope since 1933. For her life of service to Colorado, I would now like to honor her. For 45 years Mildred's byline appeared in the Daily Sentinel. When she first started out in the media, women reporters were traditionally assigned births, deaths and weddings, but she soon changed that. She started at the Sentinel as the society editor and a copy editor. She finally convinced then publisher Walter Walker to let her cover breaking news stories. Eventually she covered everything from politics to crime, earning the reputation of a talented and ethical journalist. She is described by her friends as determined, civic minded and thoughtful. ``She was an intelligent, independent woman,'' said William Robinson. ``She was a great supporter of the soul of Grand Junction. She enjoyed life and she enjoyed having people around her who enjoyed life.'' Mildred was active in a whole array of community affairs. She was a strong voice for then Mesa College to become a state college. She served on the Mesa County Art Center board of directors, she was a member of the executive board of the Gifted Child Committee and was chairman of the Civil Defense Committee for Grand Junction during World War II. She also started the Sub for Santa program in Mesa County. Because of her love of books, also Mildred served as the director of the Junior Great Books Program for District 51 for 11 years. Mr. Speaker, Mildred Hart Shaw will truly be missed by her family, friends, and peers, but her memory and service to the community will be forever etched in our minds. Clearly, western Colorado is a better place for having known Mildred.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to pay special tribute to the ``Citizens of the Year'' in Grand Junction. Herb Bacon, his wife Laura May, and their four children, Steve, Andy, Linda Reid, and Amy Hill were presented the award by the Grand Junction Civic Forum for their involvement in nonprofit organizations. Clearly, the Bacons are highly deserving of this great honor. Through the Bacon Family Foundation, Herb and his family have been heavily involved in numerous nonprofit organizations, wonderful causes like the United Way, St. Mary's Hospital, Mesa State College, First United Methodist Church and the Grand Junction Rotary Club. ``We asked community leaders all over town who they would nominate for this award, and Herb Bacon topped almost every one of their lists,'' said Kristy McFarland, the project director for the Civic Forum, in a recent Daily Sentinel article. The foundation was formed in memory of Herb's parents E.L. and Oma Bacon and his brother and sister-in-law LeRoy and Wilma Bacon. Helping others is in their blood. It has been part of their family's values for generations. Three generations of the Bacon family are involved with the foundation, including the grandchildren of Herb and Laura May. ``Families have the ability to leave a legacy no matter what their station in life. It's important to remember that they have an obligation to leave the world a little better than how they found it,'' Herb said in eloquent terms. Mr. Speaker, for years the Bacon family has been making our community a better place to live, and for that I want this Congress to say thank you for all that they do. These great Americans have left an indelible mark on their community and for that, Mr. Speaker, the Grand Valley is grateful.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute and give thanks to a Colorado resident who risked his life for our country in World War II. C.U. ``Peg'' O'Neill joined the U.S. Army in 1943. He became a C-47 pilot, and was stationed in England. Peg flew 11 missions into war-torn Europe. ``We could see the German antiaircraft fire coming straight at us,'' said Peg in an article from the Montrose Daily Press. ``We lost four planes out of our squadron of 18 planes that night.'' Peg's first mission began in England on June 5, 1944, were 1,000 C-47 cargo transports flew to the coast of France. The paratroopers mission on D-Day, was to disrupt German communications, secure bridges, and incite confusion, chaos and panic. This was a far cry from his days working at the Hartman Brothers Auto Dealership in Montrose. Peg participated in the battle for Nijmegen Bridge. During the famous mission for the ``bridge to far", Peg survived a mid-air collision with another allied plane trying to catch cover from anti-aircraft fire. ``The Germans had opened the sea gates and had flooded the fields,'' said Peg of his first mission. ``I had 14 men from the 101st Airborne to drop. The lightest man weighed 258 pounds in full field gear. Some of them never got out of the swamps. They were drowned.'' Peg returned to the dealership after the war with several medals, and most of all, his life and his health. Peg earned the Air Service Medal with seven bronze stars and the prestigious Presidential Citation, which was awarded to his squadron for its valor on the eve of D-Day. Mr. Speaker, men like Peg O'Neill deserve our thanks and praises for the life threatening situations they were in during World War II. Peg's story is only one of many stories from our World War II soldiers. We owe them our thanks now and in the future.

Mr. MCINNIS

Mr. MCINNIS. Mr. Speaker, for 73 years Coloradans have celebrated special events and occasions by buying that special piece of jewelry from L. Cook Jewelry on Main Street in Grand Junction. After 26 years of running the store, the Dan and Connie Rosenthal are retiring, leaving scores of memories and a legacy of service behind. I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their years of service to the community and wish them all the best in their future endeavors. ``Main Street is losing one of its highest-quality stores,'' said former state Senator Tillman Bishop of the oldest business on Main Street. ``It's really an institution to our community. I've been buying gifts from there since even before we moved here from Denver. There's a lot of history there. It was always a great gathering place.'' Dan and Connie are closing the store as they feel the tug of retirement's strings. Dan has been in the store every Christmas season of his life. Both of them look forward to getting out and enjoying life together and with their daughter. ``It's very sad to saying goodbye, but we're going out on top,'' said Mr. Rosenthal. ``We are really going to miss all of our customers.'' Much of L. Cook's success has come from the same kind of relationships for 73 years. Tillie recalls spending time in the store discussing fishing and hunting with Dan's father. ``People would gather here all day long to discuss their hunting and fishing war stories,'' said Tillie. Mr. Speaker, although the community is losing a fine jeweler and a good friend, Dan and Connie have earned well the right to slow down a little bit, a move that will turn give them more time to spend with each other and their daughter. As they do, I want to wish them all the best in the future and say thanks for the service to our community. Dan and Connie, yours was a job well done.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to pay respects to one of Western Colorado's leading citizens. James Page Kyle, who passed away on March 30. He was 83 years old. Many people through out Western Colorado benefited from Jim and the work he did. Jim was a devoted husband and father. In November of this year, Jim and his wife Evelyn would have celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. Jim attended the University of Kansas, Ottawa University and Central Missouri State Teacher's College before joining the Army Air Corps during World War II, where he served for six years. He later retired from the USAF Reserve as a Major. After WWII, Jim settled in Grand Junction where he managed Independent Lumber Company branches in Grand Junction, Palisade, Meeker and Cortez until he started his own contracting business, Kyle Sales Company in Cortez. Besides his business, Jim managed the Cortez Chamber of Commerce and was associated with the development of the Telluride Ski Corporation. In 1974, Jim returned to Grand Junction where he was the Land Use Administrator for Mesa County. After he retired, Jim felt the need to work again so he became a seasonal Park Ranger at the Colorado National Monument. During his spare time he was involved with the Church of the Nativity Episcopal Church, the Retired Officers Association, Past Presidents of Rotary International, and was a patron of the arts. Mr. Speaker, Western Colorado has lost a very hard working and dedicated citizen, which is why I would like to recognize him with this Congressional Record.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to the men and women of the Small Business Administration's Colorado District office for all that they do to help small business owners live the American Dream. In July of 1953, Congress passed the Small Business Act, which created the Small Business Association. Their function was to ``aid counsel, assist and protect, insofar as is possible, the interests of small business concerns.'' In 1964 the SBA created the Equal Opportunity Loan Program to aid poverty. SBA's programs now include financial and federal contract assistance, management assistance, and specialized outreach to women, minorities, and armed forces veterans. Over the past ten years, the SBA has helped almost 435,000 small businesses nationwide get more than $94.6 billion in loans. In Colorado alone, they have assisted nearly 17,000 customers in 2000 and contributed to the economy by helping to create and retain over 9,000 jobs. They contributed more than $319.8 million in loan guarantees, and almost $4.13 billion in government contracts. In 2000, the Mi Casa Women's Resource Center expanded into Colorado Springs to assist women interested in starting their own business. This is an outstanding example of the type of ventures that SBA supports in Colorado and throughout the United States. Mr. Speaker, small business in Colorado would not be as it is today if it were not for the Small Business Administration's dedication and help that they offer for people to live the American dream. For that, my friends at the SBA deserve hearty thanks and congratulations.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this time to honor a pillar of the Grand Junction community. Harold Elam is one of the leading citizens of Western Colorado. Throughout his life, Harold has made the Western Colorado a better place to live. For that, I would like this body to pay tribute to him. Harold currently owns Elam Construction, which has been a business staple in Western Colorado for a very long time. Under Harold's leadership, the company has been very civic minded, both on a local and state level. Elam Construction has helped out numerous citizens and organizations in Grand Junction and throughout the State of Colorado. ``Harold is so generous that he has made the local area and the state a better place to live,'' said Caroline Suplizio, a friend of Harold's and a leader in the community herself. Harold gives generously to a number of important organizations, like Mesa County School District 51, Mesa State College, Canyon View Park and the Grand Junction Symphony. He sponsors wonderful events such as the Elam Symphony Classic as well as the Elam Tennis Classic. Harold has been the recipient of many awards, including the 1999 National Award for Community Involvement, and the ``Quality in Construction Award'' given by NAPA. He has also been named the honorary Conductor of the year for his outstanding philanthropic contribution to the community symphony and the State of Colorado. This year, the Grand Junction Symphony is honoring Harold as the ``Philanthropist of the Year''. A fitting tribute to an outstanding man. Mr. Speaker, Harold Elam has been an incredibly generous member of our community. His generosity has been a tremendous boon and for that I would like to recognize him and thank him with this Congressional Tribute. Harold, your community, state and nation are proud of you, and we're all grateful for generosity, service and positive leadership.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to wish Colorado's oldest town a happy 150th birthday. Nestled in the Sangre de Cristo mountains is the small town of San Luis, which was founded in 1851. Since then it has been home to many families over the last century and a half. On April 5, 1851, San Luis de la Culebra was founded by Carlos Beaubien and established by settlers from northern New Mexico. According to Governor Bill Owens, San Luis' ``rich and beautiful heritage'' is attributed to its food, music, language, celebrations and historic buildings. Under the protection of a group of soldiers from the War Department, the settlers built homes and began to plant. The town continued to grow and in 1861 when Colorado was made a territory, San Luis became the county seat of the newly established Costilla County. As part of the celebration, Governor Owens proclaimed April as the Oldest Town in Colorado Month, and April 5 as the Oldest Town in Colorado Day. The proclamation refers to San Luis' founding on April 5, 1851, following the pattern of land grants. Carlos Beaubien then gave the people of San Luis the grant of La Vega, a common grazing area which is the last remaining true commons in the United States. Specifically, the proclamation acknowledges the San Luis Museum and Cultural Center, the Stations of the Cross Shrine and Los Caminos Antiqus Scenic and Historic Byway. Mr. Speaker, we are all proud of the rich heritage the city of San Luis has established over the last 150 years. And it is with great pleasure that I ask this Congress to recognize San Luis and wish them a happy birthday.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Madam Speaker, I have talked about the economy. I have talked about the hoof and mouth disease, and we visited a little about energy. Let me visit a little about another issue that has come up consistently throughout my district, consistently in my travels throughout this Nation, and I think most of my colleagues have experienced it as well. I intend to follow up on my remarks tomorrow evening from the House floor here, but that is this death tax. Now some may think that I am being repetitive about this, but there are some people out there that just do not get it. There are some people out there that are being swayed by the advertising of the billionaires who, by the way, not all billionaires but a select group of billionaires who have taken out ads in the Wall Street Journal and said we do not need this. To the person, every one of those people that signed on that Wall Street Journal article or advertisement that there should be a tax on death, every one of those families has already done their trust planning, their legal planning. They have had their attorneys figure out how they pay the least amount, how to protect them from those taxes upon their death. In my opinion, they are acting very hypocritically. After they have provided protection for themselves and the death tax, they turn around to us representing the government, they say you should continue this tax against the rest of America. That is pretty inequitable. Madam Speaker, I think when you talk about the death or estate tax, the first step you need to take is ask what is its history. What is its justification? Should death be a taxable event? Because somebody dies, should that be a reason for the government to jump in and tax on property, by the way, which has already been taxed. This property that we are talking about in my discussions on the death tax, this is not property which has escaped taxation, this is property which has been taxed already once but in some cases, two or three times; in some cases, for multigenerations. So the first question you ask, should death be a taxable event. I venture to say that it should not be, no more than we should have a marriage penalty tax because you get married. This should be a country that encourages marriage. This should be a country that encourages one family farm, one generation to move it to the next generation, that one family business go to the next generation. That is what this country is about. This country, after all, is built on capitalism. This country is built on private property rights. This country is built on the concept that the government works for the people, the people do not work for the government. So I do not think that you can justify death as a tax. Do you know where the history of this came about? It was in the days when people wanted to move this government towards a socialist-type of domineerance, to punish the people that were successful, to go after the Carnegies and the Rockefellers that amassed all of this wealth, and take that money back for redistribution of wealth. The old theory that you do not allow a person to be paid based on what they are worth, they are paid on what they need. It brings to mind the Ayn Rand book, Atlas Shrugged. Read that book, colleagues, or listen to Books on Tape. Is that the direction that we want to go with this death tax. It has certainly been the direction we have gone since the death tax has been put into place. Let me say I was at a meeting the other day, and a gentleman asked, Why do you worry so much about the death tax. Those kids are taken care of anyway. They do not need all of that money. That is exactly the point. I am not talking about the billionaires that signed the ad in the New York Times, I am talking about the family, the small contractor who owns a pickup, a backhoe, maybe a shed to do his maintenance in and if he is killed on the job, what about the family's opportunity the next day to continue that small business. That is who I care about. That is who I am talking about. And the very point is those people do need it. Those people do need that business to continue on to the next generation, and in many cases the families are dependent upon that business. I have an entire group of letters here, some of which I am going to read this evening who are impacted, not billionaires, how this has affected a lot of your neighbors, especially in an area like my district. In the Colorado mountains, our real estate values have continued to spiral at an increasing rate. So we have seen a challenge the likes we have never seen in the past on our family farms and our family ranches. This death tax is not right. I was at another meeting and I had a lady who was very justified in her thoughts and very professional in her approach. She said what right do the children have to inherit this property. I said they have every right, but now I have had second thoughts about it. Under our concept of government, it is not the children's right to inherit, it is the parents' right to determine where their property, which they have accumulated by following the laws, by working hard, they have accumulated property, it is their right of private property which is a basic, fundamental part of our Constitution, a fundamental part of the government that we enjoy is the right of private property. It is without question, in my opinion, the right of the person who owns the property to determine where property will go after their death. I do not think the government, who did not put out the risk, and the government had something to do with somebody obtaining property, I admit that, we have a government of laws, you do not have to worry about somebody stealing, but that is why you pay taxes. So the government has already gotten its share of taxes off the private property. I think it is the right of the owner of that property to determine to whom and in what amounts that property should pass after that person's death. Let me tell you that the hardships, and I have experienced some of those hardships, I have seen them in the communities, the hardships that are put on communities cannot be overlooked in this argument of whether or not a death tax is justified. These people will argue, this New York Times ad and some of these multibillionaires that signed this ad, who have already protected or minimized the impact on their wealth, one of the points they make is that it only impacts the upper 2 percent of our society. Let us put aside my arguments, do you have a right to tax death. Let us put that aside. Let us put aside the inequity of that, and let us say that 2 percent actually pay it. Take a look at what it does to the communities that those 2 percent live in. That money leaves those communities. If you have a small community in Iowa, and you have a family who has had a family farm for a couple of generations and they have seen a small escalation in property values, and the husband and the wife team that have made that farm a going operation pass away, and the government comes in and taxes that property and forces the sale of the farm, what do you think happens to that money of those 2 percent. Do you think that it stays in that small town in Iowa? Of course it does not. It is sucked out of that town in Iowa to Washington, D.C. A small percentage of it may stay with the State of Iowa. But by far the largest chunk, 75 percent or greater, goes to Washington, D.C. Do you think the people in these Chambers or these Federal agencies put those dollars back into that farming community in Iowa? Of course they do not. That money is taken out of these communities. For all practical purposes, it is taken from the community forever. Those are local dollars that go to local charities that provide savings in our local banks, that allow for productivity, for creation of capital. Why should the government come in after they have taxed these people during their entire lifetime, come back and once again upon their death seize this money. I do not think that you can justify it. Let me read you a couple of letters that I think kind of hit home. ``Dear sir, My name is Chris Anderson. I am 24 years old, and I currently run a small mail-order business. I am not a constituent of yours. I currently reside in New Jersey.'' That is interesting because the previous speaker was from New Jersey. ``However, I have listened with great interest as you spoke this evening on the topic of the death tax, as you called it. I in all likelihood will not face, will not be impacted by the problems you were outlining, at least not in the near future. I am not in line to inherit a business. However, I am soon to be married, and I look forward to having a family and perhaps one day my children will want to follow in my footsteps with my business. I hope and pray that they will not face the additional grief caused by the death tax. ``A 55 percent tax is, at best, a huge burden on a family business and the loved ones of the deceased. At worst, it can be a death blow that ruins what could otherwise have been the future of yet another generation. This letter is not a plea for help. I just want to let you know that although I am not a victim of this tax, I appreciate and applaud your efforts against it. I firmly believe that Congress and the government at large needs to recognize that America's future is and will always be firmly rooted in the success of small business. Many of these businesses are family owned and need the next generation to continue them into the future. I spent a few years working for a small family-owned business, and not just myself but several workers depended on the income that they derived from working for this small business. I fear for those workers when the tax man comes knocking. ``This tax has claws that rip at many people, and many more people than the immediate family of the deceased. It is also a huge impact on the employees of small businesses. I hope you do the best you can to eliminate or to do something about this death tax.'' Now, let me read another one. Tomorrow evening, by the way, I want to go into much more detail about the death tax and other impacts that it has on a community. This evening as I read these letters, I begin to feel the hardships that these families have out there. And every one of you here, you know of an example where the death tax has devastated a community or devastated a family. You know how unjustified it can be. Let me read another letter. ``Roberta and I just finished watching your death tax speech. We were both very proud to watch you as you stated some real concerns and problems that we face with this unfair taxation.'' I want to tell you, Mr. and Mrs. Schaffer, it is an unfair taxation. It is not only an unfair taxation, it is the most unjustified taxation in our entire system. ``As you so well know, farming and ranching out here is no slam-dunk. If our farm is ultimately faced with this death tax, there is absolutely no way that we could ever afford and justify holding on to our family farm. This in turn will prevent us from allowing this farm to go on to future generations. It will keep our farm from becoming one more development out in the country. In other words, keep it as open space, and most of us have deep appreciation for open space. It will not keep it available to the wildlife, the deer and the elk. In fact, for your interest, we saw over 600 head of elk on the farm this morning. It will not keep it available for unencumbered natural gas productions. ``Scott, we are only able to meet the daily operating costs of our farm under the present economic conditions of agriculture. Unless there is a positive action taken by Congress on this death tax problem, we will start having to make necessary plans to arrange our affairs so that our family can somehow struggle to make it to the next generation. By the way, there is no way we are going to let you,'' meaning Washington, ``and the IRS come and take it from us. The government does not deserve it. Of course, in order to protect our land, it will make it necessary to begin destruction of the land: The development of one of the largest open space areas of our county. Our land is quite valuable if it were broken up into subdivisions, and the only way we can keep the government's hands off it, if you do not do something about this death tax, is to break up our farm and sell it as a subdivision; therefore, having the money to once again pay taxes to the government on property which has already been taxed.'' Let me read you the next one. Mr. Allen says, ``I am writing to encourage you to keep up the repeal of the death tax on the front burner.'' Mr. Allen goes on to say, ``As the owner of a family business, it is extremely important that upon our death, the business be able to be passed on to our son and daughter, both of whom work in this business, without the threat of having to liquidate our business, to sell our business off to pay inheritance taxes on assets which have already been taxed by the government. Of all of the taxes we pay, the death tax truly represents double or triple taxation. ``I am aware that several wealthy people, i.e. William Gates, Sr., George Soros, and other multibillionaires, have come out against a repeal of the death tax. This is one of the most self-serving demonstrations I have ever seen. They have theirs in trusts. They have theirs in foundations. They have theirs in offshore accounts. They have hired a fleet of attorneys to protect their interests; and of course they will pay little or no tax because they have protected their assets. Whatever their political motivations are, they certainly do not represent or speak for the vast majority of small farmers and business owners in this country. Again, I urge you to push for repeal of the death tax.'' This is from Mr. Happy. ``I am watching you as you are talking about the death tax and the marriage tax. I wish there was some way I could help you to get these taxes eliminated.'' Mr. Happy goes on to say, ``They are the most discriminatory taxes and socialistic taxes that our entire system could envision. I can't for the life of me understand how they got put into place to start with.'' Well, as I mentioned, Mr. Happy, they got put into place because it was a way to go after the Carnegies and the Rockefellers. It was when this country was moving towards a socialistic government. They certainly did not go into place, Mr. Happy, as a result of the theory of capitalism. ``How could anyone advocate taxing somebody twice and three times. I don't care if it is a millionaire or a pauper. It is not the government's money.'' And in this letter, Mr. Happy has in this, ``It is not the government's money'' in capital letters. Let me repeat what he said: ``How could anyone advocate taxing someone two or three times. I don't care if it is a millionaire or a pauper. It is not the government's property. The taxes have been paid,'' and once again, in full capital letters, the word ``paid.'' ``The taxes have been paid. I have been considering divorcing my wife of 48 years and just living together, filing single tax returns because of the marriage penalty, or just filing separately. Why should a family who have been together for 45 years, who have paid taxes on time every year, be forced into the position of losing the property that they have spent their entire life accumulating, or be penalized because they have a marriage of 48 years? Can you answer that?'' Mr. Happy, I cannot answer it, other than the fact to tell you that there are some people here who believe in the redistribution of wealth, who believe somehow in justification of a death tax or tax upon somebody's death. Let me just wrap this up with one other letter, and then I intend to continue this later this week, because I feel so strongly about the fact that the government should not be taxing death. Mr. Frazier writes me: ``I was encouraged by the State of the Union and the President's $1.6 trillion in tax relief. We have operated a family partnership since the 1930s,'' that is what Mr. Frazier says, since the 1930s they have operated a family ranch. ``My parents died about 5 years apart in the 1980s and the estate tax on each of their one-fifth interest was three to four times more than what they paid for the ranch when they purchased it in 1946.'' In other words, his father and mother, who only owned one-fifth interest in this ranch, each paid more taxes on their one-fifth interest than they paid when they originally bought the ranch. ``Eliminating the death tax and the marriage penalty and reducing tax rates across the board will go a long ways in providing jobs. This, in turn, will enable hard-working families in our cattle country to pass their heritage on to the next generation and to continue to provide safe, wholesome beef to consumers around the world.'' Remember, a lot of these people, they are not so interested in the business, it is the heritage of their farms, the heritages of their businesses that they want to pass to the next generation. That is something our country should encourage. Heritage has a lot of value. ``I have three sons involved in our operation and a grandson starting college next fall, and it is important that we keep agriculture viable, to keep our beef industry from becoming integrated. We need to make it possible for our youth to be able to stay on our ranches and farms.'' These are not letters that I put together over at my office. These are letters that have been sent to my office by families in America, not the multibillionaires that signed that New York Times ad who have already protected their wealth from government taxation. These are people whose lives will be devastated because the government continues on its path of considering death a taxable event. Well, I have enjoyed my time this evening. We started out by discussing the economy and we have a multistage strategy that we must deploy in regards to our economy. We have to continue to have Mr. Greenspan lower the rates. He is going to do that to the extent that he can. We have to put a tax cut into place, and we have got to control government spending. I moved from our economy to our energy policy this evening. I said that we need an energy policy. The previous administration did not have one; this administration in its first few days in office said, we need an energy policy, and they are willing to stand up and put everything on the table. Now, that does not mean it is going to be utilized, but it does mean we can discuss it and we, all of us as a team, Democrats and Republicans, must come together for an energy policy. Finally, I have wrapped up with the discussion on the death tax. I intend later this week when I have an opportunity to speak again to go into more detail on the severe impact that this death tax has on American families. It is severe.

Mr. McINNIS. Madam Speaker, good evening. Welcome back to Washington. As my colleagues know, we have all had about a 2-week recess. I spent my recess back in the district going around, as many of my colleagues have done, to town meetings, talking with people on the street and talking with the different interest groups out in our district and taking kind of a general overview of several things. One of them of course is our economy. I had plenty of opportunity to discuss with people our economy. I also discussed with many of my constituents our situation with the energy crisis that we are coming upon. As many of my colleagues know from their own constituents, we have seen gasoline prices just explode in the last couple of weeks. Then of course I heard from a number of people in regards to the death tax. I went out firsthand and again witnessed the punitive action that the estate tax, the death tax, has worked upon people of this country, that has worked upon people of my district, the devastating results of people who have already paid their tax, who have the unfortunate situation of a death in their family, and here comes Uncle Sam to finish the devastation as if the family had not had enough. So I want to visit about these three issues tonight, about the economy, about energy, and about the death tax. Let me start off, first of all, talking on the economy. We have seen a lot of criticism lately about President Bush. I was listening to public radio. I listen to public radio quite a bit. I was driving in my district. Now, mind you, my district is larger geographically than the State of Florida so I do a lot of drive time in my district. I was listening to public radio. It is interesting. One of the commentators on public radio or one of the guests on public radio was talking very critically of President Bush and how he has soured the economy. President Bush has been in office, what, 12, 13 weeks. President Bush was handed this bad economy. Now, this economy could get a lot worse if we do not do something pretty quickly. Frankly, I think the responsibility to do something about this economy falls to some extent on our shoulders in these Chambers. It falls to also an extent on the shoulders of the President of the United States. I do not think this President has shunned that responsibility. In fact I think President Bush has stood up to the challenge. He started off by proposing a tax cut. Let me tell my colleagues this tax cut that the President has proposed, let us put it in its proper proportions. The President has proposed over a 10-year period, not a 1-year period, over a 10-year period, a $1.6 trillion tax reduction. Now in addition to that, what he said is that this tax reduction should benefit the people who pay taxes. It is not a welfare program intended to go to people who do not pay taxes. It is a tax reduction program intended to be more equitable and fair to the taxpayer of this country. As all of my colleagues and I know in these Chambers, we do not earn that money. We do not go out and create capital. We do not come up and figure out a better idea or a better mousetrap. All we do is go out to those people who toil, who come up with a better mousetrap, who come up with a better idea, all we do is go out, reach into their pockets, and tax them. That is where the revenue in here comes. When we have reached too deep into their pocket, which we have done over the last few years, do not my colleagues think they ought to be considered? That is what this tax cut does. It considers that. It says, if one is a taxpayer, we think there ought to be a little something in it for one. Now, one does not get the whole piece of pie. That would be much too imaginative for someone to think that, when the government taxes one, one is going to get a big chunk of the pie as a taxpayer. But the President has said one deserves a part of the pie. Now, what part of the pie is that. Over the next 10 years, to put this in proportion, over the next 10 years, and the estimates vary a little bit, but approximately there is going to be $33 trillion coming to the government from these people out there, the taxpayers, the citizens of this country who go to work every day, who come up with a better idea, who put in their shifts, who pay their taxes fairly and pay their taxes on a timely basis. $33 trillion will be gathered from those people in the next 10 years. Of that, if we take a look at the spending that we now have, we take a look at the spending that is forecast, our guess is we are going to spend about $28 trillion of that. So if we have about $33 trillion, and we are going to spend about $28 trillion, that leaves us about $5 trillion in surplus. Of that, the President has asked for 1.6, $1.6 trillion. About a third of that goes back to the taxpayer. Now is that too much to ask? When I was out there visiting with my constituents over this last recess, I do not think my constituents thought that was too much to ask. In fact, I found my constituents saying, how do you justify the level of taxation that you have placed upon us, especially when we talk about things like the marriage penalty, especially when we talk about things like the death tax. Are we getting a bang for our dollar back there in Washington, D.C., Mr. Congressman? That is what those people wanted to know. Now as we know, the President's tax policy is a long-term policy. This plan was designed when he was running for President. It has been fine-tuned since he has been elected to President. But as we know, we also need, on top of that, we may need an additional stimulant to put into the economy. In order for us to avoid a downward or a spiral so to speak that gets out of control and takes this economy into a recession, we need to come up with a strategy. That strategy really is multileveled. The first level of that strategy is the President's tax reduction, and everybody in these Chambers ought to be giving serious consideration to it. I would tell my colleagues, especially the liberal side of the Democratic Party that opposed any kind of tax reduction, then came out with their Presidential candidate, and I think the gentleman proposed a $400 billion tax reduction. Then the next level was $600 billion. My guess is that before this is over, especially in light of the current economic situation, that even the liberal Democrats are going to have to step forward; they are going to have to step forward and help us institute a tax credit or a tax reduction back into this economy. We have got to get some stimulation. On top of that, if this economy continues to sour on us, I think there is a very justifiable basis for a capital gains reduction; and many, many millions and millions of people in this country will benefit almost immediately from a reduction in capital gains taxation, say, from 20 percent down to about 15 percent. So the first strategy that we need to invoke to take on this souring economy is some type of tax reduction. Now, some of my constituents actually were swayed by this; they have been swayed by the argument that leaves the money in Washington, D.C., that all of us sitting in these Chambers will leave our hands off it. As I said in countless meetings, it is like leaving a jar of Girl Scout cookies in the room with me, and I am hungry, and telling me not to touch them while you go out for a couple of days. Of course they are going to get eaten. Any money left in Washington, D.C., I guarantee you, do not let them try to persuade you that it will go to additional expenditures like education. This money will be utilized to provide more pork. This money is being heavily lobbied for right now, as we speak, by special interests in this city. Throughout the rest of America where you are providing these tax dollars for the city of Washington, D.C., where your Federal Government is located, I can assure you that a lot of those tax dollars are funding, in fact, lobbyists of special interest organizations who want to spend those dollars. Do you think there are a lot of people in Washington, D.C. that want to see the taxpayer get some of those dollars back? Of course they do not. They want to take those dollars and enhance their special interests. And they know that in order to convince the American public that those dollars ought to stay in Washington, D.C., instead of a small fraction of those dollars going back to the people that paid them and sent them here to Washington, D.C., in order to do that, they put up very persuasive marketing efforts. Do not kid yourself; they are not going to come out to the taxpayers in Colorado or Wyoming or Utah or California or Washington; they are not going to come out to those taxpayers and say, ``Hey, we've got a bad program in Washington, D.C. we want you to fund. We want to buy drunks a new car or we want to tear down the forest with a bunch of money.'' That is not what these programs are like. These programs sound good, education, this, that, motherhood and apple pie. Frankly one of the problems we face back here is a lot of these programs are in fact good. But the reality of the situation is, we do not usually have a lot of choices between good and bad programs back here in Washington. Our choices are generally between good programs and good programs, and it is a tough decision. But we, in fact, have to say no. We cannot fund everything that comes into our office. As many of my colleagues know on a daily basis, we have requests for lots and lots of money. We have got to take a serious look. We have got to tighten our belts just like everybody else, just like the working families of America have to tighten their belts with this economy beginning to slow down as it has. So the first strategy, the first layer of that multilayered strategy that we must put into place is some type of tax cut that means something. While we are on that point, do not send out a $300 billion tax cut to the American taxpayers. That does not do any good for the economy. You have got to have a tax reduction that means something. You have got to have something like a capital gains reduction that means something, getting rid of the marriage tax, which means something out there, eliminating the death tax which means something out there. A tax cut that reduces the liability of the taxpayer, not the person that does not pay taxes but of the taxpayer; make it mean something. That is how your first layer of a tax cut will help impact this economy in a positive fashion. The second thing we have got to see happen, and it is happening as we speak, is reduction of the interest rate. Now, Alan Greenspan and the Fed surprised everyone last week with a half a percent reduction in the prime lending rate, in the prime rate that the Feds put out. Why is that a surprise? Why do you think it was handled over a telephone call? Why do you think it was unexpected? Because the Feds, they sense we have got problems ahead and we need to address it now and we need to put stimulation into the economy now. So those interest rates are going to have to come down again. But how much more room do we have on the interest rates? You can continue to lower the rates, but at some point the lending institutions in this country have to have a margin. They cannot loan at zero. Who is going to put their money out there to loan it at 2 percent where it has got risk? So at some point the banks, instead of loaning at prime, will have to loan at prime plus 1 or prime plus 1\1/2\, et cetera. So the advantage of the reduction in rates can only go so much further. But so far I think Greenspan is doing a good job. Now, some will say he should have done it 6 months ago. But I can tell you 6 months ago, a lot of people were thinking that everything Greenspan was doing was perfect. So in the world of finance, hindsight is always perfect. The fact is, Alan Greenspan is participating, he is addressing this thing I think in a fashion that will help us slow down this slowdown or level off this slowdown and put us back into a recovery stage. The third step that we have to take on this multilayered strategy is that we have got to control spending. We cannot allow the government to continue to spend as we spent last year. The 11 percent, 12 percent spending rate, which by the way is a much higher spending rate than almost every tax-paying family in America got to enjoy last year, cannot continue forward with this government. This is not a government that should continue to spend and spend and spend and spend. Many of the critics of President Bush's budget and many of the critics of President Bush's tax reduction are special interest groups in Washington, D.C. Do not kid yourself. Everybody has got special interests. I have special interests. Water, I worry about water in the West. I worry about land issues in the West. I worry about education for my three children. I have a special interest in those areas. But every special interest is going to have to help participate in our government attempt to try and level off this slowdown in our economy. I do not think it is too much to go out, and President Bush has not gone out and asked a lot from the government. President Bush has gone out to the government and said, Look, you get to keep all the money you had last year, Government. But as your leader, as the President of the United States, I am telling you we cannot continue on this spending spiral. We cannot go on like that. I am not asking you to go down. I am asking you at the government level, let's just knock it down a little. You can go ahead and have everything you have this year, governmental agencies, but next year we are going to keep it to a 4 percent increase, 4 cents on the dollar. I asked when I was in my district how many of my constituents were going to have a 4 percent increase in their budget next year from their employer. I did not have very many of them that said they would. I did not have very many of them that expected they would. So I think it is entirely reasonable that the President ask that the government agencies, they too tighten their belts and they too live within a reasonable spending increase. Let me tell you one of the favorite ploys that is utilized by special interests in Washington, D.C. I will use the board here as an example. This is an old-time trick used in budgeting and used by special interest groups. Let us say, for example, agency X received $10 in last year's budget and let us say that agency X this year asked for $20. They got $10 last year. This year they are asking for $20. Let us say that the President comes out with his budget and says that agency X should get $15. They got $10 last year, agency X, they are going to get $15 this year under the proposed budget, but they wanted $20. Now, the average American out there calls that a $5 increase. Last year they got $10; this year they are going to get $15. Do you know what they do, the lobbyists and the special interests for agency X? They go out and say, wait a minute, they go out to our constituents, they go out to the general public and they say, We are getting our budget cut. You have got to write your Congressman. You have got to call your Congressman. They are cutting education or they are cutting water or they are cutting highways or they are cutting the school lunch program. You name it. You have got to call them. They are cutting us. Ask them what they really mean by cutting. Has the President in his budget and have we in Congress really cut their budget or have we reduced what they have asked for? I think you will find in most cases the reductions they are talking about are reductions in what they have asked for, not reductions in what they actually received last year. In fact, in many of those cases, you will find they actually got an increase over last year. Again, there are really three strategies that we have to deploy now. Again, one of them is to reduce those Federal interest rates. That is happening. The second one is to put into place the President's tax cut proposal. It is going to be modified, but we have got to have it close enough to his proposal that it is going to make a difference in our economy. And I think that is going to happen. And the third thing that we have to do is control government spending. That is going to be our challenge on this House floor. That is the one burden that is on the shoulders of each and every one of us. We have got to have enough leadership on both sides. Both sides of the aisle have to come together. Now, I realize that the Democrats, especially the liberal leadership of the Democratic Party, the liberal side of that party, feels that they are an opposition government and may not join with us; but I can assure you that there are a number of conservative Democrats, as well as the Republicans, that will come together to try and control that government spending. We have got to do it, because if we do not, everyone in this Nation suffers as a result of this economy slowing down worse. The last thing you want this economy to do is to slow down to the extent that we begin to lose consumer confidence. Last month consumer confidence was up, but the news released today tells us that consumer confidence is back down. The consumers have confidence when they have trust in their government, that government is going to control spending, when they know they are going to have more dollars in their pocket as a result of a tax cut and when they know that the interest rate that they finance their home, that they pay their credit cards, that they pay for their new car, that that interest rate is going down. That is what restores or holds consumer confidence. That is the key ingredient out there for this economy. Now, let me tell you about a missile we have got in the air. We really have two missiles right now in the air dealing with the economy. One is the hoof and mouth disease. Many of you have heard about the hoof and mouth disease. Let me tell my colleagues, let me distinguish at the very beginning of these remarks about the hoof and mouth disease. That is not the mad cow disease. There is a distinct difference between the mad cow disease and the hoof and mouth disease. The mad cow disease is a terrible disease. But the hoof and mouth disease, which is the one we are expecting sooner than later to appear somewhere in this country, humans do not contact it. Now, humans can spread it. Humans can spread it simply through touch. It can be on the bottom of their shoes. This disease can actually spread through the air for, I think, 10 or 15 miles. But the hoof and mouth disease is not the deadly mad cow disease. So when--I am not saying ``if'' because I think it is going to happen, but when there is an outbreak in this country of the hoof and mouth disease, the citizens of this country and our constituents should not panic. We have our Federal agencies coordinating. We have Joe over at the FEMA, we have the Department of Agriculture, we have the CIA, we have the Department of Interior. We are putting a lot of resources into trying to figure out when it hits, how to attack it, how to eliminate it, how to localize it and how to keep the public relations on it in such a way that people do not think it is the mad cow disease that has come into our country. Now, if in fact we have that hoof and mouth disease and if in fact we let a phobia come out of that that creates some kind of lack of consumer confidence or some kind of panic amongst our consumers in regards to the beef industry, it could have a very negative, dramatic impact on our economy. I think it is incumbent upon all of us out there, and our constituents, not to panic if that hoof and mouth disease ends up in this country, to address it. It is kind of like responding to a fire. I used to be a volunteer fireman and I used to be a police officer. The worst thing you can do as a police officer or a volunteer fireman, or any fireman, is to panic when you go to the scene of an accident or you go to the scene of a fire. We have got to remain calm. Do not panic if this hoof and mouth disease shows up. One, you should rest assured that at least the government is going to do what we can do. What we are learning from what is happening over in the United Kingdom, fortunately we were not the first ones out of the chute this time. We are learning from their trials and tribulations dealing with this hoof and mouth. So I think we are going to be able to address it. But we need help from you, we need help from your constituents and we need help from the consumers of America. Do not panic. Understand what it is. Now, this leads me into the second so-called missile we have in the air. That is our energy crisis. During my meetings, and even the preceding speakers before I arrived here this evening, I heard criticizing the President about the energy policy. What kind of energy policy did Clinton have? He did not have an energy policy. There has not been an energy policy in this country for years. President Bush has only been in office for, what, 12 or 13 weeks and one of the first mandates this President placed on the American people was the fact we have to have an energy policy. There are some things we should take a look at. We should have a big table, and we should place everything on the table. It does not mean it is going to happen, but it means we ought to talk about it. It means energy ought to be in most discussions we have in this country when we talk about the economy, when we talk about the health of the country. What are our energy needs today? What are our energy shortages today? How are we going to mesh the two of these into the future? What are we going to do about California? President Bush on a number of occasions has talked about California. Now I will say, I do not have a lot of sympathy for California. They have not allowed a power plant out there for 15 years. They have not allowed a natural gas transmission line for 8 years, 10 years. Some of the hardest-hitting radical environmental organizations in the country come out of California. We have not had an inland refinery, which these organizations have opposed, built in this country for 25 years. I do not know how many years ago a nuclear facility was built. My point is this: while you may not feel much sympathy for California, and I do not because they have kind of adopted the not-in- my-back-yard theory, the fact is that we have to put those emotional angers or lack of sympathy for a State like California aside. California is a State in the United States, and a lot of times what hurts California is going to hurt the rest of us. A lot of times what is bad for California is bad for the United States. We have to stand side by side with California. We have to stand side by side with every State in this Union and, as a team, determine what our energy policy will be. That is exactly what the President of the United States has said. This is the United States. This is a country which as a country must come up with some type of energy policy. One does not come up with a credible energy policy by pretending to address things, and not addressing them, that are somewhat painful. The fact is we are going to have to explore for more resources. Conservation is an important issue and conservation can provide some of that gap that we have today, some of it, but not all of it. When we sit down and we talk frankly with each other, we know that we have to find some additional supplies of energy. Now I heard a quote, I even wrote it down, from one of the previous speakers. Apparently he has visited some farm where they have enough wind generation; and he said if we could put this wind generation in place, it would supply the energy for all of the United States. Come on. Give me a break. Show me where that is going to happen. If we had that capability, you do not think we would not have wind generation in this country right now in vast quantities? I read an interesting thing, I think in the Wall Street Journal, today about wind generation. Some of our environmental organizations, and I think justifiably, are saying about wind generation, you are killing birds. Unfortunately, you are in a migration path and a lot of birds are going into your propellers on the wind mills and you can have acres and acres and acres and acres of wind mills and we are not producing much energy. Now that is not to say that we should not consider wind mill-generated power. We should. We should consider solar-generated power. The fact is, we have a gap that we have to fill fairly quickly. The first way to begin to close that gap is conserve. We all are conserving right now. The second way is to put an energy policy in place. Now let me mention to you why I am saying we are all conserving right now. I do not know about you, but a year and a half ago at my house, and I live high in the Rocky Mountains so in the winter it is cold, we need that heat, I can say that a year and a half ago, I admit it, I probably had my temperature on 68 degrees, 70 degrees in most of my house; and if I was chilled, I went into my house, and I did not think anything about moving the gas thermometer up to 80 or 85 to warm up for 30 minutes or so. Well, that is not happening today. In fact, my wife just called me. She just called me about 2 hours ago and she said, Guess what our public service utility bill was for last month? 130 bucks. A month ago it was 500-and-some dollars. We have changed our policies at our house, at my own home. Now when you go in a room in our house, we have thermometers that are set at 50 degrees, and maybe one is at 68 degrees. So I think across America all of us are beginning to conserve. It is an important part of it. As the President has said, we need to figure out a new source of energy. Now the President says put it on the table. Let us talk about ANWR. Let us talk about drilling off the Florida coast. Let us talk about where we can go and what can the Federal Government do to help with this energy crisis. Let us talk about lifting sanctions off Iraq and sanctions off some of the other countries we have that are oil-producing countries, that might put more oil on to the market as a result of those sanctions being lifted. The President did not say let us adopt it. The President did not issue an executive order which were the favorites of the last administration we have, I might remind my liberal colleagues. The President did not say put it in place. He did not issue an executive order that said do it. He said let us consider it, put it on the table, put it up for debate. What happens? How interesting. He puts it on the table, the President puts it on the table for debate; and the first thing we do is hear criticism after criticism. Worst environmental President we have ever had; it is a damage to the environment. How interesting. These people that are screaming the loudest probably have their thermometers at 70 degrees at their house. They probably drive a car. They are probably wearing clothes that were produced by machinery. I mean, there is lots of energy consumption in this country by the very people that are being the most critical of this President who is saying, look, I am not saying we necessarily have to go with ANWR. I am not saying we necessarily should go off the coast of Florida. I am saying put it on the table and let us discuss it, because reasonable people can come to reasonable conclusions and reasonable conclusions lead to reasonable solutions. That is what we have to do. This energy thing is nothing to laugh about. The situation in California, sure a lot of us may have chuckled about, well, California they got what they deserved; but the fact is it hurts California and it hurts the United States. We need to help California because, in turn, it helps us. Take a look at the amount of agriculture that comes out of the State of California. I read a statistic the other day, and I think my recall of it is that if California were a country it would be like the third economic power in the world if it was a country of its own. We cannot simply disregard California. We cannot discount the problems that California is having. Nor can we discount the problems of the smallest State in the Union. The fact is, we are a Union and we have to come together with an energy policy; and we expect our President to put forward some kind of structure so we can have that energy policy, and that is exactly what this President is doing. Do you think the liberal Democrats are giving him credit for that? No, of course they are not. Do you think some of these environmental organizations, Earth First and some of those type of characters, are giving him credit? No. They are out there fund-raising by screaming wolf, crying wolf. Look, this is going to be a disaster. Where the disaster is going to come is if we sit and we do not put anything on the table for discussion and as a result we do not end up with an energy policy. This country needs it, and I think the President is exercising sound leadership in going forward. I noticed a couple of my colleagues criticized, for example, the Kyoto Treaty. A lot of us now have heard about the Kyoto Treaty. This is not something that is new, by the way. What should be pointed out, President Bush did not kill the Kyoto Treaty. The Kyoto Treaty went down on a 99 to 0 vote. There was not one Democrat Senator, there was not one Republican Senator, who voted on Kyoto last year or the year before when it came up for a vote. Ninety-five to 0 is my understanding, or maybe it was 95 to 0; but I think it was zero in support of Kyoto. Why? Because it was not balanced. Why? Because it was not fair to the United States. Why? Because it put such a burden on the United States that the United States would be at a distinct disadvantage in this world. That is why. So the President, in talking about this, all of a sudden they see an opportunity to hang something on the President as being anti- environment. The people out there that are crying against the President on this environment, they better be prepared to come forward and have something to put on the table for our energy policy. I invite them to do that, by the way. I think all of us need to come to that table, but have something that is going to work. I noticed that some people criticized the President's reduction in research in some alternative energy methods. Do you know why? They are not producing. Research is a nice, magical word; but after all of these years, after all of the billions of dollars they have put into particular research, if it is not giving production, if results are not received out of it, something different has to be done. That is what the President is proposing. The easiest thing to do is say, well, I am for more research. It is easy for every one of us to go back to our districts and say, I am for more research. I am going to vote for more research for alternative energy. Count on me. I am going to solve the problem. That is nothing but a stall. Every one of your constituents ought to say to you, hey, if you are going to support this research, what research are you supporting? What kind of results have you gotten? What kind of date in the future are we going to have this product? What is it going to mean to the energy gap that we have today? What is it going to mean for the energy gap that we are going to have tomorrow? You ought to be able to justify, you ought to be required to justify, the research dollars that you are spending out there. If you cannot justify it, stand up. That is how we got to the car, that is how we got to the airplane, that is how we got a person to the Moon, that is how we developed medicine, through research. But many people in the history of this country have had enough guts to say, look, the money we are spending on research today is not giving us what we need. Let us try a different path. Let us use a different approach. Do not keep throwing good money after bad money. I think this President has stood up and taken leadership in that regard. Now the easiest thing to do would be for the President to say, well, let us just do like the previous administration, no energy policy. Let us just pretend that California can work out of this on their own and it is not going to be a crisis. Let us just pretend that the research is going to give us the answers, because certainly I can stall it through the next 8 years of the Presidency. But this President is not that way. This President is a doer, and he wants something done about the energy crisis, and many of my colleagues on this House floor want something done about this energy crisis. But we better take it serious because it is serious out there. The disease, the energy disease, or whatever you want to call it, the energy shortage or the energy crisis that is in California today could be on your doorsteps tomorrow. We need to conserve and we need to explore. We need to find other sources of energy. We need to look for alternative energy. There has got to be a combination, and you begin that with a map. It is just like a road map. We need to take a trip, and we have some pretty tough terrain to get over. The easiest way for us to take that trip is to have a road map; and if we do not have a road map, and in this case we do not have a road map, we do not have an energy policy, we need to make a road map. That is exactly what this President is proposing. It does not mean we are going to go over this mountain or that mountain, but every mountain ought to be laid out on our map. Every mountain ought to be laid out. Every trail ought to be looked at, to see whether that is the trail that we should take. That is exactly what the President is saying we should do. I support the President in regards to those efforts. The Death Tax Should be Eliminated

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize two of Grand Junction's leading restaurateurs and an outstanding dining establishment. After 28 years, Winery owner Frank Bering is retiring from the business, turning over the reins to Chris Blackburn who recently purchased this long-time staple of Main Street eateries. I would now like to pay tribute to both of these outstanding individuals and a wonderful restaurant known throughout western Colorado--The Winery. Frank founded The Winery 28 years ago after he moved to the Western Slope from Chicago. Frank decided Grand Junction needed a good restaurant after he ordered a glass of red wine, which was served chilled instead of room temperature. With the help of Grand Junction residents, Frank opened The Winery. ``I'm bittersweet about it, but I'm going on to a new life,'' Frank said in a recent Grand Junction Daily Sentinel story about leaving the business. Frank's restaurant did very well, thanks both to great food and the oil and uranium boom of the late 70's and early 80's. It was then that Frank decided to open up G.B. Gladstone's, and managed to keep it going through the economic bust of the 80's. My good friend Chris Blackburn, who recently bought Gladstone's as well, views Frank as a pioneer who saw potential where no one else did. According to John Moss, another restaurant owner and personal friend of mine, Frank did more than build a reputation and make a living--he changed the culture and the community of Grand Junction. Mr. Speaker, both Frank and Chris deserve the thanks and commendations of this body. As Frank moves on to new pursuits, we say thank you for your hard work and service. As Chris takes the helm at one of Grand Junction's best known restaurants, we say best wishes for continued success.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to wish Western State College in Gunnison, Colorado a happy 100th birthday. Since 1901 Western State College has been a model of excellence. It is that record of achievement that I would now like to honor. On April 16, 2001, then Governor James B. Orman signed a bill creating the Colorado State Normal School at Gunnison. This bill was a victory for the citizens of Gunnison, who would claim the first college west of the divide. This was the culmination of years of work on the part of Gunnison area citizens. Early efforts for a college came in 1885 when Archie M. Stevenson, a Gunnison resident and state senator for the district, introduced a bill in the Colorado General Assembly. The cornerstone for the Normal School building was laid in October of 1910 with the first classes beginning in September of 1911. A total of 13 students attended classes taught by ten professors. In 1923 the college's name was changed to Western State College and it became a liberal arts college. Over the years Western has earned a reputation as a College whose faculty care deeply about teaching and working closely with the students. Western State College has developed strong academic programs in many areas and have attracted faculty with degrees from all over the world. Western's biology program has received a ``Program of Excellence'' award from the Colorado Commission on Higher Education. In 1975, Western's Water Workshop began, and continues to attract participants from around this region to work on one of west's most pressing issues. Western has recently opened a state of the art $9 million science building, making it one of the most sophisticated science facilities in the state. Its athletic department has placed in the top 10 nationally over the past few years in the Sears Cup for outstanding Division II schools. Mr. Speaker, for 100 years, Western State College has continued to excel in its educational mission. I would like Congress to praise the institution for its outstanding accomplishments and wish it continued success and another 100 years of excellence.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate, Operations Management International, Inc., one of the 2000 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award winners. President Clinton presented the Malcolm Baldrige award to OMI. The award, first presented in 1988, recognizes US companies for business performance excellence and competitive improvement. It is the highest-level quality award given in the U.S. The Baldrige Award evaluates organizations on seven performance excellence criteria: leadership, strategic planning, customer and market focus, information and analysis and human resource focus. This award recognizes organizations that play a major role in energizing our nation's economy and quality of life. OMI uses these criteria as a cornerstone for its ``Obsessed With Quality'' process. OMI is an employee-owned global leader in the management of water, wastewater and utility systems. This is the first time that a water treatment company has won the Baldrige Award. OMI operates and maintains more than 160 public and private sector wastewater and water treatment facilities in 29 states and eight countries. Their primary services are processing raw wastewater to produce clean, environmentally safe effluent and processing raw groundwater and surface water to produce clean, safe drinking water. ``OMI began its quality journey in 1990 when we initiated our `Obsessed with Quality' process. Winning the Baldrige Award demonstrates how our quality process continues to positively affect the millions of lives our people touch . . . My thanks to all OMI associates for a job well done,'' said OMI President Don S. Evans. Mr. Speaker, OMI is helping our economy grow and is setting an example for other businesses to follow. I want to thank them and congratulate them for their continued success.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, it is with great sadness that I ask this body to pause for a moment and pay respects to one of the great citizens of the Western Slope of Colorado. On March 27, Dr. Charles Teissier Frey passed away. He was 83 years old. His passing is a great loss to the community of Cedaredge, Colorado. Dr. Frey is survived by his four sons, Larry, Robert, William, Stephen, his five grandchildren, wife Ada Lewis, and his sister, Evelyn. Dr. Frey has been a member of the community since 1947. Before moving to Colorado, Dr. Frey attended Tulane University and Louisiana State University Medical School where he learned to be a doctor. In 1942, he joined the U.S. Army as a physician. Dr. Frey was a member of the American Board of Family Practice and the American Academy of Family Physicians. He has been given numerous honors, awards and distinctions as well as the National Rural Health Practitioner of the Year for 1987. While in Cedaredge, Dr. Frey served on the Town Council for eight years. He also served as a volunteer with Project HOPE, were he worked on a Navajo Reservation in Belize, British Honduras and Taiwan. He was also a member of the Cedaredge Community Church. In the late 60's, Dr. Frey gathered a group of acquaintances and friends to arrange funding for a nursing home which would be dedicated to maximum service and minimum profit. For 15 years the Horizons Nursing Home paid no dividends and no fees to the Board of Directors, while serving seniors admirably. Mr. Speaker, the community of Cedaredge and Dr. Frey's family will miss him greatly. He has done so much for the community, that's why I would to take a moment and honor Dr. Charles Teissier Frey. He is a great American and distinguished Coloradoan who will be greatly missed.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Colorado State Senator Jim Dyer of Durango for his years of service to the State of Colorado and to wish him good luck in his new position. Senator Dyer has accepted a nomination by Colorado Governor Bill Owens to join the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. Although the State Senate will miss Jim greatly, I know that Jim's leadership and service to the State of Colorado will continue with the PUC. Senator Dyer has been a member of the State Legislature for 15 years serving in the House for 12 years and the Senate for 3 years. He was first elected to the House in 1986, and then in 1998 he was elected to the state Senate. He served as the chair of Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee, as well as on the Veterans and Military Relations Committee and the Transportaiton Committee. ``I think we've all been served well by Jim. Regardless of the fact we're of different political parties, he's a good friend of mine. . . . Jim has always taken a strong stance for us locally. Jim has never lost the viewpoint that small government is important to the process,'' said County Commissioner Fred Klatt. Senator Dyer has also had a distinguished career in the military. Senator Dyer served in the U.S. Navy from 1959-1964 and the U.S. Marines from 1964-1979 with three tours of duty in Vietnam. During his years in the military, Senator Dyer was recognized with the Soldiers Medal, three Bronze Stars, the Air Medal, the Gallantry Cross with Palm (Republic of Vietnam), and the Order of Military Merit (Republic of Korea). In his spare time, Senator Dyer is involved as a member of the VFW, the American Legion, the National Rifle Association, and the Durango Historical Society. ``I feel he has been a very fine Senator and represented our area very well. He has always been responsive to our needs and responsive when he could do things for us at the state level,'' said Mayor Jim Shepard. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Senator Jim Dyer on his new position and wish his good luck in the future. He will be missed in the state legislature. Mr. Speaker, Senator Dyer is a person of high integrity and honor. I consider it a privilege to have known and worked with him. Jim has served the State of Colorado well in the state Senate and I know he will continue that record of leadership in his new capacity with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment and pay special tribute to a very special person. Doctor Gordon Gilbert, a professor of physics at Mesa State College for over 20 years who has seen and done a lot in his lifetime. It is with this life of service that I would now like to recognize. After receiving his masters degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dr. Gilbert went on to work for the Apollo Space Project at NASA. He was part of the team involved with the lunar landing. When that program finished, he went back to MIT to earn his doctorate. When he finished school, the University of Arizona offered him a faculty position, where he spent 10 years observing and researching galaxies and quasars from the new Kitt Peak National Observatory. Dr. Gilbert's dream has always been to teach, and that finally came true in 1980, when a small liberal arts college in Colorado hired him and a group of distinguished colleagues to build their physics program, which today is cutting edge. Dr. Gilbert has an unusual but highly successful style in his classes. He has been known to show up as Isaac Newton, Galileo, or Albert Einstein. Dr. Gilbert has continued to teach and do research while battling prostate cancer for the last 10 years. ``I'm told I have about three more years. I've been told that every other year since 1992.'' Despite all he has accomplished, his greatest gift is being a dad to his three kids, Beth, James, and Thomas. ``It may be true. I don't laugh at it. I don't take it for granted. But I do know the roses have never smelled sweeter.'' Mr. Speaker, Dr. Gilbert has done a lot for science, space exploration and his students. And despite having cancer, he is still giving it his all in the classroom and with his family. I applaud, Gordon and all that he has accomplished in his lifetime, and I want to thank him and wish him all the best in the future.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to honor Salida patrolman, Don Wyble. On March 20, Don was named ``Police Officer of the Year'' for the 11th Judicial District for his outstanding work as a police officer during the past year. Don is the second Salida Police Officer to be recognized as the ``Officer of the Year.'' According to Salida Police Chief, Darwin Hibbs, Don was nominated for his work both on and off duty. Don serves as the chairman of the Chaffee County Adult Protection Team, which discusses the needs of elderly citizens and then attempts to provide services. He also serves as the police department's liaison with Triad, a group dedicated to protecting the public from large scale scams. ``I think Don represents our department well. He has a tremendous work ethic and has always done a tremendous job,'' said Hibbs in a recent article from the Mountain Mail. Don began his work with the police department as a reserve in 1980. In 1988 he was upgraded to full-time code enforcement, and then in the spring of 1990, Don was promoted to patrolman. ``I have to be proud of the opportunity to represent Salida. This award is for all of the department, not just me. It takes all of us to get the job done.'' Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I ask that we take this opportunity to thank Don for his service to the community of Salida, Colorado. I know that Don will continue to protect and serve his community for years to come. Don, your community, state and nation are proud of you!

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, as becoming customary around these facilities, I find myself being the angel of rebuttal. I sat here for the last 30 or 40 minutes and heard my colleagues from the Democratic side of the aisle, I would add from the liberal side of the Democratic side of the aisle, because I think some of the views being espoused by the liberal side of the Democrats does not track with some of those views that are being shared or espoused by the conservative Democrats. So I think we should split that out. I would like to rebut just a few of the comments that have been made by preceding speakers whom were not rebutted. There was no opportunity to rebut them. Those are the rules. I understand that. This is my chance, however, to explain or at least discuss what I believe are some of the liberal attacks on President Bush's policy. Let me begin by saying that I heard repeatedly, especially from the gentleman from Texas, that the Republicans for some reason are mathematically challenged. We do not have time, we do not need to spend our time this evening making those little kind of, in my opinion, cheap shots. If one wants to take a look at mathematics, it does not take a lot of understanding to understand and to have some kind of comprehension as to what is happening in our stock market, what is happening in our economy. From my liberal friends from the Democratic Party, this just did not happen in the last 8 weeks since President Bush has had office. This has happened. We began to see the trend several months ago. This is exactly, frankly, what their side of the aisle has handed President Bush. Now, President Bush has not spent his time out there expressing anger about the economy that the Democratic leadership through Bill Clinton has given to him. Instead, he has gone to their side of the aisle, he has gone to the Democratic side of the aisle and said, ``All blame aside, let us keep the ship afloat. Before we decide who put the hole in the side of the ship, why do we not try and patch the hole? Before we put any more water in the bucket, why do we not patch the holes in the bucket. Let us see if we cannot resolve this as a team.'' Many of my colleagues on the liberal side of the Democratic Party have been down to the White House to have discussions with President Bush. President Bush in a very professional, nonpartisan, bipartisan manner has extended his hand. He is attempting to work with them. But night after night, they are down here at this microphone bashing President Bush. Night after night, they are down here at this microphone talking about how this will not work and that will not work and this is not going to go, and it is Mr. No on that side of the aisle, from the liberal side of the aisle. I am telling my colleagues, this economy is in trouble. My colleagues can say what they want, they can say all the feel-good things out there, but take a look at the layoffs that have occurred just in the last 6 weeks. This is not the time to bash President Bush. This is not the time to bash his economic plan simply for the reason of being in opposition, of expressing or being in political opposition to it. I understand that there is a difference between the Democratic and Republican Party. I understand we have to take political positions. But, look, when the ship could sink, and I am not saying it is sinking, but it has a hole in the side, and when there is a hole in the side, maybe my colleagues should do something other than for the sake of opposition and for the sake of standing at this microphone and bashing this stuff. Why do they not step forward and work in a positive fashion. I think that the President has done that with them. I think the Republican side has done that with them. Frankly, there are many Democrats, fortunately of conservative leaning, who have accepted that kind of thing, who are working as a team. Let me talk about a few of the comments. The gentleman from Washington says it is the biggest shell game he has ever seen. That is a quote. It is the biggest shell game he has ever seen. The very next comment coming from the gentleman from Texas says, now, folks, we are not trying to use fear tactics. We are not trying to scare the senior citizens. We are not trying to use fear in our way to get our point across, but it is the biggest shell game we have ever seen. Come on. Those kind of tactics are long since past, in my opinion. Again, I am not taking away from the right or the liberal to go ahead and espouse their views. That is what this floor is for. That is what this microphone is for. But I am saying to them that it is not a big shell game. It is a very serious game out there. It is a game that a lot of people stand to lose by if we do not pretty soon sit down and in a fundamental fashion figure out what we are going to do with this economy, figure out how we are going to get this slowdown in the economy to at least slow down. I mean, the rate of those layoffs, we have got to curb it. Go and talk to some of those people. Just today look up the business news in the newspaper. Just today, Mr. Speaker, take a look at the layoffs that were announced. Go to some of those people that have got their job layoffs and say, hey, what does a tax cut mean to you. How much bickering should we have on the House floor? Should we try to go together under our leader and try an economic plan? President Bush is a new President in this country. He deserves, at least for a while, for my colleagues to extend their cooperativeness to move toward some kind of resolution to deal with this economy. Now, I know that some of my colleagues will never step forward and cross this aisle from the Democrat to the Republican side. I will tell my colleagues that, unfortunately, there are some Republicans who may never cross the aisle to work with Democrats. But there is certainly enough of my colleagues on the Democratic side, combined with enough of us on the Republican side, to come together as a team and work with this President. Let us resolve the issues of the economy, and then go ahead and go on your partisan snips and your trip that you wanted to take towards that path of partisanship. But in the meantime, let us get together with this new President. Let us form some kind of coalition to help our economy. This economy is threatened. That is no fear tactic. Take a look at it. Unlike the statement from the gentleman from Texas who talks about fear tactics, unlike the gentleman from Washington who talks about the biggest shell game that he has ever seen, the fact that our economy is having some difficulties is not a shell game. It is not a fear tactic. All you have to do is open your daily newspaper and see what happened today. Take a look at what happened today. Take a look at what happened to the Dow Jones and Nasdaq and what happened to the S&P, and how about job layoffs that were announced today and the corporate losses today, and you will get some kind of an idea that we ought not to be bickering. And those of my colleagues who have important things to say, and many of those preceding me at the microphone, they carry some weight in these Chambers, in my opinion, they ought to push or pull or throw their weight towards assisting this President to come up with some kind of successful method to rescue our economy. I heard the comment, it is very interesting, this came from the gentlewoman from Oregon, a priority is education, and what is the first thing that the gentlewoman from Oregon says about education? ``The Republicans are putting no money into that program.'' That is a quote. The gentlewoman from Oregon says the Republicans are putting no money into that program. Give me a break. Come on. My colleagues know there are billions of dollars going into education. Ironically, just a few comments later the gentlewoman talks about a 5.7 percent increase in the President's budget for the new programs, but yet two or three sentences before she says, the Republicans put no money into the program of education. No money. Mr. Speaker, are my colleagues telling me that is not fear tactics? Are they telling me there is one Congressman or Congresswoman on this floor who does not support education? How many Congressmen or Congresswomen can you point out, and I address my colleague from Oregon, show me one Congressperson from either side of the aisle that opposes education. I have never found them. I have been up here for 9 years. I have gone back to my district hundreds of times, and I have traveled hundreds of thousands of miles, and not only have I not found such a Congressman, I have never found a citizen out there who is opposed to education. But let me differentiate between finding someone who is opposed to education and someone who wants accountability in education. Mr. Speaker, frankly some of the preceding speakers say the answer to educational woes is just writing a blank check. Testing is unfair. Questioning school districts is unfair. Asking for accountability is unfair. Give me a break. Mr. Speaker, what is fair? What is fair is, number one, every citizen in this country is putting money into the education system. Every citizen in this country cares about education. Every citizen cares about education. Every citizen in this country wants better education for our young people. And yet do you not think that as a part of that formula to come up with better education you have to have accountability? That is exactly what the President's budget does. It does it with education, it does it with the military, with the Department of Agriculture. It does it with foreign affairs. This President came into the White House and he said, Look, you are not going to get blank checks. I paraphrase that. You are not going to get blank checks. Do not just think you can come to the White House and say, we are surrounded by children or military weapons programs or farmers and ranchers; so, Mr. President, you just write the check. Mr. Speaker, this President had the guts to step forward and say, you know what, I want to measure results. What are the results? The same kind of thing every one of my colleagues who has spoken critically of the President, every one of you, when you go to buy a car, before you turn the cash over, you say to the dealer, I want to know about the results. By the way, what does Consumer Guide say about the results of this? What do my neighbors who own this car say about this type of car? What kind of warranty work do you do, and what kind of guarantee do you have that this car is going to produce like you promise it is going to produce? In other words, when you go to the car dealership, you ask for accountability from the dealership. When you go to the grocery store, opera or to the art museum, you expect to have something in return, and you measure it. You measure it by did you have a good time. Did you feel that there was something that you got out of going to the art museum, or did the product taste good that you got at the grocery store. You ask for accountability. But when a Republican President takes the White House and asks for accountability, we have some of my colleagues stand up here and say, my gosh, no money for education. No money for the farmers. No money for Medicare. He is taking from Medicare. Come on. Be fair about this. Mr. Speaker, my bet is that most of the people that I could talk to in my district and across this country would say to you, do not give a blank check to any governmental agency. Every governmental agency, whether it is education where we are surrounded by children and our future, whether it is military where you are surrounded by weapons and the future protection of this country, whether it is agriculture where you are surrounded by farmers and our food and feed and the need to sustain this country for the future, no matter who it is, every one of my constituents that I know of would say, Do not write a blank check to any Federal agency. Ask for accountability. Mr. Speaker, you know what happens with bureaucracy and the lobbyists and the special interests, the minute you ask for accountability from a Federal program, they attack you like vultures. The minute you say on education, for example, what could be more motherhood and apple pie than education. As I said earlier, everybody to the person in these Chambers, everyone supports education. The liberal left supports education; the far right supports education. Everyone supports education. But, Mr. Speaker, the minute you ask a question, for example, where are those 100,000 teachers going to go, or how are we going to determine where the money goes for the building of new schools, the minute you ask that question, the special interest groups pounce on you like you are a piece of raw meat for a hungry tiger. You must be against education because you will not vote for this program. What gives you the right to ask a question about what kind of results we are going to get from testing and from 100,000 new teachers? Mr. Speaker, take a look at that program where we theoretically put 100,000 cops on the streets. Take a look at some of these things. You have a fundamental obligation. It is inherent upon every one of my colleagues to ask those questions. How do we measure results? What results are acceptable? What results will we get for the dollars we are putting in? Now, a lot of my colleagues are afraid to discuss the results because they know that the results coming in will not match the dollars going out, and the special interest groups who are hired, by the way, interestingly enough, a lot of lobbyists are paid for by taxpayer dollars to lobby for more taxpayer dollars. Do you think they have the benefit or the interest of the taxpayer, of the working American out there in their mind? No. They are hired by taxpaying entities to come back here to a taxpayer-subsidized or fully supported entity to lobby for more taxpayer dollars. And the minute you ask for results, hey, we are putting this many dollars out; what kind of results are we getting in, oh boy, do they know how to paint a picture in your district that you are antifarming, or you are antieducation, or you are antimilitary, or you are antipeople. That is exactly the game that goes on here. To the gentleman from Washington State, if he wants to talk about a shell game, that is the shell game. The minute you ask for accountability, the minute you want to know about results, the minute you want to see if the people of our country are benefiting from the dollars that these Federal agencies are spending, woe, woe be you, because here comes the special interest groups. Here comes the paid lobbyists to trash you in any way they can. Why? Because they do not want those results out; because in many cases, the results do not match, match meaning in proportion to what we expect for results, they do not match. The dollars going out do not match the results coming in. They do not want to be held accountable, because you know what happens if you are held accountable? You will have to change your ways. And there are a lot of people paid a lot of money in Washington, D.C., to make sure the government does not change its ways. Well, we now have a President who has had enough guts to step up, for example, to the American Bar Association. For 26 years nobody has had enough guts to question their ratings on judges. How dare this President question the American Bar Association? I am an attorney, by the way, so I know a little about the American Bar Association. In my opinion, a lot of the people, or those lawyers, that is the association of lawyers, in my opinion, a lot of them are prima donnas. But how dare a President question the American Bar Association? This President has enough guts to do it, and he has done it. How dare a President come into the White House and say to the military generals, hey, I am very promilitary, I want a strong military, I want the best military in the world, but I am not going to sign a blank check for every military program out there. You better justify. You better give me accountability on these weapon systems that you are asking for in the military. You better have some answers for some pretty tough questions. Oh, my gosh, a President has enough guts to do that? Take a look at foreign affairs. President Bush, he stands up. He says to Russia, do not spy, or we expel your people. He says to China, you have to worry about human rights. He says to North Korea, it is not going to be a giveaway on your nuclear power negotiations. This President deserves some support. I am not saying he deserves my colleagues' rallying for him. I am not saying the Democrats have to be a cheerleader for President Bush, but I am saying that he deserves some time to try and put this economy back on its rail, because it was derailed when he got to it, and he deserves, instead of my colleagues standing up here in front of this microphone and doing everything they can to object for the sake of objecting, not for the sake of improvement, but for the sake of objection, this President deserves more. And more important than this President deserving it, the American people deserve more, and we ought to deliver it for him. Let me address a couple of other things. First of all, this tax cut. I like the Johnny-Come-Latelies. Some of the people talking today, well, we are for a tax cut. Well, take a look at the history of those individuals. They did not support tax cuts in the past. All of a sudden the reason they are on is that seems to be the bandwagon in town, and whatever you say, do not say you are opposed to a tax cut, at least say you are for some kind of tax cut. But always say, well, a tax cut that protects all the people, et cetera, et cetera. Then I heard someone up there saying, well, buying down the debt. By the way, for the gentleman from Texas, who talks about buying down the debt, just for a little accounting information here, when debt is issued, there are different levels of debt that can be issued. If there is no prepayment penalty, which means you can pay off that debt at any time you wish, all you have to do is call up the owner of the debt and say, I am going to pay you tomorrow. You put in what is known as a call provision. I am calling what I owe; I am going to pay it off. That carries less of a return than if you do not have that right. So what happened with the government, it wanted to maximize its return in many cases, and so it forfeited the right to make that kind of call. So there is a penalty when you pay down that debt. That is basic economics 101. Do not pretend that it is not out there. Do not pooh-pooh the President because the President says, hey, we need to do this in such a fiscal manner that it makes economic sense. Why pay a penalty for debt that is outstanding when we do not have to? It is something we ought to consider. Let me go on to another point. Let me talk for a couple of moments about the oldest scheme in town, and that is the scheme to come up here to this microphone, and we see it at every level of government, by the way, and talk about how their budgets are being cut. Let me talk about how that contrasts to the American families out there; how it differs. Let me, first of all, talk about an American family who, let us say, makes $10. We will forget the percentages here and make it simplified. If an American family has in their family budget $10 for the year, and the next year the American family, and let us call them Joe and Jane Smith, our American family, and they spent $10. That is their budget. And the next year that Smith family sits down and they have $15 in their budget. What would the average American say happened to the budget? It was $10 last year; it is $15 this year. Everyone I know, with the exception of government officials and government agencies and lobbyists and special interests, everyone I know would say, hey, if you got $15 this year, and you had $10 last year, it is a $5 increase. Your budget actually went up $5, and if you took the $5 and the $10, you could say that the budget went up 50 percent; our budget in our family this year increased 50 percent over what it was last year. Well, here is the old scheme, the old tactic they use in government agencies and government programs. They put in a budget. The budget, again, same thing, $10 last year. This year that agency says we would like to have $20. So we meet here in these chambers and we decide, look, we are not going to give the agency $20. We are going to give them $15. Do you know what happens? The agency goes out there and starts to tell its constituency, who generally that constituency are people who benefit from the Federal program, so, for example, if it is agriculture they go out to the farmers, if it is education they go out to the teachers, if it is military they go out to the military people and they say, look, we asked for $20 and that Republican Congress only gave us $15. We got cut $5. We got cut, our budget got cut. Their budget did not get cut. The budget was increased. It went from $10 to $15. We did not give them what they asked. We gave them an increase. Last year it was $10. This year it is $15. They get a $5 increase. They go out to their constituency, and we heard it this evening from the preceding speakers, and they say it is a $5 cut. My colleague, the gentlewoman from Oregon, says there is no money in education, President Bush put no money in the education program, and 2 minutes later or even two sentences later she said it was only a 5.7 percent increase. Now there it is even more extreme; no money in education because we only have a 5.7 percent increase. How many American workers out there can expect a 5.7 percent increase in their budget this year? I will say something. There are a lot of American workers who are going to feel very lucky to have their job next year. Take a look at the layoffs. So for us up here as elected officials to stand here and say there is no money for education because it only got a 5.7 percent increase, no wonder there is deep distrust for government, especially when it comes to handling taxpayer dollars. Now let us speak for a moment about the surplus. I know people keep bantering around the surplus. What they are trying to do, do not kid yourself, do not kid yourself, there are some of you on this floor who want the surplus kept in Washington, D.C., not to reduce the debt. Now, that is the front you put on it. That is the picture that you paint, look, we want to keep the surplus in Washington, American people. Trust us. We want to reduce the Federal debt. Trust us. That is why we want it in Washington. You know, as well as I know, that a lot of you have the true intent that that money should be used for new programs. Let us talk about some of the new programs that come before Congress. We very rarely, and I say this after years of service in elected office, I very rarely, in fact I cannot recall one time when somebody came into my office asking for a new program that was a bad program. In my case, every program that has been proposed to me has merits to it. Our decisions up here are never between good and bad programs. That is an easy choice. Our decisions are always between good and good programs. Just the other day, in one day, in one day, I had requests for about $1 billion. They wanted a couple hundred million more for this increased spending. They wanted four or five hundred million here for the new space program; increased spending. They wanted another couple million here for flood control; increased spending. They wanted another couple hundred million here for a new program for children. These demands for those dollars will continue to come in as long as there are elected officials and as long as we have constituencies. So to come up here and say that you think you have the ability, with those kind of demands from our constituents, to hold a big pot of money in surplus is wrong. We have a program in Colorado for the uranium miners. These people were poisoned producing uranium for this Nation to fight its wars and to have the kind of weapons that we needed. The United States conceded the claims to those people, conceded the claims to those people. That money is due and owed to those people. The United States Government has agreed, they have acknowledged that, they have admitted to the claim. They have yet to pay the claim, and the first thing that comes up is, gosh, there is a surplus. So why are these claims not being paid? Whether there is a surplus or not, those claims ought to be paid. The fact is this: Everybody out there in education, in farming, in the military, in new highways, in new welfare programs, in new health care programs, in expansion of Medicare, in expansion of Social Security, everybody out there has got their eyes on this big surplus and they have ideas of how to increase the size of the government. Now, in some cases we as a collective body establish priorities. For example, President Bush in his education budget decided that a 5.7 percent increase in a massive education budget was necessary, and we needed to expand the program. I am not standing here this evening saying that we should deny any expansion of Federal programs, but I am saying that do not mislead the American people by saying that if we keep a surplus in Washington it will not be spent; it will be used to reduce the debt. The fact is, Mr. Speaker, and I think you have an obligation to tell your constituents, that any dollars left in Washington, D.C. is like putting a cookie jar in a kitchen in front of a bunch of kindergartners who have not had lunch. What are you going to expect? Of course you are going to expect those kids to go to the cookie jar. I would lead the pack. Back here in Washington, D.C., if you leave a pile of money called a surplus, what do you think is going to happen? Every special interest group back here, a lot of lobbyists will be paid big, big dollars and a lot of agencies will go out there and gather the softest, most emotional aspect of their constituency, like children for education, or farmers in farming, or military, et cetera, and they will go after that cookie jar. That is why when you have a surplus the size of the surplus that now exists, we must make a decision, especially in light of the fact that we have very difficult economic times ahead if we do not get ahead of this train. That is why when we have that here, that is why we must decide do we leave this money here and create new programs or make additional commitments for more Federal spending, that when the economic bad times come and our surplus evaporates we will not have the money to continue them? We tried this many years ago in the State of Colorado in the 1970s. By the way, Mr. Speaker, as a reminder, my district is Colorado. I represent the mountains of the State of Colorado, almost all the mountains, the Third Congressional District. In Colorado, in the 1970s, we had a big surplus. In 1982, they called it Black Sunday; Exxon announced its pullout of Colorado out of the oil shelf development. Colorado went into a recession. Our budget was a tough budget. I was in the legislature at the time. We even figured out what the cost of opening a door with an electric switch was. That is what dire straits we were in economically, because in Colorado, thank goodness, somebody had the foresight to require a balanced budget years before. So in Colorado we had to have a balanced budget. We had to cut some things. People began to say, wait a minute. In the early days of the 1970s when there was a big surplus in Colorado, the Colorado legislators returned that money to the taxpayers. Had they not returned that money to the taxpayers in the State of Colorado in the 1970s that money would have been committed for an expansion of government programs in the State of Colorado. When the recession came in the early 1980s, we would have been in more dramatic trouble because we could not meet larger commitments made because the surplus was not returned to the taxpayers. Now all of us agree that some of the surplus here will be consumed by programs that are considered by this collective body as a necessary expansion of a Federal program. For example, we know we have a lot of baby-boomers. We know that every day more people turn 62 or 65. So we know that whether you want to expand a program or not, the fact is Social Security is going to have to expand every day because you have more people turning 62 or 65. Those programs we have to take the surplus, parts of the surplus, and fund those programs. But if we have programs that are not essentially necessary, not what people want because every constituent out there wants something out of a Federal surplus, there are a lot of good programs that people want, the fact is that we cannot fund them all. Even if we could fund them all today, we may not be able to fund them tomorrow when this economic downturn takes hold. This surplus is coming in for a little while so we may create and spend that money at the government level today, but we may not, again to repeat we may not, tomorrow have the money to pay for it. Then people will really suffer when the government does not have the money to follow through on its commitments. I think the gentlewoman from Oregon says when you make a promise like this, you have to keep that promise. Let me say, when you obligate those surplus dollars for expansion of Federal programs, the beneficiaries of those Federal programs considered that a promise. When you cannot fund it because your surplus is evaporating, when you cannot fund it because you do not have the dollars, the people who are the beneficiaries of those programs consider it a broken promise, and you are about to set yourself up for this. If you do not return to the taxpayer a substantial amount of those dollars that are not needed for the necessary programs, you are setting yourself up for a broken promise because this government, in my opinion, this economy, in my opinion, cannot sustain the kind of growth rate that we have experienced over the last several years, at least for a short period of time, maybe a longer period of time. So do not set yourself up for those broken promises. By the way, I heard one of the preceding speakers say, well, the Republicans, and obviously this was one of our liberal colleagues, want to return taxpayer dollars to people that will not use it. How does a taxpayer who gets taxpayer dollars back not use the money? There is one way, two ways, I guess. You destroy the money, you go out in your backyard, you light a match and you burn the money up; you destroy it. You are not using the money. You destroyed it. Or I guess you could go out in the backyard and dig a hole. You do not destroy the money but you put the money in the hole. Other than that, every taxpayer, or every person that gets a dollar back, but in this case it should be taxpayers because they are the ones who pay taxes, it is not a welfare program, it is a refund to the people who paid the taxes in should get the taxes back, the excess back, every one of those people will use those dollars. I do not care if they are in the 10 percent bracket. I do not care if they are one of the wealthiest families in America. Every one of those people will use those tax dollars. They will either put it in the bank, in which case the bank will turn around in the community and make loans to the community to people who are trying to make a business a success, and hire people in the community. They may go out and buy a brand new TV. They may go out and make a payment on a credit card debt to reduce their debt. They may use the money as a contribution to a charity, or as a contribution to help sponsor something at the local school district. Every taxpayer that gets a taxpayer dollar back will use those dollars. It just happens. So to stand up here, as the preceding speaker did, and say, well, the Republicans only want to return tax dollars to those who will not use it, I cannot make sense of that kind of comment. This evening, Mr. Speaker, I intended to speak about the death tax and its ramifications, and I also wanted to speak about water in the West, but next week I intend to return to this podium and speak about water in the West. It is a very critical issue. In the east, basically, the problem with water is getting rid of it. In the west, our problem is trying to store it and obtain it. Colorado, the State that I represent, is very unique. In fact, the district that I represent is especially unique. My district is the third congressional district of Colorado. That district is the highest district in elevation in the Nation. We live at the highest elevation of any of the population of any of the districts in this country. Our water all runs downhill. As you can imagine, when you are at the high point, your water runs downhill. In my particular district in my particular State, that district gets 80 percent of the water and 80 percent of the population resides outside of it. Water storage, water for power generation, water for protection of our environment, water for human consumption, water for agriculture. It takes on different particularities in the west than it does in the east. There is a clear differential between water issues of the west and water issues of the east. Mr. Speaker, although I intended to address it this evening, next week I intend to take this podium and speak specifically about the water issues of the west and the east. But this evening, I felt it necessary to rebut some of the remarks and some of the attacks that were directed towards the President's program on economic recovery, some of the remarks that were being made about the surplus, some of the false pretenses, in my opinion, that may have been created as a result of an impression that allowing surplus money to stay in Washington means that surplus will automatically reduce the debt. I felt we had to address that. However, there is another issue I think we need to address tonight called the death tax. I have talked about this a number of times. Some of my colleagues say, oh, boy, here it goes again, the death tax. Well, do my colleagues know why I keep coming up here about the death tax? Because I have a lot of families, and these are not the Gates, these are not the wealthiest families of America that I am speaking of. I have a lot of families in my district that are suffering because the government has taken it upon itself to go in upon the death of a family member and consider death a taxable event and take money from that family, money in the form of property from that family, despite the fact that all of the taxes have been paid on that property. It is called the death tax, and it is fundamentally unfair. I have heard repeatedly from this floor, well, it is just the rich people, and they ought to have to give back to the community. By the way, the death tax is not giving back to the community, the death tax is a taking. It is forcing you to take. By the way, my second point, when the government comes in and imposes a death tax upon the estate of a member of one's family, we should not kid ourselves that for one minute that money goes back to the community. Do my colleagues know where that money goes? It comes to Washington, D.C. for this collective body to redistribute throughout this fine country. And how many of those dollars do we think go back to the little community or even the large community under which that person was a citizen or where that person resided prior to their death. Do not let people tell us that by going and attacking a person's estate, that those dollars are given back to the community. It does not go back to the local community. I think the best way to express it, and, by the way, Bill Gates I think has taken opposition to the death tax, but his father who spoke from a foundation headquarters, his foundation was created to get around death taxes. It was some of the wealthier families. Some of the wealthier families may not have, but some of the wealthier families in this country who said that the death tax is a good tax, keep it in place, those families have already created their foundations, they have already hired their attorneys, they have already secured their life insurance, so that they have minimal impact when they pass on. We can bet our bottom dollar that every one of those wealthy families who recently signed an ad saying keep the death tax in place, we can bet every dollar we have that they have already arranged to make sure that the next generation of their family will have a very comfortable living. What about those people like a lot of people in my district who cannot afford the team of attorneys, who have no idea how to create a foundation, who do not have the money to do the kind of estate planning that allows one to hire and pay huge premiums for life insurance. What about those families? By the way, those families could be a family of a deceased person, a person deceased who had a dump truck, a bulldozer and a backhoe free and clear and a garage. In my district, that puts one in estate tax territory, in death tax territory. Well, I think the best way to pass this on to my colleagues is to read some of the expressions that have been related to me through letters from people who have heard me from this microphone speak about the death tax and the inequity of death tax and how it has devastated families in this country. It is fundamentally the most unfair tax that we have in our entire system of taxation. Let me start out, this one is from a gentleman, Mr. Marshall Frasier. ``Dear Congressman McInnis. I was encouraged by President Bush's State of the Union in his outline of his proposed budget and the tax relief. I am President of the Colorado Livestock Association and elimination of the death tax is our members' number one tax priority. ``We have operated as a family partnership since the middle 1930s. My parents died about 5 years apart in the 1980s, and the estate tax on each of their one-fifth interest was 3 to 4 times more than the total cost of the ranch which was purchased in 1946.'' In other words, the estate tax on one-fifth of the interest of his father and one-fifth of the interest of his mother's interest in the ranch, the estate tax on that totaled more, each of them, individually, that one-fifth, the tax on that one-fifth totaled more than the entire purchase price of the ranch in 1946, and we call that equity, we call that fairness. This is a ranch, by the way, where all of the taxes have been paid. Let me continue. ``Eliminating the death tax and marriage penalty and reducing the tax rates will go a long way towards providing jobs and bolstering the national economy. This, in turn, will enable hard- working families in the Colorado cattle industry to pass their heritage on to the next generation.'' Let me stop here for a moment. A lot of this is not about passing money to the next generation; a lot of this is about passing a way of life to the next generation. In this letter Mr. Frasier says, to pass our heritage. My in-laws happen to be ranchers. They love the land. They do not make any money on the ranching operation, but they love the land. They have been on that land since the 1880s, since the 1880s. What is their goal in life? One, they are proud of their heritage, they are proud of what they do, and they want to have the opportunity to pass it on for 100 generations to come. Why should not a family be able to pass on the family farm for 100 generations to come. Why should the government have a right to come in to somebody like Mr. Frazier and his parents and say to his father who has a one-fifth interest in the ranch, the tax on your one-fifth interest in the ranch is going to be more than the total purchase price of the ranch. Mr. Speaker, this should be a country that encourages heritage and family operations to go from one generation to the next. This should not be a country that discourages family business or farms or ranches from going from one generation to the next. Let me continue. ``I have 3 sons involved in our operation and a grandson starting college next fall and it is important that we keep agriculture viable, to keep our beef industry from becoming integrated as pork and poultry have become. We need to make it possible for our youth to be able to stay on our ranches and farms.'' Mr. Frazier, you are right. Nathan Steelman, another constituent of mine. Now, this is interesting. This is not an old-time rancher writing to me, this is not a well-polished politician writing me, this is not somebody in their 40s or 50s writing me after they have had an opportunity for a career; this is a college student, this is a letter from a college student, Nathan Steelman. ``Dear Congressman. I am a college student at the University of Southern Colorado in Pueblo which is in your district. I grew up in a family which has lived and thrived in agriculture for many years. My parents and grandparents are involved in a typical family farm, a farm that has been in the same family for more than 125 years. My grandpa is 76 years old and in the last years of his life. My parents have been discussing this situation for the last several months. My parents worry about the death tax. They worry about how they are going to be able to keep the farm running once grandpa passes away. The eventual loss of my grandpa will trigger this tax upon my family's inheritance. My parents hope that they will be able to pay this tax without having to sell part of our family operation that my family has so hard worked in maintaining over many years. The outcome, however, does not look good. Farmers and ranchers are having enough trouble keeping family operations running the way it is. Statistics show that 70 percent of all family businesses do not survive a second generation, and 87 percent do not survive a third generation. My family has worked very hard to keep the family farm running this long. We feel as if we are being penalized for the death of a family member. From what I understand, the opposition is concerned about are many individuals who are being affected by the death tax are those that are theoretically very wealthy people. Statistics show, though, that more than half of all people who pay death taxes had estates that are valued at less than $1 million. My family falls under this same category. That just does not seem fair to me. ``Mr. McInnis, my family's farm is not located within your district, but when I moved to Pueblo, I felt like I needed to express my concerns to someone who might be dedicated to abolishing this death tax. I hope that you do this.'' Let me go through a couple other letters. Generally, I do not read up here. Generally I like to make my comments without reading, but these letters are very moving. These letters were not solicited by my office, by the way. These letters were sent in on their own volition. This letter is from Chris Anderson. ``Dear sir, my name is Chris Anderson. I am 24 years old and I currently run a small business. It is a mail order business. I am not a constituent. I currently reside in New Jersey. However, I listened with great interest as you spoke this evening on the topic of the death tax, as you called it. I in all likelihood will not face the problems you were outlining.'' Let me point that out. This gentleman writing this letter says in all likelihood, I am not going to face the problems that you have outlined, at least not in the near future. ``I am not in line to inherit a business. However, I am soon to be married and look forward to having a family and perhaps one day my children will want to follow in my footsteps. I hope and pray they will not be faced with the additional grief caused by a death tax. A 55 percent tax is, at best, a huge burden on a family business and the loved ones of the deceased. At worst it can be a death blow that ruins what could otherwise have been the future of yet another generation.'' Let me repeat that. At worst, it can be a death blow that ruins what could otherwise have been the future of yet another generation. This is a 24-year-old young man talking about trying to preserve the future of another generation and talking about what the death tax does to threaten that next generation. He is 24 years old and he is already thinking about the next generation. This letter is not a plea for help. ``I just want you to know that although I am not a victim of this tax, I appreciate the fight against it. I firmly believe that Congress and the government at large need to recognize that America's future is and will always be firmly rooted in the success of small business. Many of these businesses are family-owned and need the next generation to be able to continue them into the future. ``I spent a few years working for a small family-owned business. Not just myself but several workers depended on the income they derived from working for this small family business operation. I fear for those workers when the tax man comes knocking. This tax has claws that rip at many people, and many more people than the immediate family of the deceased. It also has a huge impact on the employees of the family business. ``I hope your constituents recognize this and they will continue to work to get rid of this tax.'' Now, remember, what this letter focuses on is not his particular situation, but what it does to the employees of a small business who may not themselves inherit the business but who depend on that farm of another family or depend on that business of another family for their living. Recently, we had a death in my district in a small community, and this individual was hit with the death tax, the estate was. Do Members know what it did to that community? That individual was the largest employer in the community, the largest contributor to charities, the largest contributor to his local church, the largest owner of real estate in that community. Do Members know what happened to that community? All of those assets and those jobs, that money that supported many, that had to be accumulated in a pot. The majority of that money, the majority, this is not an exaggeration or an embellishment, the majority of that money had to be wired to Washington, D.C. for redistribution throughout this country. Do Members think any of those dollars went back to that little community in the State of Colorado, or it could have been in the community of Missouri, or out in Michigan, or in California, New York, or Virginia? This hurts those communities. It does not just devastate families, it hurts people that are related to that small business, that work for that small business. Again, a lot of the big businesses and wealthy people have planned around this. They have purchased premiums for life insurance. Fundamentally, this death tax is not only unfair, it has consequences that were never intended by the drafters of our Constitution. If the people that dreamed of America, if the frontiers-people of our country, if the Founders of our country, if those people who fought in the Revolutionary War ever imagined that at some point this government, which theoretically encourages creativity, encourages small business, theoretically encourages freedom, if they could believe or if they would hear that the government itself would tax death as an event, and that the government would take that money from a community and transfer it to the Nation's capital, to a central authority for redistribution, they would turn in their grave. They would not believe it. It defies the dream of being a success in America. It defies the American dream. That is not to say somebody should not pay taxes. I need to remind the Members that these death taxes are on property that has already had its taxes paid. It is simply a way to generate money. When the government and the bureaucracy needs to figure out how to generate money, they have to figure out an event. If we buy a car, there is a reason to generate revenue, sales tax. If we make money, there is income tax. If we buy gasoline, there is fuel tax. So they figure, ``What are we going to do? There is a pot of money out there that maybe we ought to have. Let us get our hands on it.'' If we take a look at the origins of the death tax, we will see that it was a theory of people that redistribution in this country was what we should do. We should move from a capitalistic society to a socialistic society, where central authority redistributes the dollars. As a vendetta against the Fords, the Carnegies, and Rockefellers, they imposed this tax way back then. Look, that theory failed. This country does not believe in redistribution of wealth, it believes in the capitalistic type of system. It should get rid of this tax. This tax only punishes these young people, this 24-year-old and this young man and his wife who have a mail order business. Why punish them? Let us encourage the next generation. Let me conclude by saying we have covered two subjects this evening. One, I spent the first part of my remarks rebutting what was being said about the surplus in the budget and so on. Mr. Speaker, I want to say to the Members, they need to say to their constituents, if we leave dollars laying around in Washington, D.C., the special interest groups and some of the highest paid professionals in this country, the lobbyists, are waiting for those dollars to be sitting here so they can put them into new programs. It is not going to go back to the taxpayers, it is going to create a larger and bigger government. Some day we will pay the price for letting the government grow too big. So I talked about that, and rebutted some of the comments made earlier by some of my colleagues. The second part was this death tax. We have an opportunity to reduce or eliminate or significantly alter this punishment tax. That is exactly what it is. Do not listen to some of these wealthy families who signed an ad, like Ted Turner and some of those people, and in my opinion he is one of the most pompous people I ever met, who said, ``Let us keep this in place,'' et cetera, et cetera. Listen to that 24-year-old who has a small operation. Listen to the young man who has no business, and he is not going to inherit anything. Listen to what he says about the next generation. I ask Members to take their time this weekend when they go back to their districts to talk to those people that are not the billionaires, those people who just barely are getting by, but they want to pass heritage from one generation to the next generation. I think Members have an obligation to do that. If they really do it, I think they will come back here next week ready to vote with us to eliminate or reduce the death tax and the burden it puts on the American people.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to wish a longtime Bayfield employee best wishes during her retirement. After serving as town clerk of Bayfield, Colorado for 29 years, La Vina Mars has decided to retire to spend a little more time with her family and her horses. As she does, I would like to take this opportunity to thank her for her service and wish her well. La Vina became the town clerk in 1972, when the town population was 300. At that time, she served as the town clerk, the librarian and the ticket agent for the bus line that stopped in Bayfield. ``She's been the glue that's held the town together for 29 years,'' said Ed Morlan, a long time member of the Town Board. La Vina will miss talking with residents the most when her career is over. ``I have some qualms about not coming to work. I will think about it because I have enjoyed it.'' La Vina has spent much of her 29 years as one of only two or three town employees. When she started, La Vina worked as a volunteer for a month to learn the job's ropes. Now that she's leaving, town officials say it will be hard to replace her. Many credit her with helping Bayfield make it through a tough period in the mid 80's when the town nearly went broke. Mr. Speaker, La Vina will truly be missed by the town of Bayfield and the people she worked with. It is appropriate that this body say thank you to La Vina for her hard work and dedication. La Vina, your community, state and nation are proud of you and thankful for your years of service. We wish you all the best during your well-earned retirement.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Colorado State Senator Gigi Dennis for her years of service to the State of Colorado and to wish her good luck in her new position. Senator Gigi has served in the Colorado State Senate since 1995, but is resigning at the end of the month to accept an appointment from President George W. Bush to become the Colorado Director of the Department of Agriculture's Office of Rural Development. ``I'm proud of her,'' said her husband Dean Dennis. ``I'm proud of her accomplishments.'' I know that Gigi's friends and neighbors in south- central Colorado, her colleagues in the Colorado legislature, and elected officials all across Colorado--including me--share Dean's sentiments. We are all proud of Gigi! Senator Dennis has held numerous positions of real significance during her seven years in office, including Vice Chair of the Transportation Committee, a Member of the Legislative Council and Chairman of the Majority Caucus. Senator Dennis also served as the Rio Grande County Republican Secretary. Additionally, she served as a member of the State Accountability Commission on Education, and the Vice Chairman of the Education Committee (NCSL). Senator Dennis summed up her feelings like this: ``This resignation is not like walking away from my constituents, but creating a bigger circle of people I can impact through this office. In the end, it doesn't make any difference who gets the credit or who wins the fight . . . but whether Colorado citizens are better off for what we do. I'm extremely honored that President Bush has selected me for this position. This is another terrific opportunity to continue to help the State of Colorado, particularly the rural areas that I've represented over the years.'' Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Senator Gigi Dennis on her new position and wish her good luck in the future. She will be missed in the state legislature. Senator Dennis has served the State of Colorado well in the state Senate and I know she will continue that record of leadership in her new capacity with the Department of Agriculture.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I want to pause for a moment and have this body pay respect to a pillar of the Salida, Colorado community. Dr. Leo Leonardi was killed in a plain crash in Illinois on March 10. He was on his way to see patients after he flew his wife to Oklahoma to be with her ill father. He was 77 years old. For more than 50 years, Dr. Leonardi dedicated his life to serving his patients and his community. To many he was more than a doctor, he was a beloved member of the family. In front of 800 people, Dr. Leonardi's daughter, Michelle said that the MD meant ``My Daddy'' . . . Being his daughter has always meant sharing him with the community.'' During Dr. Leonardi's 52 years of service, he delivered more than 3,000 babies, and tended to the medical needs of three generations of many Chaffee County families. He played a crucial role at Salida's hospital, where he served as a director on the governing board, holding a seat for 30 years. He provided some of the down payment on the Denver and Rio Grande Hospital to keep the facility in the community. He played a key role in establishing Columbine Manor, Salida's only nursing home. Dr. Leonardi provided money to St. Joseph Credit Union so it could start lending funds to customers. He served on the school district board, and was a member of the Salida Elks Lodge 808 for 51 years. ``I can't believe this. I dearly loved that man. He was our family doctor since we came to town,'' said Elsie Curtis, a resident of Columbine Manor. ``He was a wonderful doctor, but he could also give you hell when he wanted to.'' ``I entered with Dr. Leonardi in 1953,'' said Dr. William Mehos. ``It was obviously a good relationship. Not many doctors stay together 48 years. Not only were we partners we were best friends. My wife and I will miss him very much.'' Mr. Speaker, this is a sad time for the community of Salida, Colorado. Dr. Leonardi was a member of everyone's family. He is one of the few doctors that still makes house calls. In 1998 he celebrated 50 years in medicine. With his passing, a great man has left us. One of the thousand points of light has gone out, but his memory lives on in those who knew him.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this time to pause a moment in remembrance of a great man, and a great friend. John W. Anthony passed away on March 9, at the age of 81. John has been associated with one type of ranch or another since the time of his birth. For 30 years John owned a ranch in West Creek, Colorado. Then in 1950, his family purchased a ranch on Divide Creek near Rifle, Colorado. John belonged to the Manitou Park Grange and the Divide Creek Grange. He also took time to be involved with the Masonic Lodge and took an active part in the Teller Co., Growers Organization. He was also a member of the Cattleman's Association on the Western Slope of Colorado. After he retired from ranching, John enjoyed helping the area sheep men in protecting their sheep from predators and joined the Colorado Trappers Association. John is survived by his wife, Emma Jean, their four children, Jean Ann, Kenneth, Susan, and Mike, 10 grandchildren, and four great-grand children, and a sister Mary Jane Hunter. Mr. Speaker, Western Colorado has lost a great husband, father, grand father, friend and neighbor. That is why I would like this body to take a moment and recognize John W. Anthony.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to honor Harlan Steinle of Durango, Colorado and wish him good luck in future years. Harlan will retire on July 1, 2001 after 32 years at Fort Lewis College, where he serves as the vice president of admissions. Harlan spent four years as a student at Fort Lewis College, before moving to New Mexico, to teach and coach at Gallup High School. He then went on to Northern Arizona University to get his masters and then to the University of Oregon to earn his Doctorate. Then in 1974, Harlan went back to Fort Lewis College where he has spent the last 28 years. Colleagues say Harlan was key in boosting enrollment numbers. ``It's going to be a real loss,'' said Sherri Rochford, the colleges dean of alumni and development. ``He has probably one of the best networks with high school counselors in the state, which he has used to build the reputation of FLC. You just don't build something like that overnight. It takes a while to cultivate.'' Under Harlan's tenure at FLC, the schools enrollment doubled from 2,000 to 4,000. ``I don't think FLC would have had the student enrollment growth it has enjoyed in the 28 years he has been here,'' Deborah Uroda, FLC's director of marketing and publications said. During his time at FLC, Harlan has been active in several groups, including the Colorado Council for High School and College Relations where the 54 year old Harlan was inducted into the first Hall of Fame in 1992. He is part of the National Association of College Admission Counselors, and the Rocky Mountain Association of College Administrative Counseling as its treasurer. ``The length of time and the success Harlan has had working with a number of FLC presidents exemplifies that he has been a long term, successful employee,'' Don Ricedorff, said. Mr. Speaker, Harlan Steinle has done a lot in his lifetime for Fort Lewis College, and deserves the thanks and praise of this body.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to honor a group of women who, for 50 years have been supporting the conservative concept of government, while educating their members on the importance of being an informed voter. In November of 1951, some 51 charter members formed the Surface Creek Republican Women in Delta, Colorado. At the time they were considered the ``last frontier'' in Western Colorado. The original members were inspired by Republican women who secured the women's right to vote. During election years, candidates running for state, county and local officials speak to the club. They also spend time working on fundraisers for activities and to support campaign efforts. Surface Creek Republican Women, since the organization's inception have supported the U.S. Constitution by always staying in touch with their elected officials in Congress. The Surface Creek Republican Women's Platform has always been to ``Join our State and National Party in their commitment to equal opportunity for all human beings without discrimination on the basis of race, creed, color or sex.'' They also believe that the proper role of Government is to protect equal rights-- not provide equal rights. They have received many awards for the efforts of its members and many have held positions with the Colorado Federation of Republican Women as well as positions through out the state. Mr. Speaker, the Surface Creek Republican Women's club continues to be a prominent influence in the community. They have helped numerous candidates, informing Coloradoans about issues and candidates for the last five decades. This group of women is very patriotic and has done a lot for the citizens of western Colorado. That is why I would like to take a moment and wish them a happy 50th anniversary and good luck in the future.