Scott McInnis

Mr. McINNIS

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

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, for our little nightside chat this evening, there are a couple of topics that I would like to discuss with my colleagues, primarily involving public lands in the United States. As many of my colleagues know, and many may not be aware of, quite frankly, there is a distinct difference between the urban areas of the United States and the rural areas of the United States and even more of a distinct difference between the eastern United States and the western United States. Now, granted, the United States is one country, and we have a lot in common, but the reason that we have a lot in common is because we have the respect where we do not have things in common to understand that we work as a team. So this evening I want to go through some discussion on public lands. I think the best way to begin this is to talk about a wonderful book that I have just almost finished reading. I would recommend it to my colleagues. As I should disclose, I do not know the author, I have never met the author, I do not have any interest in the book, other than it is fascinating. It is the book on the transcontinental railroad. The author is Stephen Ambrose, and it talks about the major accomplishment that was necessary in this country for the entire country to come together to build a transcontinental railroad, the armies that were necessary to put this thing together. I think really just reading a little of the first part, just a couple of paragraphs, because I do not like to read during my Special Order speeches, my nightside chat; but I thought here it would probably be appropriate, so that we can get a taste, a little idea of the flavor of what was necessary to build the transcontinental railroad in the United States. In our own minds, we need to kind of put ourselves back 150 years and think of the United States, a new country, relatively speaking, out into the frontier, a frontier that most of the population of this country had never even set foot on, a frontier which had never been really surveyed in any kind of detail. In fact, the surveying techniques back then were still pretty rough as compared to today's GPS system. So as I say that, keep this in mind. We need to put our mindsets for a moment back 150 years, back to about 140 years, 1858, put our minds there for a moment and listen to this: ``Next to winning the Civil War and abolishing slavery, building the first transcontinental railroad from Omaha, Nebraska to Sacramento, California was the greatest achievement of the American people in the 19th century.'' Next to winning the Civil War and abolishing slavery, that was the big accomplishment of the 19th century. ``Not until the completion of the Panama Canal in the early 20th century was it ever rivaled as an engineering feat. The railroad took brains, it took muscles and sweat in quantities and scope never before put into a single project. It could not have been done without a representative democratic system.'' Let me repeat that. It could not have been done without a representative, democratic political system. It could not have been done without skilled and ambitious engineers, most of whom had learned their craft in American colleges and honed it into war. It could not have been done without bosses and foremen who learned how to organize and lead men as officers in the Civil War; without free labor, without hard working laborers who had learned how to take orders in the war; without those who came over to America in the thousands and thousands and thousands from China seeking a fortune; without laborers, many speaking different languages and coming to America from every inhabited continent in the world. Mr. Speaker, it could not have been done without the trees and without the iron available in America; without the capitalist willing to take high risks for great profit; without men willing to challenge all at every level in order to win all; without men to challenge all at every level to win all. Most of all, it could not have been done without teamwork. Nothing like it in the world. And that is the title of the book, Nothing Like It in the World by Stephen Ambrose. Nothing Like It in the World is the story of the men who built the transcontinental railroad, the investors who risked their businesses and money, the enlightened politicians. By the way, the standout of the enlightened politicians, the political mover of the transcontinental railroad in the United States was Abraham Lincoln. When my colleagues go out and talk to your constituents and say name the two major accomplishments of Abraham Lincoln, from a political viewpoint, obviously, most everybody I know could answer the first, the abolishment of slavery and the victory in the Civil War. But not very many people out there understand the role, the significant role, of which the transcontinental railroad could not have been built without Abraham Lincoln. In fact, even the measurement of how far the rails are apart was put in place by Abraham Lincoln. The Union had won the Civil War, and slavery had been abolished, but it was Abraham Lincoln who was an early and constituent champion of railroads. Unfortunately, as we all know, Abraham Lincoln would not live to see this great achievement. Even the scheme of how to have it built, to have the government finance and to have the government put two private companies on two opposite ends of our great country in competition to build that railroad, and their destination was to the final mile of track to be laid which, of course, they met in Utah. It was the last great building project to be done mostly by hand. Can you imagine the surveying back then to go out into the mountain of the Sierras or to go into the plains of Nebraska and trying to figure out a direct route which would support a railroad, the likes of which the world had never seen? The manpower took tens of thousands of men and women, but tens of thousands of people to be able to go out there and lay that track, just the organization of those thousands and thousands of working people. If we had not had the Civil War, we probably would not have had the organization in place, because the amount and number of people that we took out there and the logistics that were necessary to put this thing together had been earlier put together through the Civil War. So there was a benefit coming out of the Civil War. In addition to that, people knew how to take orders. People knew how to be foremen. The Chinese labor, which played a major role, they wanted to come over here. They returned to their homeland, China, as rich people. It is amazing, as I said earlier, that this was the last building project to be done mostly by hand, excavating dirt, cutting through ridges, filling gorges, blasting tunnels to the mountains; and, as the book says, those tunnels, they would have to hand bore a hole into the rock, and they would use thousands and thousands of kegs of powder to blow the rock apart. Many times the explosion would just come back out, and they would have to start again. On a good day, according to the book, on a good day these hard-working people would be able to dig into that granite and maybe move 6 inches a day. At the height of the construction of this railroad, those companies were laying rail for the first transcontinental railroad at the pace a man could walk. Imagine laying rail at the pace a man could walk. Imagine the accomplishment of this country, of the political system that would allow this kind of massive project to be put together, of the engineer, of the support, of the young power, the young people that went out there because, as my colleagues know, this was back-breaking work. It is a part of the history of this country. And as I move on to what I want to talk about, public lands, the transcontinental railroad really was one of the most significant events in the history of this country. It changed everything. For example, my colleagues may not know this, but we had no time zones before this railroad was put into place. Every community in the United States kept its own time. It is the railroads that put time zones in place in the United States. It is the railroads that allowed one person to have more than one store because they could ship their products from one place to the other. It was the railroads that allowed the cattle and so on to be shipped across the country. It was the railroads that allowed many, many different things. It changed the entire nature of the United States of America. It allowed America to expand across the lands it had purchased through, for example, Louisiana Purchase and the other purchases of which we had put together out in the West. You know, it is very interesting. Again, before I set the book down, it is Stephen Ambrose, and the title of the book is Nothing Like It In The World. I encourage my colleagues to take a look at this. It is a fascinating book. By the way, every history class in America ought to have some time devoted to the transcontinental railroad and what it did for America and how it moved us into the settlement of the West and the production and the manufacturing. Every business class, every college in America ought to be aware; and this book, frankly, does a good job of it. They ought to be reading this book to understand what a massive project it was. Again, our minds are still back, colleagues, around the 1858s, 1860s. The Civil War was just getting over, and out here in this country we knew that the law back then was not that you simply had a title to a piece of land. A piece of paper saying you owned a piece of land did not mean a whole lot back then, especially in the frontier of the West. It did not mean a lot. What meant a lot was possession. If you did not possess the land, and all of us have heard that saying that possession is 9/10 of the law. That is what it meant. That is where it came from. If you did not possess it, the chances of you being able to retain legal title on it were not very good. This country, the population of this country was primarily on the East over here to my left on the map. Our population centers were right along the East. That is where we saw it. We had all of this land out here. By the way, as we begin to build the transcontinental railroad, then we came from both ends. On this end, over on the California end, we had no steel production. We did not have rails and the timber and so on. We had to harvest the timbers as they came across for the ties. All of that had to come down and back around. But back in those days what they wanted to do, what our government wanted to do, what the people of this country wanted to do was to settle the new frontier, to claim that land for that new country, the United States of America. And it is from that intent that the dynamics of much of the difference between the East and the West and public lands and government lands, it is from there that these differences were borne. Let me give my colleagues an example. In the East, they have private property ownership; and if you take a look, I have some very interesting statistics that I think will help us get the picture of concentrations of people. Today take a look. We know we just had the Census come out to give you a concentration of people. This is total, 78 percent of the people in America lives in the East Coast. The remaining 22 percent that we have in our country is West, this area. But of that 22 percent, half of them live in the State of California. In comparison, this area of the country is pretty sparsely populated. When my colleagues take a look at the difference in ownership, and this is a critical factor, and I will explain how we got there, but this is a critical factor, when my colleagues from the East wonder why we in the West stand up and talk about public lands and we stand up and talk about the need to use these public lands, you have to understand that in the East your ownership is dominated. The ownership of land in the eastern United States, as pointed out here, is dominated by private ownership. In the East, it is almost all private property. In the West, ownership is dominated by government ownership; and this map that I have to my left demonstrates that. The color on the map, whether it is the light green or the dark green or the red, the colors on that map indicate or show, demonstrate land that is owned by the government. The white parts of the country is private ownership, private land ownership. Take a look at this in the West. Now, the district that I represent is the 3rd Congressional District of Colorado. I would like to point it out here. That district goes right along the edge, and it goes from Wyoming to the State of New Mexico. My district, most of my colleagues have been in my district. If my colleagues have ever skied in Colorado, if my colleagues have ever vacationed in the mountains, the odds are you were in my district here in the 3rd Congressional District. That district is larger than the entire State of Florida, but my colleagues can see it is on my eastern boundary. On my eastern boundary, where the difference between public land ownership to the West and private ownership to the East meet, they meet right on my district line. They meet on the line as it goes out further to the north and further to the south. How is it? How in the history of our country did we come up where primarily you have private ownership in the East and you have primarily government ownership in the West? It is the very factor that is talked about in this book. It is the very factor of talking about settling the West. Go West, young man. Go West. That was the theory, because our population was so populated in the East as it is today. The government decided to give some kind of incentive for people to leave the safety of the cities in the East where commerce was healthy, where there was sophistication, so-called, we put that in quotes, where there was movement and populations and lots of thriving economy. You had to be able to give some kind of incentive to get people to leave the populations of the East and head West to possess the land. The transcontinental railroad was just a part of that. But even before that, again we are in that 1858 to 1865 time period, in 1862, the Homestead Law was enacted by Congress. Most of my colleagues have heard about the Homestead Law. An interesting note for my colleagues, the reason the Homestead Law was not enacted before 1862 was that the southern States knew that any settlement in the West or any new States in the West would be free States. They would oppose slavery. So it took until 1862 when the southern States had left the Union. It took until 1862 to pass the Homestead Act because, prior to 1862, the southern States defeated the Homestead Act. What is the Homestead Act? The Act enacted in 1862 provided that either head of a family, either head of family, which is interesting back then because there was recognition of the woman, but even the woman or the man as head of the family had to be 21 years old or a veteran of just 14 days in service in the Armed Forces. And if you were a citizen, you could acquire a tract of land under private ownership. You could acquire a tract of land of 168 acres. And what happened, every American's dream, every American's dream is to own private property. Every American's dream back then was to own a farm. You see, our land, our economy back then was 98 percent agriculture, and it was your dream back then to go out and have your own piece of land. And 160 acres under the Homestead Act, even the poor people of our country could go out. You did not have to be rich to have the land. All you had to do was commit to that piece of land 5 years. You had to live on it and work on it for 5 years. That was enough incentive to entice a lot of our population, not a lot, but enough of our population would be more proper terminology, enough of our population to go West, young man, go west, and that is what they did. They begin to move into these areas. They begin to go into the Iowas and the Nebraskas and the Ohios and down here in the regions, the Oklahomas. As they got up here in the Dakotas and so on, a funny thing happened, what is that saying, a funny thing happened on the way to the play? A funny thing happened on the way to the West Coast. What happened was this, when they started to move West, they found out in the State of Kansas or up there in Nebraska that 160 acres really was not quite enough in some spots to produce enough agriculture to support one family. In a lot of areas, it was enough land to do that. They actually amended the Homestead Act to double the 160 acres in some places to make it 320 acres. That is why you have a homestead of 160 and some of 320. Some areas out in here took 320 acres to support a family. Remember the focus of the country back then was a family. What was necessary to provide for an average family? They based on that on acres, 160 acres or 320 acres. But as I said, something happened on the way to the West. They hit the Rocky Mountains. What happened in the Rocky Mountains? This starts to begin to explain our differences, why we have so much government ownership in the West and very little public ownership in the East, why in the East we are dominated by private property ownership, and in the West we are dominated by government ownership. What began to happen is when people, our frontiersman, the explorers, the brave people, the men and the women and the husbands and the people who went out, a typical life-span was probably 35 years old, the disease and so on that took so many of their lives, but they continued as frontiersmen to go into the West. When they hit the Rocky Mountains, guess what they discovered? They got up in that kind of country, number one, they found out that, in the East, you try to get rid of your water. In the West, you try and conserve water. They discovered that the West was a very arid place, that it did not have water like the East did. On top of that, they discovered 160 acres in many places would not even support a cow. There was no way possible for you to be able to support a family in the Rocky Mountains on 160 acres from an agricultural point of view. So what was the result? We found that our populations were going around the mountains. They found here in California, see this patch in California where you have private property, the white spot there, a lot of private property ownership there. That was prosperous. People were skipping this area, and they were coming around into the private property ownership areas of California where you could become prosperous, where you could support a family in the valleys and so on of California. Well, the government realized that this was a problem. We did not want people bypassing and going around and ending up in California. We wanted people to live all the way from California to New York. So they had to come up with some kind of remedy to convince people to live in the Rocky Mountains, to convince people to live in this arid part of the country. So they did the calculation. Somebody came up and said, you know, in order to support a family in the Rocky Mountains, a family may need 3,000 acres, not 160 acres, which was later amended to 320 acres, but like 3,000 acres to support a family. The government, as one can understand, said, wait a minute. We cannot give 3,000 acres to everybody that comes in under the Homestead Act. We cannot amend the Homestead Act to provide 3,000 acres. Thereupon was born the idea, hey, instead of selling the land, instead of allowing our citizens to go out and work the land and take title to the land, let us loan them the land. Let us keep ownership of the land but allow the people to go out and use the land. They talked about it, and they debated it. It was never the intent of this government, ever, it was never the intent of this government to take this part of the Nation and tie up almost the entire Western United States and almost all of Alaska. Take a look at when we brought Alaska in as a State. Take a look at when the Seward's Folly bought Alaska. It was never the intent of the government and it has never been the intent of the government to make that land off limits to people. It was never that intent. Today you will hear people who urge, hey, let us get them off the Federal lands. Ironically, most of those claims and those urges come from the East because they feel no pain. They do not have a lot of government land in the East. But we are completely surrounded. For example, in my district, outside of the city of Pueblo, my communities, whether it is Glenwood Springs, Colorado, whether it is Durango, whether it is Grand Junction, Meeker, Craig, Telluride, Aspen, Snowmass, Vail, it is completely surrounded by government lands. The fact is that never ever, and I keep stressing this because it is so critically important, never in the history of this country was it the intent of the government, of the people, of the citizens, or of any organization to take that part of the country that is in color on this map and make it off limits to the citizens of this country. It was always the intent of the Federal Government and the government lands here to manage those lands in such a way that you could have a concept called multiple use. Now, many of my colleagues grew up, as I did, going into the National Forests. Do my colleagues remember what the sign was that hung on the National Forests? For example, the White River National Forest, whose headquarters are in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, do my colleagues remember what that sign said? It says ``Welcome, you are now entering the White River National Forest''. Underneath that hung a sign that said ``A land of many uses''. That is exactly what our forefathers wanted, a land of many uses. The government would keep title because of the politics. Because of the politics of giving that much land to one person, the government kept title, which explains exactly why the government owns these vast amounts of land. They kept title. But they always intended for it to be a land of many uses. That concept has worked very well over the years. Now obviously the government maintained the management responsibility. Every one of us in these chambers have management responsibilities on government lands. As science advances, as our own technology and management of lands advances, we have to change our management process. But never has our management required that, in bulk, we take people off the lands. I come from a land where we are surrounded by the government. We live in a country where we all dream of private land ownership. We live in a country that was to be free of the government, that the government worked for the people. The people did not work for the government. That is the concept of our country. Yet, in the West, we find ourselves besieged by people who do not face the same challenges we do, and some who face the same challenges but, in my opinion, do not appreciate the fact that we are almost totally dependent upon government lands for our subsistence, our recreational subsistence, our environmental protection, our highways, our power lines, our water. I will give my colleagues an example. Water in the State of Colorado, almost every drop of water in Colorado in the western half is stored upon, originates, or runs across Federal lands. Can one imagine if our use of that water, if the many uses of lands, a land of many uses was prohibited as some people now urge? Now, let me say that the public lands have with it, as I mentioned earlier, a very high responsibility. These lands do belong to the people of the country. But I am tired of hearing the argument that, hey, the people back here, the people that enjoy complete private ownership, look, some of these States we cannot even find a government spot in, but I am tired of some people who say, look, you know, we should not allow these people, for example, to have a ski area in Colorado, to expand a ski area, to have a highway, to have power lines. My colleagues cannot imagine what we go through. To give my colleagues an idea, out here in the East, when one wants to build a ditch for water, when one wants to build a highway, when one wants to do some kind of alteration of the land, one goes to one's public zoning board. One may go to one's municipality or to one's county, the zoning board. When we want to do it out here in the West, our zoning board is located here in Washington, D.C., the BLM or the Department of Interior or the Forest Service or the United States Congress. That is where our planning and zoning board is. So as one can expect, it gets somewhat frustrating for those of us. I can tell my colleagues that, for some reason out there, there seems to be a connotation that, if one supports many uses of the public lands, why, one must be against the environment. That could not be further from the truth. The reason many of us live out there is because of the environment. We do not live out there because we get rich living out there. We live out there because, and I happen to think my district is one of the most beautiful, and I think most of my colleagues on the floor would agree, my district is one of the most beautiful districts in the country. My district has got 54 mountains over 14,000 feet. My district is the highest district in the Nation. We live at the highest elevation in the Nation. It is beauty everywhere one looks. But do my colleagues know what we have discovered over the years, people can live amongst that beauty without scarring it. Now, we have learned a lot. We learned that the mining techniques, for example, which pretty much are gone now in the mountains, and that argument could be held one way or the other, we learned that the old mining techniques tore up the land, and we are now recovering a lot of that land. But we also know, for example, for our forests, we have learned a lot about forest and forest health. We know that in forest and forest health that management of that forest, taking timber out of the forest, not for the sake of commercial timber, not for the sake of commercial timber, but to manage the forest for our wildlife, for the health of the forest is necessary. I think it is incumbent upon those of my colleagues who do not live near public lands, I think it is incumbent upon them to take a little time to understand why in the West we have different problems because of the fact that we live on government lands or we are surrounding by government lands, compared to the problems my colleagues have under private ownership. Let us go just for a moment, I want to talk about another book here that is very fascinating about the forests in America. This is strictly now limited to forests, not just public lands. This book is by Douglas McCleary. It is called ``American Forests, a History of Resiliency and Recovery.'' Now, again, I have never met the author to the best of my knowledge. I am just telling my colleagues this is a good book, a good reference book for something I am talking about. I think it would be good to talk about a few interesting factors that are highlighted by this book. Now, this book, by the way, is not put out by an environmental organization. It is not put out by a lumber company. It is put out by an individual who has gained a reputation for integrity in his investigations and his facts. Let us read a few things. ``Following two centuries of decline, the area of forest land has stabilized. Today the United States has the same amount of forest area as it did from 1920.'' Now, if my colleagues listen to some of this propaganda, a lot which, by the way, has just come on recently to raise funds, attacking the Interior Secretary Gail Norton, who I know personally. I have dealt with Gail. I have worked side by side with her, she is from Colorado, for years and years. This is an individual in my opinion of high integrity, but who is being assaulted by certain organizations who want to use her as a fund-raising technique. If one listens to some of this advertising, one would think the forests out here have been devastated. Again, look at it, the forests today are as large as the forests were in 1920. One could never gather that from those commercials that one hears. ``Nationally, the average volume of standing timber per acre in the United States forest is about one-third greater today than it was in 1952. In the East, the average volume per acre of standing timber'', this is not processed timber, this is not commercial timber, this is standing timber, ``in the east, the average volume of standing timber is almost doubled.'' In the West, it is a third greater than it was just 50 years ago, a third greater in standing timber. Now, remember, a large part of this is because, in the early days, for example, when the transcontinental railroad went through, they took a lot of forest. They took a lot of timber down. The trains, the steamships, the food, everything depended on timber. They put their cows in there. They did not manage the harvest of it. They cut timber tree after tree after tree for the ties underneath the rail. Remember all those steam locomotives, before they put coal in there, they through wood in there. And the fence, back then, the fences were all built by wood. Today, this is before the invention of barbed wire or wire for fences. So a lot of the uses of wood have been reduced. So that is in fact a contributing factor that we have to consider when we talk about the increase here. But nonetheless, listen to this: ``The populations ever whitetail deer, wild turkey, elk, pronghorns, and many other wildlife species have increased dramatically. Tree planting on all forest land rose dramatically after World War II, reaching record levels in the 1980s. Many private forests are now actively managed for tree growing. 70,000 certified tree farms encompass 95 million acres of privately owned land.'' In other words, now the big thing is not farming, but actually growing trees. ``The tens of millions of acres of stump lands that existed in 1900 have long since been reforested. Many of those areas today are mature forests. Others have been harvested a second time, and a cycle of regeneration to young forests has started again. ``Eastern forests have staged a major come back. Forest growth nationally has exceeded the harvest since the 1940s with each subsequent decade generally showing increased margins. Recreational use on our national forests has increased many fold.'' I am going to talk about recreational management because it is very important. ``American society in the 20th Century changed from rural to urban and industrialized. And although this change has been accompanied by a corresponding physical and psychological separation of people from land and resources, today's urbanized nation is no less dependent on the products of its forests and fields than were the subsistence farmers of the Americas past.'' I think, and I will not read much further here, but I think the summation that I am trying to say here is, look, we have to retain, and we have to stand strong for the preservation of multiple use, of many uses on Federal lands. It is critical for the well-being of half of this Nation. Now I realize that this takes some patience on people who do not deal with Federal lands. Oh, sure, out here in the East, you have the Appalachians. Down here in Florida, you have got the Everglades. You have some spots up here near the lakes, Great Lakes and so on. But for the most part, I am asking the understanding of my colleagues, before they draw automatic conclusions about people's use, about people as being a resource on government and public lands, take into consideration the management of those lands. There are lots of ways that we manage Federal lands. The most exclusive way and the way that is fixed forever, it is locked in, I guess theoretically Congress could change it, but short of a world war, I do not see it changing, the most aggressive, most nonflexible and most locked-in management of Federal lands is called a wilderness area. I know a lot about wilderness areas. I sponsored wilderness areas. Last year I put in over 100,000 acres of land into wilderness on different projects. The year before, I think I put in another 18,000 acres. Wilderness is a very extreme tool and it is a very proper tool in its appropriate use. But from wilderness clear over to this end of the spectrum would be no management of Federal lands. That is no good. The days of being able to allow people to go onto the public lands and cut timber or recreate or take water or destroy the environment, those days are gone. Every one of us who lives in the West has an additional responsibility. Because we live on the land, we can monitor the land more carefully. We have to be the enforcers of making sure that those public lands are not abused. But at the same time we need to understand there are different methods. There is a strong advertising campaign going on out there that would suggest to my colleagues that if these government lands, if large parts of these lands are not put into wilderness areas, then these lands will not be protected. The reason wilderness was used as the designation is that it is a very popular word. Stop 10 people in your district and see if you can get any negative view about the word ``wilderness.'' That is like motherhood and apple pie. The reality is that you have to look at the fine print. What does the fine print do for water rights, and in the West I intend to speak extensively about water soon in one of my night-side chats, but wilderness areas have significant impacts on water rights. And Colorado is the only State in the Union, Colorado is the only State in the Union where all of our free-flowing water goes out of the State. We have no free-flowing water for our use that comes into the State. So water rights are a big deal; and when you have the Federal Government out of Washington, D.C. coming in and doing things with land designations that impact our water rights, we kind of get up in arms. We kind of become a little defensive, which is why you see such extensive debate when we have Congressman from the eastern coast who decide let us put a wilderness out in Colorado or Utah or Nevada, it kind of burns us when one of you colleagues steps forward, and you have probably never spent a night in the West unless you were doing a political trip or on vacation, and you step forward and say it does not impact my constituents, we are not going to put a wilderness area in Central Park of New York City or Connecticut, but let us put a wilderness in Colorado. The impact and the management of government lands, what does it do to the local people? What is the fine print? We have a lot of different management tools, and by the way, every other management tool allows more flexibility. We have national parks, national monuments, special management areas. We have areas where we allow mineral protection and grazing and hunting. We have areas that have special designations like Lake Powell for water storage; and by the way, California, for power production. We have an array of management tools. Many of you may remember the tragic fire of Storm King Mountain that occurred in Glenwood Springs. We managed that land under one plan one day; and because of the fire, a few days later we switched the management plan because we had an entire different set of factors to deal with. The wild fires that take place, we have discovered that many fires are healthy for the forest; but many of these fires do damage which needs to be managed in a different way. The wildlife that we try to preserve, the Endangered Species Act, we find out that there has to be certain management of the forest to preserve these. We have to understand that recreation, many of the people, unless you are very wealthy in my district, for example, if you live in Glenwood Springs or Aspen or Steamboat, most of the mountain communities in Colorado, unless you are very wealthy, you do not own a lot of land because the land out there is very expensive, and most people are not wealthy, although it is a very wealthy district, and most of those people recreate on Federal lands. Some of our biggest family recreational sports are skiing or recreating at Lake Powell. Yet we have people out there, primarily again out of the East, we have special interest groups who want to drain Lake Powell. Lake Powell has more shoreline than the entire Pacific West Coast. It produces massive amounts of power. It gives us flood control. But again as I said, it is probably the primary family recreation spot in the State of Utah; and of course you have that family recreation area in Arizona, and these groups want to drain it. They want to take down the dam to go back, as they say, to days they never experienced, and with very little knowledge. And here we have a State like California who suffered blackouts yesterday and suffered blackouts today, and they may suffer rolling blackouts tomorrow. Why? Because on a per-capita basis California produces less power than any other State in the Union. Recently in the last 10 to 20 years, they have kind of bought into this picture: not in my backyard. No power production in my State. Let somebody else do it. That kind of philosophy is what creates problems. Let me come back. There are lots of ways to manage these lands which does a good job. For example, the Colorado Canyons Conservation Area, that was my bill last year. My wife and I hiked the conservation area this last weekend. There are very few weekends that my wife and I are not hiking public lands, recreating on the lands, talking to people that use the lands, talking to the environmentalists and the water experts on these lands. The Colorado canyons, and if you are ever in Grand Junction, Colorado, go walk the canyon. Go down to the Great Sand Dunes or the Black Canyon National Park, take a look at the Rocky Mountain National Park. There we have used in a responsible fashion, and we have been able to manage these public lands. Do not take it away from us. It is our life-style. We subsidize. It is our subsistence, and we think that we have good teams out there. My Colorado canyons legislation could not have happened if I had not had cooperation from environmental activists, if I had not had cooperation from the ranching community, if I had not had cooperation from the locally elected officials, from local groups like the local chamber of commerce or from the mountain bikers, the users, or from the people, the water experts, because the Colorado River came there. There are a lot of different people that can come together, but they ought to come together in a straightforward fashion. From the ads that I hear about wilderness, the perception, especially here in the East, because those in the East have not really lived it, it is very easy to kind of direct your perception of what is happening in the West. And the easiest way to kind of propagandize or direct your vision of what is going on in the West and on the government lands is to make you visualize that the only way to protect the lands is to put it in wilderness; that the people have overrun the lands and that we need to take people off the lands. In some cases, that is accurate. In most cases, it is not. In most cases, the land is being properly managed. Can we improve? Of course we can improve. Who cannot? Education can improve, health care can be improved, highways can be improved, environmental organizations can improve. Of course we can improve that management. And it is a responsibility of ours to improve that management. But we should not take the most dramatic, the most radical step, and that is to join that movement to take people off these lands. Now, I am going to have an opportunity here in the next week or week and a half and I will have another night-side chat where I will talk to my colleagues about water. Water really is an amazing subject to talk about, especially when we take a look at exactly the differences that we have in the East and the West. My colleagues are going to see that, as I mentioned, there are dramatic differences between ownership and so on. And before I close out on water, I want to give some comparisons of some interests. My comments here are focused towards those here who represent eastern States, States like Kentucky, Rhode Island, New York, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Delaware, or Maryland. Let me give some comparisons so my colleagues can understand where my focus, where my devotion is in the West. You will get a pretty broad picture. Let us compare some States. I picked 11 eastern States tonight in preparation for these comments. I picked 11 eastern States, and I picked 11 western States to compare the amount of public ownership and the amount of government land in the West compared to government land in the East. The State of Nevada. In the State of Nevada, roughly 83 percent of the land is owned by the government. Eighty-three percent of the State of Nevada is owned by the government versus the State of New Jersey, which is only 3 percent. Three percent in the State of New Jersey. The State of Utah. Sixty-four percent of the State of Utah is owned by the government; in Maryland, just a little over 2 percent; Utah, 64 percent. Maryland, just over 2 percent. Idaho. Sixty-one percent of the State of Idaho is owned by the government. In Delaware, 2 percent. Pennsylvania, 2 percent. Indiana, 1.7 percent. Oregon, back to the West again, 52 percent. Wyoming, 50 percent. Half of the State of Wyoming is owned by the government. Arizona. Almost half of the State of Arizona is owned by the government. California. Forty-five percent of the State of California is owned by the government. Colorado. Thirty-seven percent of the State of Colorado is owned by the government. And, by the way, most of that ownership is in my district. In Ohio, less than 1.3 percent is owned by the government. Massachusetts. Less than 1.3 percent of Massachusetts is owned by the government. Maine, less than a percent. New York, less than a percent. Rhode Island, less than half a percent. Connecticut, two-tenths of a percent. On the other hand, back to the West, New Mexico, 32 percent; Washington, 28 percent; Montana, 28 percent. So when one of my colleagues from Massachusetts, where about 1 percent of the State is owned by the government, proposes legislation dealing with a State like Nevada, which has 83 percent of its land owned by the government; or Alaska, Alaska is in the high 90s, I think 94 or 96 percent of Alaska is owned by the government, it is nice to understand these comparisons. My point is this: we work as a team back here, theoretically, in the United States Congress. Not theoretically, we really do. There are a lot of things we agree on. A lot of people say to me, gosh, back at the United States Capital it is always Republicans and Democrats, Republicans and Democrats. Always division. That is not necessarily true. There are a lot of differences back here between urban and rural, between East and West, and I am here tonight to try to explain the justification. It is not evil that there are differences between the East and the West, but it is something that should be understood. For us to do our jobs efficiently, for us to be Representatives of the United States of America, we need to understand some fundamental differences brought about during the early days of our country and the settlement of our country. That is what I hope my comments tonight have accomplished. Now, I want to come back in a week or so, and I want to spend an hour talking about the differences in water. Water and the West. It is uniquely different than water in the East. The water tastes the same, perhaps; but the water laws and the allocation of water and the amount of water and the implications of storage of water and the power production of water, all of those issues have factors that create a differentiation between the East and the West. We clearly, in the West, are outnumbered by those in the East. We know this. It is like the same in my district in Colorado. In my district in Colorado, we have 80 percent of the water resources, and 80 percent of the population lives outside my district. We have to try and educate and work with each other so that we truly can have a team effort towards a common goal. But many times in the West we feel left out. And so my purpose in speaking with Members this evening and my purpose in speaking with them next week about water is so that they have a little clearer understanding of why we get so energized here, why we are so concerned when we talk about something as fundamental to us, not necessarily fundamental to you but fundamental to our subsistence in the West, such as government and public lands, such as water. I look forward, Mr. Speaker, to again next week having a similar discussion where we will focus on water. I think Members will be impressed, they will be surprised how much water is necessary, I think about 1,500 gallons of water to serve them a Big Mac, a French fry and a malt. That is about the water that is necessary to grow that kind of food for them. The amount of water that agriculture takes, we never even think about, because you do not think about how much water it takes to get a Big Mac hamburger at McDonald's. You do not think how much water it takes when you buy hamburger buns at the grocery store. You do not think how much water it takes when you have the oak tree outside. It is a lot of water. The management of that water is just as critical to us as the management of public lands. In conclusion, I would recommend, it is fascinating, regardless of where you live in the United States, it is fascinating to read this book about the transcontinental railroad, 1863 to 1869. It is entitled ``Nothing Like It in the World,'' Stephen Ambrose. Members may remember, he wrote about the Lewis and Clark exploration and so on. It is fascinating. I would challenge each of my colleagues to go out and get this, and I would bet you that every one of them in a couple of weeks will say, wow, that is a great book. That really gave me a perception and a study of American history. I would also recommend that any time you come across a history teacher or a business teacher, ask those instructors to present this to their classes, to talk about the difference that the transcontinental railroad made in everything from timekeeping in the United States to the amount of federally and government owned lands in the West compared with government and privately owned lands in the East.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to pay tribute to a ski industry leader. Ralph O. Walton Jr. announced on March 14th that he is retiring as Chairman of the Board of Crested Butte Mountain Resort, Inc. where he has been the driving force behind shaping Crested Butte as one of Colorado's premier destination mountain resorts. His leadership in this important industry deserves the recognition and praise of this body. In 1970, Ralph and his brother-in-law, Howard H. (Bo) Callaway bought the Crested Butte Ski area. In the 30 years since, he has been the senior officer. ``I have had a great 30 years at Crested Butte, but now is the right time for Martha and me to spend a little more time together and let the younger generation take the ski area forward,'' Ralph said. Under his leadership, the resort invested over $100 million in improvements, including 13 lifts, two warming houses, and 700,000 square feet of construction at the base area. He pioneered the first non stop, scheduled jet service to regional mountain airports, and developed both the Crested Butte Marriott Hotel and the Crested Butte Sheraton Hotel. ``Ralph Walton has been the guiding force behind the ski area at Crested Butte for the past 30 years and the ski area owes him a great debt of gratitude for helping it get to its position today. Everyone in Crested Butte will sorely miss his active leadership but we understand his desire to retire at this time,'' said Bo Callaway, the Resort's co- owner. The 70 year old Georgia native graduated from Auburn University in 1951 with a BS in Electrical Engineering and spent two years in the United States Army as a First Lieutenant. Ralph has also been associated with the National Ski Areas Association as a board member. He spent time as the Vice Chairman of the Board of Colorado Ski Country, USA and as a board member. He also worked for Westinghouse Electric Corporation for sixteen years. Ralph has also found time to be active in Rotary International, the Optimist Club, IEEE, the Hamilton Baptist Church, and the United Congressional Church of Crested Butte. Mr. Speaker, Colorado's ski industry is losing one of its great leaders. He has done so much for the ski industry, and for Crested Butte. I would like to take a moment to thank Ralph for all his work and wish him good luck in his future endeavors.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this moment to recognize a very brave man who put his own personal safety at risk to protect the life of another. On March 5th Salvador Lopez saved a young 7 year old boy from serious injury or worse when the Postal Carrier rescued him from behind the wheel of a pickup truck that was fast heading toward a busy intersection. Mr. Lopez's gallant act deserves the recognition of this body. With this in mind, I would like to place in the Congressional Record the following article from the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, written by Alex Taylor. It was a nice day for delivering the mail. The sun was out and the temperature was mild. Salvador Lopez was having a pretty pleasant day on the job as the postman in the area of North Seventh and Orchard Avenue on Monday afternoon . . . Shortly after 3 p.m., Lopez had to leap off the sidewalk when he saw a car veering toward him traveling in the wrong direction on Orchard. Behind the wheel were two wide eyes just barely gaping over the dashboard. Apparently 7-year-old Nicholas Reyes thought it was so nice out he'd go for his first-ever drive through the neighborhood. `I was going down the sidewalk delivering the mail when I heard a noise,' said Lopez. `I looked up and saw the car coming at me. I could see by the boy's eyes in the car that something was wrong, it was just the look on his face. I jumped out of the way.' After narrowly missing Lopez, Reyes turned to the right and was driving across Orchard. The vehicle he was driving headed toward a car stopped at the intersection. Lopez dropped his mail and dashed across the street to save the boy. He reached through the window and turned the wheel just before impact. The car side-swiped the other car in the intersection, and was headed towards another vehicle when Lopez leaped back through the window and yanked on the emergency brake. He stopped the car just in time as it gently hit the next in line and came to a stop. Lopez estimated the boy had been idling along at about 5 mph to 10 mph. The boy was taken to the hospital minutes later with minor injuries to his face. Lopez injured his ribs when diving through the window, but the injury was not serious . . . As you can see, Mr. Speaker, Salvador risked his health to save the life of this young boy. He has made us all-- particularly his wife Gloria, his children Yma, Sergio, Isabelle, and Mario, and his co-workers at the Post Office-- very proud.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to recognize a man of great courage and bravery, a man that this country owes a great debt to. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked a sleeping Pearl Harbor, killing over 2,400 sailors. 60 years later, Val Alvarado of Montrose, Colorado recalls the events that brought the United States of America into the Second World War. Val, who was 18 years old at the time, served aboard the USS Maryland. Val's job was to load gun powder into the war ship's 16 inch guns. This was often referred to as the ``no warning'' tinder box of instant death. Val and his shipmates were lucky to survive the strike on Pearl Harbor, but those of the neighboring USS Oklahoma were not. But if it were not for the fact that the Oklahoma was anchored next to them, Val would not be here today. In less than two hours, the United States lost 188 planes, 159 planes and had 18 U.S warships sunk or seriously crippled. But more than that, the U.S. lost over 2,400 service men, and another 1,100 were injured. One of the service men who died was a close boyhood friend of Val's. ``On the fifth day we had time to check on our buddies. I found out that my good friend Jimmy Robinson had been killed. . . . We both came from Montrose, we had gone to Morgan School in Montrose. Jimmy was the first man from Montrose to be killed in the war,'' Val remembered. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Val was transferred to the USS McCalla, whose war prowess is the stuff of legends. The McCalla, with Val in tow, returned to the Pacific where it would earn three battle stars. During his time in the military, Val took part in the Armed Forces Olympics where he boxed in what the Armed Forces called the Nimitz Bowl. ``I won the fight between all the army, marines, and navy in the pacific theatre for my weight. I was pretty proud of that . . . I was pretty happy about that,'' according to Val. Mr. Speaker, over 50 million people died in World War II. It took the courage of 18 year olds like Val for America to eventually win the war. That is why I am asking that we take this moment to recognize and honor Val Alvarado for his service to this country, and to wish him good luck in his future endeavors. Val is the embodiment of the values that characterized the ``Greatest Generation''. For his service in WWII, America is exceedingly grateful.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to recognize Ann Holmes of La Jara, Colorado for her service to the elderly in her community. For 21 years Ann has dedicated her time to make sure the residents of the Conejos County Long Term Care Unit were comfortable and receiving top care. That is why I would like the 107th Congress to take a moment and recognize Ann for her work. Ann worked in the district for five and a half years and recently decided it was time to slow down. Her dedication and hard work won her excellent ratings from the State Surveys. And because of these ratings the Conejos County Long Term Care Unit was able to participate in the ResQuip Program, which offers money for specific projects that will enhance the lives of area residents. Ann always put patients first. The funds that came from the ResQuip Program were used to build a gazebo. One of Ann's goals, which she achieved, was to purchase a lift to transfer residents in comfort. Ann also formed the Ethics Committee for the Conejos County Hospital. All of her staff members and residents will miss her tremendously. ``It has been a privilege to work under her direction. I will miss her both professionally and personally,'' Julia King-Smith said. Mr. Speaker, as Ann moves on to new pursuits, I would like to thank her for her remarkable work. In my opinion, Ann will long be remembered as a servant in the medical field, and for giving so much time to make sure that the elderly are comfortable. For these things, Ann deserves the thanks and praise of this body.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to recognize Bill and Claudia Coleman for their gracious donation to the University of Colorado. On January 16, 2001, University of Colorado president Elizabeth Hoffman accepted their donation, the single largest gift ever given to an American University. The gift, totaling $250 million dollars, will be used to establish the University of Colorado Coleman Institute for Congenative Disabilities. The program will fund advanced research and development of innovative technologies intended to enhance the lives of people with congenative disabilities. Cognitive disabilities are associated with a number of conditions, such as mental retardation and developmental retardation. ``This will make CU the international center of excellence in developing adaptive assistance technologies, based on advanced biomedical and computer science research and computer science research, for people with congenative disabilities,'' Hoffman said. Bill is the founder and chairman of BEA Systems of San Jose, California, and his wife Claudia, is a former manager with Hewlett Packard. An Air Force Academy graduate and former executive with Sun Microsystems, Bill said the idea for the donation came from a tour of CU's Center for LifeLong Learning and Design. Bill and Claudia are no strangers to congenative disabilities. They have a niece with the disability, and they understand the benefits and the promise new technologies offer. The Coleman's plan to play an active role in the institute. They said the ``incredibly strong'' team of researchers at CU played a decisive role in the decision to give the University the endowment. ``We have witnessed the challenges this population faces everyday with problem solving, reasoning skills and understanding and using language,'' Bill said. ``I passionately believe that we as a society have the intelligence and the responsibility to develop technologies that will expand the ability of those with congenative disabilities to learn, to understand and to communicate,'' he added. Mr. Speaker, this is an unprecedented gift by both Mr. and Mrs. Coleman. Their generosity and vision will help countless Americans now and in the future. For that, they deserve the thanks and praise of this body.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to ask that we all pause for a moment to remember Karl Johnson, a leader in the community of Grand Junction, Colorado who recently passed away at age 86. Karl spent 32 years of his life protecting the citizens of Grand Junction as a police officer. It is this life of service to his community, state and nation that I would now like to honor. From 1954 to 1974, Karl served as the chief of police. During his 20 years he closed the door on corrupt activities and brought respect back to his police department. ``He ran a tight ship and no scandals and that wasn't true of those before him,'' said Frank Spieker, a former Mesa County district attorney. It was no easy task to keep the department scandal-free for two decades, but according to Bob Evers, he was the leading force in restoring integrity to his department. At the time Karl was police chief, there wasn't a Police Academy in the state of Colorado. Karl worked with the FBI to put on training sessions of officers in his department and from surrounding agencies. ``He was a bit ahead of his time in that respect,'' said Vincent Jones, the FBI agent based on Grand Junction at the time. Chief Johnson's yeoman's work in the Police Department was just one of many ways he served his community, said Terry Farina, who worked with him as a district attorney. After his retirement from the police department, Karl went on to win a seat on the city council and spent a year as mayor. Mr. Speaker, Karl was a man of great character whose leadership and integrity left an impact on the Grand Junction Police Department that can still be felt today. For that, we are grateful. It is clear, Mr. Speaker, that Grand Junction is a better place because of Karl's service. Though he will be missed greatly, Karl will not soon be forgotten.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to recognize 18-year-old Rebecca Denise Evers of Bayfield High School. Rebecca is the very first recipient in the school's history to receive the Boettcher Scholarship award. For this, Mr. Speaker, I would like the United States Congress to honor her. She is one of 40 students statewide to receive this honor. The Boettcher Scholarship is recognized as the most prestigious private scholarship in the state of Colorado. Rebecca is one of 820 applicants and one of 72 finalists. For the honor, Rebecca had to finish in the top five percent of her class and have an ACT score of 27 or a 1,200 SAT score. Selections are based on academics, extracurricular leadership and involvement and character. According to Rebecca's teachers, she is an energetic, hardworking, and caring young woman as well as an outstanding student, an exceptionally talented athlete, and is dedicated to helping others and contributing to her community. ``She's an excellent student,'' said Paula Carron, her fifth grade teacher. ``She was self motivated, happy, cheerful, and willing to help other people.'' Rebecca is involved in many different activities. She is involved with the National Honor Society, the Future Business Leaders of America, the El Pomar Youth and Community Service Organization, and is her class president. Rebecca was instrumental in the organization and implementation of Peer Helpers at Bayfield High School. She has dedicated several hours a week during the past two years helping many of her classmates solve personal problems as well as adjusting to high school life. She somehow has also found to time to excel at volleyball, basketball and track. Mr. Speaker, it is students like Rebecca Evers who take our mind off of all the negative and tragic events in our nation's schools, and focus on all the positives. Rebecca is truly someone who can be looked up to by young people everywhere.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, there are a number of different subjects that I would like to address tonight. Let me begin, first of all, by thanking all of my colleagues for their support for the successful passing of the legislation, the willing seller, willing buyer legislation for our national trails. The specific trail that I focus really on a lot in the State of Colorado is the Continental Divide Trail. It is kind of ironic that years ago a piece of legislation was amended to put in place that a property owner who wishes to sell their land, a private property owner who wishes to sell their land to a trails committee or to the government for a trail like the Continental Divide Trail was prohibited from doing so even though the seller wanted to sell. It was an amendment that made no sense. Today a great trail like the Continental Divide Trail, and we all know a little bit about the history of that, that trail is being prevented in essence from being finished for its preservation, because willing sellers, not condemnation, condemnation has no place in putting a trail like this for a historic basis, but a willing seller does have a place. That legislation that was almost unanimously approved this evening, I think we probably had three no votes off the entire floor, allows that now to proceed. Mr. Speaker, there are a couple of people, my good friend, Steve Fossel out in Colorado out in Silverthorne, Colorado, very aggressive on his support of this. He is a citizen. He is very active in conservation issues. He is also a private property owner. He is a rancher. He feels very strongly about private property rights. This is the kind of legislation as a private property advocate that he could support. He got way behind it. He has worked very hard. Of course, we also have Bruce and Pamela Ward. Bruce and Pamela Ward are the directors of the Continental Divide Trail, and they have done a tremendous task over the years of putting together everything from voluntary maintenance crews to go out and work on the Continental Divide Trail to putting together records for the historical purposes, the paper trail on the Continental Divide Trail, no pun intended, and all the other numerous tasks that are involved to preserve such a great part of our history. Mr. Speaker, I openly congratulate Bruce and Paula Ward for their hard and difficult work, but this is the accomplishment that we got. I also, of course, want to thank all of my colleagues for their support this evening in the passage of that. Let me move on to my second subject that I wish to address tonight. I say this with a great deal of pride. As most of my colleagues know, my district is in the fine State of Colorado. My district is larger geographically than the State of Florida. Essentially, I have almost all of the mountains in Colorado. So any of my colleagues that have skied in Colorado or if they have been to Aspen or Snowmass or Steamboat or the Colorado National Monument in Grand Junction or the Four Corners down there in Durango or the ski area down there or the San Luis Valley and the agricultural fields, any of that country in Colorado belongs in the 3rd Congressional District. We take a great deal of pride from what we have to offer as far as the physical beauty of that particular district, and we have just been recognized by the Travel Channel. Glenwood Springs, that is where I was born and raised. Glenwood Springs is a wonderful community, about 35 minutes from Aspen, Colorado, about 45 minutes from Vail, Colorado, and about an hour and 10 minutes from Grand Junction, Colorado, so you can kind of triangulate in there exactly where Glenwood Springs is. Glenwood Springs was named by the Travel Channel as the number one spot in the Nation for cooling off. So if my colleagues have an opportunity to go to Glenwood Springs, my colleagues will see there the most world famous hot springs pool, which is the largest natural spring water pool in the United States. It is a great resort, and it certainly is deserving of the honor that it received by the Travel Center. We have gotten a lot of calls at the local chamber who want to find out how to visit Glenwood Springs. But when you go out to visit the 3rd Congressional District, take a look, because the 3rd Congressional District actually is a textbook example of a district that has huge amounts of public lands, of a district that is totally reliable, totally reliable on the concept of multiple use, on a district that has seen as much or more activity as any district in the Nation in regards to wilderness areas. Mr. Speaker, in fact, I have put a couple of wilderness areas in place, a district where the water in Colorado, 80 percent of the water in Colorado is in the 3rd Congressional District, 80 percent of the population resides outside the 3rd Congressional District. Colorado is the only State in the Union where it has no free-flowing water for its use to come into Colorado. It all goes out. Water is a key ingredient of the 3rd Congressional District. The reason I say it is a textbook example is because you have the issues of public lands. You have the issues of private property ownership. You have the issues of national parks. We have four wonderful national parks in Colorado, all of which are either totally contained or partially contained. In fact, three of the four are totally contained within the 3rd Congressional District, and the fourth, a good portion of it, is in the 3rd Congressional District. You have the issue of water. You have a number of different issues that we hear about. Here in the East, for example, you do not experience that to any kind of large extent, except if you are in the Appalachian Trail or down in the Everglades, the concept of public lands, because essentially from the eastern border of the 3rd Congressional District In the State of Colorado to the Atlantic Ocean, you have very, very little Federal land ownership or government land ownership. From that eastern border of the 3rd Congressional District to the Pacific Ocean, you have lots of Federal and public land ownership. There is a lot of history to that. I intend to take an hour on this floor here in the not-to-distant future to talk about the concept of multiple use, to talk about the grub-staking of the 1800s, to talk about why you have huge quantities of Federal lands in the West and very little Federal lands in the East. There is a reason for it. But it was by the luck of time that the East frankly escaped a lot of government land ownership and the West got saddled with it. There are a lot of decisions that are made in the East where the pain of public land, in particular, examples is not felt, but it certainly is felt in the West, and that is why you see the West get a little parochial about the fact. We feel the pain out here. There are a lot of issues like water. In a lot of the areas in the East, your big factor is to get rid of water. You have too much of it. In the West, we are an arid area. We have to store our water. We have to use our water for hydropower. We do not have a lot of water. We are arid States. There are any number of different issues. I hope as you consider visiting some of our vacation spots which are located in the 3rd Congressional District, for example, Aspen, Beaver Creek, Vail, Steamboat, Telluride, Durango, Grand Junction, Pueblo, all of these areas, they are all in that 3rd Congressional District. When you go out there, take a look, spend just a little time, colleagues, and study the concepts of public land ownership, of private ownership of water in the West and why it differs from water in the East as far as the dynamics of ownership and the dynamics of the system that permits water usage out there. There are a lot of interesting things, national parks and the maintenance of national parks. The wildlife issues. My particular district, the Third Congressional District, has the largest herds of elk in North America. We have huge populations of mule deer. In fact, this morning I was running. I just came to Washington today. I was running at 4 o'clock this morning in Grand Junction. I saw a coyote and fox in one run. This is in the community. We have a lot of wildlife. It is a wonderful, wonderful district to represent. It is a great district to go visit. But there are a lot of complex issues that I would urge my colleagues to become a little more acquainted with them if they are not already acquainted with them as it pertains to the West. Let me move on to another subject that I think is important. We keep hearing about this tax cut that President Bush has proposed. It seems to me that there are some of my colleagues on this floor who have now made it their life duty to kill the tax cut regardless of the ramifications to the economy as a whole. I need to tell my colleagues, we have got to keep in mind what happens. I had an interesting flight today as I came into Washington D.C. I sat next to a gentleman named Bill. Bill asked me, Well, if you keep the money in Washington, D.C., and by the way, even under the tax cut of President Bush's proposal, most of the money is kept in Washington, D.C., but going back to the question that Bill had, if you keep the money in Washington, D.C., does that money automatically reduce the debt? My answer to Bill is, that is the problem. If you keep the money in Washington, D.C., if you keep those surplus dollars here in Washington, it is going to get spent. It does not just sit around here. It is too tempting. It is like somebody who is on a diet but can be tempted very easily. And I happen to be a good example of that. I like sweets. If I were on a diet, you know, I do not have a lot of resistance towards sweets. If you put me in a candy store on a diet, I cannot help it, I grab some candy. That is what happens with money in Washington, D.C. It is not just because you have congressional people that are weak. That is not true. In fact, most of my colleagues that I am acquainted with, which are most of them here on the floor, are pretty strong individuals. But the fact is we have constituents who continually come to the great halls of Congress and want money, and the programs that they want money for happen to be not bad programs. We do not get proposals very often for bad programs. We get proposals for good program after good program after good program. The problem is you do not have enough to do it all. The problem is you have got to have the ability to say no. If you have got a big pile of money sitting behind you, how do you look at somebody who has a good program but maybe not a necessary program? And there is a big difference between a good program and a necessary program. Some good programs are necessary, but some good programs are not necessary. So the problem that we have here is, when we have good programs, and constituents, whether it is senior citizens, whether it is young people, whether it is any welfare, any kind of program, and they come to us and they say, Look, why can you not fund this new program for us? You have got all this money. You have got all this surplus. So we are under a lot of pressure back here by our own constituents who want us to fund their programs. They understand the fact that we have to control spending, unless of course that control impacts their particular program. So the best thing one can do when you have got an economy that is going south like our economy is currently headed, the best thing one can do is put some dollars back into the pocket of the people who sent the dollars here in the first place. Remember, here in Washington, D.C., this is the one city in the entire Nation, there is no other city like it in the Nation, that is totally dependent upon taxpayer dollars. If you go to Denver, Colorado, if you go to Portland, Oregon, if you go to Laredo, Texas, or Hays, Kansas, or Lansing, Michigan, those communities are not totally dependent like Washington, D.C. is on the transfer of money. Not the creation of wealth, mind you, not the creation of wealth, which is necessary in Laredo or Hays or in Denver and so on. Washington, D.C. is totally dependent on taking money from people who work and transferring it to a bureaucracy in this huge city. So here in this city, which is totally dependent on these excess dollars, spending these dollars, do my colleagues think it is safe to leave excess money laying around? Do my colleagues know where that money is best used? Not here in Washington, D.C. for redistribution through the bureaucracy. If you question my analysis on that, ask anybody you want, ask any of your friends. Use this example, say to your friends, Hey, if you just won $10 million in the lottery, and you feel like you want to give it to charity or you want to put it out in society to help people, would you bring your $10 million to Washington, D.C. for redistribution to the American people? Of course you would not. You would redistribute that yourself. Why? Because you think you would be much more productive. You think you could get that money put to a much better use out in your local communities. Therein lies the problem. The tax cut that the President is proposing is a very important leg on a three-legged stool for the survival of our economy, not the survival, that is an overstatement, but for the health of our community, for the health of our economy. That three-legged stool consists of a tax cut, putting dollars back to the people who are paying these dollars. They have paid too much. When somebody pays too much, they are entitled to a refund. That is number one. We have got to get those tax, at least a portion of those taxpayer dollars without jeopardizing the future of our country. We are not jeopardizing our defense. We are not jeopardizing our education. We are not jeopardizing the health of this economy or this Nation by giving a portion of those dollars back to the people who paid too much in. But that is leg number one on the stool. The second leg is our monetary policy; and that, as all of my colleagues know, is driven by Alan Greenspan. Now, we do not control Alan Greenspan here in the United States Congress, nor do they in the other House. Alan Greenspan acts independently. I think he has acted with pretty reserved judgment. I can tell my colleagues that, a year ago, nobody was criticizing Alan Greenspan when NASDAQ was at an all-time high, the DOW was at an all-time high, the S&P was at an all-time high. Let Mr. Greenspan do his job. His job right now is to put some money back into that economy, not put more money back in Washington, D.C., put more money back in the economy, which he does by lowering the interest rates. He is doing his job. I fully expect a half-percent cut in the rate next week at their next hearing. Of course the third leg of that stool, which is so important for us to help restore the health to our economy, is we have got to control spending. One of the easiest tools to control spending is limit the amount of dollars that are sitting around here in a bucket waiting for us and our constituents to spend. If the money is laying around, how do we tell people that it is not available for use for a good program? Again, remember, our choices in Washington, D.C. are not between good and bad programs. That is a pretty easy choice to make. Our choice is between good and good programs. We have got to control spending. So to recap, this stool must have all three legs on it for one to sit on it, for our economy to stabilize. We have got to control spending, number one. Alan Greenspan has got to bring down those rates. He is doing that, number two. But number three, again, it falls back on our shoulders here in these fine Chambers. We need to put some of those tax dollars back into the people's pockets, in their local communities, so it stays in the local community. I will give my colleagues an example. You take any town in America and take a dollar, a dollar in that community. You keep the dollar, this is in any town in America, you keep the dollar in that community; and that dollar circulates in that community. It works in that community. What you do with taxes, you take that dollar out of the community, and you move it to Washington, D.C. where it circulates clear across the country in some cases. You think that dollar in Washington, D.C. that came from this community goes back to this community? Of course it does not. Of course it does not. It is very important for us to realize what a dollar does in the local community. Now of course this theory is all shot to pieces if, in fact, the people in the local community take their dollars, go out in their backyard, and literally bury it in the ground. But short of that, a dollar in a community has a lot more opportunity to create wealth than a transfer of wealth from your local community to Washington, D.C. These people back here in Washington, including the U.S. Congress, we thrive on dollars that we did not have to go out and compete for those dollars. The government does not have to go out and figure out a creative product. They do not have to invent a better mouse trap or come up with a cure for the common cold to create dollars in Washington, D.C. All they do is look at people across the country, our work force, and they say, well, we need a little more food in Washington. We need a little more, you know, juice in Washington. So we are going to raise your taxes. Well, we did raise their taxes. And do you know what? The taxpayer has overpaid. For a period of time, we have instability in our economy. The best way to pull stability back to the economy is to put dollars back in those taxpayers' pockets. Now we will hear some of my colleagues on this floor, colleagues who say, Well, wait a minute. You should not give money back to a taxpayer if that taxpayer happens to be making any kind of money, say if they are middle income or higher income. You should give that dollar to people at the very lowest end of our economic society. Well, now, wait a second. A tax refund should go to the people who pay taxes. If you are not paying taxes, you should not get a tax refund. You should not get a tax credit. Now, granted, we do have the lower economic part of our society; and that is why we have welfare. But let us call a welfare system welfare. Do not mix it up or interchange it with the taxing system. The taxing system takes money from productive working people and moves that to Washington. It also takes money, which is later refunded because those people do not pay taxes, and puts it back in there. But my point here very clearly is, you do not gain the economic stability, that stimulus that you need by taking dollars and giving them to people, giving it to people who have not paid taxes. A tax cut is for those people who have paid the taxes. Now, am I concerned about different economic brackets? Of course I am. But what is my primary focus here? My primary focus is to strengthen the economy for everybody. If we can go out and stimulate certain parts of the economy, for example, the agriculture community, if we can go out and strengthen them, and everybody in the economy benefits because the entire economy is strengthened, what is there to criticize? I think that it is fundamentally unfair for any of my colleagues to automatically say, Oh, this tax cut is for the rich. That is a bunch of propaganda in my opinion. Or, Oh, the tax cut, we cannot afford the tax cut. Leave the money in Washington. Trust us here in Washington, D.C. with your extra dollars. It will go to reduce the debt. Promise, we will not spend it on new programs or additional spending. You cannot resist it back here in Washington, D.C. in part because your own constituents will not let you resist spending that money. Again, if your constituents sense that you, as an elected Representative, have access to dollars, they will come after them. Last week I had legitimate requests just in one day. It involved the space program. It involved the new program for education. It involved the seniors' program. I think it involved the military request. I had a request in the period of about 3 hours of meetings for over $900 million. That is in a typical day of a typical Congressman here in Washington, D.C. Do you think I could have said no to those people, they are all good programs, if I had had $900 million sitting behind me in my office for distribution? That is why it is important that we give a fair and legitimate look to President Bush's proposal. I am telling you, this vote counts. This issue counts. This economy needs to be stabilized. This is not a laughing matter. There is no juggling a couple political balls in the air. What we are involved with here is clearly in the next period, short period of time, trying to stimulate that economy, to curb it from its downward spiral, to put consumer confidence back out there. The best way to put consumer confidence back into the marketplace is to put dollars into the taxpayers' pockets. Because unless they bury it in the ground, as I said earlier, those taxpayers will use it for creation of capital and stimulation. Now, I want to move on from this point, from the tax cut and from President Bush. I have got to tell my colleagues something. In my opinion, he is doing a tremendous job. He is traveling the country. He believes it in his heart. He is convinced that the way to stabilize this economy is through his program. I think it is incumbent upon every one of us in these Chambers to give that at least a fair evaluation. I am telling you because if we do not, if we trash the President's program for the sake of trashing it or if we trash it for the sake of partisan politics, then we may very well be responsible for not putting that third leg on the stool. Furthermore, our responsibility goes not only beyond working with the President of the United States and his leadership in trying to put that tax policy in place, but we also have our own independent responsibility of controlling spending. Last year, out of these Chambers spending went out at 8-9 percent. This year we have to hold it around 4 percent. If we do not, we will have contributed to signing off on another leg of that three-legged stool. This is not a joking matter. All you have to do is ask anyone who has been in the stock market how they felt yesterday at 4:00 Eastern time when the stock market closed. We have a problem with consumer confidence. This is not the Depression of the 1930s. This is not December 7 or December 8 after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. We have had much worse crises. It is not November 23, 1963 when President Kennedy was assassinated. But if we do not pay attention to it, it could move into the ranks of a much more serious problem than it is today, and I hope that we look at it very seriously. Let me talk now, I really was spurred to action not too long ago when I read an ad in the New York Times. Let me talk for a few moments about what that ad said. First of all, let us talk about the tax policy in this country. One of the taxes, a specific tax that we have in this country, not a lot of countries in the world have this, in fact a lot of countries do not do this, but in the United States, around the turn of the century as a result of a lot of class warfare and jealousy by what some people would say are the haves and the have-nots, they created a new tax in the United States, and that tax was to tax somebody on their death called the death tax. Now, remember in the United States you are taxed at every stage of your life. You are taxed when you eat and when you drive. You are taxed when you work, you are taxed when you warm your house, you are taxed when you fill your bathtub with water, when you buy a piece of property, any kind of property, and finally just to kind of round it off, our taxing system, let us go ahead and tax Americans at death to make sure that we squeeze every ounce of blood we can before citizens go on to the next world. That tax came about, in part, to go after the Carnegies and the Fords and the rich people to kind of teach them a lesson for being successful. This is a country where we say you invent the better mousetrap, you are rewarded. Go out there and live your dreams, and the jealousy factor kicks in and here comes Uncle Sam, time to tax you on your death. Let me tell you what has happened over the years. That death tax has devastated many small families in America. By small, I am not talking about the wealthy families. I am not talking about Bill Gates' father or Warren Buffett or David Rockefeller or George Soros or the Cooks or Russells or the Roosevelts or the Paul Newmans and some of these others, I am talking about the Smiths, the Brobachs, the Strobobs, the Soros, the Neslantics. I could go through family after family after family who are not billionaires, who are out there living their life's dream, who are out there in hopes that their hard work will allow them to give the generation behind them a little opportunity to get ahead in life. Just a little opportunity to continue the family business for one more generation. Who would have ever dreamed that in the United States of America the government itself, Uncle Sam itself, would be in the practice of discouraging family business from going from one generation to the next generation. Would be in the business of punishing family farms and ranches from going from one generation to the next generation. One of the famous statements that we have heard in the propaganda where my colleagues try to justify the death tax, it only affects 2 percent of our society. It only affects 2 percent of the wealthiest people of our society. You know something, that is blatantly misleading; and most of the people that say it say it out of ignorance or they know that they are intentionally misleading you. Let us go back to my cup example. Somewhere in the third district in the State of Colorado you have got somebody, and here is what it takes to become subject to the death tax. Say you have a contractor out there who owns a bulldozer, free and clear; a dump truck, free and clear; a backhoe, free and clear; and a shop, free and clear; and let us say that property is located in Vail, Colorado or Glenwood Springs, Colorado. You know what, that person is subject to the death tax. You know what happens, no matter who earns the money in the community, the fact is that you have a dollar that is earned, whether it is a wealthy person or that contractor, you have a dollar in any town U.S.A. in that local community, colleagues, that dollar is in that community. What the death tax says is hey, because they have been successful in this community, we are going to take the dollar, not just from the family that earned the dollar, we are going to take that dollar from the entire community and transfer it to a community called Washington, D.C. in the East. Now you tell me that only 2 percent of the people in that community are impacted by that. I will give you an example, Cortez, Colorado. Down there we had a very prominent citizen, not somebody who just came into town and had all of this money showered on them. It was somebody that lived the American dream. They worked 7 days a week, and their dream was to have a family business where his sons and daughters could work with him, where his sons' and daughters' sons and daughters could work in the family business. Unfortunately, due to an untimely death, his dream never came true. Was it because he had not been successful? No. He had been successful. It was because Uncle Sam came into that community of Cortez, Colorado and said this person has been too successful. We do not care about the fact that he is the largest contributor to jobs in this community. We do not care about the fact that he is the largest contributor to the local charities or the dollars he makes are not circulated in Washington with the exception of taxes, Uncle Sam says we do not care that removing this money not only from the family, but removing it from the community of Cortez, Colorado, to Washington, D.C., we do not care that that hurts that community. The fact is that we have an American citizen who has been too successful and we should punish him. That is exactly what the death tax does and do not let them tell you that it only affects 2 percent of the people. ``Only'' may mean in the very end after all of the wealthiest people in the country through the protection of their foundations and floors of lawyers, it may mean that actually writing the check may be only 2 percent, and actually I think it is higher, but take a look at what it does to the local communities. Look at what it does in Third Congressional District of Colorado, where we see farms and ranches that have to be broken into subdivisions out of open space so Uncle Sam can be paid his ransom to make sure that the next generation cannot ranch, and I am going to give you some examples. I read an ad lately in The New York Times, and I use this word reluctantly but I think it is the most hypocritical ad I have seen in a long time. It is called ``The Responsible Wealth,'' and it is a group of multicentury millionaires and billionaires, and they signed this ad and said do not do away with the death tax, it is good for society. Now, it is all signed, and I will give you some examples of people who signed it, William Gates, Sr., Bill Gates' father. By the way when he was interviewed, he did this interview in the foundation office. What does the foundation do, it is a tool to protect your assets from the death tax. Let us mention a couple names. Steven Rockefeller; David Rockefeller; George Soros; Peter Barnes; Paul Newman, the actor; Frank and Jinx Roosevelt. Do you think for one moment that any one of the people that signed this ad have not already hired some of the best death tax attorneys in the country to make sure that any death tax they are liable for is minimized. Don't you think it is a little hypocritical that someone would say do not do away with the death tax when they have already protected themselves from the brunt of the death tax. I would ask Mr. Newman and Mr. Gates, how many of my ranchers in Colorado, how many of my local hardware store owners in Colorado can afford the attorneys that you have so they do not have to pay the death tax? How much punishment do you think that it is to these families. You know, we have had a vote on this floor on the death tax, and my bet is that anybody on this floor who is worth more than a million dollars that voted to keep the death tax in place, in other words they support the death tax, number one, and number two they are worth more than a million dollars, I bet none of my colleagues who fits in those two categories that has not already done their death tax or estate planning so that the taxes against them personally are minimized. This death tax has a tremendous negative impact on communities across this country, whether it is Sacramento, California or in Michigan, or down in Florida, or even in the East in Virginia. This death tax punishes people and it punishes families. This is the United States of America. This is a country where we encourage or theoretically, we are supposed to encourage the family unit. A lot of times the family unit is brought together by the family farm or family ranch or the family business. Why is it the business of this government to go out and punish these people because they have been successful? Why? Let me tell you a few things that I think are very important, and I think the best way to talk about this is to actually bring up some true-life examples. Since I have been talking about the death tax here on the floor, colleagues, as all of you know when we broach a subject like this, we often get letters from our constituents pertaining to this subject. Let me visit with you and share with you some of the letters I have received in my office about what this death tax has done to their families. This letter is from Harold and Roberta Schaeffer. My guess is that Mr. Gates has never seen or has no idea of what kind of exposure this small family, the Schaeffers, has to the death tax. Nor am I convinced that this Mr. Gates cares about it. Nor am I convinced any of the other 200 people, including Paul Newman and some of the other very wealthy individuals, really give a hoot about some of the people that have sent me these letters. These people are not billionaires. These people are not movie stars. These people do not have foundations. These people do not have trusts. These people do not have the attorneys to get them around it. And they are going to have to face up to one of the most punitive, unjustified taxes in the history of the American taxing system. Let us go on. Dear Scott. And these people are from Colorado. Roberta and I just finished watching your estate tax speech on TV. We are both very proud because you stated our real concerns and our problems that we face with this unfair taxation. As you well know, farming and ranching out here in western Colorado is no slam dunk. If our farm is ultimately faced with this death tax burden, there is absolutely no way we could ever afford and justify holding on to our farm. This in turn will prevent us from keeping it as a farm for future generations, keeping it from becoming just one more development out in the middle of the countryside, keeping it available to the deer and the elk, and I saw over 600 head of elk just this afternoon on the property, keeping it available for unencumbered natural gas production. Scott, we are only able to meet the daily operating costs of our farm under the present economic conditions of agriculture. Unless there is positive action taken by Congress on the death tax problem, we will try to start making necessary plans to arrange our affairs so that my family is the ultimate winner of a lifelong struggle, the lifelong struggles of my parents and Roberta and me. There is no way we will allow the IRS and Washington, D.C., to take it all away. They just flat don't deserve it. This, of course, will make it necessary to begin the destruction or the development of one of the largest open space areas in all of Garfield County, Colorado. Again, we appreciate your efforts. What did this letter say? Think about what the letter said. If you continue, Uncle Sam, on your track of coming after us, we are not a billionaire family. Again, this is not the Rockefellers or the Gates or the Carnegies, people like that, or Paul Newman. This is a small agricultural family who has worked very hard, the generation before him, his father and mother, and now he and his wife want to pass it on to the next. But what is the summary of the letter? Let me repeat. If the death tax is kept in place, this is the impact that he talks about in this letter. He has four things. Number one, I cannot keep it as a farm for future generations. Number two, keeping it from becoming just one more development out in the middle of the countryside. Number three, keeping it available to the deer and elk. And he says in this very letter that he saw 600 head of elk on his property just the afternoon that he wrote me this letter. You think they are going to be there after the government is done with the death tax and that becomes a subdivision? Think again. And keeping it available for unencumbered natural gas production. This is a real letter from some people out there. They do not have a floor full of lawyers. They do not have a foundation. They do not have a trust. All they have got is a hardworking family, and the dreams that all of us dream, that something we do in our life can pass on to the kids in the next life. It is interesting. I see Warren Buffett and some of these other people say, ``Well, I'm giving all away but a small percentage of my estate.'' Let me tell you, when you are worth several billion dollars, even 2 percent, that does not sound like a lot until you figure out the calculation. Those lawyers protect the true foundations. Again, remember, these foundations were not put out there just because these wealthy people wanted to take a little time and create some more paperwork and create another structure in their life to have to worry about. These were created so that the very wealthiest could avoid the death tax or minimize the death tax. Yet they have the audacity to come out to the rest of us and sign this ad. Mind you, this is not all the wealthy people that have signed it clearly, and many of my good friends have this kind of wealth. They did not sign that ad. But understand what a death tax does. Remember, a death tax does not have a time span between it. In other words, if you have dad who is working on the ranch with son who has the grandson, or this son's son or the grandson here, so we have three generations. If grandpa dies and the property then passes to his son or his daughter, and that son or daughter, they then pay the estate tax. Let us do it here. I think it is easier to follow. Here is generation A, generation B, and generation C. Generation A dies. Estate tax right here. The death tax right there to B. So B has to come up with the money to pay off this estate tax so that he in hopes or she in hopes can pass this on to their next generation. But what happens if, after A dies, B unfortunately is killed in a car accident at a young age? Let us say B is killed at age 50 in a car wreck. Do you know what happens? Even though his father may have died just a few months before, you have the death tax there, and the minute B dies, you have got it again, even if it is in a short period of time. What do you think the odds of survival of that ranch or that small business are? Remember that the people that signed this ad that say a death tax is good for our country, these people protect themselves. Let us call it B for billionaire. They protect themselves with lawyers and lawyers and foundations and foundations, so that when Uncle Sam comes in, they cannot quite pierce it. They cannot get in there. So it is real easy to stand with a big chest and say, ``By gosh, this death tax ought to stay in place.'' It is about time that person went up and visited that little family business or that little family farm or that contractor who owns a dump truck and a bulldozer and a building. Let us be realistic. Our common goal in these Chambers is to preserve the family unit, and a part of the family unit is to preserve from one generation to the next generation those small businesses and those family dreams. Let me read on. Here is a letter I got I think last week. Dear Mr. McInnis, I am writing to encourage you to keep the repeal of the death tax on the front burner. As an owner of a family business, it is extremely important that, upon our death, the business be able to be passed to our son and to our daughter, both of whom work in the business, without a threat of having to liquidate to pay the death taxes on assets that have already been taxed once. This letter brings up a good example. Remember that this property, the property that you own, that you are going to get taxed on upon your death, you have already paid taxes on it. So this property, with this small exception of some IRAs, and they should be taxed, but with that small exception, the property that is hit by the death tax has already had its taxes paid. It is double or triple or even worse taxation and, as is pointed out here, without a threat to liquidate to pay inheritance tax or death taxes on assets that have already been taxed once. Of all of the taxes we pay, this tax, the death tax, is truly double taxation and unfair. I am aware that several wealthy people, i.e., William Gates, Sr., George Soros, et cetera, have come out against repeal of the death tax. This is one of the most self-serving demonstrations I have ever seen. They have theirs in trusts, in foundations, in offshore accounts, et cetera, and will pay no or minimum tax. Whatever their political motivations are, they certainly do not represent or speak for the vast majority of farmers and ranchers and small business owners in this country. Again, I urge you to push hard for the repeal of the death tax. Signed, Anthony Allen. This letter came out of California. This letter came out of the West: My wife and I graduated and got married and started farming in 1961. Our children and us have worked from daylight till after dark with very few days off for the last 40 years. We have paid sales taxes, we have paid property taxes, we have paid income taxes, and we have paid Federal taxes on all of our trucks, on our trailers, on our properties, to mention just a few of the taxes that we have really had to pay. After all of the years, we have built up enough equity to earn a decent income. Now we want to start planning for old age and death with estate planning and life insurance that we can afford. We hope that the Federal Government will not force our children to sell this farm to pay that death tax. The State of Colorado has given us some relief, but now it is time for the United States Government to do the same. Let us go on. I am not going to read every letter here, but I want you to get the gist. Here is one. This guy's name is Chris Anderson. He is 24 years old. This is this new generation, the young men and women of my children's age. This young generation offers more promise than any generation in the history of this country. This generation is going to bring more to this country and contribute more to this country than any other generation in the history of this country. I have never had more confidence in a generation than I do in the 20-something-year-olds right now. Are we going to go out there and start them out by saying, look, your dad and mom want to contribute to your success, your dad and mom want to help you continue to make this country greater and so, therefore, Uncle Sam is going to step in between your folks and you and penalize by a death tax? Is that really the theory that we want to operate under in this country? Listen to this. Here is a 24-year-old young man. I am Chris Anderson. I am 24 years old, and I run a small mail order business. I listened with great interest when you talked about the death tax. In all likelihood, I will not face the problems you are 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 look forward to having a family; and perhaps one day my children will want to follow in my footsteps. Here is a 24-year-old young man who is about to be married, he is not going to inherit a business, he has his own small business which he has started, and Chris is saying to me, look, someday maybe I can realize my dream of passing it on to our children. Chris goes on. I hope and pray that they will not face the additional grief caused by death tax. A 55 percent tax is, at best, a huge burden on the 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. Here is a 24-year-old young man. You see what I talk about when I say how great this generation is. At 24 years old, frankly, when I was 24 I am not sure I was thinking about the next generation. But here this young man at 24 years, he and his financee are thinking about the next generation, and they are thinking many years into the future. When they talk about, at worst this death tax could be the death blow that ruins what otherwise could have been the future of yet another generation, this letter is not a plea for help. I just wanted to let you know that, although I am not a victim of this tax, I appreciate and applaud 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 businesses. Many of these businesses are family- owned with the need for the next generation 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. So Chris is saying here I spent many years working for a small business, and many of us, including his fellow employees, depended on the success of that business owner for their employment. This addresses directly the point, that these people who signed that ad say it only affects 2 percent. It affects an entire community when you take that money out of the community and transfer it to Uncle Sam's headquarters in Washington, D.C., for redistribution. I fear for those workers, Chris says, when the tax man comes knocking. This tax has claws that rip at many more people than the immediate family of the deceased. This is critical. Mr. Speaker, this is critical. This death tax, as said by Chris in his letter, has claws that reach beyond the person that is being taxed. It reaches and impacts the workers, the entire community. He says it here. He says claws that rip at many more people than the immediate family of the deceased. It has a huge negative impact on the employees of these family businesses. I hope that your constituents recognize this, and they will continue to put their trust in working to do away with this death tax. This was Chris Anderson. Chris is from New Jersey. My district is in Colorado. This is a young man who took time, he and his fiance, to send me a letter to say how punitive and what this death tax does. We are in a society where tax is necessary. Obviously, we want the best schools we can fund. We want a strong military. We want a transportation system. But do we have to reach to the point that we have got to go to double or triple taxation and to a tax that on its face is unfair? Can you imagine what our forefathers would have thought that we were going to tax not only every stage of life but, upon death, to tax death, death as a taxable event? Here is another one. Dear Scott, I wish there were some way I could help you get this tax eliminated. They are discriminatory and socialistic taxes. I can't for the life of me understand how they got passed. How can anyone advocate taxing somebody twice? I can answer your question, John. Back here in the Capitol or in the government, they depend on taxing for revenue, not going out and setting up a business and creating capital. They will tax you at every opportunity they can, unless we have a balance, and the balance we have out there, colleagues, are your constituents and the harm that we are doing to the very people we represent if we put punitive and unfair taxes on their shoulders. If we do not recognize the fact that they have overpaid their taxes, if we do not recognize the fact in tough economic times, we should not keep their dollars, as President Bush says, in Washington, D.C. to spend on more Federal programs; but we should take their dollars and give it back to the people who earned it. Now, John, some people would say that tonight I get emotional when I speak here at the podium, but I firmly believe that the punishment that we are dealing out here to families in America and communities in America by this death tax, by not refunding some of this surplus, is unstabilizing. It has negative impacts that some of the people who may have signed that New York Times ad have never tasted in their life, but a lot of small families in America and a lot of small communities in America have that bitter taste. Let us go on with John's letter: ``Why should a family who has worked for 45 years and paid their taxes on time every year, year after year after year; who has worked in their family business; who has built up a dream for their next generation, be taxed in this manner?'' John, the only answer I can give you is that it is unfair. We know that. I am addressing my colleagues' constituents. Finally, let me wrap up here. Let us just look at a real quick one here. Derrick Roberts, his family's ranch in northern Colorado for 125 years. Listen to this letter. I ask my colleagues to listen. Derrick Roberts: ``My family has ranched in Colorado for 125 years. My sons and daughters are the sixth generation to work this land.'' The sixth generation. ``We want to continue, but the Internal Revenue Service is forcing almost all ranchers and many farmers out of business. What's the problem? It's the death tax. The demand for our land is very high and the 35-acre ranchettes are selling in this area for as high as $145 an acre. We have 20,000 acres. We want to keep it as open space, but the United States Government is making it impossible, because we will have to pay 55 percent of the value of that land when my parents die. Ranchers are barely scraping by these days anyway. If we were willing to develop home sites, we could stop the ranching, but since we want to save the ranch, we are in trouble. ``Now, the family has been able to scrape up the estate tax or the death taxes when each generation died up to this point. This time, though, I think we are done for. Our only other option is to give the ranch to a nonprofit organization and I can assure you, they all want it. But they won't guarantee they won't develop it. My dad is 90. We don't have a lot of time left to decide what to do.'' That is what Derrick says. ``We are only one of 2 or 3 ranchers that are left around here. Many ranches have been subdivided. One of the last to go was a family that had been there as long as ours. When the old folks died, the kids borrowed money to pay the death tax. Soon, they had to start selling cattle to pay the interest on the death tax. When they ran out of cattle, the ranch was foreclosed, and now it is being developed. That family that owned that ranch now lives in a trailer near town and the father who was a multi-generation rancher now works as a highway foreman for the State highway department.'' Is that fairness? Is that what we call the theory that we all grew up under, the dream of the American family, and the dream of one family helping the next generation? Of course it is not. Madam Speaker, I would hope, in conclusion, that all of my colleagues take serious note of just what kind of impact that death tax has once we get below the billionaires that signed that ad for The New York Times. Those billionaires that signed that ad, and I do not know for sure, but I bet the finest dinner in Washington, because I know they are going to have to buy it, I bet the finest dinner in Washington, every one of those people that signed that that are wealthy people have already built their foundations, have already minimized their death tax. So these people are up here, but what about that gap down there? That is what I am talking about, I say to my colleagues, that gap in here. Those are the people that we better pay some serious attention to. Those are the people that will suffer when this economy turns sour, if we do not put some of those tax dollars back in their pocket like the President says. Those are the people that will not be able to go from generation to generation with a family business. We have, I say to my colleagues, a very, very important mission in front of us, and that mission is to help protect the families that put us here; to help provide for the future generations, through the wealth of their own families, through the wealth of hard work, through the wealth of love. It is not because of Uncle Sam that these people have been successful. It is so, so important for us to look beyond the gates of Washington, D.C., a city which is almost wholly operated on taxpayer dollars. It is time for us to look to middle-America and see exactly what our tax policies are doing, to see what kind of punishment. Now, we know that taxes are necessary, but we doggone well better sit down and figure out which taxes are fair and necessary, and that is the trail that we should walk.

Mr. MCINNIS

Mr. MCINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to start by thanking the Resources Committee for the prompt attention to this important legislation that aims to correct a serious disparity in the National Trails System. Currently, the federal government is authorized to buy land from willing sellers along 11 of the 20 National Scenic and Historic Trails, but is excluded from doing so on the remaining 9, including the Continental Divide Trail. H.R. 834 intends to remove the current statutory prohibition on the federal government's ability to acquire lands or interest in lands from willing-sellers for these nine trails. Under this legislation, owners of private tracts that interrupt the continuity of these trails could sell their property to the government for inclusion in the National Trail System, clearing the way for the completion of a system of trails as Congress intended through the National Trails System Act. H.R. 834 is a private property rights bill that restores the right of the landowner to sell his or her land. The willing-seller language in my legislation reiterates the basics of contract law--in order to have a valid contract, there must be an exchange. In the case of H.R. 834, no contract is valid unless the landowner receives compensation for his or her land. I worked extensively in the last Congress with the gentleman from California, Representative Pombo, a long-time champion of private property rights, to ensure that the property rights aspects of the legislation were both comprehensive and concise. This much anticipated legislation is essential in protecting valuable resources and rights-of-way critical to the integrity and continuity of these trails. In enacting the National Trails System Act, congress provided for a national system of trails rather than just a national designation for trails. H.R. 834 enables the federal agencies administering these trails to respond to conservation, recreation and historic education opportunities afforded by willing landowners in an effort to create and manage a consistent national system of trails. I would like to extend special recognition to several individuals in Colorado, Bruce and Paula Ward, who have given deep devotion to the Continental Divide Trail. In addition, I'd like to recognize Gary Werner of the Partnership for the National Trails System. Without their efforts our progress on this legislation would not have been the success it is today. Mr. Speaker, in closing, I'd like to again thank Chairman Hansen and Chairman Hefley and the staff of the Parks and Public Lands Subcommittee, and urge passage of H.R. 834.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I wish to take this moment to recognize Nettie Reynolds of Gypsum, Colorado, The Points of Light Foundation recipient of The Daily Points of Light Award. The Daily Points of Light Award honors an individual or organization that makes a positive and lasting difference in the lives of others. The award is a fitting tribute to a woman who has given of herself immeasurably during the course of her distinguished life. For more than 30 years, Nettie Reynolds has volunteered to serve her community. She first served her community as a teen member of the Civil Defense League. Then, in 1969, she organized the town of Gypsum's Ladies' Volunteer Fire Department, where she held the position of Fire Chief until she retired in 1997. She also managed and ran emergency medical calls with the Western Eagle County Ambulance District for many years. In addition, Nettie has been active in health care organizations and various other emergency medical service agencies. And in her ``spare time'' Nettie still finds time to visit with seniors and disabled citizens, giving them affection and making them feel loved. Mr. Speaker, Nettie Reynolds is a role model that people of all ages can and should look up to. It is obvious why Nettie Reynolds was chosen as The Points of Light Award recipient, I think that we all owe her a debt of gratitude for her service and dedication to the community. Nettie, your community, state and nation are proud of you and grateful for your service.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to recognize Bill and Claudia Coleman for their gracious donation to the University of Colorado. On January 16, 2001, University of Colorado president Elizabeth Hoffman accepted their donation, the single largest gift ever given to an American University. The gift, totaling $250 million, will be used to establish the University of Colorado Coleman Institute for Disabilities. The program will fund advanced research and development of innovative technologies intended to enhance the lives of people with cognitive disabilities. Cognitive disabilities are associated with a number of conditions, such as mental retardation and developmental retardation. ``This will make CU the international center of excellence in developing adaptive assistance technologies, based on advanced biomedical and computer science research and computer science research, for people with congnitive disabilities,'' Hoffman said. Bill is the founder and chairman of BEA Systems of San Jose, California, and his wife Claudia, is a former manager with Hewlett Packard. An Air Force Academy graduate and former executive with Sun Microsystems, Bill said the idea for the donation came from a tour of CU's Center for LifeLong Learning and Design. Bill and Claudia are no strangers to cognitive disabilities. They have a niece with the disability, and they understand the benefits and the promise new technologies offer. The Coleman's plan to play an active role in the institute. They said the ``incredibly strong'' team of researchers at CU played a decisive role in the decision to give the University the endowment. ``We have witnessed the challenges this population faces every day with problem solving, reasoning skills and understanding and using language,'' Bill said. ``I passionately believe that we as a society have the intelligence and the responsibility to develop technologies that will expand the ability of those with congnitive disabilities to learn, to understand and to communicate,'' he added. Mr. Speaker, this is an unprecedented gift by both Mr. and Mrs. Coleman. Their generosity and vision will help countless Americans now and in the future. For that, they deserve the thanks and praise of this body.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. McINNIS. No, no, no, excuse me. I did not yield yet. I wanted to know what the request for yielding was. Do you want a minute or 3 minutes? What are you asking for?

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, what is the gentleman requesting for yield time right now?

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I am looking forward to addressing some of the comments made here in the previous moments. There are 10 or so of my colleagues so I have plenty of stuff that I would like to visit with in regards to that. First of all, though, there are a couple of other issues I want to address this evening. One of the issues regards the suspected spy Hanssen who was arrested not very long ago. Of course, all of us in these Chambers know exactly what that story is all about. I also wanted to talk next, move from there, into the tax cut, the tax program. I intend fully to address some of the comments that have been made. I certainly plan to take exception with some of the doctrine of fear comments made by the gentleman from California and so on, but if we have time I then want to move from that into the death tax and address what some of the multibillionaires in their ad in the New York Times said. I should point out that these people who signed that ad, who support a death tax, who believe that death is a taxable event in this society, those multibillionaires who signed that ad have already formed their foundations. They have already done their estate planning so that they do not feel the pain that all the rest of us are going to feel if we happen to fall in that bracket and we are not that wealthy to provide for that kind of estate planning. In my opinion, those people in that ad, not many Members on the floor, not my colleagues but those people in that ad represent the height of hypocrisy, and I hope that some have an opportunity to read my comments that I hope to get to this evening. Let us talk, first of all, about the spy. I was very, very discouraged to read probably at the end of last week that in the negotiations, if these negotiations take place, for a plea bargain with this spy, who sold out his country and who sold out his country not with one transaction but has been selling out his country for many, many years, with secrets of substantial damage to this country, that one of the items that is mentioned as kind of a dangle, some kind of incentive in front of this spy, is to go ahead and let this spy, the accused spy, to go ahead and let him keep his pension. He is not yet entitled to his pension. He was 5 weeks off from receiving his pension, this Hanssen guy. His pension is going to be about $60,000 a year. Now, to me, allowing this alleged spy, and I keep using the word alleged but I think the evidence is very clear the situation we have, but we do have a society that one is innocent until proven guilty, but the fact is that we have American soldiers, in fact the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) spoke earlier about some of the people who have given their lives in service to this country, and those people's total life insurance policy does not equal in many cases one year of this alleged traitor's pension of $60,000 a year. It is fundamentally unfair, it is unsound, for either the FBI or the Justice Department to consider as one of the terms of their plea negotiations to offer this alleged spy his pension that he was 5 weeks away from collecting. Do not forget that while he was accumulating this pension, it was at the very time he was selling our country out to our enemies. He was selling them out to Russia. He sold us out. So he is being paid on the one hand and he is selling us out on the other hand, and now as if we have not been bruised enough we have some people out there apparently discussing, well, let us go ahead and let him have his pension. Granted, some people have said we have sympathy for his family. His family was not involved in the spying. I agree with that. The family of this alleged spy must be going through some very horrible times. It is clear that the evidence supports the fact that the family had no knowledge of what was going on with their father and this husband. That fact, that sympathy aside, one does not reward, and I am sorry about the circumstances to the family but that is the consequences of misbehavior, one does not reward one of the worst spies in the history of this Nation by going ahead and saying we are going to go ahead and give you $60,000 a year for the rest of your life based on your service to the United States Government. So if any of my colleagues here have an opportunity to have a discussion with either the Department of Justice personnel or FBI personnel, I hope you bring this up about this pension. Now let me move into some of the comments that were made. First of all, I take strong exception with the gentleman from California who introduces what I call a doctrine of fear. Let me say that, first of all, the comments that were being made by the Blue Dogs, as they call themselves, many of those comments I thought were fundamentally sound and there are a lot of areas that I agreed with. I have a great deal of respect for the Members who have previously spoken, but I do not think the approach to take is the approach of fear. Let me give you a few quotes: This Congress does not put the need of children first. Give me a break. Show me one Congressman, one Democrat Congressman, show me one Republican Congressman, that in their heart and their mind they intentionally do not put the children first. In my career here in the United States Congress, even with the Congressmen on the other side of the aisle that I have disagreed with the strongest, I have never found a Congressman who I felt did not care about children, who did not want to put children first. To stand up here in front of Members and say we do not want to put children first, come on. That does not get us where we need to go. Let me move on. Massive tax cut. Compare the so-called massive tax cut with tax cuts of the past, including with President Kennedy. Let me move on from there. Ignore promises to seniors. To me, I take as strong an exception with that comment as I do ignore the children or do not put the children first. It is a real good way to get people shaken up. It is a good way to introduce the doctrine of fear. It is a good way to put a lot of scratch on the radar by saying we are ignoring seniors or we are not putting children first. I think those are unfortunate comments that are being made. Obviously, and properly so, the people who spoke ahead of me had that hour unrebutted so they got to speak for a whole hour unrebutted. So the reason I am going through this is trying to rebut some of those things, and I intend to make a case and present my case on its own. Let me say that the fallacy of the comments that I heard that were previously given, again, I would agree with the principle of these statements if one condition was met, just one condition was met, and where the fallacy of these good colleagues of mine comes into place is that they are assuming that the money not utilized for a tax refund to the workers of this country, who pay taxes, they are assuming that that money automatically will go to reduction of the debt. Therein is the entire danger. There is no assurance at all. In fact, if we look at the history of the United States Congress, when we leave a dollar on the table here in this room, within moments that dollar is going to go into further and future government spending. It is our poor history, and I say ``poor'' as to many, many decades of poor management. It is the poor history of financial management that dollars here are not utilized to reduce the debt if they are left laying around; they are utilized to increase government spending. Now, let me say to my colleagues that that is not necessarily a weak Congressman, and I say this generically, a weak Congressperson. It is not necessarily a weak Congressperson or a Congressperson who has evil in their eyes to go out and spend this money because it is sitting around. We are under intense pressure. Every one of my colleagues, every one of us on this floor is under intense pressure; and for the freshmen that have just come aboard, you wait until the pressure you are going to see. Just today in my office, and, by the way, it is not very often we have people that come to our office with bad projects; it is not very often that a decision is going to be real easy to say, that is a rotten project, why would we ever consider funding that. Most of the projects that come into our offices, including the projects that come into my office on a typical day like today, are good projects. They are easy projects. We get a lot of pressure out of our districts to spend money on those projects. Generally they are good projects and as the freshmen will find out, generally are decisions that are not going to be ones between good and bad programs, they are going to be decisions between good and good programs. Today alone from my own district I had a group that came in and said, we need $500,000 for the study of a floodplain. Good expenditure. We had a flood last year. The space program, people who are in on the space program, I do not know how many billions they wanted, but they certainly wanted hundreds of billions of additional dollars, and they say, because you have a lot of good people in your district, Congressman, that are dependent on the space industry, and we understand that the President wants to hold this spending down to 4 percent, but we need to go into space. Well, I do not necessarily disagree with that. I think space, when properly managed, that program over at NASA is an expenditure that is worthwhile, but that is hundreds of millions of dollars. By the time this day was out, I sat down with my staff previous to these comments. I think we calculated the request today was just under $1 billion. That is about 10 hours of meetings. Well, I did not spend 10 hours with constituents, maybe 5 hours with constituent meetings today, and I got just under $1 billion of requests. That is not just one day of the week we see them. We see constituents all week long. The key is here, my agreement is with the Blue Dogs that we should try and reduce that debt; but the fact is that we have to get that money to the reduction of the debt and not to the spending. I heard a lot of criticism about lock boxes. That is our effort. When we leave money around for Social Security, when we leave money around for Medicare, that is our effort, of somehow trying to control future Congresses by saying, it is locked away from spending. The theory of what the Blue Dogs have said this evening will work if they can just figure out how to keep it from being spent on additional government spending, and that is the difficulty. If I might say to the gentleman, let me explain the situation that we are in. I would be happy to yield to the gentleman under normal circumstances; but unfortunately, because I was granted my time after 10 o'clock, at 10:30, as the gentleman knows, I do not have a full hour, they split the hour, so my time is limited to 45 minutes, so as I get towards the end of my comments, I would be happy to yield to the gentleman, because I think it is appropriate. But I do have a great deal of information to cover.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the gentleman has gone on a little bit beyond the rebuttal that was appropriate, but let me make it clear. I am not saying that Mr. Greenspan did not agree with tax cuts. Obviously, he did. My disagreement was the gentleman's quote of Mr. Greenspan, which I have back there. I took it verbatim, I say to the gentleman; and I just wanted to correct that, because I think that the quote had a bit of emotion put into it and was taken out of context. I want to be sure that this evening, because I think the plan that the Blue Dogs presented this evening was a very well-presented program; but I think in fairness, we need to present this with as much emotion put aside as we can. Therefore, I would like to address a couple of the issues in regards to the plan offered by George W. Bush. First of all, let me tell my colleagues, my district is in the State of Colorado; and in the 1970s, Colorado faced, of course, in a much smaller proportion, a budget surplus and the surplus actually did occur. Now, I know that some of my colleagues that have previously spoken criticize projections into the future. I want all of us to know, and I also heard someone say, you do not spend money you do not have. I happen to agree with that, although most citizens in America do spend money they do not have. They buy a home. I would guess that most of my colleagues who are here on the floor this evening probably are in debt and actually owe more money than they are making right now. It is because they can manage that debt. It is a manageable debt, and that is one of the things that I think we ought to take a look at. What kind of discipline exists? I would venture to say that my colleagues here personally probably have more discipline because they are not under the kind of political pressure to spend their personal income that we face here to spend the taxpayers' income. In the State of Colorado when we had this surplus and, by the way, when one buys their home, let me step back just for a moment, when you buy your home, you base the purchase of your home on your own future projections. Nobody has figured out accurate projections, very accurate, in my opinion. If they did, they would be very, very wealthy people. But when you go out as an individual and you buy a home, your wife and you, you sit down and you say, okay, here is what we project our income is going to be over the next 30 years, here is what we think we can afford in a mortgage, and probably the first payment you make every month outside of groceries for your family is to pay on that mortgage. Now, that is not to say that you should ignore your mortgage. There are consequences if you do ignore your mortgage; and frankly, the gentleman from Mississippi, I think, stated pretty well some of the consequences of ignoring the mortgage. The problem is in this particular body, in the other body, in this political process, because of the demands of our constituents, we have to exercise a special kind of discipline. In Colorado, we had those surplus dollars in the 1970s. We were so concerned that we would end up spending that money on good programs, that we felt it was necessary, we felt we met the fundamental needs of the State of Colorado. I say ``we,'' I was not in the legislature at the time, but our legislative leaders then did a tax refund in the State of Colorado. Do my colleagues know what would have happened in Colorado when 6 years later we ran into an economic downturn, had we not returned that money to the taxpayers? That money was not sitting in a bank account accumulating interest. That money was spotted by every special interest group in the State of Colorado, and those special interest groups, regardless of which side of the aisle it came from, they wanted to spend that money; and they would come to us, they would come to our legislative leaders and say, look, we have a great program. You have the money in the bank. How can you justify to the voters that you are not going to spend more money? And what would have happened in the downturn is we would have had many, many more commitments, had we not returned that money, and our downturn in Colorado in the early 1980s would have been much more severe than it was. I think that the President in his approach and in his budget takes that into consideration. The President is not proposing, by the way, to return all of the projected surplus. This bill that we passed in regards to the President's tax cut, which is a part of the budget, and remember that, in my opinion, if we allow the budget to come on this floor first, before we commit to dollars for a tax cut, the dollars that we would commit to a tax cut will be already spent for additional spending in new programs. Mr. Speaker, that is the difficulty on this floor, and in the next 3 weeks trying to take that money that we intend, and we can use the money that you would like to give for a tax cut, being able to hold that aside from being spent is going to be extremely difficult. That is why we have to commit early on, in my opinion, to a tax cut. What the President has done on his budget is he has broken it out basically into a couple, 2 or 3, requirements in his budget. The first requirement, Social Security. We must put aside money to fund Social Security. The same thing with Medicare. The President also addresses the debt. Clearly, we are in complete agreement. I am in complete agreement with the Blue Dogs. I am in complete agreement with most of the Republicans that we need to reduce that debt. That is good fiscal management to reduce it in a planned way, but reduce that debt. The difficulty is between the point where the surplus exists and being able to move it. Let me demonstrate here. S for surplus, and over here for the debt reduction. There is another big S that falls in between them. What does that big S represent? It represents spending. President Bush does not ignore spending. President Bush does not come forward in his budget and say no more spending. In fact, what President Bush does is he comes out and says he is going to be more generous than most families in America, I would venture to say, are going to be in their own family budgets next year. President Bush has come forward and said you may increase the budget. I want a budget, and I will present a budget that will increase spending by 4 percent, that is a 4 percent increase. Most families in America will not see a 4 percent increase in their personal income next year. What President Bush has said is that an 8 percent or a 9 percent increase that the Congress, along with the administration, that this government has gotten used to, is not going to happen, because we have an economy that is on the edge. We do not have an economy that technically is in a recession yet, but we have an economy that is headed into a slowdown. And the way to address the slowdown, according to President Bush, and I completely agree with him, really is three legs on a stool. The stool needs each one of those legs. The first leg is you have to reduce spending or control spending. I will describe a little more about that later. The second leg is you got to reduce interest rates. We are seeing Alan Greenspan responding. By the way, the criticisms of Alan Greenspan this evening, I did not hear many of those criticisms when the stock markets were hitting all time highs last year. I did not hear any of my colleagues frankly taking the floor and criticizing Alan Greenspan. The third thing that we have to do on this stool to stabilize this economy is put some money back into the workers who are producing out there. You have people in our society who are not producing. Those are not the people we are trying to put money back into their pockets. We are trying to go to the producing American out there, the American who is paying taxes. We are trying to put money back in their pockets, because our belief is putting those dollars back in the workers pockets is going to help a lot more to pull this economy out of its slowdown than leaving those dollars in Washington, D.C. to be spent by the government through a bureaucratic maze. That is exactly what President Bush is attempting to do, and I think he has a very logical plan under which to do it. In his speech, which, by the way, many of my colleagues stood and applauded, the President's budget funds America's priorities. Again, President Bush is not ignoring children. President Bush is not ignoring senior citizens. He is not ignoring Medicare. He is not ignoring Social Security. He is not ignoring the military, but, by the way, he is not going to just sign a blank check. He wants justification. The Secretary of Defense, Mr. Rumsfeld, is putting a study on military. He understands what our basic needs are, and his budget will fund America's priorities, but there has to be priorities. Let me tell my colleagues if we spent money on every good program that comes in front of us, we would be broke in a week. We have to have priorities. Of course, taking priorities means that some are priorities, some are not. So you become unpopular with some people. This President is willing to stand tall and say we cannot fund everybody. I am sorry, we cannot be Santa Claus. We have got an economy that is having a tough time. We have some fundamental needs that must be funded, and the President's budget funds it. Next, the President provides the largest debt reduction in history. And here the Blue Dogs ought to be standing up applauding George W. Bush. And I should say, in fairness to the Blue Dogs, that at several points their key point was reduction of the debt, so I think they actually agree with George W. Bush. What I am saying though, however, to people such as the Blue Dogs, somewhere we have to be able to control spending so that those dollars there will be some dollars left for that tax cut. Here President Bush does not ignore, under any circumstances, the reduction of the Federal debt. In fact, he considers it a very high priority, and he provides the largest debt reduction in the history of this country. Finally, it provides fair and responsible tax relief. This tax relief is not intended to go to people who do not pay taxes. If you do not think you pay enough taxes, take a look at how many taxes you pay. Take a look at when you stop at the gas pump what you pay for a gallon of gasoline, what you pay when you go to the hardware store. Take a look at your tax bill next time you buy a car or a refrigerator or a TV. It was mentioned by the Blue Dogs over here, take a close look at what your employees' and employers' taxes are. Take a look at your income tax, your State income tax, your Federal income tax. Take a look at your municipal tax. Take a look at your county tax. Take a look at special districts. Some of those needs are necessary. We have to have tax in our system, but at some point in those numbers, do you not think that we can find, especially when we have an economy right on the edge, do you not think we can find a little bit, a few pennies on the dollar to go back to the taxpayer so that that taxpayer can also fund some of the priorities of their family? Let us take a look, as we go through this budget, as the President explained it. The President's budget, as I mentioned, pays off historic amounts of debt. It provides the fastest, largest debt reduction in history, $2 trillion over 10 years. It reduces the government debt to its lowest share of the economy since World War I. We are serious about reducing this debt. Clearly we have to do it. By the way, it is the Republicans who continually carried that balanced budget amendment. We understand that, and there are a number of conservative Democrats, and the Blue Dogs fit in that category, who agree with the reduction of this debt. Let us go on. Responsible tax relief, uses roughly one-fourth of the budget surplus to provide the typical family of four paying income taxes $1,600 in tax relief. I heard someone the other day saying this proposed tax cut only means a couple hundred bucks, or it only means a dollar a day. I heard that the other day I think in the Committee on Ways and Means. Let me tell you something, when people get 300 bucks or $365, that may only be a dollar a day but to a lot of my constituents, $365 in your pockets instead of the government's pockets makes a difference of a bicycle for your kid, maybe you could go down and buy a new TV. It makes a difference. Do not let people dilute the impact of a tax cut by saying it only means a dollar a day. Let us proceed on here. It improves health care. The President's budget will improve health care. It doubles funding for NIH, that is the National Institute of Health, medical research on important health issues like cancer, the largest funding increase in NIH's history. It creates more than 1,200 new community health centers to make health care more accessible. This President understands the terrible viciousness of cancer. This President is committed to a budget for the National Institutes of Health to take that issue on. This is one of those priorities. This President is not taking the money from the fight on cancer and giving it back to the taxpayers. In fact, this President is going to the workers and to the taxpayers and saying I think it is a priority to take more of your taxpayer dollars and to fight to take on this issue of cancer. It protects the environment, protects the environment, providing for the largest increase in conservation funds in history. Of course, we all take great pride in our districts, but my district is one of the most beautiful districts in the Nation. It is geographically larger than the State of Florida. It is the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Those land and water reservation conservation dollars are important dollars for us out there. This realizes that the President realizes a commitment to our environment in that kind of funding. It preserves Medicare. It spends every dime of Medicare receipts over the next 10 years for Medicare and Medicare alone. Those Medicare dollars are going for Medicare and Medicare alone. Again the President has said, look, there are certain dollars we cannot put into the tax refund, into the tax cut. We have to fund priorities. Medicare is a priority. It strengthens defense and our military by improving their quality of life. He talks about the new weapons, and defense is a priority for President Bush. Again, he is not using that money to filter or waste it away in other spending. He is not giving that money to our taxpayers, he is saying that money needs to go into defense. Improving education. I think this President will go down in history, President George W. Bush, as the education president. He cares about that. Reading is a big issue. His wife is a teacher. Laura Bush has spent more time in a classroom than most of my colleagues. I think everybody on this floor cares about education. I have never met a Congressman who does not care about education. This President lists it as one of his highest priorities. He says that if we want better education, we had better be able to pay for it. George W. Bush wants the strongest military in the world. He wants it maintained, but he is not going to sign a blank check. He wants accountability. He wants accountability in defense, in education, in Social Security, et cetera, et cetera. But that is not to say he is not willing to spend the dollars. You prove that those dollars are going to go to the improvement of our education, and you are going to have those dollars, and his budget allocates for it. Social Security, it protects Social Security. Let me say my approach, I heard a couple of comments from two separate Members who said that we are on route, we are on track to turn this country over in the worse shape than any other generation in the history of this country. That for the first time in the history of this country, this generation is going to turn this country over to the next generation in worse shape than they found it. Mr. Speaker, I could not disagree more. I am an optimist. I think that we live in the greatest country in the world. I think there are more things going right than wrong. Clearly our focus is to deal with problems. It is kind of like being a fireman. Firemen deal with fires, so pretty soon you may think that the only thing that happens is fires, but it is not. When you look and put it in its proper proportion, there is more going right. Sure it is easy to criticize education and criticize this and that, but take a look at what is going right and if we work together as a team, if we come together and understand, number one, we have an economy that is headed for a slowdown. We do not need to bring up emotional statements like somebody does not care about children. How many of your constituents do not care about education or seniors? Put that garbage aside. Every one of your constituents cares about education and seniors. The question is priorities, and the President has three basic priorities. Number one, you have got to take care of the priorities of this country. Number two, you have got to have, and let me put my chart back up here, you have got to provide for debt reduction. It is a priority with this President. Number three, you need to provide some money back to the people who gave that money. Do not forget, it is a very easy job when you talk about money back here in the government, and by the way, the city of Washington, D.C. is the biggest government- funded city in the history of this country. The fact is that we do not get our money by going out with some capitalistic idea of going out and working, our funding is done by taking that money out of the workers' pockets, out of the taxpayers' pockets and transferring it to Washington, D.C. for redistribution. That is how the money comes back here. What the President is saying is wait a minute, in all of these priorities, maybe one of our priorities, not the top priority, not the only priority, but maybe one of our priorities ought to be consideration for those people who have to go out and create that money. The people who go out and get their money, not because it is transferred in their pocket, but because they go out and work for it and they earn it. Here it is transferred through tax mechanisms. I think it is fair and reasonable for the President to say we need to commit a certain part of my budget to a tax cut. I also think that it is reasonable, to my colleagues in the Blue Dog group, I think that they would agree or I think it is very reasonable to say we had better commit some dollars to this tax reduction now because if you do not put those dollars aside, over the next 3 or 4 months which it will take us to produce a budget, last year we did not get one until almost Christmas, but if you do not put that money aside now, there is not going to be money left for those workers out there. I understand the position let us get a budget first. That is an easy argument to make. When you make that argument, you cannot assure those workers out there that there are going to be dollars to go in their pockets. Let me say in conclusion, I enjoyed the discussion here tonight and listening to my colleagues. I look forward to future discussions and would be happy to engage in a special orders with the people from the Blue Dogs, but I think it is important that we tell both sides of the story which is exactly my purpose in rebuttal this evening and also in discussing the Bush plan. Mr. Speaker, next time I speak I intend to talk about the death tax, the question of whether death should be a taxable event, and I intend to go into some of the issues regarding the budget. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm).

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would also correct the gentleman in saying that it was either Greenspan or Bush in his comments, I did not quite catch which one the gentleman quoted, let us go have a good time. I do not remember, and I do not see anything. I see that George W. Bush takes this budget very, very seriously; and I think the gentleman agrees with me. My only point here is this budget and these tax cuts and our debate tomorrow, especially as I address the Blue Dogs, who I think, in my opinion, on the gentleman's side of the aisle I think carry the most substance, at least with my point of view. I think it is very important for us to work in a constructive fashion, that we not let emotion take it too far and we make the kind of statements such as the fear tactics that I addressed earlier about some of these comments that were made by some of the other people. Now, if the gentleman would like to speak for a minute, I would be happy to yield, in fairness.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman may not. I am not going to yield. Let me finish about the comments that the gentleman made, and then I will be happy to yield for a limited period of time because of my limited time this evening. Again, you have 10 over there, I have one here. Let me say that in regard to the gentleman's comments from Mississippi, he spoke very eloquently, but he said that during his lifetime, a great deal of that debt was accumulated during his lifetime. I might add that a great deal of that debt was accumulated during his congressional tenure as well. I am not sure that the gentleman from Mississippi intended this, but he said that Greenspan said there is all kinds of money for a tax cut. I have heard Mr. Greenspan speak on a number of occasions. I think the gentleman's quote of Mr. Greenspan is inaccurate. I have not read in any report of his comments, and I have not witnessed in person any of his comments where he quotes: we have all kinds of money for tax cuts. In fact, Mr. Greenspan has been very conservative in his approach for tax cuts. He has put it on the strategy and agreed with the strategy that George W. Bush has put forward, and that is, we need it in combination with, one, we have to reduce the interest rates, we have got to control spending, which Mr. Greenspan comes back to time and time again, and then the tax cuts have a place in there. He has not made those kinds of statements that we have all kinds of money for tax cuts.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to the gentleman, I appreciate him clarifying that, but just so the gentleman has an understanding where I am coming from, if the gentleman would care to look at the record, he will see numerous references and criticisms of the lock box theory. My purpose here is not an attack on the Blue Dogs, because after the gentleman's comments, apparently we agree on the lock box issue. But that is our mechanism, to try and put in some kind of control in the future so that when we reserve money for reduction of the debt, it actually goes to reduction of the debt and not spending. Also, I should say about the Blue Dogs, frankly, that during my years in Congress here, it is the Blue Dogs on the Democratic side of the aisle who have been the most restrained on excessive spending and who have led that side of the aisle. So this is not intended to be a criticism, but is intended to say to my colleagues that the lock box is the best tool we have been able to come up with at this point in time. Now, perhaps the gentleman from Mississippi, who I will yield to here in a minute, because I am going to refer to some of his comments, and perhaps he would like to reserve his request for a yield of time until I am finished.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I will let the gentleman finish, but I wanted to comment just very briefly because I think there is a little confusion here. I am not for putting forth the proposition that by giving a tax cut would reduce spending. What I am saying is that at least in my tenure on this floor, that if we do not allocate those funds for a tax cut, those funds will be consumed in the budget negotiations that take place here. Obviously, I think the President himself has said spending will increase at a rate of 4 percent. It may come in a little above that. I am saying at this point, if we are really going to have a tax cut, we better reserve those dollars. I happen to believe that my colleagues in the Blue Dogs would stand by for that tax cut, but there are a number of people on both sides of the aisle who would like to expend those funds. And then I would like to address the other gentleman from Texas. I am completely in agreement with him on Social Security. On an actuarial basis, they are bankrupt. On a cash-flow basis, there is a lot of excess cash coming in. As we know, the reason on an actuarial basis that we are bankrupt is because the typical couple pulls out $118,000 more than they put in. I do not disagree with the gentleman at all in that regard. I do have questions and issues of debate as to whether or not we have a double factor in there and look forward to future discussions. I intend to yield back to the gentleman and to not come back to the microphone. I thank my colleague for the courtesy.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Madam Speaker, I object.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this moment to recognize an outstanding citizen and a remarkable leader, Jimmie William Lloyd, the now former Chairman of the Republican Party in Fremont, Colorado. During his tenure, Jimmie took the GOP to new heights. Despite being diagnosed with cancer in 2000, Jimmie never lost his focus and was able to complete his term as Chairman. As Chairman, Jimmie led the party to election victory in every local office, with the largest voter turnout in recent history. For his service to the party and the American people, I would now like to pay tribute to this great American. Jimmie was born on November 23, 1930 in Poland, Ohio. His family later moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1932. Oklahoma remained his home while he pursued his education, culminating at the University of Tulsa where he earned a bachelors degree. Jimmie continued his education while serving his country in the United States Air Force. He graduated from the Aviation Cadet Basic Navigator School in Houston, Texas in 1953. He later earned the rank of Second Lieutenant in the United States Air Force Reserves. Jimmie's distinguished service to his country continued while serving eight years on active duty, two of which were as a Navigator Bombardier on B-36's, and three years as a Pilot on KC-97s. Altogether, Jimmie served his country faithfully for twenty two years in both the Air Force Reserves and the Air National Guard, piloting everything from C-119's to F-100's. Jimmie used the practical knowledge he gained in the Air Force to educate future generations about aerospace science and flying. He established an Aerospace Science program in the Tulsa Public High Schools. In addition, he commanded a Cadet Civil Air Patrol Squadron, and he has instructed high school students on flying Cessna O-2 Bird Dogs and Piper PA-18 Supercubs. Jimmie and his family moved to Florence, Colorado in 1983, where he later retired from the United States Air Force Reserves in 1990. While faithfully serving his country for 22 years, he has earned numerous awards and commendations. He has received the Distinguished Service Medal, Outstanding Unit Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Medal with Star, Vietnam Service Medal, U.S.A.F. Longevity Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, Reserve Longevity Medal, Oklahoma Distinguished Service Medal, Oklahoma Outstanding Service Medal, and Cold War Certificate of Recognition. Jimmie has a supportive family that has followed his lead in serving our great country. All three of his sons have served in the United States Armed Services--one in the Air Force, one in the Navy, and one is a graduate of the United Air Force Academy. Behind all of these accomplished men is one remarkable woman, Myrna Faye Pugh. Jimmie and Myrna have been married for 46 years. In addition to being an outstanding family man and serving with great distinction in the U.S.A.F., Jimmie has been active in the Republican Party for over fifty years, serving in many volunteer positions. He served as Fremont County Chairman in 1999-2000, was elected to the Florence City Council, and was named to the Limited Gaming Advisory and Airport Advisory Committees. He's been a member of the Retired Officers Association, a member of the Numismatic Association, a member of Safari Club International, as well as an avid sportsman. Throughout his life Jimmie has devoted himself to the cause of his country. Of all the many accolades that Jimmie has commanded, the one he is most proud of is standing in the Oval Office with his 92 year old father, his three sons, and the Honorable Joel Hefley, where he presented a silver boot jacket to President Ronald Reagan. As Jimmie moves on to new pursuits, Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank him for his remarkable work. In my opinion, Jimmie will long be remembered as a servant for both the Republican Party and for his Country. For this service, America is deeply proud and forever grateful.