Scott McInnis

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. I thank the Speaker for the clarification. Good evening, colleagues. I have been listening to the discussions. I think we had a healthy discussion, where the gentleman from Iowa and the gentlewoman from Connecticut were having a discussion. But previous to that I was not quite as inspired as some might have been in regards to her attack on the policies of the Governor of the State of Texas, the Republican candidate for the Presidency, in regards to Social Security. Now, my purpose here this evening with my colleagues is not to talk to them necessarily about partisan politics. That is not the purpose of this podium. My purpose this evening is to talk about an issue that is important and, by the way, not just important for women, it is very important for women but it is very important for young people, regardless of their sex, regardless of their ethnic background. I tell my colleagues, we are not going to accomplish a solution for Social Security by using fear tactics. Standing up and implying that the women of this country, apart from any other segment of this country, are endangered by Social Security ignores problems that go across the sexes. These are fear tactics that are being launched against senior citizens. The reality of it is that every one of us in these chambers, every one of us in these chambers knows that today every senior citizen, or every beneficiary of Social Security benefits who is picking up the check today will have the check next month, will have the check next year, and will have the check as long as they are entitled to that benefit. There is not, under anybody's, under anybody's study of Social Security, there is not one beneficiary today who is receiving Social Security funds, whose funds are endangered during the period of time that they are to receive those funds. It is nothing but pure and simple fear tactics to come out here and somehow try to defend the status quo of a system that is not running well and by doing that implying that people who are on the system today are somehow going to be cut off. Imagine being a senior citizen and hearing from a person in these great halls of Congress the implication that either because they are a woman or because they are a senior citizen that somehow their benefits are somehow going to be canceled because a Republican, the Governor of the State of Texas, has come up with something that changes the status quo. The recommendation to change the status quo comes because of one reason: Everybody in these chambers, everybody in our country admits that Social Security needs to be improved. How interesting that during the conversation of the gentlewoman from Connecticut she speaks consistently of privatization. Maybe she should speak, maybe we should all speak of personalization. Maybe we ought to look at this Social Security System and, number one, admit that it is not working right and quit being stuck on the status quo. And by the way, this argument that, well, we are reducing the national debt. How nice, after 40 years of Democrat leadership, 40 years of Democratic leadership which drove that debt to record highs, which gave us that annual deficit. All of a sudden they have turned a new leaf: Oh, let us reduce the national debt. Let me tell my colleagues that in my opinion what we need to do is to not look at the fear factor of Social Security. Forget the fear factor of Social Security. Play fair on this. Look at the business factor of Social Security. Let us get down with our pencils and get down there with our pads of paper and figure out how we can improve the system. I want to give my colleagues a suggestion, a suggestion that everybody in this Chamber, every Federal employee gets to enjoy, and then I want my colleagues to ask after I bring this system out, I want my colleagues to ask why only Federal employees? Why only Congressmen and Congresswomen? Why do they get this benefit and the rest of America does not? Why are we a special class, as Federal employees? We get to choose personalization. The gentleman from Connecticut who spoke up here previously gets to choose personalization. All of us have that option as Federal employees. As Congressmen we have that option to personalize our account. Why can we not look at Social Security and compare it to the system we have? By the way, the system we have works very well. It is not broken. My guess would be that every one of my colleagues on this floor who is eligible for what we call Thrift Savings is in it. We are in the program. And my bet is that every one of our employees are in that program. Now, it is an option to go into that program. It is also my bet that most Federal employees are in that program. Why are they in that program? Because it works. They had a choice. It works and they get some choice in the program. They get to personalize it. That is what George W. Bush is talking about. Frankly, I compliment him. We need somebody to stand up. Social Security in an election year is one hot potato to deal with. It is tough. And here we had somebody who had the courage to stand up and put out a plan that I think is pretty bold, a plan that I think has a lot of inspiration and initiative to it. So let me tell my colleagues a little about the kind of plan that we have here on the floor, our Federal Thrift Savings Plan. It is really broken down into two parts. As a Federal employee, and let me speak more specifically, as a United States Congressman, we get every month a certain amount of money taken out of our pay that is put in for retirement. We have no choice where that money is invested. We have no choice how that money is invested. We cannot put our hands on that money. That is the safety net. But the second option we have is what is called Thrift Savings, and that is the kind of direction that is being proposed to look at for Social Security. Now, what does the Thrift Savings do? A Federal employee, or a Congressman, let us take myself for an example, I, Scott McInnis, have the option every month of taking a certain percentage of my salary and putting it into the Thrift Savings program. Now, once it goes into the program, my personalization really begins. At that point I get to make a choice. No one else chooses for me. My employees do not choose for me. The bureaucracy does not choose for me. I get to have a personalized account. And I have three basic options. I can take a high-risk speculative stock investment, and in the last several years that has made an enormous return, sometimes 24 to 48 percent. I do not have the exact figure, but it is a tremendous return. I can go into a little bit lower risk with the second option, which are bonds; or I can go into a guaranteed fund, which has a low interest. Remember, interest is based on risk. The higher the risk, the higher the rate. The lower the risk, the lower the rate. So I can go into the most conservative of the three options, and it is guaranteed, but it does not return a lot of interest. Now, when we take a look at what we have, and what has been suggested here, I am frankly surprised that the Vice President, under his policies, although 6 months ago he was in favor of something like this, in the last week and a half, frankly because of the politics, that his policy is stick with the status quo. My good friend, the doctor here, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Ganske), and I compliment him, as being a doctor, I admire him for that background.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Well, we have discussed China to the extent that I am going to this evening, but let us move on to a new subject. I notice lately we have obviously in this country, Mr. Speaker, we have a presidential election going this year, very important election. There has been a lot of, I think, play on words or tricks through the use of semantics about, geez, the Republicans want tax cuts; that is all the Republicans want are tax cuts, and we, the Democrats, we want to keep the money, trust us, we want to keep the money and use it to help shore up Social Security. Well, I want to talk a little more about taxes and tax management, because taxes are an important factor. I am not advocating that today we go out and produce a massive tax cut for the American citizens. There are some specific taxes that I am going to talk about that are punitive, that are punishing, that are unfair, like the death tax, which the Democrats continue to push and push and this administration not only pushes the death tax but this administration attempts to increase the death tax $9.5 billion in the budget they gave us this year. There is a marriage penalty which when we brought up in front of the Democrats, although they had 40 years to do something about it, there is that marriage penalty when we finally got it up here for a vote many of them voted for it. Now we see the Democratic administration opposing it. It may never be signed. It is unfair. This is a country where we ought to encourage people to be married. We want to encourage families. We do not want our young people to be taxed just because of the fact they are married, and taxed at an unproportionate rate. There are those kind of taxes that I think we have an inherent duty, as Congressmen, we have a fiduciary duty to our constituents, to be fair to them. The death tax is not fair. It should not be there. It is nothing but a transfer of wealth. We are not a socialistic society. We do not, in our society, say go to the wealthy or now in our country go to even the lower middle class or the middle class, capture their assets and give them to the people. We are not a society that says go to the people that work and take away from them the fruits of their labor and give it to the people who do not work. That is socialism, and that death tax is darn close to a defining foundation of socialism and it ought to be eliminated. What I think we should talk about is tax management. Now as we all know, Mr. Speaker, those on the Democratic side had control of this House for 40 years. I think it is very interesting, when we have heard the proposals for Social Security, when those who believe that Social Security, the people who are on it deserve more, the people who will be on it some day deserve an opportunity to enjoy the taste of American enterprise by having personal investment accounts, I find it interesting that the people who managed it, the Democrats, for 40 years and got it into the deep hole that it was in now are saying to the American people, my gosh, the Republicans have come up with a good idea; run from it, people, run from it. How dare any of us think of something different to do with Social Security. How dare any of us talk about a person actually having some choice in their Social Security dollars. Trust us. For 40 years we ran the Social Security and we ran it into the hole, but do not change. My gosh, our historical basis, 40 years of lousy rotten management and now, by gosh, the Republicans are proposing a tax change or a change in the management of Social Security. Well, it is the same thing with taxes. Take a look at what has happened to tax management since the Republicans took control. Now, I generally do not like to get too partisan in my remarks on the House Floor but this floor is designed for partisan debate, and there is a clear distinction between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party when it comes to tax management. In my opinion, the Democrats manage taxes in every way possible to get the maximum tax dollar transferred from the local and State government to the central government or to the Federal Government in Washington, D.C. Now when we took control, when the Republicans took control, take a look within those 6 years what has happened with tax policy. I will give an example. This could have happened in any of the 40 years that the Democrats controlled your taxes. It took the Republicans to make this tax change, to manage these taxes. What did we do? The Republican Party, through our leadership, realized that the one property that most people in this country dream of, that really is the largest asset in most of the homes of this country, in most of the families of this country, is the family home. Yet we found out that the family home, under the tax management of the Democrats the last 40 years, that the sale of this property, the sale of the family's largest asset was being penalized. It was being heavily taxed. So we proposed a new idea, and, of course, we had the typical the sky is going to fall, just like we hear on Social Security. Do not try anything new on Social Security. Stick with us. We have had 40 years of rotten management. Stick with us, trust us, count on us. The same thing with this tax, but fortunately we have the majority, and the Republicans looked at what individuals and couples pay for their home. Now let me say what the old law was. The old law said that if someone sold their home for a profit, in other words if they bought a house for $1 and they sold that house for $2, they then had to buy a house of equal or greater value to what they sold the last one. So they bought it for $1. They sold it for $2. To avoid being taxed on the $1 of net profit they made, they had to buy a home that had a value of at least $2. They had to do it within an 18-month period of time or they paid a very steep tax on the fact that they were able to sell the family's biggest asset at a profit. Now there was one exception to that. If one was 55 years old, they got a once-in-a-lifetime exemption of, I think, $125,000 or $150,000. We changed that. We believe that the family home is an asset that most families try and build up equity. A lot of families build up equity in their home that they intend to use for their retirement. A lot of families build up equity in their home that they hope to be able to pass on to the next generation. Why penalize the families on their home? And therein is where the Republicans differed with the Democrats on tax management. So what did we do? Here is what we proposed, here is what became law. Again, let us look, before the Republican tax bill, an individual, this individual bought a house for $100,000, sold the House for $350,000. The profit was $250,000. The tax, the income that would be taxed is $250,000. Now that is an individual. Let us take a couple, an example of a couple. Let us say a couple bought a home for $200,000. Let us say that they sold the home for $700,000. So obviously their profit is $500,000. They paid taxes on $500,000. We changed that. Here is what we did, and every one of my colleagues that owns a home ought to pay attention because every homeowner in America gets a tax break if they make a net profit on the sale of their home; every American. For most Americans, Mr. Speaker, it will be the most significant tax break they have gotten in their life. It is significant. We went and said, all right, up to an amount of $250,000 we are going to charge zero taxes. That is for an individual. So if an individual buys a home for $100,000, sells the home for $350,000, giving us a profit of $250,000, the taxes are zero. Remember back here under the Democrat leadership for 40 years, $250,000 profit, $250,000 that would be taxed. Our $250,000 now, in law, our bill on the Republican side, the tax is zero. The American people get to, Mr. Speaker, put those dollars in their pocket. Now, what happens to those dollars? Number one, they do not come to Washington, D.C. for redistribution. They stay in their community. They either go buy another house or they buy some additional property or they buy a new car or they put it in a savings account in a bank that turns around and loans it to somebody who wants to buy a new car. That is money staying in the community. That is money that is staying in the family. Under the Democrat management of these tax dollars that money went to the bureaucracy in Washington, D.C. for redistribution. Under the Republican policy, that money stays in the taxpayer's pocket. For a couple, most homes in America are owned by a couple, we gave that a $500,000 exemption. So here the couple buys a home for $200,000. They sell the home for $700,000. They make $500,000. Under the Democrats, they pay taxes on $500,000. Under the Republicans, they pay taxes of zero, zero. Now, whenever one hears the Republicans talk about tax management, they hear some of the Democratic leadership talk about, oh my gosh, if we cut taxes we are going to cut education. Why education? Because they have been out there with their polls, and the polls say, look, if you want to scare somebody tell them they are not going to get the education for their kids. Who would not get scared? We all want a good education. We heard the same kind of the sky is falling in when we did this tax management policy. Mr. Speaker, have any of you who have owned a home, who have enjoyed this tax management, have any of you out there seen a school close or one school in your county, in your city, in your State or anywhere in this country, one school get one less dollar because we let the American family put these dollars back into their pockets instead of transferring them to Washington? No. What we see is a record surplus in Washington, D.C. This is good tax policy. This is the kind of tax policy that differentiates between the Republicans and the Democrats. Let us talk about some other tax policy. Again, keep in mind, here is another difference. I talked about it earlier, but it is important to re-note. With death taxes, Mr. Speaker, we know there is a difference in the parties in this. The administration, the Democratic Party in general, not everyone, but in general, supports these death taxes. They think it is appropriate to go out to somebody who has worked all of their life, paid taxes on their property, in some cases paid taxes one or two or three times, and the instant they die, send in the governments, get in there and raid their pockets. It is called the death tax. There is a significant difference. The Republicans want to get rid of it. We want to eliminate the death tax. It is not fair. It is punitive. It is on property that has already been taxed. It has already been taxed. Let us talk about the other tax that we managed to get rid of, a little more successful than we have been with eliminating the death tax. Do Members know what happened? Democrats, as soon as we put this in front of them, they voted for it. For 40 years they had an opportunity to get rid of it and they never even brought it to the floor. Once we got it to the floor, this thing went out with unanimous support. Everybody voted for it. Everybody went back to their districts and talked about, hey, look what we are doing for the seniors. Look how good we have been to the seniors. Let us talk about what that does. What the tax on the seniors did, as many know, we have one particular paragraph, beneficiaries, we know this, aged 65 to 69, full retirement age, could only earn up to $17,000. After that, that is all they could make. We have an employee shortage. We have a lot of senior citizens who may be senior citizens as classified by age, but they are good workers. They want to be in the marketplace. They want to go to work every day. They are productive. The philosophy, frankly, of the Democratic Party through their tax management policy, and again, we are talking business, here, and I am not trying to be partisan, but let us talk business, because there is a difference in management. The management that they had frankly was that the $17,000, it should be limited. Once earnings go over that $17,000, they should lose $1 of social security benefit for every $3 they make in the marketplace. Was that fair? We said no. We did not think so. Do Members know what the Republican policy management was? Do Members know what the Republicans said about this tax? Here is what we do with it, take away the tax that we are putting on senior citizens who want to work. I appreciate the fact that all my colleagues on the Democratic side voted for it. But I also question the fact, where has it been for 40 years? How in God's Earth could they justify doing that kind of tax? How do they justify a death tax? How could they justify a tax on marriage penalties, penalizing somebody who is married? Let me mention another tax that helped our economy. In fact, if we talk to a lot of economists, these economists will tell us that one of the most significant factors in the healthy economy we have today is that when we took control, the Republican tax management philosophy was take capital gains, which was then 28 percent, and drop it, drop capital gains, which is exactly what we did. We took it down to 20 percent. Now, we heard from the other side, of course, the sky is going to fall down, schools are going to close, we are not going to get our highways, and that this is the wrong time to give money back to the American citizens, even though there is a huge surplus. Do Members know what happened? A funny thing happened. In the last several years, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of American citizens began to buy mutual funds. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of American citizens began to invest. They begin to recognize that, hey, this is an opportunity. This is a good economy. Do Members know what? Capital gains all of a sudden, and that is what we call this, capital gains taxation, all of a sudden the meaning of capital gains grabbed a lot of people's attention. When we dropped it from 28 percent to 20 percent, we had an explosive, an explosive economic growth. That 8 percent may not sound like much, but wait until one is a middle-income person or lower-income person and sells some stock and realizes 8 percent of it, gets a tax break of 8 percent. Did they close any schools as a result of dropping capital gains from 28 percent to 20? No. In fact, what happened was the money to the Treasury went up like this. We saw more movement in the capital markets. We saw capital being created. Now we had more dollars than we ever had for schools. Now we had more dollars than we ever had for highways. Now we had more dollars for a lot of different needs that we have in this country. That is important. That is important tax management. Education, for example, and I cannot find anybody that disagrees with this, is one of the highest priorities our Nation should have. We should fund it. I think funding it is in part a responsibility of good tax management. Members will see in this upcoming election, on their side they are going to try and say, my gosh, do not let the Republicans cut taxes. To be fair to those voters out there, colleagues, I think we all need to talk about the kind of taxes that we want to cut. I think to be fair out there, they need to say, you know, the Republican leadership wants to do away with the death tax. What do you think about it, people? Is it fair to tax you all your life for property you have earned and made through the American system, and then on your death, tax you, take it away from you, force your family to sell it and transfer it to somebody else, to the bureaucracy in Washington, DC? When we talk about tax cuts by the Republicans and our tax management policy, ask them if it is so wrong to eliminate the marriage penalty. In our country where we penalize people for being married, what is so wrong with eliminating that? When they talk about the tax policy that the Republicans have, ask how many homeowners who sold their homes would, rather than have paid taxes on those in some cases tens and tens and tens of thousands of dollars, would rather have paid taxes and had a lot more faith in sending that money to Washington, DC than being allowed to save that money and use it in their own community? That is the kind of tax policy we are talking about. It is the same thing with social security. As we go, they go out to condemn us on social security because of the fact that for the first time in 40 years we have somebody willing to stand up and take the lead. We have somebody strong enough that says, I will take some bumps and bruises, but we have to change the course. We have to continue to give security to the people on social security, and we have to give promise to the people who some day will be on social security. What is wrong with that? They ought to talk about that, talk about the 40 years of management that preceded these tax reductions, these tax management policies. They ought to talk about the 40 years of management with social security. My point here this evening is this: All of us, Republicans and Democrats, have a fiduciary responsibility to help fund this government in an efficient and productive fashion. That means that we must deploy good management tactics. There are times where we may have to have some type of tax adjustment. Do not run away from it. There are times when we have to have a change in the management of social security. Do not run away from it. The best way for us to protect social security for the people today, and every Republican plan I have seen out there gives absolute protection to the people on it today, and frankly, protection from my generation, but it gives promise for the generation behind us. Do not run away from it, analyze it, take a look at it. I wish they would have analyzed the marriage tax penalty years ago, and what they were doing to seniors who wanted to go out into the marketplace and earn a living. They penalized them for it. I wish they would analyze what they are doing to American families, small businesses, farms, ranchers, with the death tax. I wish they would analyze some of those things. If they do, they are going to say, look, folks, we cannot give all of the money back, but we can manage some of it. When we manage our taxes, everybody wins. That money stays in the community. It still helps the Federal government. When we keep money in the community, if we want to talk about helping education, keep that money in the local community. That is where we help education. Mr. Speaker, let me move off the taxes and just kind of wrap up my final comments with some points I think that are important on education. I am very excited about education this year. I have seen in Colorado what we are doing with education for the first time I think in 12 years. The Governor of the State of Colorado, Governor Bill Owens, has fully, and his legislature, have fully funded education in Colorado. We have a new program, the Governors' educational reform program, that was kind of like Reagan when he caught holy heck for his defense program, and Governor Owens has gotten some grief on his education reform. Five years from now or 10 years from now we are going to look back at Governor Owens' reform package and say, you know, he was right. He did a good job. I am excited about education at the Federal level. I am beginning to see that the American people are beginning to focus more and more on the student in the classroom and less and less on the bureaucracy that is built above that student. I think the American people are beginning more and more to realize that we need to bring discipline back to the schoolroom; that discipline is a necessary tool to teach our young people. I think the American people, and it excites me, are beginning to say about our schools, you know, uniforms may not be a bad idea. Let us bring uniforms to our schools. Philadelphia, I think, is the most recent one to try it. They caught some heat. Somebody said, well, it takes away our freedom of expression, but it introduces a form of discipline back in the classroom. I am excited about these things. Had we not had the debates we have had on this floor and the debates that have been held in our 50 States, probably in every school district in this country, our product of education would not have improved. It needs to improve. This country has got to have education that is second to none. But just like the taxes, we need management. That is why the Republican leadership has spoken so strongly about discipline in the classroom, about uniforms in schools, about fully funding schools, like they have done, like the Republicans did in Colorado. Why do I keep saying Republicans? Obviously, I am a Republican. I am proud of what we are doing. At one time many years ago I was not so confident that the Republicans were giving education the attention it needs. Now I am concerned that the Democrats are hanging onto the old ways, the ways that have been proven inefficient, instead of letting us put reforms in these schools that will bring back the basics, math, English, school discipline, the reading. But as a team, I think we can improve education. I am willing to work with them as a team. I think it is an exciting year. I think the next 3 or 4 years will be even more exciting for education. Mr. Speaker, in final conclusion, let me say to my colleagues, they should not disassociate themselves or disqualify themselves from talking about tax management. We need to manage those taxes. We have been very successful. Do not run away from trade with China. That may be the very way we break China and bring them around to the freedom of America. Finally, stick with us on our education agenda. We have an agenda that will improve that product to the student in the classroom, that student that will be the next leader of America.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, well, it is time for another evening chat. This evening I have three subjects which I think will be of some interest. I hope to be able to have time to address all three of them. But, in order, I am going to speak a little about the trade agreement. We have had much interesting discussion this evening about trade with China, the different issues, the economic issues, the political issues; and, so, I too will chime in on that, I think from a little bit of a different angle. But, nonetheless, I will spend a little time on that this evening. I would like to talk to you again about taxes. As you know, I think it is important that we distinguish out there the difference between the parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, when it comes to tax policy in this country. My discussion and comments this evening will not be talking about a tax cut today. It will be talking about a little historical tax management and which one of those parties really has the experience to manage our taxes. Then the third thing which I hope we get time for this evening is a fundamental issue to all of us, and that is education. Let me begin by talking about China. First of all, let us get the economic factors out of the way for the State of Colorado. My district is the Third District in the State of Colorado. It is representative of all of western Colorado and some of eastern Colorado. To give my colleagues an idea of the geographic size, it is larger than the State of Florida. We have lots of industry in Colorado. We have a lot of industry in business, primarily small business, in the Third Congressional District. We do have some of the world class ski resorts in the Third Congressional District. We have a lot of international tourists. In fact, the State of Colorado made a conscious decision some time ago to really try to make an effort at marketing on an international basis. We determined in Colorado that tourism is a good industry to have, that it is better than the smoke-stack industry that we had experienced in some years previous. So we wanted to get a mix. And now, as you know, Denver, Colorado, is one of the leading cities in the country with regards to high tech. And, of course, the Third Congressional District, the mountains of Colorado, is known throughout the world for the beautiful and majestic mountains and the views that we have and so on, and the ski areas that we do have. But China is a factor in the Colorado economy. I think to just get it out of the way, the economic numbers, because this evening we have heard economic numbers bantered back and forth, so at the beginning of my remarks here I will tell you that China is a very important trading partner for the State of Colorado. It is fourth, in fact, as far as the largest amount of exports to a foreign country for the State of Colorado. In Colorado our agricultural base, which is very, very important for Colorado, whether it is the cattlemen, whether it is the wheat growers, whether it is the corn growers, regardless, the agricultural base in the State of Colorado through their associations strongly support trade with China. These associations realize that 96 percent of the consumers reside outside the boundaries of the United States of America. Only within our boundaries do we have four percent of the consumers. Now, some people tonight that you heard preceding my comments will claim they run away from the word ``isolationist.'' They talk about pro-trade. They talk about pro-small business. They talk about international relations. And then they urge you to vote no on the China bill. When the real test steps up there, they are not pro-trade, they are isolationists. Now, in some cases, maybe isolation works. It has not worked for the United States of America. We thought for sure that we could make Cuba collapse to its knees by isolating that country. Several presidents ago or so, it did not work. Some day we are going to get capitalism into that country. But our choice of isolation is not going to work with China. We are not going to isolate China. How are we going to isolate them? We are not going to isolate them. Let us face the facts. And the facts in Colorado are economically, economically, it is a very, very important trading partner. In the areas that I represent, agriculture is very important. In the cities of Colorado, the largest cities, which I do not represent, high tech is very important. There are a lot of businesses from small to medium to large in Denver, Colorado, in Boulder, Colorado, in Colorado Springs and Ft. Collins throughout the cities on the front range that think that this China trade is very important for the State of Colorado and for the people of the State of Colorado. So I am not saying tonight in my remarks that will follow that we should disregard the economic factors of the State of Colorado. They are important. We should not ignore them. It should play an important factor for every congressman's decision when they make that final decision on whether or not to support trade with China. But what I want to focus about this evening in regards to China is more from a philosophy point of view, I guess, and that is to kind of relate to my colleagues here on the floor my personal experience in China. Many, many years ago I had the privilege of being selected as one of 10 what they called young leaders in America from across the country to go and visit the country of Taiwan and to go and visit and spend time with their government and, after visiting Taiwan, to go ahead and go across the straits there and visit China and spend time with China's young leaders. This was a bipartisan group of people. There were five Democrats and five Republicans. And so, we went off on a trip to visit with the governments of these two different countries. In Taiwan it was very interesting to see what capitalism has done for that country. This is a country that has boomed when it allowed its people the opportunity to improve their life situation, to go and pursue their life dream of having their own business, of being able to make a better mouse trap, of having rewards for their hard work because they come up with a better mouse trap or they have a better invention or they figure out a more productive way to produce. Taiwan loved capitalism. Taiwan put its arms out and said, we want capitalism in our country. And compare to what has happened in Taiwan to any other country of its size, especially any other country of its size that is socialistic or communistic, compare Taiwan and the economy and the type of life-style and the freedoms and the freedom of expression and the art and the music and just, basically, the enjoyment of life in Taiwan, compare it to what you have in China. It is hardly a comparison. It is like between night and day. What is the answer? Is what brought capitalism to Taiwan isolationism by the greatest country in the world, the United States of America? Was it a conscious decision on behalf of the United States of America to ignore Taiwan and say, look, the best way to break communism and make sure this new regime that went over to Taiwan is not going to practice communism, the best way to do that is isolate them? We did not isolate them. We embraced them. We said, try capitalism. It works. Throughout the history of the world, every time we have allowed an individual to make life better for themselves through their own labors, it works. Capitalism has proven itself over and over and over again. In China, they have been very successful at rejecting capitalism. They have been very successful at rejecting individual rights. They have been very successful in restricting the freedom of movement in their country. In China, the communists have been very successful in making sure that they cannot form political groups, that they cannot have the freedoms as these people hear about just 90 miles away in the country of Taiwan. China has made sure that it has oppressed its citizens, and it has made sure that it has defied the world. So what do we do about this communistic country, this country that is huge, huge and growing, by what, 20,000 or 30,000 people a day are born in China? We cannot ignore them. Come on, my colleagues that oppose even acknowledging that China is out there. We cannot ignore them. We cannot isolate them. Figure it out. Now, I went over to China and I had an opportunity to meet some of their young leaders. And I will tell you what really stood out for me when I was in China was how oppressive their government was, but what encouraged me were some of these young leaders seemed to be enchanted by the idea of freedom and enchanted by the idea of capitalism. I could really see an optimistic viewpoint in their mind that their mighty country, and they were proud of their country, that their country was beginning to, at least, acknowledge that outside of communism there might be an improvement called capitalism. I saw their signs of encouragement when I was in China. I went to a school. This school was for the very privileged in their society. In China that is the school teachers, the medical doctors, and the government leaders and their top business executives. So it was a private school. All of the children were beautifully dressed. And, of course, the Chinese children are beautiful children. I guess all children are beautiful. But, really, their dress and their outfits. But do you know what I noticed in their school what made me feel good that capitalism was getting its foot in the door in Communist China was the fact that on the walls of this school they had paintings of Goofy and Mickey Mouse. Now, some of my colleagues might chuckle at that. Well, what has that got to do with trade? Think about it. Through entertainment, through music, and through many other means, capitalism is beginning to seep into Communist China. It is beginning to get in there. Now, what amazed me the most about these young Chinese leaders is that a couple three months later, I then hosted those leaders in the United States for a period of about 3 days in the Colorado mountains. Now, they had already been to Washington, D.C., and they had seen this fine building. They had seen this fine body in action. They saw the majestic White House and our other beautiful monuments around here. They were impressed. They liked America. When they came to the mountains of Colorado, we did some things, we treated them. We gave them each a pair of Levi jeans. Back then that was a big deal. We took them on a roundup camp and sang cowboy songs around the fire. They loved it. But do you know what they enjoyed and they were most enthralled about during that time that I had them and they inform me it was the most interesting thing of their entire trip to the United States, which included San Francisco, which included Colorado, which included Washington D.C.? Do you know what amazed them the most? The grocery store. I took them to our grocery store, our local city market. They could not believe it. We spent 4 hours. I had allotted 25 minutes to go through the grocery store. They spent 4 hours in that grocery store in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. They went up and down those aisles. They could not believe it, all of these different choices of cereal. Where is your milk? This is all milk? Yogurt two percent. One percent sour cream. They could not believe it. And the eggs, dozens and dozens and dozens of eggs. We went to the cheese selection. They could not believe all the selections of cheese. And cereal. I mean, we literally opened a couple of boxes of cereal so they could taste the cereal. They were enthralled by an American grocery store. Then I had to convince them that that American grocery store was not for the exclusive or the wealthy people in our society. I am not sure they ever believed me that anybody in our community of Glenwood Springs or anybody that stopped in Glenwood Springs could go into that grocery store and that the prices that we were paying for items in proportion to what we made per month were minuscule in their terms. What a deal. How did it happen? And do you know, the rest of the time with those young leaders, do you know what we talked about? We did not talk about the indoctrination of communism. We did not talk about how you can stymie freedom of speech. We did not talk about how you can prevent the people from having music and art. We talked just the opposite. We talked about capitalism. We talked about freedom of expression. We talked about music. We talked about art. We talked about grocery stores. We talked about the fact you could own your own horses and your own cows and if you wanted to, you could sell them for a profit, if you were a good businessperson, you could make a good living at it. We talked and we talked and we talked. Now, this story goes on. They then went back to China. I could tell that these people, these young leaders, men and women, were inspired. They really felt an urge that their great country of China could move in a direction that would make it an even stronger country, that they could begin to get their senior leaders to open up their eyes just a little, not dramatic change, because dramatic changes takes time in China. But it is change, nonetheless, towards capitalism, away from communism. The last time I ever saw most of them was as they got on that plane. They smiled, they did not want to leave America, in one sense; but in the other sense they could not wait to leave America and get to China, because they wanted to talk to their friends and neighbors about what America had, what America had that China did not have and what America had that China should have. That is why they were anxious to get out of this country. Well, not too many years later, in fact, just a couple short years, Tiananmen Square occurred, where the government forced down, executed, and, to the best of my knowledge, some of those good friends that I had met were executed as a result of Tiananmen Square. I was very, very bitter. To this day I remain bitter about the way these young people were prosecuted, persecuted and executed by the Chinese government. It is a tough hump to overcome. These kids, and they were young men and women, they had a lot of promise. They had a lot to take to their country. They did not stay in the United States. They did not want to be Americans. They wanted to go home to their homeland of China and improve the conditions and bring things like small business and capitalism and music and art, open up the world. They never got that opportunity, because the government made sure that they were, as I said, prosecuted, persecuted and executed. Well, I, for a long time, took the position that the best thing we should do is cut all our ties to China, stop dealing with China. Those SOBs, they killed these people, and you cannot deal with China except through a military takeover at some point, or at least build up your military strength so you never ever have to have China push your own citizens around, and I was convinced that the best thing to do was isolate China. But I guess with time you begin to think about, is that really working? In the meantime, what we saw was we saw the Iron Curtain collapse. We saw the Reagan Cold War be successful without the firing of one missile. And as I began to study what broke Russia, what brought Russia to its knees, was it the fact that we isolated them? Was it the fact of our military machine? Well, both of those factors played into it, and there are other factors I will talk about. First of all, was it the fact we isolated them? We did isolate Russia in some areas, and we should isolate China in some areas, and that is transfer of military secrets. As you know, the Russians had a very successful spy operation, unfortunately, a couple of traitors in America, U.S. citizens that became traitors. But, nonetheless, we restricted them. We did not allow swapping of even semi-sensitive equipment to Russia. And that is appropriate with China. We should be very, very restrictive about military hardware or civilian hardware that can be converted to military use. We should be restrictive and isolationists in regard to that. If we were not, you could see the proliferation of nuclear weapons going on throughout the world. We have to keep that stuff close to our chest. I am not sure anyone in this room disagrees with that. But when you take a look, did we isolate Russia as a whole, the answer is no. Capitalism began to creep into Russia. That is what happened. Now, what about the military? Was it our military might that brought down the Russian empire? The answer to that is no. What our military might did, and, by the way, I think every American citizen should be thankful for Ronald Reagan. He stood up to a lot of heat when he called Russia the evil empire. He stood up to a lot of heat when he had our military build up in this country. A lot of people said he was a war monger. Some called him Rambo. Now you do not hear much from those people, because, you know what? Ronald Reagan was right. You need to have a strong military. You need to have the first military in line of every military in the world. But the military itself did not bring down Russia. What brought down Russia is the heart, the people's heart. Those people in Russia said, you know, there is something better, beyond that wall. There is something better on the other side of the ocean. There is something better about America. What is America doing that they have such good lifestyles? What is America? The teenagers in Russia were saying look at the teenagers in America. They have this great music. They have these radios. Back then they had these Walkmans. What are they doing in America that we should do in Russia to improve our lifestyle? Our military strength, make no mistake about it, our military strength kept Russia from attacking us. Our military strength was a critical element in bringing Russia down to its knees. But the overriding factor that brought Russia to its knees or that the Russian people wanted was freedom. They wanted a taste of life that was a lot sweeter. They wanted the freedom of expression. They wanted the freedom of religion. They wanted a lot of freedoms that had been denied to them. And little by little, through Radio Free Europe, remember, that is how we got in there. Today we are going to get in China through the Internet. Back in the Cold War days we got in through Radio Free Europe. They turned on these radios, and no matter how hard, no matter how decisively the Russian leaders tried to shut down Radio Free Europe or shut down those signals, those Russian people still had radios hidden. They would pull them out at night and listen to the Americans on Radio Free Europe talk about how good things are and how capitalism can work in your country too, that we are not asking you Russians to become Americans; we are asking you Russians to enjoy the freedoms that Russians deserve. It was through that kind of effort that capitalism began to sneak in. American music and American music plays a very important part. You may say ``that is somewhat exaggerated, Scott.'' It really does play an important part. As I travel throughout the world, which I have done fairly extensively, almost everywhere I go it is American music being played, and you know the young people that listen to this music, they have good impressions of America. That is where this good music comes from. It worked the same way in Russia. You begin to see American music. You begin to see American products in the wealthier class. The ruling class in Russia had the use of these products, but the common man out there, they noticed them and they wanted them too. Then pretty soon the operation of the government control began to collapse in Russia, and, what do you know, the Russian empire fell. Whoever thought that the Berlin Wall, that they would live to see the falling of the Berlin Wall? I never imagined it. But that was a remarkable event in our history. Well, I think we can apply the same type of standards, and I think we ought to look from the same historical point of view as to China. Now, what about this trade with China? What do we accomplish? Should we do it? As one of the previous speakers, who loves to talk about corporate America and big corporate this and big corporate that, I mean, you know, it sounds like a broken record. Forget talking about big corporate America. Talk about the small businesses. Talk about, and I wish my colleague were here, talk about the farms and ranches in Colorado. Talk about the corn growers or the wheat growers. Talk about the people that produce chicken eggs. Talk about our dairy farms. There is a lot of people out there we ought to talk about that are not big corporations in America, that are not oppressive business entities in America, that are not out to squash the freedoms of American citizens. There are a lot of people that work very hard. In fact, they probably work a lot harder than we, and we work hard on this floor, and they work harder than we do in their small business. Trade means something to them. With the advent of the Internet, you cannot be an isolationist. Some of your colleagues, when you hear from other colleagues and they say, ``Well, look, I am for free trade. I think we should be in on the international business, but, boy, I am sure opposed to NAFTA, and I am sure opposed to China trade. By gosh, I am opposed to any trade like this.'' Come on, you cannot have it both ways. And which way works? Sit down with your colleague, my friends, and say hey, show me the historical basis of where isolationism works, number one, and, number two, tell me how you are going to isolate China. How are you going to do it? You cannot. Isolationism does not work, and you are not going to isolate China. Now, I have some pretty resentful feelings towards China. I expressed those to you tonight. I lost my friends at Tiananmen Square, so I do have a deep resentment towards the way that those leaders, the leaders at that point in time, treated their young people, and I think that China does have very oppressive human rights, and I think China's communism is not long for lasting. I think in the next 20 years it will break, just like Russia's did. I know I am no fan of China. But it is because of that very fact that I am not a fan of China, that I still contain within my heart some bitter resentment towards the Chinese government, it is because of those reasons that I think we should do exactly the opposite of what my colleagues who preceded me talked about. I do not think we should isolate China at all. I think the worst nightmare of the Chinese leaders, their worst nightmare, is that their people will begin to get a taste of American music, of American art, of American enterprise, of American freedom of speech, of American freedom of religion. You know what? That is what those Chinese leaders fear the most. They love it when primarily my Democratic friends stand up here and say isolation or no trade with China. They love you to talk like that, because they know they are too big for you to be any kind of threat at all to them through isolationism. They know you are not going to isolate them. They would just as soon you not try to get freedom in to their people. My Democratic colleagues, they would just as soon you stand up here and act like this, the ones that oppose this trade. ``My gosh, we cannot do this and that with China.'' You know, you are taking exactly the wrong track, in my opinion. If you want to break China to its knees, and I want to do that, you begin to put free enterprise into that country. And how do you get free enterprise into that country? You get American products over there. You open up trade with this country. Now, remember, it is in fact true the EU and a number of other trading entities in this world would love for the United States not to trade with China, because 99 percent of the products that we trade with China are nonmilitary products. So let us take the military issue out right away. That 1 percent of military products, let us not trade it. I agree with you, let us isolate ourselves on the trading of any military hardware. I do not object to that at all. I do not think we ought to give China one bullet. If they have to buy it from the Europeans, let them buy it from the Europeans. But, that said, the other 99 percent of consumer goods, where is your objection? Do you realize that when the Chinese people get to begin to enjoy American products, whether it is a coffee maker, whether it is a disk player, whether it is the clothes, whether it is just a writing pen, I mean, whether it is a pair of skis, I mean, all of these different things, do you realize what happens when a person who has never tasted freedom gets to feel American enterprise? It is like tasting hot apple pie for the first time. You want a second bite. It sticks with you. You like that cinnamon flavor. That is exactly what is going to happen with China. And then you know what happens? First they begin to get the taste of American products. They want more. And then they begin to want more. More products? Oh, yes, more products. But what, more importantly, do they want? They begin to say, you know, we want more freedom of movement in this country. In America they can get in their car and they can travel clear across the country. They are not stopped at the borders. They are not searched at the borders. They can go. Why cannot we do that in China? In America they can voice their opinion. In America they have got this freedom of religion. That is what begins to seep into this country. If you want to bring China around, do not ignore them, do not isolate them. Let us go in there and improve the situation. Let us go in there and look at it from a constructive point of view. Now, I have heard some of my colleagues talk about, well, we could be at nuclear war with China. China, we will be at war with China within the next 10 to 15 years. Well, I do not downplay your remarks, not at all. I do not downplay your remarks one bit. In fact, I think the Chinese are a serious enough military threat that we need to get on the ball over here and we need to do two things. One, we need to not allow our President to go overseas and agree with the Russian Government to cut our nuclear arsenal below the red line, which is the line that our military experts say is the minimum we need to sustain the safety of American citizens in a conflict. We need to have a military that is second to none and is by a factor of many much more efficient and much more devastating than the Chinese military. We need to be prepared, if China were ever to move, to defend ourselves and to protect American citizens. So I do not downplay the military threat at all. I think the United States must be fully prepared militarily to take on China or anybody else in this world that possess or exercises a threat against American citizens or our allies. I think while we do that, we must, as we did in Russia, simultaneously get the word of free enterprise and get capitalism into China. Remember with Russia we had the nuclear missiles. We put nuclear missiles on the European continent. We shored up NATO but while we were doing all of this, we still had Radio Free Europe working. We still had Radio Free Europe. We kept plugging away. We kept trying to get American enterprise in, get American products in behind those Russian borders. It began to seep, it began to crack, and finally it did crack. With China, Mr. Speaker, instead of saying, well, we are going to be at war with them in 10 to 15 years so let us ignore them, I say different. I say we should approach China, to the extent that we can, and get the taste of freedom to those Chinese citizens because that is one thing the Chinese Government leaders cannot take away from their citizens. Once they get the taste of freedom, it will be just like the Russian empire. Once they get that taste of freedom, no matter how harsh a leader you are, no matter what you do, that freedom will spread like a strawberry patch. It will grow and it will survive the winter and it will grow the next summer and it will survive the winter and it will grow the next summer and it will grow and grow and grow, and that is what will bring China down. I hope my colleagues this evening who for the sake of politics are saying that they oppose trade with China, listen to my remarks. Here is a person who has a very bitter taste about what China did to his own friends. Here is a person who in his initial years of reaction to China took an isolationist policy, but here is a person who after having studied the Cuban and Russian model has decided the best way to do it is continue to build the strongest military known in the world's history but at the same time getting that taste of freedom inside the borders of China. Tax Management

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I have a very serious subject of which I want to address to my colleagues, a subject of which many of my colleagues in this room, while it is not in their district, they may not have the kind of knowledge that I hope to kind of infer into them this evening during our discussion. What I want to visit about really is specific, as it first comes out to the State of Colorado and to the Third Congressional District. Did my colleagues know the Third Congressional District is one of the largest districts in the United States? That is the district that I represent in the United States Congress. That District geographically is larger than the State of Florida. It is a very unique district. I will kind of point out the district here on the map to my left. It is this portion of Colorado. It consumes over 60 percent of the State of Colorado. In that area, just roughly speaking, with the exception of Pikes Peak and part of Estes Park, all the other mountains, for the most part, are contained within the Third Congressional District of Colorado. Now, this district has some very unique features about it. First of all, the amount of Federal land ownership within the district, which exceeds 22 million acres. This district is also a district which supplies 80 percent of the water in the State of Colorado, even though 80 percent of the population lives outside the Third Congressional District. This district is also unique. Well, in fact, the entire State of Colorado is unique in that Colorado is the only State in the whole union, the only State in the whole union where we have no free-flowing water that comes into our State for our use. In other words, all of our water flows out of the State. Now, in this particular district, as my colleagues know, because of the amount of Federal land, we have a concept called multiple use. I want to give a brief history of multiple use. Although I have talked many times from this podium to my colleagues about multiple use, I am asking for their patience again this evening, because I want to give a little history of multiple use and why in the West we have much different circumstances or consequences of decisions in Washington, D.C. regarding land than they do in the East. Let me put it this way, multiple use is critical for our style of life. There are many organizations that are up and down the eastern coast around in these areas that really do not understand what it is like to live surrounded by Federal lands. So it is very easy for them to criticize those of us who live in the West for our lifestyle. It is very easy for those individuals to tell us to get off the Federal lands as if we had no right to be on those Federal lands. Well, let us start with a little history. After I go through the history, then I am going to move into the White River National Forest. It is one of the most beautiful forests in the world. It is an area which I grew up on. I was born and raised in Colorado. My family has been there for multiple generations. I can tell my colleagues that there are a lot of people that are very proud of the White River National Forest. So we will move into the White River National Forest. But, first of all, let us start with a little history on the concept of multiple use. In the early days of this country, the United States, as a young country, wanted to expand. Obviously the only place to expand was west because our people and our country started over here on the eastern coast near the Atlantic Ocean. But as the United States began to acquire land, for example, through purchases like the Louisiana Purchase, they needed to come out here into these new lands. Back then, having a deed for property, unlike today, today if one has a deed for property, it really means something. One can go into the courts and enforce it. In those days, in the frontier days and the early days of the settlement of the United States as we know it today, having a deed did not mean a whole lot. One had to have possession. That is where, for example, the saying possession is nine-tenths of the law. That is where that saying came from. So the challenge that faced our government in the East was how do we encourage our citizens who have the comfort of living in the East to become frontiersmen, and I say that generically, to become frontiersmen to go West and settle the West and get possession of the lands that we want to become later States in the United States. So the idea they came up with is, well, let us do the American dream. One of the pillars of capitalism, one of the pillars of freedom, one of the pillars of which the concept of our government was made, that is private property. Let us give them some land. I think it is every American's dream to own their own home, to own a piece of property. It was many, many years ago, hundreds of years ago when our country was formed. So they thought, the leaders at that time, the way to get these people to move out here to the West, to settle all of this new land, let us give them land. Let us see if they go out there and they work on the land, and they show that they really care about the land and they devote themselves to the land. Let us give them the land, maybe 160 acres, maybe 320 acres. It is called the Homestead Act. That worked pretty well, except when one got to the West, to the West right here, out here, 160 acres, for example, in Kansas or 160 acres in Nebraska or 160 acres in Ohio or 160 acres elsewhere, in Missouri or Mississippi, one could support a family, or maybe 320 acres, one could support a family off that. But when they got into the Rocky Mountains, for example, they found out that 160 acres, it will not even feed a cow. So they went back to Washington. In Washington, they said, what do we do? We are not getting people to go out here and settle in these areas where we want them to settle. So they thought about it. One of the thoughts, of course, was to let us give them an equivalent amount of land. Let us say to them, look, it takes 160 acres to support a family in Nebraska. Let us give them 3,000 acres in the mountains. The leaders thought about it, and they thought, politically, we cannot give that much land away because we expect a lot of people to go out there. So then someone else came up with the idea, well, let us do this. Let us go ahead in the West. In the West, let us have the government continue to own the land as a formality, and let us let the people use the land just like they do in the East; thus, the concept of multiple use. Now, many of my colleagues who have been in the West and have entered a national forest, they may have seen a sign that says, for example, ``Welcome to the White River National Forest,'' and underneath there hung a sign that said ``A land of many uses.'' That is what this really represented, a land of many uses. Later in my discussions, we will talk about how a land of many uses has expanded, how it has expanded to protect the environment, how it has expanded much beyond ranching and farming and mining and things like that. It has expanded into recreation. It has expanded into multiple, multiple uses. In fact, that doctrine has grown unusually. Let me tell my colleagues what we have right here, the map that I am showing them. This map represents here in the east where most of the white spots are, with the exception of the Appalachians here and the Everglades down in Florida, there is very little Federal land ownership out in the east. These big blops in the West, all of the colors we see, that is land owned by the government. So at this point, what I want to stress upon my colleagues as I address them here on the floor is the difference between land ownership by the government in the east, of which it is, for all practical purposes, at a minimum, and land ownership in the West which, for all practical purposes, is almost total. Now, understanding that, when one lives in one part of the country where the Federal Government has very little Federal ownership and really for development or planning or zoning, one can go to one's local city council or one's county governments in the East, compare that living style to, in the West where, really, when one wants to have some kind of zoning or thing like that, one has to go to the government in Washington, D.C., because one is surrounded by government lands. Now, let me say that, in these big blops of federally government- owned land, Federally-owned land, and other government-owned land, there are communities out there. There are small towns. I will give my colleagues some examples of towns which they will recognize right away: Aspen, Colorado; Vail, Colorado; Glenwood Springs, Colorado; Meeker, Colorado. Now, the reason I am giving my colleagues those communities is I am kind of focusing this in on the White River National Forest. All of the communities, in fact, all the ski resorts in Colorado, are located within the boundaries of the Third Congressional District, which I represent. Now, those communities are totally dependent on cooperation from the Federal Government. We here in Washington, D.C., dictate what those communities, and hundreds of other communities just like them, what they get to do. We dictate whether or not they get to have power lines to bring power into their communities. We dictate whether or not they get to have highways that come into their communities. We dictate their water resources. In some cases, the Federal Government, under a new policy, is now attempting to reverse, turn on its head, or completely ignore the long- standing doctrine that recognizes State water law and go into States like Colorado and say, look, if your water, for example, is stored upon Federal land, runs across Federal land or originates on Federal land, even though you own it, we are going to confiscate a part of it and we are not going to let you have access to it any more. In other words, the government has complete control of the life-style in the West. In the East, people are generally very free from the government. And when I say the East, let us go ahead and draw a boundary here on this map. Coming up here from the Canadian border and right down and through Colorado, actually going down I-25, half of Colorado has very little Federal land ownership in it. Coming down here, up through here, through Oklahoma and down right to the border there in Arizona, over in this area over here, everything east to the Atlantic Ocean, very little government ownership. Everything to the west almost total government ownership. Well, that leads me into the topic that I want to visit this evening on, and that is the White River National Forest. The White River National Forest is a huge forest, about 2.7 million acres, approximately. One-third of that forest today, one-third of that forest, is held in a wilderness area. Now, a wilderness is the most restrictive management tool that the government uses. It is the tool for management that has the least amount of flexibility. I know something about wilderness. I have sponsored and carried into law a number of wilderness bills. The White River National Forest has amongst the highest percentage of wilderness anywhere in the United States, and certainly has the highest percentage of wilderness within the State of Colorado. Wilderness is very appropriate under very tight circumstances. And when people talk about wilderness, obviously, it is a very fuzzy word. How many of my colleagues in here do not like the word wilderness? How many people have my colleagues ever met, when asked if they like wilderness, do they like mothers, do they like ice cream, have ever heard them say no? It is kind of like finding someone that is anti- education. They are not out there. But when we take a look at the legal definition of the word wilderness as it applies, for example, to Colorado water rights, as it applies to a number of other things, we have to be very, very careful about the application of a wilderness area. I have a bill called the Colorado Canyons Bill, which I intend to present to my colleagues here in the next couple of weeks. In that one I am proposing 72,000 acres that is in a wilderness study acre to be converted to wilderness. But I do that only after very, very careful study. So we know now that the White River National Forest has many, many different communities contained within its boundaries, and within those particular boundaries we have one-third of the forest, or about 750,000 acres of the forest, which are in wilderness as we now speak. Now, when we take a look at the White River National Forest, let us talk about some other issues. There are issues, like water. What is important to remember about the White River National Forest, and let me kind of show, it is very hard to define it, but it is an area about like this on the map, it would be about the size of a silver dollar here in this area, in the White River National Forest we have six rivers which start in that forest. Six rivers originate in the White River National Forest and a seventh river, the Colorado River, comes through the White River National Forest. So water is a critical issue. Now, remember, as I spoke earlier in my comments, water in Colorado is very unique. We are the only State where our water runs out. We have no water that comes in. In the particular area of the State where the White River National Forest is, we supply 80 percent of the water for Colorado. Eighty percent of the population in Colorado resides outside the Third Congressional District, and probably, oh, 95 percent of the State's population resides outside the boundaries of the White River National Forest. Well, what happens, in managing these forests, and now, remember, these forests across this country, it is our land, remember the song This Is My Land, This Is Your Land, it is our land and it represents ownership of all of us in this room. Some of us are obviously much more directly impacted by that because we live there. Many of my colleagues have never set foot in it. I hope, by the way, some of my colleagues all have an opportunity to visit the White River National Forest. By the way, if any of my colleagues have ever skied in Colorado, ever river-rafted in Colorado, ever mountain biked in Colorado, ever kayaked in Colorado, ever snow-boarded in Colorado, or ever camped in Colorado, the likelihood is very high that any of those family recreational activities that my colleagues have participated in occurred on the White River National Forest. As I said earlier, these are our forests, they belong to us, and we have a fiduciary relationship to the people of this country to run those forests. So we have an agency that is in charge of the forests called the United States Forest Service. Now, obviously, they are subject to review and guidance by the United States Congress. So, really, the buck stops here. To manage our forests what we have decided to do is to put out what we call a forest plan. Now, with today's technology it changes so rapidly that a long-term plan has to have flexibility built into it. In the older days, for example when the plan that this forest is now managed under was first drafted, in about 1984, we did not see that kind of rapid change so we could have a 10- or 15-year plan for the forest. Well, that plan is about ready for review. It needs to be replaced with a new plan. So the U.S. Forest Service has spent a good deal of time going out and seeking opinions on what is the best way to manage this forest, and that is what we are going to discuss tonight. Now, I should tell my colleagues that I believe very strongly in a quote by Theodore Roosevelt when it comes to these forests, and I ask that my colleagues listen to the placement of the words, because I think it is very appropriate as it relates to what we are speaking of. By Theodore Roosevelt: ``I recognize the right and the duty of this generation to develop and use the natural resources of our land, but I do not recognize the right to waste them or to rob by wasteful use the generations that come after us.'' When the forest issued its plan, I think, frankly, they did a pretty good job in solicitation of opinions. And I can tell my colleagues that a lady by the name of Martha Kattrell, Lyle Laverty at the U.S. Forest Service, and a number of other people down there really have put some hard work in this and I wanted to recognize them this evening. That does not mean I agree with them. I will cover a number of different subjects of which I do think we have agreement on, but I will cover some subjects, specifically water, of which we have drawn the line in the sand. Let me go back to what they have done. The Forest Service has come up with a recommended plan. When that plan came out, I objected to it quite strenuously. I objected to it on a number of different counts, the first and foremost of which is water. Now, look, in Colorado we have to stand up strong for our water. There are a lot of my colleagues in this room that do not live within the boundaries of Colorado but who depend on Colorado water and are very anxious to get as much of that water as they can. If I lived in their States, I would want as much Colorado water as I could get too. By the way, it is the best water in the country: Rocky Mountain spring water, Coors beer, et cetera, et cetera. But I do not live in any other state, I live in the State of Colorado, and that is an asset of which Colorado has and places great value. I think my colleagues place great value on it too. But I think we have to be very fair in how we deal with water, and the White River National Forest plan, the plan that the Forest Service has come out with, in my opinion, ignores, preempts, or bypasses Colorado water law. Now, Colorado water law is exactly the law that every other citizen in the State of Colorado must live by. There are no other citizens in Colorado that get exempted from Colorado water law. There are no kings, no queens, no special privileged class that gets to treat water as it wants without falling under Colorado water law. Now, the Federal Government wants to come in and create a special class. The Federal Government wants to come in, and by the way this is above the level of Martha Laverty, this is from Washington, D.C., they want to come into Colorado and create a very privileged class. It is called the Federal Government. It is called the Washington, D.C. bureaucracy of the United States Government. They want to be treated differently than anybody else in the State of Colorado when it comes to water. And guess why? Because they want our water in Colorado. And, frankly, it has an impact on the water that some of my colleagues use that comes out of the State of Colorado. So we had a disagreement on water. We will cover that even further as I go into my comments. But what did I see as another fallacy in the plan? I saw water as a fallacy. What other fallacy did I see in the plan? Really, as I said, they gathered a lot of good comments, but what I think they did in error is they took these good comments and they spread them over several different plans. They did not just pick one plan. Although they came up with a suggested plan, in their review they reviewed a number of what they call alternatives. So they had like six or seven alternatives and they came out with their recommended alternative or recommended plan. Well, in each of these plans they put some pretty good recommendations, but they spread them out when they only got to pick one. I was critical of that. I thought we could do a better job. That is not to be adversarial to the U.S. Forest Service. Although let me make it very clear, let me make it very clear, that my position with the United States Government is adversarial when it comes to Colorado water. There should be no doubt about that. I am on one side of the line on Colorado water and the United States Government is on the other side of the line. But that said, with the exception of water, I found my relationship, my working relationship with the U.S. Forest Service on the White River National Forest very constructive. But I was critical of the way they came out with their plan, so I decided to do what no other Congressman in the history of the United States Congress has done, what no other U.S. Senator has done in the history of the U.S. Senate, and that is, in essence, draft the U.S. Forest Service's forest plan for them. Now, first of all, I had to figure out what was my theme. What did I really want to see in the White River National Forest. Remember that this forest has thousands, tens of thousands of direct jobs related to recreation. The world class ski resorts are located in this forest. And by the way, I do not see anything inherently evil with skiing. I do not see anything inherently evil with snow-boarding. I do not see anything inherently evil with riding a mountain bike. I do not see anything inherently evil with camping, or with kayaking, or with riding an ATV. Where the inherent evil is if we abuse the resource which we are utilizing for family recreation. There I see inherent evils, and we needed to address that in our forest plan. So I titled my forest plan, Forest Rest and Forest Use. Again, Forest Rest and Forest Use. That was kind of the boundary within which I wanted to contain or to construct something that I think would be a positive addition to what the United States Forest Service came out with in regards to their plan. And I will give my colleagues a little bit of my own background. I was born and raised in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. My family had been there for a long time. My family has been in the district for many generations. I had my first date on the White River National Forest. Now, do not worry, it was not that exciting. I had my first fishing trip in the White River National Forest. I have had a lot of experiences, hiking, and I have learned lots of things about the environment, about wildlife in the White River National Forest. I have a deep appreciation for that forest, and I think I know that forest as well as any layperson. Now, my colleagues may notice that I used the word layperson, because there are people who have far more expertise on that forest than do I. And in order to draft a plan that I thought was a balanced plan, that really fell within the boundaries of giving the forest a rest and using the forest in a proper way, in order to do that, I felt I needed to have an expert on board. I was very fortunate. Without qualification, one of the top experts in the United States of America, specifically on the White River National Forest, is a gentleman named Richard Woodrow. His nickname, by which most people know him, is Woody. Seems appropriate for this forest. Although I should tell my colleagues that this forest is not a timber forest, just so we know that up front. But Woody supervised that forest. Woody drafted the last forest plan. The forest plan that we are currently under right now was drafted by Woody in 1984. Woody was the deputy secretary or the deputy assistant under the Forest Service for all wilderness and all recreation. There is no question that he is qualified. I can tell my colleagues that some special interest groups decided they were going to criticize me before they even read what I had to say. But during all this criticism, not one of them criticized the credibility, the integrity, the knowledge, the instinct, or the hands- in-the-dirt concept of Richard Woodrow. That man is a scholar when it comes to the White River National Forest. I went to him and I said, Woody, would you help me draft a plan for the White River National Forest which could be seen as a constructive addition to what the Forest Service is attempting to do? He said yes. But he said, yes, with some conditions. Number one, it had to be balanced. Number two, I had to be willing to stand up for forest health. Now, it is very easy in that forest for somebody to say, no timber cutting. But if you know about management of wildlife, if you know about the health of a forest, you know that you have to harvest some timber. That is not a timber harvest forest. This is not where companies go to get timber. Companies come in there at our request to take some out. In the last 100 years, less than four percent or so of the forest has ever been timbered. But he had said, look, there is going to be pressure on you to back down on this. You have to stand with me on forest health. You have to stand with me on balance. I said, I am in. Let us go together. Let us put together a team. The next thing we decided we had to do, well, what should our process be? I felt very strongly that the process to construct this plan needed to be built at the local level. We have nine counties involved in the White River National Forest. Now, these are large counties by eastern standards. But we decided that five of those counties have much more impact by the White River National Forest. So we decided that we would go to each of these counties and we wanted to build this plan from the local level up. Now, remember, I had a very short window of opportunity to do this. This report, and this is a copy of it right here, it is about 160 pages without the maps, it is highly technical. Highly technical. I had less than 5 months to go out, do the research, visit with the people, get the input, send the input back, have it back and revise it, send it back, revise it, send it back, get it ready for final print, and meet the deadline of May 9, which is today. We had to meet today's deadline, and we did meet that deadline. But I had a very short window of opportunity, which means I had to get some volunteers out there to help me out. Those volunteers were the counties. We went to county commissioners. We went to county planners. We went to user groups. And we went to all user groups. We went to Colorado Ski Company. We went to Fat Tire, the mountain bikers. We went to the wildlife division, natural resources. They provided our expertise for Division of Wildlife. We went for water expertise. Even though I think I have a lot of background in water, we went to the Colorado Conservation Board. We went to the Colorado River District Board. We sat down with all of these different groups and we said, provide us with expertise on what we ought to do with the White River National Forest. Now, I can tell my colleagues, one of the criticisms we got out there was from some of the more special interest environmental groups. And by the way, they do not own the term ``environmental.'' I think everybody in this room is environmental. Certainly the people I live around care about their environment. But they said, look, Scott McInnis never sat down with us eye to eye. Well, that is true but it is a kind of play on words. They had submitted their own alternative. Unfortunately, the Forest Service in doing its alternative had drafted all of their alternatives in-house except for one. They allowed one out-of-house, so to speak, alternative to be submitted for consideration of their plan. And that was drafted by groups like the Aspen Wilderness Society, Sierra Club. I think some others might have been involved in that. That plan, by the way, was called Plan I. That plan was very well- drafted. It was well-worded. It was easy to understand. I did not agree with all of it. Although I did agree with some of it. In fact, I adopted some of it in my own alternative right here. But that document was right in front of me. So, instead, because of the short window of opportunity I had to complete all of this work, and it really was a huge task to complete, instead of meeting with those different groups, I had their plan written. We went through their plan line by line. We went through their recommendations recommendation by recommendation. Some we rejected. For example, when it comes to water, let me tell you, the national Sierra Club and some of these other organizations do not have Colorado's water in mind from a perspective of the need of Colorado people. So we disagreed on water. There were areas of the so-called environmental plan, Plan I, that I felt were worthy. So we sat down and looked at that. We reached out. We reached out into the community. Because I felt that we had to go out there and figure out what uses we could manage, how could we manage those uses, what areas need special management tools, whether it is a designation of a wilderness area, whether it is an intermix area, whether it is a special interest area. But in order to do that, I felt local input was critical. Now, some people will say, well, gosh, Scott never visited with me. I am a hiker. I hike up on the White River National Forest. Look, we could not meet with everybody, but we did the best we could with the resources that we had. I think we have come up with an excellent product. In fact, I think some of the critical reviews of it have been pretty good. Let us talk a little more. That is the process. So we wanted to gather at the local level, which meant we processed it up. And then our job really was kind of like an architect or like a general contractor. We subcontracted to each county. Garfield County we kind of subcontracted. Okay, Garfield, tell us where you would like wilderness areas. Tell us what kinds of uses you think are appropriate in your county on the forest. Tell us what you are dependent upon as far as highways. Every power line into Glenwood Springs, every natural gas line, every highway, all of their water, all of their TV towers, all of their radio towers, all of their cellular towers. In most of the communities in the forest, they are all dependent on the forest allowing them to do that. So we went to each county like a subcontractor and we said, all right, give us a bid, so to speak. Tell us what you can do with the project as a whole. I will act, with the assistance of Richard Woodrow and a number of other people, including my staff, by the way, who, if I could pin five stars on them, I would, they did a wonderful, wonderful job in this, but I wanted to submit this; and then we, as the general contractor, would try and mold the project, try to flow chart the project so that we could come out with a plan, which we did. That was our mission. That was the process. Now, in doing that, we covered a number of areas. Let me say at the very beginning there was one area, I have mentioned it several times, I will mention it again, there was one area of which I said was non- negotiable, non-negotiable. I really was not interested in negotiating with anybody on that particular subject. And that is Colorado water. The water of Colorado should be administered by the laws of Colorado. The water of Colorado belongs to all of the people of Colorado. And in order to adjudicate that water, we have laws that are time tested, court tested, and put-on-the-ground tested, so to speak. Colorado has management of its water. We have some of the best in- stream water flows in the Nation. We have lots of protection for our streams. We have gone through lots and lots of controversy on our water. Our water law is true and tested and it is non-negotiable as far as allowing an exemption to it. What the Federal Government wants is an exemption. They want to be able to come in and preempt, saying, hey, we are the Federal Government. We are bigger than you. We are from Washington, D.C. We will get our way in Colorado. We do not care what your Colorado water law says. I reject that on its face. That was non-negotiable. But that is about the only point, my colleagues, about the only point that I started out with as non-negotiable. Everything else I felt was negotiable so that we could come up with the best plan for forest rest and forest use. My belief is that we have a right to use it but we have no right to abuse it. How do we siphon out the abuse? How do we manage it without eliminating it? Now let talk just for a moment about the recommendation that the Forest Service made. Their recommendation, in essence, said that the historical use of this forest, which one-third, as I told you, has been used for wilderness, two-thirds of it has been predominantly utilized for recreation, they turned that on its head. They said, from now on, we are going to give priority to biological and ecological considerations. Well, I do not think this is a zero-sum game. I do not think it is either or. Let me tell you, that forest really is a family recreation forest. I think we can have family recreation and I think we can give priorities, customize priorities, to our biological and ecological concerns that we have out there. But I do not think that we have one at the total elimination of the other. That is where my plan differs from the Forest Service. I have drafted a plan that protects wilderness areas. I have drafted a plan that goes in and even customizes to a greater extent what we do with our wildlife, how we protect our wildlife. For example, from the Forest Service, they have got a lot of elk and deer habitat in the summer. In the summer in Colorado, the elk and deer have plenty to eat. It is in the winter. We have some pretty tough winters out there. We have deep snow. We shifted the elk habitat from the summer to the winter. On recreation, we did not go in and say no more consideration for expansion or growth in ski areas. Whoever imagined, for example, snowboards 15 years ago when this plan was drafted? We went in and said, look, recreation is compatible with the management of the forest if it is correctly monitored, if it is correctly reviewed before it is allowed to be initiated on the forest, and if it is correctly managed. If it meets those terms, then recreation should have a place on that forest. That is exactly what we did, for example, with ski areas. Now, they will make it sound like there is some outrageous thing going on with ski areas. Not at all. We do not waive one NEPA review. We do not waive any other type of environmental permit. We do not waive any type of environmental study at all. We do not waive any public meetings. All we said is that what is allowed today for ski area expansion is too much. It needs to be reduced. But we are not going to eliminate it. We are going to allow for consideration, only for consideration. We do not automatically grant it. We do not say there is any kind of special privilege. We just say there ought to be consideration. We went back on wildlife management and we went to our experts, like the Division of Wildlife, and we asked them for their expertise. We did a lot of things with wildlife we are proud about, including even the utilization of trails and trails that would help the management of wildlife. Wildlife, if my colleagues could hear Woody talk about it, Richard Woodrow, if they could hear him talk about it, he talks about how certain ages of the forest are more conducive to certain wildlife. That is why in one area of the forest we may want to have a burn or we may want to do some timber for beetle kill, because elk and deer love where we have had a controlled burn. They love to come in and graze on that a year or two later. We need to know how these all connect together. We had the expertise on board with Wildlife to figure out how this connection is made. Let me say on travel management, as I mentioned, this is a family recreation forest. And what has happened in Colorado, many of our constituents who have money have discovered Colorado and they are out there buying the land. When I grew up, we really got permission to go really anywhere we wanted. We could walk across fields. We could go hunting and fishing and wildlife watching. There were a lot of different things we could do. Well, today what we have seen, and I do not complain about it, I mean, they have the right to buy property, people have come in and purchased the property and they have put up ``no trespassing'' signs. What that means is that the White River National Forest has become even more of a common-man forest. This is where the common person gets to recreate. Now, there are a lot of elitists who have never set foot in that forest. There are a lot of elitists who do not depend on family recreation in that forest. There are a lot of elitists who go into that forest for a once-a-year recreational experience and then they are out of it. This is elitists, they are saying, hey, wipe this recreation out. I have got a lot of families out there in Colorado that camp every weekend, that go fishing, that go river rafting. They are younger kids, even people my age. My knees will not hold out, but they go snowboarding. It is a common person's forest. And recreation is not inherently evil if properly managed. That is what my plan does. My plan properly manages what we call travel management. We have loop trails. We worry about people leaving the trail. In fact, what my plan calls for, for summer motorized use, for some use, you cannot leave a designated trail. Right now you can actually in a lot of different places, you start wherever you want, take any kind of apparatus you want, whether it is a motorcycle or a mountain bike or a horse, start anywhere you want and make your own path in the forest. Those days are gone. We are not going to let you make a path anywhere you want in the forest. We are going to make the paths, and you are going to follow the rules on them but those paths are going to be a great experience for you. For example, one of the problems we have had with trails is that they go one way. When you get to the end of them, you have got to turn around and come back. People tend to get bored so they tend to leave the trail. We loop some trails. We don't build any new roads to loop the trails, by the way. We find a trail here, find a trail here, find a connection with an old mining road, we loop them so they are not coming back the same direction. So the incentive to leave the trail is not there. We are putting in under my plan a new program called Forest Watch, kind of like Crime Watchers, kind of like Wildlife Watch. What we do is we want people to report people that are abusing the forest. If somebody is abusing the forest, get them the hell off it. Get them off that forest. Nobody in Colorado wants people that abuse the forest up there. The people of Colorado recognize the privilege, and it is a privilege, to use that forest. There are always going to be people that abuse the privileges. We have people within the great halls of Congress who abuse their privileges. Get them out. Get them off the forest. That is what our Forest Watch will do. We will have a 1-800 number. I noticed the criticism, that it has to be within the Forest Service budget. Where else are you going to get it? We are not asking people to insert a quarter or 35 cents in the telephone. We should provide that program. We also put together what we call our Youth Conservation Corps. We have a county, Eagle County, we have had great commissioners, by the way, who have worked with this. But out of Eagle County the commissioners are saying we have got a lot of great young people in our county. They want to get involved. They are wildlife oriented. They are outdoor oriented. If we put up money to help them maintain trails, would the Federal Government match it? We call it the Youth Conservation Corps. We get them outdoor experience at a young age and let us make that experience one where they are up maintaining trails, where they are helping to help preserve the beauty we have on the White River National Forest. That is an idea contained within my plan. It is called the Youth Conservation Corps. Our scenic byways. We do special scenic byways. The more scenic we can make our byways, the less inclined people are to leave the byways. Think about it. When we manage people on the forest, some people, some in my opinion elitists would say get them off the forest. I take a much more moderate position. Manage the forest. The way you manage it is you try and think about it. Okay, for example, loop the trail. For example, scenic byways. The more attractive we can make the byway, the less likely somebody is going to leave it. That is a clever way of management. We have an area called Camp Hale. Bob Dole, the dear colleague of all of ours who was in the 10th Mountain Division, you have heard a lot about that, Camp Hale is where they did their training. Right now that area is overused. Some would suggest we shut it down. Some would suggest get the people off it. Most of those suggestions, by the way, come from people outside of the area. My position is do not shut them out. Manage it. Let us put in an interest center. Let us have management of that. Let us have people come in, just like our rivers, we have to manage those. We can do that. They can come in and get information. Let us help make their experience good but let us make the experience on the forest good for the forest as well. On wilderness, wilderness is important. We did not just go out though and paint a blanket brush of wilderness. We went to the counties and said, tell us where you think wilderness is appropriate. Just because an area is not in wilderness does not mean that it does not receive protection. There is an entire spectrum. If you were to draw a spectrum, there are all kinds of tools. You can manage a forest or government land as a park, as a monument, as a special interest area. There are 100 different tools. The most extreme management tool is wilderness. But if you do not put something in wilderness, it does not mean that it is not protected or it is not managed. In fact, there are 100 different or more tools to manage that, to help control it to protect the resource. That is what we do. We go and say, is wilderness the most appropriate way to manage it? If it is, it is in this plan. It is in this plan. We have good wilderness designation in that plan. I have good wilderness designation on my Colorado Canyons bill. We talk about grazing. Grazing is a privilege on the forest we want to protect. Why? Remember earlier I said that a number of our constituents are coming out to Colorado and they are buying up the land? Ranching is a tough business. What we are seeing is people are coming in and making ranching not as viable as it used to be, because they buy the land for subdivisions. They buy the land to build huge mansions on it. My point is this. Let us try and keep these ranches in business. These ranches and farms, let us keep them in business. But one of the ways we can help keep them in business is supplement their private property with grazing rights, properly managed grazing rights. My plan goes in where there are vacant allotments and it does not automatically close all those allotments as has been recommended. My plan goes in and says, wait a minute. We sat down with the ranching community and the farm community. We say, which allotments really will you not use, let us close those, that is an easy decision. Which allotments are really necessary to keep the farm, the ranching community viable so that we do not have our ranches turning into subdivisions? We do not want them out there, those subdivisions. Obviously we all want to have a home. But you know what I am talking about. That is why grazing is important. Grazing protects open space. We want open space properly allocated. My plan does that. This plan takes care of that. It protects those grazing rights. Recreation, I have talked about it. As I said earlier, think about it. It is not inherently evil to go out and recreate. Here in the East, do not forget in the East you can recreate, you can go out and recreate all over the place. In the West we are very limited. We have to recreate on government land. Look at Alaska. Ninety-six, 97 percent of the whole State is owned by the government. We have a right for recreation just like you do. My family did not go to the children's museum. We did not go to the zoo. I never saw a zoo until I was in my late teens. We went out into the mountains. That was our family recreation. We had that privilege. That privilege has not been abused to the extent that it should be eliminated. But it has been abused to the extent that it should be managed, and that is what we do in this plan. This McInnis plan, Mr. Speaker, manages that recreational use. Let me just real quickly show you some quick differences between what is currently allowed. Here is a prescription, that is the use, this is the existing plan. This is how the forest is managed today. That is what is in existence right now. This is my blended alternative. That is my plan. Some people have called it the McPlan, some people have called it the McInnis plan. We call it the blended alternative. Let us talk about recommended wilderness. In today's existing plan, the plan of which the current forest is managed, it has zero acres recommended for wilderness. We come in with 16,000 acres. Those 16,000 acres are custom selected. We did not just go out and say here is a good area for wilderness, let us put one here and one there. We went out and studied it. We had the experts. This plan does a good job. Back country recreation nonmotorized, which means you cannot use an ATV or a Jeep or four-wheel drive. Under the existing plan, they have a plan for 80,700 acres of that. We up that to 92,730 acres. Research, natural areas. They have 300 acres planned for that, where you do research on the natural area, just as the words describe it. We think that needs to be dramatically increased. We jump up 300 to 11,317. Special interest areas, from zero acres, we go 1,741. That would be an example of Camp Hale. Back country recreation year round motorized. Look at this number. They allow under today's management plan 170,000 acres. We cut it down to 30,000 acres. What the Forest Service did is cut it down to 4,000 acres, from 170,000 to 4,000. We said, look, 170,000, with today's kind of growth and use of the forest is too much. It needs a dramatic cutback. But not elimination. It needs management. We prefer management over elimination. That is why we come up with 30,357 acres. Back country recreation, nonmotorized with winter motorized, snow machine or so on, 100,000 acres today. We reduce that by 40,000 acres, by 40 percent, is our reduction. Scenic byways, scenic areas, vistas or travel corridors, zero acres, we increase it to 20,000 acres. Forested flora and fauna habitat, they have 150,000 acres for this habitat management, 150,000. We move it to 518,000 acres. Deer and elk winter habitat, they have 134,000 acres under today's plan, we move it to 190,000 acres. Bighorn sheep habitat, 7,000 acres to 23,000 acres. We depended very heavily on our expertise from the wildlife management to help us plan that. The elk habitat, 16,000 acres, we move it to 70,000 acres, from 16,000 to 70,000. By the way, my district has the largest elk populations anywhere in the world. The intermix, which is very important, from zero acres to 12,000. And ski-based resorts, existing and potential, they have it so you could expand to 70,602 acres outside its current permit. We call for 58,198 acres, just for consideration. Remember, that is not automatic at all. That has to go through a review that is stringent, and I think it should be stringent, and it has lots of permits that are required. I agree with that. So when we take a look at what we have done compared to what the way it is being managed today, we think it is a significant moderation. Now, there were some plans, for example, there was one plan on one end that would allow you to have a free-for-all in the forest. Come on, give me a break. Those days are gone. That forest belongs to us. We have to manage it. We intend to manage it. My blended plan does manage it. It does manage it. Let me say to you that there is a plan on the other side that says, hey, the best way to protect the forest in essence, eliminate the recreation, let us go toward our goal of eliminating multiple use and let us really change the priorities of the forest. Instead of having the biological and ecological concerns working in concert, working together, working alongside with recreation and multiple use concepts, let us just give them the priority. Let us take the historical use and bump it down, not equal, which my plan does. It says let us give a priority over here. That is that extreme side. So I can tell you, my plan, which is, as I said, the first in the history of Congress to be put forward by a Congressman, my plan is going to have about 15 percent, 10 percent maybe on this side that are not going to buy into it, that thinks it is outrageous, and 10 percent on the special interest environmentalist side. You can tell by the letters to the editor that that side right there, on both sides, they are angry. But in the middle, in the middle that 70 percent, those people that think that we can moderate the uses of the forest, that we can protect the forest and that we can give the forest rest and forest use. Let me go very quickly over a couple of letters to the editor that I think are important to cover. I have got one letter from a Gay Moore. I hope to call Gay. Gay says, ``According to Ben Nighthorse Campbell and Scott McInnis, supporters of Alternative D are not local people but outsiders.'' Let me correct that to the writer, one of my constituents. I am talking to my colleagues but let me say to you, we did not say that anybody that disagrees with us were outsiders. We did not say that at all. We did say, however, you ought to give some weight of opinion to the people who make their living on the forest, who are surrounded by the forest, who enjoy the forest for its beauty, who wildlife manage in the forest, whose water and power comes off the forest, whose natural gas comes off the forest. The people that mountain bike, the people that raft, the people that snowboard, the people that ski, those are the people whose opinions we ought to look at. We never once said that if you objected to it, you are an outsider. The writer goes on to say, ``I was brought up to be a responsible forest user. Pack your trash, don't drive off the road.'' You are absolutely correct. That is what we are trying to do. My plan says, let us manage it, let us not eliminate it. Let us in appropriate spots give forest rest and in appropriate spots give forest use. Let us make sure people understand they have a privilege to use the forest but they have no right to abuse the forest. Let us take the people that abuse the forest and kick them off the land. Let us do that. We agree. ``Treat the land with loving care.'' Absolutely. You are right. ``Because without it you will not survive.'' Again, you are absolutely right. ``When the forest is destroyed by unchecked use of any kind, then the jobs you all seem so worried about are also gone.'' I know that. ``You are right, and that is exactly what this plan takes into consideration. ``We move on from there very quickly. The McGinnis plan gives support. I am writing to voice my opinion. I am not writing on behalf of business, the motor heads or the environmental heads. I am writing because I have a passion generated by the forest.'' She talks about this person, this Dendy Heisel. She talks about those who depend on their livelihood, our recreation, promotion or recreational opportunities, yet promoting our environmental protection. This is a balanced person, this is a balanced plan. That is what this does. Here is an article of my opinions submitted to the Glenwood Post, Blended Alternative Strikes a Balance. ``Let me say that in the final analysis, as I am writing here, my locally-driven alternative,'' this right here, ``is balanced and eminently fair. It is a plan that achieves the twin objectives of preserving the forests' natural splendor. We protect the forests' natural splendor while, at the same time, protecting the privilege of the people to enjoy it.'' I think that is very important. The White River National Forest is a diamond, but it is not a diamond that should be locked in a safe where nobody can ever see it. It is not a diamond that should never be allowed to be worn in the public, but it is a diamond that when it is worn in the public or when it is seen or observed by the public, that it deserves protection. We manage how we bring that diamond out of the safe, so that we can preserve that diamond for future generations. Again I say, and in my concluding remarks, I say, we have put a lot of intense work into this plan. This was not just some song and dance, although there is a lot of song and dance going on out there. We had a lot of people, Richard Woodrow, lots of different people, my staff out there, even my wife, a lot of different people put time into this. We put a good work product out. We think it is constructive, not adversarial to the Forest Service, except in the case of water, but otherwise, very constructive. We think the use of this plan and some of the recommendations should be put into the recipe so that we can take the diamond and protect it and manage it when it needs to be managed and protected; put it in a safe at night, but during the day, bring it out so somebody can see it. We can save it for the next generation, by giving it proper diamond rest or forest rest, but we can also enjoy it today by bringing it out of the safe and letting people see it, letting people touch it, letting people wear it. The key, again, and in conclusion, the critical issue here is not elimination; the critical issue is management. We all have a right to use and enjoy the forest. We have no right to abuse the forest.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to take this moment to recognize an exceptional man who I am honored to call my friend. Philip Anschutz is being honored by the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans on Friday, May 5, 2000. For over 50 years, the Horatio Alger Association has honored people who have positively contributed to our society. These awardees are the top ten Americans who have made outstanding contributions in their chosen field. They are honest, hardworking, self reliant and committed to excellence. Mr. Anschutz exemplifies everything that the Association represents. Mr. Anschutz is recognized as Colorado's number one businessman and enjoys an admired professional reputation. In 1965 he started The Anschutz Corporation. He now serves as Chairman of the Board of Qwest Communications International, Vice Chairman of the Board of Union Pacific Corporation and he also sits on the boards of Forest Oil Company, the American Petroleum Institute and the National Petroleum Council. He also is the alternate governor of the National Hockey League and the owner of the Chicago Fire and Colorado Rapids Major League Soccer teams. Mr. Anschutz also serves on boards and committees of various organizations such as, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, as well as, the Smithsonian Institution's National Board. Mr Anschutz has earned a strong reputation for his character and integrity. Philip and his wife Nancy are well known for civic contributions and their focus on family values. It is obvious why Mr. Anschutz was chosen as one of this year's Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans. I think we all owe him a great debt of gratitude for his service and dedication to our society.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to recognize an exceptional group, the Red Hill Council, who was honored by the Bureau of Land Management with the ``Making a Difference'' award. The BLM selected the Red Hill Council group because of their dedication to Colorado and to its outdoors. The Red Hill Council is comprised of volunteers, neighbors and community partners. Their mission is to aid the BLM in preserving several aspects of the Red Hill area. For over two years, the Council has held public discussions, conducted assessments and overseen volunteer programs. They have raised over $80,000 in contributions from the community. Mr. Speaker, it is obvious why the Red Hill Council was chosen for the ``Making a Difference'' award. I think we owe them a debt of gratitude for their service and dedication to Colorado and to its outdoors.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Madam Speaker, I can tell my colleagues as many have experienced themselves personally, the great time in my life that I served in the State legislature, the State of which I represent here in the United States Congress. Being able to serve in the State House of Representatives for the State of Colorado meant a great deal to me. I was honored to be elected by the people of the 57th district of the State of Colorado to serve five terms. I had the opportunity to go and serve as the chairman of a committee and ended my career in the State House of Representatives as majority leader. During that period of time, I established lifetime friendships with fellow legislators on both sides of the aisle. By political design, the activity that we have in Congress in Washington is dramatically different than the type of system that we operate at least in the State of Colorado. In Colorado, for example, we have what we call ``instant voting.'' Now, why do I bring up the facts to my colleagues of instant voting? Because I want to explain what that leads to. It leads to strong friendships. Why? Because instant voting such as we have in the State of Colorado requires that all of the State legislators, and I speak generically, the State senators as well, have to be on the House floor at the time that the voting machine is opened, as compared to the United States Congress here in the House of Representatives where we have a minimum of 15 minutes on most votes, 5 if it is a subsequent vote, to come to the House floor and cast our vote. As a result of that here, we do not mill as a group for a very long period of time. Under the rules of the Colorado House of Representatives, the Colorado State Senate, they in fact work with each other and stand around, sit by each other throughout the entire voting process. As a result of that, they have moments where they get to know the person sitting to their right or the person sitting to their left. They have an opportunity to stand in the back of the chambers and have a cup of coffee with a Democrat or a Republican or somebody from the city or somebody from the rural areas of the State of Colorado. It is very easy to really bring together strong friendships that last throughout a person's political career and throughout a person's personal career. I was privileged to be fortunate enough to be able to do that. I also want to point out, as many of my colleagues obviously know, here in the United States Congress, we have to travel great distances, and our travel is very, very extensive. The district that I represent in the State of Colorado is actually geographically larger than the State of Florida. My travel is extensive. But in the State legislature, one does not have those kinds of traveling requirements. In the Colorado State legislature, one has more opportunity to get to know each other. In the Colorado State legislature, they have 65 members. In the United States Congress, we have 435 in the House, and we have 100 in the Senate. In the Senate in the State of Colorado, they have 35 members. So simply by the fact that they have a smaller number of people, it is easier to make lasting and strong friendships. That is what I did. Tonight, I stand here in front of my colleagues talking about a few of those good friends that I made. I am also going to talk about a few fine legislators whom I did not know as well but who are concluding their service for the State of Colorado. Tomorrow, Wednesday, is the last day that the Colorado State legislature has in session. In Colorado, we have a 120-day limitation. So the legislature can only meet for 120 days. We also have in Colorado term limitations. We have a number of people who are subject to term limitations who will be leaving office or serving their last legislative day tomorrow. So with the patience of my colleagues, I am going to go through some of the names of some of these people, talk just a little bit about them, because it is kind of special for me to be back here talking to my colleagues, Madam Speaker, as U.S. Congressmen about some people that are very exceptional people in the State of Colorado. Let me begin with a long-time friend of mine, the speaker of the House in the State of Colorado. His name is Russell George. His wife's name is Neal. They have a fine, fine family. Russ has impressed me over the years because, number one, no matter whether one agrees with him or disagrees with him, no matter what one thinks of his political leanings on one day or his political leanings on another day, there has never been a question about Russell George's integrity. His integrity is second to none in the State of Colorado. Now, in the State of Colorado, we have waited for over 20 years on the western side of the State to get a speaker of the House. Russ George became our speaker from western Colorado. Unfortunately, under the term limitations, he could only be the speaker for 240 legislative days. So despite his qualifications, despite his remarkable career, he is out, automatically shoveled out of the Colorado State capitol. Now Russ has served 8 years in the 57th district. Russ is an attorney at law. He is recognized in the legal community for his capabilities and his exceptional knowledge of the law. He is also recognized in the legal community for his ability to sway in the courtroom. See, he is well known. He is soft spoken, but he is well spoken. In the Colorado State House of Representatives, he has earned compliments from both sides of the aisle for his fairness and for his leadership. I am confident that after Russ leaves the State House of Representatives in Colorado, that there will be a number of golden opportunities for the people, for him, but for the people who might be lucky enough to retain his services in some way or another. Russ dealt with a number of tough issues. His latest issue was the Gas and Oil Commission. Now, whether one agrees or not in the State of Colorado with what the speaker of the House attempted to do with the Oil and Gas Commission, the fact is the intensity of his work was reflected even up to the last few days that he served as a legislator. He is to be commended. I stand in front of all my colleagues tonight, almost all of whom have never met Russell George and would say to each and every one of them, I hope that they some time have the opportunity to at least meet him. I have had the absolute privilege of considering him one of my best friends for many, many, many years. We have others who are leaving the Colorado House and the Colorado Senate. Debbie Allen. Debbie Allen is a friend of mine. Debbie was elected in 1992. She has worked hard. Some of her key issues have been crime, law enforcement obviously falls into that category, and education issues. Debbie's husband Bob has been very faithful and good; faithful, meaning that he has been a good supporter. As my colleagues know, to be a State legislator, one has got to have a spouse that is pretty understanding. One has got to have a spouse that is ready to stand by one for those late night hours and the intensity that that job has for that 120-day period. Bob did that. Debbie served as the chairman of the Education Committee. Madam Speaker, in the State of Colorado this year, education has been an especially tough issue. Now, education has always been a priority of the Republican Party and of the Democratic Party in Colorado. But this year the Republicans really led the fight on more funding for education. Debbie was the chairman of that committee. She is the owner and the manager of a company called Custom Data Services. She served as a secretary, vice chairman, and chairman of the Arapahoe County Republican Party. She has been a Republican activist. But I can tell my colleagues, as a Republican activist, she still crosses the aisle. She considers many Democrats her friends. She was the President of Aurora Republican forum, and she was awarded the Junior League Champion for Small Children Award. Now, Debbie is not totally leaving the legislature. She is going to make a run for the Colorado State Senate, but her years in the State House of Representative are much appreciated. I want to talk just for a moment here about another friend of mine, and that is representative Bob Hagedorn. Bob was elected in 1992. He was named as the CACI business legislator of the year, and his key issues have been education, reform, and health care. Bob has faced a pretty tough challenge in the last few years, and he overcame that challenge. While I may not necessarily agree with my friend Bob on a number of different issues in the political arena, I can tell my colleagues I consider him my friend, and I admire him for his courage to overcome the challenges that faced him. Representative Dorothy Gotlieb. Dorothy is a great person. She is an aggressive, aggressive legislator. She works very hard on the issues of the budget. She served as a member of the Denver Board of Education for 6 years, and she was the President for the Denver Board of Education for 2 years. She served as a member of the State Board of Education for 6 years and 2 years as chairman. As a member of the Denver Public Schools Athletic League Hall of Fame, she won many different education awards. Dorothy is well known for her expertise in education. She is also known for how hard she pushes to make children the highest priority of State legislative issues. She obviously was on the Education Committee. She served on the Transportation and the Energy Committee in the State legislature. She served on Criminal Justice. She worked hard on Small Business and efficient in Accountable Government issues. She, too, is running for the State Senate, but she wraps up her days tomorrow in the State House. I can tell my colleagues something, Dorothy has done a great job. I want my colleagues to know that I hope they someday have the privilege of getting to meet all of these people of which I am trying to give them some reference to this evening. Representative Ken Gordon. Ken has done a good job as the House minority leader. Minority leader. I am a Republican. But I can tell my colleagues I respect Ken for his efforts as a minority leader. He has been strong for the Democrats. He stood up on a number of different issues. Ken is also known for his straightforwardness. He had success in his plain language law, which he passed. He was elected in 1992. Ken has done a good job. I will talk about my good friend Bill Kaufman. Bill is a special guy to me. Bill was appointed to a vacancy in 1993, and he was elected time after time after time since then. He served as chairman of the Judiciary Committee and was a member of the Legal Services Committee. Currently my friend Bill is the Speaker Pro-Temp. Bill served as an attorney in the Loveland area. He has a good reputation, a strong reputation in the Loveland area for his capabilities in the field of law and for his honesty in that field. He is very active in the Republican party. He was chairman of the Dole-Kemp campaign in 1996. He coordinated the campaigns of people like Senator Armstrong, Senator Hank Brown, Senator Wayne Allard. He was named in 1996 as the Legislator of the Year. That is a great honor. CACI and the American Planning Association gave him awards in that regard. He got awards from the Social Legislation Committee and the Colorado Sheriff's Association. He has been very active in education, transportation, and prisons. Now, the reason Bill is such a good friend is, over the years, I have had a number of tough issues, even as late as last week where I took issues that we work with on this House floor. As my colleagues know, real government is at the local level. That is where the best government is is at the local level. We really should serve more of a perfunctory role. We have duties in regards to defense and in regards to commerce and international trade, but the real government is at the local level. One can always go to Bill and sit down with Bill and discuss issues or even conflicts between the Federal government and the State government. He would listen, and if he felt that one's position had good merit, not necessarily popular merit, but good merit, he would get behind one. I am going to miss Bill in the Colorado State House of Representatives. He has got a lot of good years ahead of him. He is a young man, and his career has just gotten off to a start. Tomorrow will be his last day as well, and he is to be congratulated. I also want to talk about his wife Diana. I will tell my colleagues she is quite a lady, and obviously Bill could not have done this without her. I will talk about Representative Ron May. Ron May is a good friend of mine. He was out in Colorado Springs, Colorado. I wish my colleagues could meet Ron. Ron is very good on transportation issues. He was elected to the House in 1992. He also has worked very hard on the technological capabilities. As my colleagues know, I think, as I have spoken before, I think we are in the second industrial revolution in this country when it comes to the Internet. Here is an individual, Ron May, who helps take elected officials like my colleagues and I, and try and bring us up to speed on some of these technological issues. He served on the city council before he went to the State legislature; and as we all know, that is pretty good training ground. He sponsored a number of bills on workers' compensation, unemployment insurance, highway speed limits, right-to-work law and information systems. He and his wife Onilla are good people. I will tell my colleagues something, Ron has done a great job for the people of the State of Colorado, and I hope my colleagues have an opportunity to meet him at some point. Representative Maryanne Keller. Maryanne I do not know well, but I know about her. She was elected in 1992. She cosponsored standards in education legislation, and she is a special education teacher. I have heard more about the representative of her teaching capabilities. They have been very positive. They have been very strong. As I understand it, she is exactly the kind of person that we want teaching. But she is an excellent teacher, and I also understand, of course, that she did an excellent job or did a good job on education issues. She did an excellent job as a State representative. She, too, will be leaving us. Same with Representative Ben Clarke. Ben was appointed in 1994. His key issues have been health care. Why are they health care issues? Because Representative Clarke is a retired doctor. He is one of the few doctors we have in the State legislature. Instead of leaving and living a cushy life of retirement, he decided that he would become active in the State legislature, especially in regards to health care issues. As many of my colleagues on the House floor know this evening, these health care issues are predominant, predominant on our agenda. I can go on and on. I would like to get into another subject and talk about the Republican health plan for prescription services and talk about what we are trying to do to get good health care delivery out in our country. We already have good health care delivery, but better health care delivery. But I want to come back to Ben. He is also a veteran. He served in the war in Korea. Ben was a good legislator. Tomorrow is his last day. Again, I hope my colleagues have an opportunity to shake his hand someday. Representative Andy McElhany. Andy is from Colorado Springs. Andy is probably one of the most energetic, dedicated, focused guys I have met. Andy was chairman of the State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee. He served on the Colorado Springs Park and Recreational Advisory Board. In fact, he was the board chairman. He was a real estate broker. Has a strong reputation for integrity and professionalism in the real estate field in Colorado. He is the Colorado Library Association Legislator of the Year, the Colorado Union of Taxpayers' Friend of Taxpayer, and the Associated Press' Outstanding Legislator. He was the sponsor of the ``Deadbeat Parent'' bill, denying driver's licenses to parents not paying child support. And talk about something that gets people to pay child support, as Andy told his colleagues and as Andy told me, tell them they are not going to get their driver's license. Most people gasp at that. They say, well, how do they get to work. But the fact is very few people will ever let their license go like that if they have the option of paying off that child support. It works. Andy convinced me of it, and he has proven it. He worked, obviously, on other areas regarding health care reform, transportation, government efficiency, and tax reform. Andy has done an excellent job as a representative in the Colorado House of Representatives. Representative Gloria Lebya, appointed in 1995 and elected in 1996. She was active with the Bobby Kennedy campaign in 1968. She has been a champion and worked very hard with healthy communities. Communities and the centrifuge of how communities come together in regards to community activities has been where she has devoted a lot of her energy. Again, one of the people who, obviously, I know. I have met with her. I do not know her that well, but I speak about her based on her reputation, and it is a good reputation. So it is easy to speak of her, and I wish her the very best in her future. Representative Gary McPherson. Gary is a dedicated guy. I have known Gary for some time. He was appointed in 1994 to the Colorado State House. He was a member of the Appropriations and Judiciary Committees. He is an attorney at law, practiced for a number of years with Kissinger and Fellman, a professional corporation. He was the vice chairman and the board member of the Arapahoe County Recreation District. He was a CACI Legislator of the Year and the recipient of the Aurora Public Schools' Superintendents' award. He has dealt with legislation regarding minors and smoking. Gary has really focused on the problems that we have with smoking and minors. Later on, if I have the opportunity to finish what I am doing here, I would like to talk a little about how smoking impacts our minor children in this country. Here is a guy right here, Gary, that that was a big issue for him; and he was really recognized as a leader in the Colorado Legislature as somebody who had good capable facts on what we do with that problem of our young people smoking, of our young people becoming addicted to tobacco, which every one of us in this Chamber knows is a killer. So I hand it to him. He deserves a big star for that one. He also worked quite aggressively on education, crime, and welfare reform. Gary's done an excellent job in the Colorado House. Representative Marcy Morrison. Now, Marcy is a character. People like Marcy. She has been very active. Her husband, Howard, is, in my opinion, an excellent guy, a good supporter. She used to be an El Paso County commissioner, and she enjoyed a strong reputation down there in El Paso County for the job she did. She is tough. She is tough, but she has some humor about her. And it is good to see somebody who is tough and holds the line but can smile and sit down and have a cup of coffee with you after the debate. She served on the Committees of Health, Environment, Welfare and Institutions and Judiciary. She also served on the State of Colorado Board of Health. She sponsored the Post Delivery Care for Stays in Hospitals and immunization for more Colorado children, a pilot program to evaluate health care costs concerning children. She has done an excellent job. She cares and has been very active on the health care issues for seniors, the disabled, and child care. Marcy has done an excellent job, and she is also one of the people, if any of my colleagues ever go to Colorado and are down in El Paso County, they will hear about Marcy Morrison and they will want to meet her after they hear about her. She is that kind of person. Representative Penn Pfiffner. Penn was elected in 1992. His wife, Karen, is obviously a spouse who is supportive of the issues she has taken on. Penn is aggressive. He is tough. I would say that he is probably one of the more conservative members of the House. He is conservative especially when it comes to these economic issues and on social issues as well. But he is particularly astute on economic issues. He served as an officer in the United States Navy. He served on the Utility Consumer Advisory Board. He has proposed legislation on everything from prison reform to education alternatives to privatization and transportation deregulation. He currently serves as a consulting economist to construction and real estate industries. He served, obviously, on the Finance Committee. He served on the Legislative Audit and the State, and the Veterans and Military Affairs Committees. Penn has given good service to the State of Colorado. I want to visit about another good friend of mine, Senator Dorothy Rupert. Dorothy and I go back a long, long ways. I want to tell a special story about Dorothy and I. Years ago, she and I came back to Washington, DC, with a group of individuals, other State legislators; and it was the first time that I had ever seen the Vietnam Memorial wall. Obviously, for my generation, the generation of most of us in this room, that Vietnam Memorial wall has a very special feeling; a sad feeling, a warm feeling, a feeling of pleasure that these people have been recognized. All of those feelings were brought out by Dorothy Rupert. And I will never forget, as long as I have the mental capability to remember, I will never forget that evening. It was a cold evening, but the sun had been shining that day. And as Dorothy and I went up to the Vietnam Memorial wall, and as my colleagues know it is black granite, it had absorbed that sunlight. And even though there was a cold wind, the sun had just gone down; and that wall emitted warmth because it had stored it up from the sunshine during the day. It was as if the soldiers being recognized by that wall once again stood up to help protect us, keep us warm from that cold wind going down through there. Dorothy was appointed to the State senate in 1995. She obviously served honorably in the State House of Representatives before that. She has worked very extensively on hate crime issues. She is a high school teacher. She is a counselor. And I can tell my colleagues that there were a number of issues that Dorothy and I voted on the opposite side of, but never once did I consider myself really adversarial to Dorothy Rupert. She is the kind of person who has the type of personality that does not disarm someone to a disadvantage. The feeling, I guess, is one of professionalism, the debates that she gets into. She is recognized by her colleagues as a person who is very caring. She has a heart many, many times the size of her body. Dorothy has served the State of Colorado very well, and her friendship is something that is very special to me. Now, let me talk about one of my western people, representative Jack Taylor. Jack's done a great job for western Colorado. Jack comes from Steamboat Springs, Colorado. He was elected in 1992. His wife, Geneva, and I go back a long ways as well. She has been very active, and Jack's been very active in the party. But Jack understands agricultural issues. Jack knows about Colorado water. As I have said many times from this podium, Colorado's water is very unique compared to most States in the Nation. In Colorado, our State is the only State where all of our water goes out. We have no free-flowing water that comes into the State of Colorado for our use. So as a result of that, those water resources are very precious. We do not get much rain in Colorado. It is an arid State. We depend on our snow fall and spring runoff. Spring runoff does not last all year long. It lasts about 65 to 90 days. We just started it in Colorado. This means if we do not have the capability to store water, we are in a lot of trouble in Colorado. And there are a lot of organizations that want to make sure there are no storage projects on our rivers; that want to make sure there are no diversions from the streams. Well, that is the only way we can survive out in the West. It does not rain in the West like it rains in the East. Jack Taylor knows that. And Jack Taylor has understood that for a long time. And Jack Taylor has been a good part of the team, lead, frankly, by Rus George, on the water issues back there in the State legislature in Colorado. He was chairman of the Business Affairs and Labor Committee; served on the Agriculture, Livestock and Natural Resources Committee and the Legislative Audit Committee. He was a businessman for 30 years in Steamboat. He was named Business Legislator of the Year. He earned the Guardian of Small Business Awards and the NFIB, which is the National Federation of Independent Businesses, Colorado Legislator of the Year. Jack worked very hard to get equal access to telecommunications state-of-the-art technology throughout Colorado. As many of my colleagues know that represent rural districts throughout the United States, we are concerned. We do not want to get behind the eight ball in this second industrial revolution on the Internet. We need technological advancements that are going to the cities. We need those fiberoptics out in the rural areas. It hurts if we in the rural areas do not have access to fiberoptics; if we do not have the technological capability to do business with our colleagues in the cities. Jack understood this and he pushed it and pursued it very hard. Jack has a strong sense. It is kind of like a sixth sense for him, for common sense. He exercises it well. And, obviously, with his business experience that he brings to the legislative process, it has been of some assistance. I think he has worked very hard to try to create more efficiencies for government, and I think above probably next to water his strong stances on the right to private property and the respect for private property in Colorado is probably second to none currently in the State legislature. Jack's done a good job. We will miss him in the State House of Representatives. Senator Bob Martinez. Bob and I go back a long ways. Bob was elected in 1984, same year actually I went into office in the Colorado State House of Representatives. Bob and I had an opportunity to serve many, many years in the State House of Representatives, then he went on the State senate. He was a higher education administrator. He has always been very strong on adoption and the ability for people to adopt. He has been very caring for the homeless people. But I will tell my colleagues something else about Bob. Bob has always served in the minority, in the State senate and in the State house. The Republicans have controlled the State house and the State senate since Bob went into office. But Bob had that knack to be able to go across the aisle, and he built up relationships that enabled him to be a very effective legislator despite his political minority status. Bob is a wonderful guy. He is a good guy to work with. He is a good guy to have as a friend. And he is a neat guy out of the city that understands some of the rural issues that we in rural Colorado faced. I miss Bob. Bob has done good service for the State of Colorado, and he should be recognized for that. My next friend, Representative Steve Tool, whose father, Gene Tool, is a long-time friend of mine, former chairman of our State party. Steve is a guy, who also like Russell George, has an impeccable reputation. He serves on the Finance Committee, the Judiciary Committee, and the Health Environment and Welfare and Institutions Committee. He is a strong family man. Has a wonderful family. He is a real estate broker, an appraiser in Fort Collins. He served in the United States Air Force as a navigator on B-52s in Vietnam. He is a Vietnam veteran. He flew 160 missions, 160 missions over Southeast Asia. He has been very active in and has sponsored legislation for the changing of child abuse resulting in death from a felony to a homicide. He has also been very aggressive in regards to school finance and trying to balance school finance in the State of Colorado so the poorer communities are not left, and to reorganize our educational system to guarantee the maximum amount of dollars into the classroom and the maximum amount of accountability from our teachers who teach our young people. He has done a good job on that. We are going to miss Steve. He did a good job and I hope my colleagues here on the floor also sometime have an opportunity to meet Steve Tool. He is a young man, and his career has just begun. Senator Frank Weddig. He was appointed in 1994 and was elected in 1996. He is an electrician. Children's welfare and children's issues. Again, Frank I do not know well, but you feel like you know him because you have heard about him. As I have said with some of my other colleagues who I have not had an opportunity to meet and know, like a Bob Martinez, or like a Rus George, or like a Jack Taylor or Bill Kaufman, some of those people I did not get to know that well. I kind of looked at their reputations and listened to what their colleagues had to say about them. Frank has enjoyed a strong reputation amongst his colleagues, and that speaks well for him. My friend Senator Gloria Tanner. Gloria was appointed in 1994 in the State Senate. She served in the State House of Representatives prior to that. I got to serve with her. Gloria represented the issues of the minority community very well. She spoke up and helped educate those of us who did not live in the urban areas in the cities. She was very patient with us and very educational with us I guess you would say in walking us through the issues that are unique to minority communities in big cities. She worked hard on the pension fund protection issues. She is a real estate agent. I can tell my colleagues, my service with Gloria Tanner was enjoyable. She is a professional, a real pro. Well, the State House of Representatives is going to lose their Speaker of the House this year. And the State Senate in Colorado, again because of term limits, loses the Senate president. Ray Powers. His wife's name is Dorothy, a wonderful, wonderful lady. I have known her for years. Ray has done a tremendous job as the President of the Colorado State Senate. He has had a lot of tough issues. He has been there for many years. He has worked with a lot of people. The people that have worked with Ray walk away from Ray thinking, gosh, that guy is on the ball. He knows what is going on. To be the leader of the State Senate in Colorado, you have got to have some finesse, you have got to have some capabilities to have a strong personality to deal with people. That happens, too, with the Speaker of the House. But Ray had those. Ray could deal with people without making them angry. Ray could be firm but he did not have to be mean. He could be firm without being mean. Ray Powers had a lot of capability in convincing people and helping educate his colleagues on the issues of the day. Now he is a former rancher. He has a ranch down in Colorado Springs. He is active in the local bank down there. He sponsored any number of bills, including bills on the death penalty, highway funding, more judicial requirements or appropriate judicial requirements for judges. He dealt with the major regional presidential primary that we wanted to have there in Colorado. He has been recognized by the United Veterans Committee Distinguished Service Award, the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce named his as Legislator of the Year. The Colorado Public Affairs Council named him Business Legislator of the Year. Dorothy and Ray will do well in their retirement. We are going to miss his service in the Colorado State Senate. Senator Mike Feeley. Mike is the minority leader elected in 1992. He is smart. He is aggressive. He and I did not agree on a lot of issues but I can tell you, as with some of his colleagues, the disagreements were professional disagreements. He was recognized by his colleagues as, let us just say, a person of persistence, a person who when he decided to support an issue he stuck with it. He was recognized as the minority leader. He enjoyed a strong reputation for the job that he did as the minority leader. Mike Feeley is spoken of by the Democrats in the State of Colorado as one who holds future promise for a political office. Frankly, I would like to convert him to a Republican. But the fact is he is a Democrat. They consider him a good Democrat. I consider him a good man, and we are going to miss him. Dorothy ``Dottie'' Wham. Dorothy is her former name. I called her ``Dottie'' for all those years. I served with Dottie for the 10 years I was in the State legislature. Let me tell my colleagues something. I am not sure I have had the opportunity to serve with a woman who I think has been more dedicated to the process, more dedicated to being sure that the government in Colorado served the people of the State of Colorado. She comes from a community from Denver. Her husband Bob is a lawyer well recognized in the community in his own regard. But I will tell you something, Dottie took on tough issue after tough issue. Dottie never was too busy to sit down with those of us outside the Denver metropolitan city limits and talk to us about different issues. She worked hard on the juvenile justice, on the children's code in Colorado, on the Denver Health Authority, on AIDS legislation, proposed adoption, State recodification, salaries of elected county officials. If there was a tough issue and you wanted somebody who could take the arrows, it was Dottie Wham. I have deep, deep respect for Dottie. My years with Dottie were nothing but satisfying. My professional career with her and my professional relationship with her was excellent. Dottie will be missed not only by me. She will be missed by the State of Colorado. She will be particularly missed by the City of Denver and by her colleagues. Ron Tupa. Ron is a representative minority whip. I have actually not gotten to talk with Ron very long, but I saw him on TV the other day. I can tell you about Ron. I watched him and I did not agree with him at all on the issue. I think Ron was talking about campaign reform. And while everybody, of course, wants campaign reform, the issue is how do you go about it. I mean, who gets the short end of the stick? That is what the issue is about. But as I watched him, I was just flipping through with my remote control. I was in a hotel, as I often am, and sitting there and flipping through with my remote control, I come across this local station coverage and there is Ron. He is an impressive guy. He speaks well. He was well received by the audience to whom he spoke. I thought his points were frankly to the point. I think Ron is respected outside, not just in the legislature, but outside the legislature. He is a young man. He is a social studies teacher. I can tell just by listening to him that he probably has a knack for being able to communicate very well with his students. His issues, of course, have been e-mail privacy and some of the education issues. And, as I mentioned, he was the minority whip. Senator Elsie Lacy. She was elected in the Senate in 1992. I will tell you, Elsie is quite a lady. She is a heck of a State senator. She is a solid, strong State senator. And she is a good friend. Elsie has done a tremendous job for the State of Colorado. Her husband Duane, in his own regard, is well-respected. But I can tell you, Elsie has the respect of her colleagues. She was chairwoman of the appropriations committee and chairman of the joint budget committee. She served on the Aurora City Council. She worked primarily in transportation, health, education, and local government issues. Although, as chairman of the joint budget committee, her responsibilities obviously were dealing with the budget. In Colorado, just like here, colleagues in Congress, we deal with some tough issues on the budget. Elsie was there during the time that Colorado was just beginning to get out of the tough times, so she had to make tough decisions then. And as chairwoman she had to make tough decisions when Colorado got a surplus. Because then everybody thought Colorado had plenty of money. So people would go up to Elsie and say, Elsie, I want more money for this program. You got a surplus in Colorado. We want to start this new government program. We want to start this new government program. Elsie had a way of being very polite in saying no if it would not give us a balanced budget. Now, as Elsie told me one time, her choices were never choices on that joint budget committee between bad programs and good programs, as Elsie puts it. And as all of my colleagues here on the floor know, many, many times our choices are between good programs and good programs. The bad programs get eliminated very early on in the process. The tougher choices is as we begin to filter it out and we get to the good programs versus the good programs. I thought Senator Lacy did an excellent job in shifting through that. And I think her service to the State of Colorado, especially in her focus in regards to the State's budget, will serve the State well for many, many years to come. Because the State of Colorado, I am proud to say, in large part to her and in part to our goner, Governor Bill Owens, its fiscal ship is in order and is strong. Representative Sue Windells elected in 1998. Her big issues were education and tax reform. She is a teacher. Again, I did not know Sue that well. But I can tell you that, once again, these people that I did not know well, I went and asked because I knew I was going to give these comments tonight, I went to some of my colleagues that do know them and I asked them about them. What about Sue? What are some of her attributes? She is well-received. She is honorable. She is knowledgeable. And she is respected by her colleagues. What more do you need said about a person? In politics, if somebody acknowledges that you have got the technical capability, that you understand and care about people and that you are honest, that says a lot. Sue meets every one of those standards, and she is going to be missed. Senator Dave Wattenberg. I can tell you a lot about Dave Wattenberg. He and I got elected at the same time back in 1982. He and I are from rural Colorado, the same area. Well, we actually bordered each other. He later went to the State Senate because he served in the State House of Representatives. Dave and I, when we first ran for office, no one either gave Dave or me a chance of winning office. I was running against a very popular and very capable incumbent, and Dave was not given much of a chance of winning the seat. I will never forget. The day before the election, he and I were sitting in a bar having a drink and Dave asked me, Wattenberg says, Scott, have you ever given any thought as to what is going to happen if by some chance we win this thing? I mean, we spent all this time campaigning, we spent all this time talking as candidates, but you and I have never been able to work as elected officials. I mean, we really are going to have to do what we said we are going to do. We are going to have to get aggressive. We really have got to stand up for issues like water and so on and so forth. I would say in the State legislature there is probably no one right now as popular as David Wattenberg. David is a cowboy. He is an old cowboy. I do not mean old in age. I mean old in respect. He is on a ranch up there in the northern part of the State. For a number of years, Dave did not have opposition. In fact, I will tell my colleagues, he was so popular in one of his elections that his Democrat opponent who was very aggressive against Dave and ran a very aggressive race until about halfway through the race and, after debating Dave on a number of different occasions, liked him so well and felt he was so capable and so deserving as serving that district as State senator, pulled out of the race, and endorsed him. Have you ever heard of somebody in a partisan race pulling out midway through the race and endorsing the other person? That speaks very well, by the way, for the Democrat that did that, in my opinion. I am sorry, her name slipped me this evening. But I can tell you, it speaks well for David Wattenberg. David, as I said, was elected to the House in 1982 and to the Senate in 1992. He is chairman of the agriculture natural resource energy committee. He also served on the business affairs and labor committees. His ranch is called the Wattenberg Ranch in Walden, Colorado. He sponsored bills on all kinds of things, everything from horse racing to water issues to mining and transportation to tort reform. He specifically focused in on agriculture, water, ranching issues, and banking issues. He has received any number of awards. He has been named Legislator of the Year, honored by Colorado Ski Country and Consulting Engineers Council and Guardian of Small Business. As I was on the airplane this morning, I open up the Denver Post or the Rocky Mountain News, I am not sure which one of those two major papers, and there is David Wattenberg dancing on the Senate floor. He was serious but he had good humor. As I said earlier in my comments about Dave, he is probably the most popular legislator in Colorado today. Dave Wattenberg is going to be sorely missed. Representative Penfield Tate. I know Penfield by his work. I know him as a person. I have respect for him. I have dealt with him not extensively, but I have dealt with him. Penfield is one solid guy, and he is known by his work. His work product is excellent. He works aggressively on it. He works hard. He has a strong reputation. His focuses have been primarily education and health issues. He is a member of the Denver Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. I will tell you, Penfield is a fellow that anybody would like to have work as a partner with him. He has done a good job. We are going to miss him. Senator Maryanne Tebedo. Maryanne and I went in and she actually was appointed shortly after I was elected. But, in essence, we have served together for 10 years in the State House. She went on to the State Senate. Her husband Don is a retired air traffic controller. She was chairman of the State Veterans Military Affairs Committee, and she served on the Finance Committee. She is also our parliamentarian. She is actually a certified professional parliamentarian. She served on the National Task Force on Labor, and she has worked hard on uniform stated permits for concealed weapons, regulations of the funeral board, State boards, highways. I mean, Maryanne has worked on a lot of legislation. Senator Tebedo, when she took on an issue, she did several things with that issue. Number one, she learned about the issue. Number two, she figured out what the ramifications of her bill would be with that issue. She was aggressive in her pursuit of passing her legislation. I think she was professional at every step of the way. Now, not everyone agreed with her. But I will tell you, if you wanted to disagree with Senator Tebedo, you better have your facts in order. Because I never saw her without having her facts in order. We are going to miss her. Senator Tom Blickensderfer. Tom is a long-time friend of mine. Tom is a fine man. His wife is Kristen. He just got married 4 or 5 years ago. She is a beautiful woman. And I mean that in a very broad way. She has got all kinds of things about her that just make her a beautiful person. But back to Tom. Tom is a great guy. He has been an excellent State senator. He was in the State House. He was a Senate majority leader. He was an attorney at law. I knew him well before he came into the State legislature. His issues ranged from everything from water in the rural areas of the State. We could always go to Tom because Tom would always sit down with us and talk about the rural issues even though he represented a metropolitan area. His family had a long running reputation in the ski industry in the State of Colorado. Tom's leadership as the majority leader in the Senate has been second to none. He is a strong leader. He is recognized throughout the political community for his contributions to his party. He is Republican. I am not talking about financial. I am talking about his volunteer time, his help with other candidates. I will say, in my opinion, Tom has a wonderful future ahead of him. He has a great family. He has a great background. He has served the State of Colorado very well, and Tom is going to do very well in his future. Representative Stephanie Takis, she was elected in 1996 and her big issue was affordable health care. She is a financial specialist. Again, I did not know Stephanie very well but as with the others I sat down and visited with my colleagues about Stephanie. I did not find anybody who said anything critical, although they had the opportunity to because my conversations with some of my colleagues were in private, and these were the colleagues that I could have that kind of conversation with. Not one bad word said about her. She has done well in her service to the State of Colorado; and she, too, it appears, has a very promising future ahead of her. Madam Speaker, I know that my colleagues may be saying, gosh, we sat here this evening; and we have had Scott McInnis talk about State legislators from the State of Colorado who are concluding their service tomorrow. What has that got to do with us? What has that got to do with the U.S. House of Representatives? After all, these are State legislators. This is the U.S. Congress in Washington, D.C. It has a lot to do with us because those individuals that I just talked about can set an example for us back here, one that local government really truly is the best government. The Federal people in Washington, D.C., do not always know best. There are certain roles that we have to play, leadership in military, leadership in international trade, leadership in interstate commerce. But the fact is these State legislators are on the line. They are at the front of the battle. The people that I spoke about this evening, most of my colleagues probably will never even meet one of them, but I can say what I hope was gotten out of my recognitions of these special people was the fact of their integrity, the impeccability of their hard work, the focus on the issues that they really cared about, the ability to cross party aisles. We all know politics is partisan. It is designed to be that way. It has to be that way. Somebody has to be boss. We cannot all be equal bosses. Somebody has to be the leader. So there is always partisan politics, but a real leader has the capability to step aside. The minority may not have a right to rule; but the minority has a right to be heard, and the individuals that I talked about this evening recognize that. They worked on both sides of the aisle. I consider it a real honor to stand here in front of my colleagues in the House on the House floor of the United States Congress and recognize that tomorrow will be the last day for those colleagues of mine and their service in the State senate or State house respectively, and I want them to know from the highest level of the Federal Government here in the House of Representatives, that we acknowledge the work that they do; that we appreciate their honesty and their integrity and the respect that people who work with them understand that public officials, elected public officials, almost all of them really are good people. They work intensely for the people that they represent. They work intensely on the issues they care about. They work intensely and are proud of the States that they represent or the districts that they represent. My colleagues in the State of Colorado are an excellent example of this. Madam Speaker, in my concluding remark, let me just say truly it was my privilege to get to know and work with these people as they served the State of Colorado in the State legislature, and I hope to have a continued professional and profound good friendship with all of my friends in the State of Colorado.

Mr. McINNIS. Madam Speaker, as the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) knows, I have an hour and I would be happy to yield to the gentleman up to 5 minutes so he could conclude his statement. I think the issue that he is speaking about is very important. I yield up to 5 minutes to the gentleman.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this moment to recognize an exceptional man, Danny Collins. Despite challenges, Danny overcame many of them and for 11 years has been a skillful weaver at Mountain Valley Textiles. I have known Danny for over 30 years and can attest to what a fine individual he is. Danny's work ethic and his strength stand out in our community. Although Danny now faces another challenge with the loss of his beloved father, Bud, Danny will pull through. Danny's family is strong and supportive and very, very proud of Danny. The retiring of Denver Bronco's great quarterback, John Elway, motivated Danny to create several mementos to say good-bye to John Elway and sent them to John's family. All of the items have the number seven on them and are orange, blue and white. Danny was proud of his work in honor of Mr. Elway. It is with this, Mr. Speaker, that I say thank you to Danny Collins, a wonderful human being. His talent and love of life brings him many admirers.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to recognize the accomplishment of one of Colorado's youth, Desirea Holton. Desirea is a member of Senior Girl Scout Troop 81 in Delta, Colorado. On May 20, 2000, ceremonies will take place to honor Ms. Holton's achievement of earning the Girl Scout Gold Award. The Girl Scout Gold Award is the highest award possible for a Girl Scout to earn. In order to earn the award, a Girl Scout must meet five requirements, all of which promote community service, personal and spiritual growth, positive values, and leadership skills. Desirea's project, ``Hair Today: Gone Tomorrow,'' encompasses all of those things. Her project brought community awareness to the issue of juvenile hair loss. Desirea developed an informational brochure, which she distributed to local salons in an effort to increase hair donations. She also organized a day where individuals interested in donating their hair could receive a free haircut and styling. It is with this, Mr. Speaker, that I say congratulations to Desirea Holton on her achievement. Due to Ms. Holton's dedicated service, it is clear that Colorado is a better place.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to recognize an exceptional group, the Friends of the Mustangs group, who were honored by the Bureau of Land Management with the ``Making a Difference'' award. The BLM selected the Friends of the Mustangs group because of their dedication to Colorado and to its outdoors. For the past 17 years, the Friends of the Mustangs group have volunteered and managed the BLM's Little Book Cliffs Wild Horse Area. There, they saved the BLM over $20,000 by volunteering over 2,500 hours, maintained the grounds, fixing fences and trails. They also performed pre-adoption inspections. As a result, the Friends of the Mustangs group has played an integral role in managing wild horses. Mr. Speaker, it is obvious why the Friends of the Mustangs group was chosen for the ``Making a Difference'' award. I think we owe them a debt of gratitude for their service and dedication to Colorado and to its outdoors.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to congratulate the Town of Hotchkiss on celebrating 100 years. On May 6, 2000, the 920 citizens have set the day aside for festivities and celebration. There will be a parade, contests for the kids and adults, food, prizes and more. On March, 19, 1900, papers were filed to make Hotchkiss a legally incorporated Colorado municipality. On May 7, 1900, they received notice from the State of Colorado that the State had accepted the petition and charter for the Town of Hotchkiss, whose population at the time was less than 300. The new town was named after Enos Throop Hotchkiss who had led the first party of settlers into the valley in 1881. George and William Duke, Fred Simonds and Ed Hanson were the towns ``speculators'' or ``subdivision developers.'' They owned many of the businesses in the town. It is with this, Mr. Speaker, that I say thank you to the Town of Hotchkiss for their many contributions to the State of Colorado. I would like to wish the Town of Hotchkiss Happy 100th Birthday!

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to ask that we all pause a moment to remember a true American hero, Mr. Carl Sitter. Though he is gone, he will live on in the hearts of all who knew him and be remembered for long years by many who didn't. During the Koren War, Sitter fought for our country while he served in the Marine Corps. His relentless effort and valiant leadership led to a succesful defeat of the Korean Army. Mr. Sitter's bravery as a Captain in the Korean War led to him becoming the first of Pueblo's four Medal of Honor recipients. Despite grenade burns to his face, arms and chest, Mr. Sitter kept his position during the two day battle at Hagaru-Ki, in November 1950. As you can see, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Sitter was a model American, embodying patriotism, strength, gentleness and service throughout his lifetime. Carl will be missed by all of us. Hopefully, we can learn from the example that Carl Sitter has set.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, this evening in my night-side chat I would like to take the opportunity really to talk about three subjects. The first subject is the subject that is very important to all of us, obviously. It is the only way that we can survive. But in the West there is a lot of differences on the applicability of it as compared to the East. And that is water. The second issue that I would like to talk about tonight is also a doctrine that has particular specifics in regards to the West. It is called the Doctrine of Multiple Use. The third subject I hope I get an opportunity this evening to talk about is on the issue of education. Mr. Speaker, it seems, as my colleagues know, last evening I spoke about education. I spoke about discipline in the classroom. I spoke about the fact that we need to assist our teachers out there by having some consequences of misbehavior in the classroom. And apparently I hit a soft spot with some people because I heard from some people overnight say, how dare you talk about discipline in the classroom. I could not believe it. Some of these people were very antagonistic. I am pleased to say I did not get many letters out of the West. I got them out of the East. And I am sure I got them, in my opinion, from some pretty liberal people that, for some reason, think that we should follow political correctness when we talk about classroom discipline, that, for some reason, classroom discipline really is not a problem in today's school system. So I hope I have an opportunity to come back to that subject because it is something I believe very firmly in. Education is so fundamental for the survivability of this country. It is so fundamental for our country to remain the superpower in this world that we have to give it all of the attention that we can give to it. But it also means that we have got to be ready to face the music. And when we have problems with discipline in our school system, sometimes we cannot be politically correct. Sometimes we have got to go right directly to the problem. I hope we have an opportunity to talk about that. But let us talk and begin, first of all, by talking about water. Water in the West is very critical. One of the concerns I have is here in the East. In fact, when I came to the East for the first time, I was amazed at the amount of rain that we get in the East. In the West, we are in a very arid region, and we do not have that kind of rainfall. It does not rain in the western United States like it rains in the eastern United States. As a result of that, we have different problems that we deal with in regards to water. My district is the Third Congressional District of Colorado, as my colleagues know. It is a mountain district. The district actually geographically is larger than the State of Florida. And if any of my colleagues here have ever skied in Colorado, if they have ever gone into the 14,000-foot mountains, with the exception of Pike's Peak, they are in my district in Colorado. Water is very critical, as it is everywhere else. But we are going to talk about some of the different aspects of water, about the spring runoff, about water storage, about water law in general, about how we came about to preserve and to store our water through water storage projects. But let us begin I think with an appropriate quote from a gentleman named Thomas Hornsberry Ferrell. He said, speaking about Colorado, ``Here is a land where life is written in water. The West is where water was and is father and son of an old mother and daughter following rivers up immensities of range and desert, thirsting the sundown, ever crossing the hill to climb still drier, naming tonight a city by some river a different name from last night's camping fire. Look to the green within the mountain cup. Look to the prairie parched for water. Look to the sun that pulls the oceans up. Look to the cloud that gives the oceans back. Look to your heart, and may your wisdom grow to the power of lightning and the peace of snow.'' Let us say a few basic facts so that we understand really some fundamental things about water. First of all, I have got a chart and I know it is somewhat small, but I hope that my colleagues are able to see it. Let me go through it. It talks about water usage. It is very interesting, very few people realize how much water it takes for life to exist, how much water it takes to feed a person three meals a day, how much water it takes to feed a city, for example, their drinking water or their cleaning water or their water for industrial purposes. But this chart kind of gives us an idea. The chart is called ``water usage.'' I would direct the attention of my colleagues to my left to the chart. Americans are fortunate, we can turn on the faucet and get all the clean, fresh water we need. Many of us take water for granted. Have my colleagues ever wondered how much water we use every day? This is direct usage of water on a daily basis, our drinking and our cooking water. Now, this is per person. Our drinking and our cooking water, two gallons of water a day. Flushing of our toilets on a daily basis, five to seven gallons per flush. That is on an average. We now have some toilets that have reduced that usage somewhat. Washing machines, 20 gallons per load. Now, remember, this is daily. Twenty gallons per load. Dishwasher, 25 gallons every time we turn on that dishwasher. Taking a shower, 7.9 gallons per minute. In essence, eight gallons every minute a person is in the shower. Eight gallons of water. Now, growing foods takes the most consumption of water. As I said earlier, water is the only natural resource that is renewable. But in our foods, growing foods, the actual agriculture out there is the largest consumer of water in the Nation. And here is why growing foods takes the most water. One loaf of bread takes 150 gallons of water. From the time they till the field, to watering the field, to harvest the wheat, to take care of the industrial production of the bread, to actually have the bread mix made and have it delivered, 150 gallons of water for one loaf of bread. One egg. To produce one egg through the agriculture market, it takes 120 gallons of water. One quart of milk, 223 gallons of water. One pound of tomatoes. One pound of tomatoes takes 125 gallons of water. One pound of oranges, 47 gallons of water. One pound of potatoes, 23 gallons of water. Those are pretty startling statistics. We go down a little further. Did my colleagues know it takes more than a thousand gallons of water a day to produce three balanced meals for one person? So, in one day, for one person to have three balanced meals, when we total up all the water necessary to provide for that, it is a thousand gallons of water a day. What happens to 50 glasses of water? On the chart here on my left that I direct my colleagues to, we have 50 glasses of water. Forty-four glasses of water are used for agriculture. Two glasses are used by the cities for domestic water. And a half a glass is used for rural housing. But we can see, out of the 50, 44 glasses of water are used just for agriculture. Now, there is some very interesting things about water in the world. Keep in mind these statistics. Ninety-seven percent of the water supply in this world is salt water. And today's technology, although we have a very expensive process for desalinization of plants, essentially, we really do not have an economical process to take salt water and convert it to drinking water. Ninety-seven percent of the water in the world today is salt water. Of the remaining three percent, we have three percent left, 75 percent of that remaining three percent is water tied up in the ice caps. Of all the water we have, only .05 percent of that water is in our streams and in our lakes. So it gives us an idea of the challenge that we face. Now, in the United States, when we take a look at what is the lay of the water, we find that 73 percent of the stream flow in the United States is claimed by States east of the line drawn north to southeast of Kansas. So 73 percent of the water in the United States lies in this part of the Nation. Now, when we take a look at the Pacific Northwest, in the Pacific Northwest there is about 12 percent of the water. Over here we have 73 percent of the water essentially in the East. Up in the Pacific Northwest, we have about 12, 13 percent of the water. The balance of the water which is about 14 percent, is water that is shared by 14 States in the West. This is the arid region of the United States, those 14 States. They include States like Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada. Those are the dry States in our country. Now, Colorado is the highest State in the Nation. In fact, the Third Congressional District which I represent in Colorado is the highest congressional district in the Nation. So as a result of that, we have a lot of variance over, say, a lower elevation. For example, our evaporation. We have about an 85 percent factor of evaporation at that kind of altitude; and we have a lot of water, as Members know. We have a lot of snow that comes down, but we have to deal with evaporation at a very high percentage. When we talk about Colorado, what I am going to do instead of talking about all of the States of the West, I thought I would focus specifically, obviously, on the area I know the best, and that is Colorado. Let us talk about the characteristics of Colorado and the different problems and issues that we deal with water in Colorado. On average in Colorado, we get about 16, 16\1/2\ inches of water every year. We do not have much rainfall. If Members have been out to the mountains of Colorado, which as I said earlier is the district that I represent, they know that in the springtime and throughout the summer we have rains, but those rains are very brief. Our typical rainstorm comes in, lasts 20 minutes, and it goes away, comes back the next day and generally in the mountains. Out in the plains we may not see it for a long time. We do not have heavy rains as you do here in the East. But we have a lot of variances. For example, in my particular district, in the region of the mountains, we have 80 percent of the water. Eighty percent of the population in Colorado lives outside those mountains, in cities like Denver and Colorado Springs and Fort Collins and Pueblo. Now, in Colorado because we do not have much rainfall, we depend very heavily on the snows during the wintertime and for a period of about 60 to 90 days called the spring runoff when the snow melts off our highest peaks and comes down, for that period of time we have all the water we can handle. But after that period of time in Colorado, if we do not have the capability to store our water, to dam our water, we lose the opportunity to utilize that water. Now, the rivers and streams throughout this Nation have a lot of history to them. When we take a look at the frontiersmen that went out into the West, for example, to settle the West, remember the old saying, go West, young man, go West. When we take a look at it through these wilderness areas, and everything was wilderness in the West, really your path, your highway through the wilderness were the rivers and the streams. It is where life really centered around, the communities were built around it, the trappers. The trappers trapped by the rivers and the streams. Even the miners and the minerals when they discovered minerals in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, for example, it centered around streams. That is why when you go through Colorado, most of your communities are built there near the streams. But what is unique about Colorado is we are the only State in the union where all of our free-flowing water goes out of the State. Colorado is the only State in the union that has no free-flowing water coming into the State that we are able to utilize. So as you can guess, as they say, water runs thicker than blood in Colorado and that applies to the other mountain States and the West in general. Now, Colorado is called the mother of rivers. Why? Because we have four major rivers that have their headwaters in the State of Colorado. We have the Colorado River, and I will come back to the Colorado River in a moment. We have the South Platte River, and the South Platte River drains the most populous section of the State and serves the area with the greatest concentration of irrigated agricultural lands in Colorado. That is the South Platte. We have the Arkansas River. That begins up near Ledville, Colorado. It flows south and then east through southern Colorado and then down towards the Kansas border. We also have the Rio Grande River. That Rio Grande drainage basin is located in south central Colorado. It is comparatively small compared to the other rivers and has less than 10 percent of the State's land area in it. Let us talk about the Colorado River. That is a very important river for the entire Nation. Twenty-five million people get their drinking water out of the Colorado River. The Colorado River drains over one- third of the State's area. And although only about 20 percent of the Colorado River basin exists in the State of Colorado, the State of Colorado puts about 75 percent of the water into that basin. The Colorado River provides a lot of things besides water. It provides clean hydropower, for example. Just out of the Colorado River alone, we irrigate over 2 million acres of agricultural land throughout that river basin. Now, the river is very unique. As Members know as I described earlier in the West, everybody is trying to grab for water. And so as a result of that, there are a lot of what we call ``compacts.'' They are in essence treaties, how do we agree how the water is going to be shared. And, of course, we also have to remember there are some basic things about water. Remember I said earlier that water is the only natural resource that renews itself. In other words, what logically follows is one person's water waste could be another person's water. For example, some people have said in Colorado, why don't you go and line your ditches, let's put concrete on the bottom of your ditches and therefore you avoid seepage; the water doesn't seep out of the ditch. Well, you have to be careful about that because that water seepage may be the very water that provides water for the spring or the well or the aquifer many, many miles away. Someday technologically, I hope in our lifetime, we will be able to pull up on a computer screen the map, the water map as, for example, in the State of Colorado where all of those little fingers of water, where they all begin, where they all move, how they move, at what speed they move, and what kind of cleansing process they go through. It is very interesting if you really want to get into it. But water on its face is a pretty tough product to sell an interest in. Why? I do not mean property interest. I mean, people do not worry much about water as long as they turn on the faucet and the water is there, number one, and, number two, the water is clean. Therefore, it is an obligation of the leaders of our country, leaders such as you and myself, it is our obligation to assure that we have quantity of water and that we have clean water for the future. Let us go back to the Colorado River basin for a moment. The Colorado River basin really has compacts on it, and because the Colorado River goes down throughout and actually ends up in the Gulf of Mexico, the Colorado River really goes to Mexico, ends up in the Gulf of Mexico, we have several compacts. The major compact, the Colorado River compact, is between the upper basin States and the lower basin States. The upper basin States, for example, would be Colorado, Utah, New Mexico. Lower basin States would be like Arizona, California, Nevada. And we have an agreement on the Colorado River on this Colorado River compact which says that the upper basin States and the lower basin States are each entitled to 7\1/2\ million acre/feet per year. An acre/foot is enough to feed a family of four. It would be about a foot of water over a football field, enough water that should feed a family of four for a year. 7\1/2\ million acre/feet per year is how that is divided. I am going to get into a little more about that, but first of all let us talk a little about Colorado water law. I am just going to summarize and give some very basics to it, Mr. Speaker, because the law here in the East is really based on the riparian doctrine. Our doctrine is based on what is called the Colorado doctrine in the State of Colorado. The history of the doctrine came about in the California gold rush days, when all of a sudden we had a lot of settlers going out to the mountains about 1849. And because the water in Colorado, because of the aridness of the Colorado, we came up with the doctrine that no matter how far away you are from the river, our doctrine is first in use, first in rights. So the first one to go to the river and use the water, no matter how far away they live from the river, if they are first to use it, they get first right. If they are second to use it, they fall in priority to second place; if they are third to use it, they fall in priority to third place. That is basically known as the doctrine of prior appropriation. Now, as I said, the eastern States primarily follow the riparian doctrine. Now, the Colorado constitution, in addition to having the doctrine of prior appropriation, also recognizes uses in priority. The highest priority or the preference of water use with the highest priority in Colorado is domestic use for your home, the second use is agricultural use in priority, and the third use is industrial use. In Colorado, we also have a unique situation. We are pretty proud of this because we are very conscious of the environment out there. Obviously, if you have been out to the district, you have been out to Colorado, you have a deep appreciation of why we are proud of our environment out there, what we have to protect out there. One of the things that we have discovered throughout the years is there is a lot of damage to an environment if you run the creek dry. So what we have done in Colorado is we have appropriated in-stream rights, minimum stream flows over thousands of miles of stream beds so that we guarantee that a minimum amount of water will remain in those streams so that we can mitigate and minimize the environmental impact. Now, clearly we are always going to have some impact. If you are going to take water out and drink it, you are going to have less water in the stream or in the creek. So you are going to have an impact. We have to have a balance there. We think in Colorado we reach a pretty good balance. Now, clearly we have some people that object to that. We have some people, especially located in the East, things like Ancient Forests and some of the Earth First and some of those type of people, the National Sierra Club, those people that want all of our dams taken down. In fact, the National Sierra Club, their number one priority is to take down Lake Powell. Lake Powell has more shoreline than the entire Pacific West Coast. Lake Powell is a major power producer, hydropower, clean power. Lake Powell is the major flood control dam we have in the West. Lake Powell is the main family recreational area for many States around it. Now, the only people that would want to take down Lake Powell are people that do not have, in my opinion, a lot of, one, appreciation for the uniqueness of the West and the needs of the West; two, do not have a lot of appreciation for human needs; and, three, frankly maybe they do not care about the needs of the West. But let us go back to our subject here at hand. We have given a brief outline of the prior appropriation. Now, let us talk about water storage. As I mentioned to you earlier, we just talked a little about Lake Powell, but water storage is critical for us in the West. We have to have these dams. The Federal Government recognized this many years ago. Great governmental leaders like Wayne Aspinall, a Congressman from the State of Colorado, helped authorize these projects. And we had support frankly from Congresspeople, colleagues of ours that preceded us, colleagues from the East, colleagues from across the Nation that recognized that out in the West we had to have water storage. I hope that many of my colleagues, while tonight you may not be particularly interested in Western water problems, I hope that tonight's comments give you an opportunity that when some questions arise, for example, about Lake Powell or water storage projects, you remember the reason that these were put up. In the West, we did not just go out willy-nilly and say, let's put a dam here and let's put a dam there. That did not happen. There are reasons that those dams are there. There are reasons that we have to store that water. And so I urge my colleagues, as the issues of water and storage of water in the West come in front of you, take a deep look at why those projects were built in the first place, why those projects are important for the West. We have a project we are going to talk about this year, the Animas La-Plata project, a very interesting project. I am going to spend a couple minutes with you right now talking about that. Years ago, when the population in the East and our leaders back here in the East wanted to settle the West, they ran into a number of different problems. One of the problems were the Indians. My gosh, there are people on this land that we want. Well, the response to it was, we will push them off it. What do we do with them? Essentially what they did when they got to Colorado is they took the Indians and said, look, we are going to shove you into the mountains. We want the plains. We want the large herds of buffalo. We want the agricultural lands out there. So sorry, Indians, there is not room for you. We are going to shove you into the mountains. So they shoved them into the mountains. Then what happened was they began to discover minerals in the mountains. The white men found there were gold in the streams, in the creeks. There were massive mineral deposits in those mountains. Those mountains all of a sudden became valuable. So, what did they do? Time for the Indians to move again. They took the Indians and they moved them down to the southwestern part of Colorado, down into the desert. And, mercifully, somebody in the administration or in the leadership back then said, look, there is no water down there. There is not water for those people in those desert lands. We need to provide some water for them. So that is exactly what they did. The government provided water rights, and promised the Native Americans, the Indians, as they were called back then, promised water rights for their lands. Well, years ago when the water projects for the West were authorized, the government agreed with the Native Americans to go ahead and help develop those water rights. Those were water rights owned by the Native Americans pursuant to treaty. So as a part of the development of those water rights so the Native Americans could utilize the water they had been promised, that they had contracted for, in order to help them develop it, they promised certain water storage projects, one of them being the Animas La-Plata. Then what happened was the government began to stall, so the Native Americans decided to sue the Federal Government in the courts, because, as they said, rightfully so, wait a minute, United States Government, we made a deal in Washington. We made a deal. You gave us these water rights in exchange for our lands. You signed a contract. You made a treaty with us to build our water storage project, yet you continue to delay and delay and delay. So the best government lawyers came in and advised the government leaders at the time, you are going to lose this case. You need to do what you said you were going to do with the Native Americans. You need to build that project. So the government went to the Native Americans and said let's settle the case. So they settled it. The Native Americans accepted less than they were entitled to, but they were willing to live with that compromise, because they wanted the wet water. They did not want cash, they did not want trinkets, they wanted wet water, water they could put their hands in and feel the wetness. Well, lo and behold, pretty soon some environmental organizations started suing, and pretty soon there is an effort to stop the building of the Animas La-Plata water project down in Southwestern Colorado. Once again, who loses? The Native Americans. So the Native Americans come back again, and once again they make an agreement to get even less than what they got the first time they made the agreement and the second time they made the agreement. Now what do we see in the last couple of years? Once again the United States is continuing to stall and delay. In fact, there have been proposals by some organizations out there, do not give them any water at all. Let us just pay them with some cash. Give them some trinkets. Give them cash. They do not want cash, they want their water. Fortunately, I think we have come to agreement with the administration this year to move the Animas La-Plata project into reality. It has taken a lot of effort, and I must compliment my colleague, Senator Nighthorse Campbell. This is a big issue out in the West. A lot of effort has been put into it, and hopefully we can get this storage project in the west put together. Now, when we speak about water it leads us to another issue that I think is important to understand about the West, and that is the concept of use. If you were ever in Colorado, and there are still a few signs, or actually out in the mountains, out in the West, you still see some of these signs on national lands, and the sign might say, for example, ``Welcome, you are entering the White River National Forest.'' But underneath that sign is another little sign, and it says ``The land of many uses.'' ``The land of many uses.'' Let us talk a little history. What does multiple use mean? Multiple use means exactly what it says, that the lands out there are not intended for one singular use, that the survivability of many different things, of humans, of animal species, of the environment, it depends on a balanced approach on how to use those lands, and the balanced approach is what is called multiple use. Now, how did multiple use come about and how is it that the Federal land ownership is so massive out in the West and almost minimal, and ``minimal'' would be a pretty generous description, in the East? In order to have an accurate reflection of what I am talking about, I have got a map for you here which shows the United States, obviously. You will see, I ask my colleagues to divert their attention over to the map for a moment, if you really go down this line, which is down the Colorado border, down the Wyoming border, down to Montana, you go down that line, through eastern Colorado, clear down and go along the border there over to New Mexico and around the border of Texas, you will see that practically from this point to the east, from that point to the Atlantic Ocean, Federal Government ownership of land is minimal. Now, you have got some blocks of land out here in the Appalachians, the Catskill Mountains, some down in the Everglades and some up here in the northeastern section. But take a look at the eastern United States and land ownership there by the government, and compare it with land ownership in the West. In the West, as you can see, most of the land is owned by the Federal Government. In fact, in 11 states here in the West, in 11 states, 47 percent of that land is owned by the Federal Government. Now, remember, that is not all the government owns, because you have state government lands, you have municipal land, you have special district lands. So there is a lot besides that 47 percent. But because of the fact that you have such massive ownership of public lands, or they call it public lands, such massive ownership by the Federal Government, it creates by its own consequence a lot of differences between the West land uses and land uses in the East. Now, how did this come about? Why did our leaders not many many years ago who preceded us many, many generations ago, why did they not spread this land ownership out throughout the country more evenly? Here is what happened. In the West, when they were settling the rest of the country, and I say the West, really anything West of, you get out here of New York, of South Carolina, Kentucky, out into this country, they decided in those days ownership of land was not simply just a deed. The fact you owned a deed to the land did not mean a lot out here in the wilderness, out in the wild areas of the country. In fact, back then possession really was nine-tenths of the law. You have heard that quote many time. ``Well, possession is nine-tenths of the law.'' That is where it came from. In the early days of the settlement by the white man out here in the West, possession was nine-tenths of the law. So the leaders in the East decided hey, we have got to provide some kind of incentive, we have got to give an incentive for people to move into the West, to settle this land. We have got to get our citizens in possession of that land, the land they had purchased, for example, through the Louisiana purchase. We have got to get people on the land. How do we do it? Because, frankly, life in the city is fairly comfortable. Life in the West is pretty rough. They have to go on horseback, a wagon. It is pretty rough. Somebody came up with the idea, well, let us do this. Let us tell these settlers that if they go out there, we will give them land. And the American dream has always been to own your own piece of land. Today, for our constituents, the young people, the old people, the middle age people, we all dream of owning our own little piece of land. Ownership of land is American. So what they said was hey, what stronger incentive can we give to these people to encourage them to become settlers and move to the West than to offer to give them land? So they said all right, what kind of land should we give? Let us call it, they said, the Homestead Act or any number of other acts, and let us give them 160 or 320 acres. And if they go out and they possess that land and they work that land for a period of time, say 3 years or 5 years, depending on the act, we will let them have the land free. It is their land. It is their land forever. Well, that worked okay, until you hit the mountains, until you hit the arid areas of the West. When you got into the states like Kansas and Nebraska and Ohio and the Dakotas, you know, you could take 160 acres in that rich farmland of Ohio or Nebraska and you could raise a family on it. That is very fertile ground. But what was happening was the settlers were coming out here, and all of a sudden they stopped. They were not going into the mountains. Maybe some would go around the mountains and try to find gold in the California area, out here where you do not see much government land ownership in California. They were going around it. So the problem came back to Washington. Hey, we are doing okay, again referring to this map, doing okay in the eastern United States, everything east, let us say of Denver, Colorado. People are settling, were possessing the land. But where the Colorado Rockies start, from north to south, west, the people are not going in there. What do we do? The problem came up, well, you know, to raise a family in Nebraska, for example, on the rich fertile land out there, it is 160 acres. To do the equivalent in the Colorado Rockies, for example, and I keep referring to Colorado, obviously other states share the Rockies, so I am really referring to the mountain West, but to do the equivalent in the mountains, instead of 160 acres, you may need 1,600 acres, or 2,000 acres, or 3,000 acres. The leaders in Washington said wow, we cannot give away that kind of land. We cannot go out there and tell people we are going to give thousand and thousands of acres to one person if they go out and live on and work that land. What do we do? That is where the birth of the concept of multiple use came about. The Federal Government decided the answer to this, to encourage settlers to go out, is, look, the Federal Government will retain ownership. The Federal Government will continue to own these lands out here, but you are going to be allowed to go out there and use them. You can go out there and use them for ranching, you can go out there and use them for minerals. As time went on, you can go out there and use them to build your communities and your towns and later on your cities. Now, today we can use these lands to help protect our environment, to help preserve a lot of these lands. Multiple use means a lot of things. To give you an idea of what the multiple use concept is and why Federal ownership differs here in the West than in the East, in the East, for example, let us think about it. If you wanted to build something in your local community here in, let us say Kentucky or out here in Illinois or some of these states more towards the East, you wanted to build something, what do you do? You have to get a permit. And if you get a permit, where do you go? You go to your local planning and zoning. You go down to the city hall, or maybe the county offices, and you go to your local planning and zoning. Well, here in the West, where the Federal Government owns so much land, if we want to build, for example, a water canal, we do not go to our local planning and zoning. We have to have our planning and zoning done in Washington, D.C., 1,500 miles away, in an area where it rains. It does not rain very much in the West. It does not rain much in the West. In an area where they have very little Federal ownership of lands, in an area where a lot of people do not even know what the term ``use'' means, yet they are the ones who dictate, they are the ones who dictate our planning and zoning in the West. That is a big difference. That is why we have sensitivities out there in the West. That is why it is important that we protect the concept of multiple use. Let me read just a couple of things. The Federal government owns, as I said earlier, 47 percent of the land in the 11 public lands States all located in the western United States. In four States, the Federal government owns more than half of the land: In Idaho, in Nevada, in Oregon, and Utah. In Colorado, more than one-third of the land is owned by the Federal government. Are we dependent on these lands? We are absolutely dependent on these lands. Humans could not live out in the West without the permission of the Federal government to use those lands. Some would say, well, is that not kind of an exaggerated statement? The fact is that it is not exaggerated at all. Think about it. Take any community in my district. Glenwood Springs, Colorado. If you have not been there, go visit; a beautiful community, my hometown. In Glenwood Springs, or a town more that my colleagues might be acquainted with, Aspen, Colorado, take Aspen, Colorado, every road into Aspen, Colorado, comes across government lands. Every drop of water in Aspen, Colorado, either comes across, originates, or is stored on Federal lands unless it is a spring, and then it still originates somewhere on Federal lands. All of their cable, all of their power lines, all of their transportation needs, their airport, their air corridors, all of that comes across Federal lands. If we begin to shut down the access across Federal lands, we lock out these communities. Many, many of the communities, not only in my district but throughout the U.S., throughout the West, are locked in by Federal lands. Now, ``locked in'' is not too harsh a word if we are allowed access to utilize these lands. We take a lot of pride in those lands. That is our birthplace. A lot of us have many, many generations of family history out there. We care about that land. We have worked that land. We know that land. There are some sensitivities when we deal with people, for example, out of Washington, D.C., some think tank, that thinks they ought to be able to or that they know a little more about the dictates of living in the West, about the issues of these lands. Multiple use is a very, very important concept for us. That is why we are so ardent in our protection of the right to use these lands. I think this map is a good reflection. Again, I would direct my colleagues to take a look at it. One thing they will notice down here, it is not in proportion, obviously, is the State of Alaska. I think the State of Alaska is somewhere around 96 percent owned by the government. Ninety-six percent of that land is owned by the government. Think of the impact that that has on the everyday lifestyles of people; of the resources that they use, of the transportation that they use. So multiple use is a very, very important concept for us, and I hope that my comments tonight have given Members a little idea about this. There are a lots of exciting things that go on in the West in regard to our land use. Over the last 25 or 30 years, we have recognized the technology that allows us to utilize our lands in such a way that they can become more environmentally friendly. We have figured out how to use water in a more environmentally sensitive form. There is a lot of progressive movement in the West on these lands to help preserve our environment, because many of those communities out there are almost totally dependent on a clean, healthy environment. If Aspen, Colorado, for example, or Beaver Creek or Telluride or Vail or Glenwood Springs or Durango, if they had a dirty environment, would Members go out to visit it? Of course not. We have lots to lose out there. We have a lot at risk with our environment out there. That is why we take no shame in the positions that we advocate for the protection of our lands out there, for the protection of the water out there. I hope my colleagues here recognize that. I hope as the different issues come up, whether they relate to Alaska or whether they relate to the western United States, remember, especially if Members are from the East, that the issues are different. The issues will require that we look into the history. They will require that we study the differences of a State without much Federal land and a State with Federal land, that we study how dependent we are on the resources of those Federal lands, and why the doctrine of multiple use is a well-thought-out and now a well-practiced historical use of those lands. Multiple use should be protected. There are some areas where we have set aside what we call wilderness areas. I am a sponsor of a wilderness called the Spanish Peaks Wilderness. That is my bill passed out of this House. We expect to put a wilderness out there. We have other wilderness. Senator Armstrong, Hank Brown from years ago, they put in the Flat Tops Wilderness bill. In some of these areas we take away multiple use, but it is a focused, well-thought-out move. It is a move that allows some lands to be set aside as if humans had never touched them. So in some areas we have actually surrendered the doctrine of multiple use for protection, for the maximum possible, with little flexibility, protection. But before, and I say this to my colleagues, before Members jump on the bandwagon and take a paintbrush and paint in all of this wilderness designation, please understand the impact that it has to the local people, to the people who live off those lands, to the people who depend on those lands. Frankly, anybody that lives in the West is dependent upon those Federal lands. Education Enough for issues about water and lands. Now I want to move to an issue that is very important to me. It is important to my colleagues here. I want to talk for a few minutes about some areas of education. I do not know anyone who is anti-education. I find with interest in a political season how political layouts are made saying one person is anti-education. Granted, in this room of 435 Congress people, we have 435 different ideas, and many of them are uniform, but we have 435 different ideas about education: How do we improve education? How do we get the biggest bang for our buck out of education? How do we get the best teachers, the most qualified teachers we can into the field of education? How do we make the profession of teaching one of the highest professions in our country? There is lots of debate about that, but I have not found anybody on the Democratic side and I certainly have not found anybody on the Republican side that is anti-education. So I urge my colleagues, as this election year gets into a very heated process very rapidly, that they not buy into that argument that their opponent or somebody else out there is anti-education. I do not know one person, I have never met a person in my political career, I have never met one person that is anti-education. In fact, I have met very few people, I could probably count them on one hand, the people, if I were to ask them the five or ten most important things in our society, that they would not list education among the very top. We all recognize that education is fundamental for the strength of this country. Now that we all can come to the agreement that we all agree that education is important, let us talk about different subjects. There are lots of areas we could talk about. We could talk about the budget on education, about how much more money is needed, how do we have accountability for the money, how do we test, what kind of testing, and should we track scores and the money spent, whether the money should be local money, whether the money should be State money, whether the money should be Federal money; and if it is Federal or State money for a local school, what kind of flexibility should be given to the Federal government or the State government to determine what programs are offered in the local school? We can talk about the issues of sex education in schools: What level do we offer sex education, should we have it in the schools? We can talk about the school facilities. We can talk about bonding issues. There are lots of things in education that many in this room have much more expertise than I do. We could have lengthy discussions about it. There is a lot of money, billions and billions of dollars spent in this country every year to try and figure out how we have a better educational product. But one of the areas I like to talk about in education is personal responsibility, consequences for behavior that is classified as misbehavior. I think throughout the years, and this is where I got some negative calls, and I would love to have some of those people to debate, Mr. Speaker, who in my opinion seem to think that the discipline, the direction we are going in discipline is the right direction to take. I do not think it is. I think one of the problems that we have today in turning out a better educational product is responsibility in the classroom. We find responsibility in the classroom not only through accountability of measurement, and whether a student is learning, and the responsibility of a student if they want to participate in the class, they have to do their assignments. But I am talking about classroom discipline. It is interesting, if we take a look at the discipline problems, and I think there is a book out there called It All Happened in Kindergarten or something like that. I will actually have it next week. But in that particular book, as my memory serves me, if it is correct, they did some comparisons about discipline problems 40 years ago in our classrooms and the discipline problems today in our classrooms. Part of the difference in those discipline problems, back then, for example, chewing gum was a discipline problem, or talking out of turn, interrupting your teacher, being tardy. Today it is drugs, violence. We go down the list and there is a dramatic difference. Part of it is the shift in society. Part of it, and we can track it to a lot of different things, the lack of two-parent families, a number of different things. But one of those elements that I think we need to look at is we have got to give our teachers the ability and the tools to have discipline in their classroom. Not too many years ago I think it was 60 Minutes went in and did a secret filming I think in one of the major cities of a classroom and the discipline, and the frustrated teacher who could not control those students. Can most teachers control most students? The answer is yes. Are most students responsible young people, young adults? The answer is yes. In the past, were teachers able to have much more control for those few students who became discipline problems? The answer was yes. Has that authority had handcuffs placed on it? Has that authority been kind of cornered or reduced in today's classroom? The answer is yes. We need to take a serious look at allowing discipline back into the classroom. Think about it. I have a sister who is a counsellor. Her name is Kathleen. She has spent her career in teaching and she is now a counselor. Several years ago when I was in the State legislature, and in Colorado most of the money provided for schools is provided at the State level, back then about 63 cents out of every dollar of the general fund of the State of Colorado's budget was provided for education, but we consistently heard complaints about, we need more money for education. We hear it from every department, by the way. The military says it needs more money. In fact, I have never found a department yet throughout my years of public service that says, whoa, we have enough money. We can do the job for what you have given us. We have enough money. So that is a pretty common complaint. Anyway, back to my sister, Kathy. I asked her one day, I said, Kathy, if I could do one thing politically as a leader, if I could do just one thing to help improve the education product for you as a schoolteacher, what would it be? I expected her to say, we need more money. She did not say that. She said, if you could do just one thing, allow me to have discipline back in my classroom. Allow me to have discipline back in my classroom. That is where I really begin. That answer caught me a little off guard. That is where I began to really focus on discipline in the classroom and tolerance in our schools. Clearly, when we speak of tolerance, there are many different applications that that term can have. There are a lot of things that we have taught, good behavior through more tolerance of certain behaviors. However, we also need to take a look at misbehavior that we are ignoring because it is not politically correct, perhaps, to stand up to it, or you are going to get criticism for drawing a line in the sand and saying, if your behavior crosses that line, you are out of school. At some point we have to go back and cater to the majority of students, the students that are behaving. I am not talking about ethnic issues and so on, I am talking about the majority of students that behave. We have to meet their needs. Those needs, in my opinion, take a higher priority than a student who on a consistent basis, not a one- or two-time basis where we have correctable attitudes, but on a consistent basis continues to defy the teacher and continues to defy the rules of the classroom. For example, not too many months ago I saw some film footage, and some of my colleagues may have seen it, where there was a fight in the school and the students were disciplined. This school board, I wanted to pat each one of them on the back. It is about time somebody stood up to these students and kicked them out of school; good for you. Teach them a lesson. Of course there was a lot of argument and debate about whether this was too harsh a punishment for kicking these students out of school. Then they begin to look into the background of the students, and it was the first time I had ever heard the term ``third year freshman.'' So I asked my sister Kathy, what is a third year freshman? Oh, a third year freshman, she says, that is somebody who has been in high school for 3 years and has yet to get enough credits to get out of the freshman class. In this particular case that I was referring to, they had some students there who did not have any credits and had been in school for 2 or 3 years; no credits. Then they went and they took a look and investigated and revealed how many days they had been absent from school, and the fundamental question that came to me was not whether or not they still are in school; the fundamental question came to me is why did you not kick them out earlier? How much time and how much effort and how many resources have you spent taking care of these students who are not willing to accept responsibility, who have behavioral problems that are not able to be corrected on a short-term basis and you have kowtowed to them, so to speak, been politically correct to them, at the expense of the students who are following the rules, at the expense of the students, and it is clearly, clearly the strong majority of students who want to learn, who want to get something out of their education, what is wrong out there? Well, I can say this, that I think as government officials we need to pledge to our local teachers, to our school administrators that, look, within the bounds, within legitimate bounds, and I can say I think the legitimate bounds have a historical basis, I think we can find them, that within those bounds you are going to receive support from us. It may be that you are having to discipline the most popular kid in the town. We have to promise support to these people. These teachers have tough jobs. These administrators have tough jobs. But we cannot really expect them to stand up to this discipline problem if we, starting on this House Floor, do not back them up. There are times where discipline cannot be politically correct. There are times where discipline can be absolutely correct. In my opinion, if we can get discipline back to the classroom, Mr. Speaker, if we can do something to help our local districts, give them the support and to watch very carefully any legislation we pass out of the U.S. House of Representatives to make sure that we are not infringing on the right for a schoolteacher to have discipline in their classroom, it is worth it. That is how we can get a better product. That is how we can give more opportunities to our students. As I said earlier, in my opinion education is the most fundamental pillar that we can have that holds this great country together. Now, there are other strong pillars. We have to have a strong military. We have to have a strong economy. We have to have a strong health care delivery system. There are other pillars that help hold this building up but education is one that gets a lot of attention, deserves a lot of attention and it is going to get a lot more attention. Now teachers, I think, themselves want accountability. I read an article in USA Today, December 1999, and it was issued by the Albert Shanker Institute. They found that teachers support standards. Teachers support accountability. Even in low income neighborhoods, teachers believe that standards and accountability are important. I think most teachers believe in personal responsibilities. I think most teachers want us to give them the tools that create consequences for misbehavior in the classroom, that allow the teachers to reward good behavior because there are two ways to take care of misbehavior. One is punish the misbehavior and have consequences for the misbehavior and two is to reward the good behavior, take the positive drive. The study shows that the longer teachers work with standards the happier they are to have them. Accountability measures can include repeating a grade or having to pass a test to graduate. Accountability measures can include discipline in the classroom. For school officials, accountability could come in the form of removing teachers and principals from schools that do not meet those standards. Seventy-three percent of the teachers and 92 percent of the principals favor the standards movement. Mr. Speaker, let me just conclude by saying that we all want better education. Let us bring discipline back to the classroom.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to recognize a great man, Mr. Joe Carpenter. On April 13, 2000, Mr. Carpenter will be retiring from his position as the Garfield/Pitkin County Veteran. He has been an asset to both Colorado and our great nation. In 1942, Mr. Carpenter was drafted into the military. After the completion of basic training his company was sent to the South Pacific, however, due to bad vision, Joe was not able to fulfill his dream of coming face to face with the enemy, and had to stay behind. He was then assigned to ordnance and with special training became an Ordnance NCO. There, Joe handled tons of ammunition and explosives and loaded weaponry on aircraft. In 1999, on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor Day, at the Normandy celebration that I held, he was instrumental in locating those Normandy Veterans who received recognition. He is a model American that embodies patriotism, strength and service to his country. Hopefully we can learn from the example of Joe Carpenter and will try to be a little more like him.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, on this side of the aisle, we take ardent opposition to the death tax; and we think in fact it should be expected, it should be a fiduciary duty of ours to bring it up on this House floor, to let people know what you are attempting to do with that death tax. The Clinton-Gore administration wants to increase the death taxes. That is hurting a lot of people out there. We ought to eliminate it. What I would suggest to the gentleman is why do you not bring up a bill to eliminate the death tax and get everybody over here to support it. We could take away one of the greatest injustices in this tax system, and you can get the credit for it. We need to have on this floor open exposure to what is happening; 82 new Federal programs. Of course we ought to have sunshine on it. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, this is the second time I told the gentleman I will not yield. I would appreciate the gentleman showing me the courtesy of controlling the floor and proceeding. On our side of the aisle, take a look at our position on this death tax.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I will not yield to the gentleman.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I think it is very important. The gentleman from New York has brought up the question of why would you bring up a resolution that you are going to vote no on? Do you know why? Because you are not bringing up the tax increases. We want to be open to the American taxpayers. We think the American taxpayers ought not to have 82 new Federal programs tucked away in several thousand pages of a budget. We want to bring it up. You all put it in the budget. I want to see if you got enough guts to vote for it on the floor. There is nothing wrong with that. I believe in sunshine. I want to remind you that the previous speakers talked about the sunshine and how we have to have more of an open process and not have these secrets. That is what we are doing. Everybody that disagrees with something in that budget ought to have a discussion right here on the House floor. We ought to discuss on this House floor whether or not we want 80 new Federal programs. I do not think we do. Certainly on the Republican side we do not want 82 new Federal programs. We do not want another $116 billion in tax increases on the Republican side, and especially we do not want an increase in the death tax.

Mr. McINNIS. So when you have a reaction, do you want to know why we are here today about these tax increases, about these 80 new Federal programs? It is because you guys recommended them, your administration, Gore, the Vice President, and President Clinton. They come up with these new programs, 80 new Federal programs. Of course we are going to have a reaction to that. Of course we are going to have a reaction to increasing the death taxes. I wish my colleague could come out to Colorado and visit with some of these ranching families, including some of my own, that are about to get nailed on this death tax. And you guys want to increase it? Of course you are going to have that kind of reaction. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. First of all the previous speaker talks about playing politics because of the fact that we bring out the tax increases that the Democrats want on the American people. I call it sunshine. Bring it out. Get into that big stack of papers and let us reveal exactly what is happening on taxes. You can take a look at the other programs, but let us talk about 84 new Federal government programs, the creation of 84 new programs under this budget. It is tucked away in the fine print. Let us talk about those tax increases. That is not something we call fair game. That ought to be the legitimate practice of representing the people of this Nation. Tell them what you are about to do to them in regards to tax increases. Tell them about the fact that many Members on your side of the aisle oppose the death tax or at least when people are talking to their constituents they oppose the death tax but when the administration sends a bill over here, it increases the death tax. It does not talk about keeping it the same. It does not reduce the death tax. It increases the death tax. I hope the gentleman gets some expert advice. Come up here, and I would be happy to go over those death tax increases with him. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth).

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on H. Res. 467.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 467) expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the tax and user fee increases proposed by the Clinton/Gore administration in their fiscal year 2001 budget should be adopted.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I have had an opportunity to travel fairly extensively throughout the world, and there are a few things I want to talk about regarding the United States of America, Mr. Speaker. First of all, we are the only superpower in the world, and we are the superpower because of American ingenuity, because of American energy, because of patriotism within our borders and friendliness and strength demonstrated outside of our borders. That is why we are a superpower. When I travel in the world I carry a little index card about a fourth the size of this, and on that index card I have an American flag; actually, a little picture of an American flag. When I travel to different countries, I make it a point of getting away off the regular path and kind of going down an unknown path. As they say, never walk the same path twice. I go down an alley or find a merchant and show them that index card. I have yet to find one person anywhere in the world that cannot identify the flag of the United States of America. People know the strength of the United States of America, but it did not just fall out of the skies. Many of our European colleagues have a much, much longer history. Speaking from an industrial aspect, they have a lot longer history. Most of the countries in the world are much older than our country but no country in the world even comes close to matching our country. Why? Because we have a few principle beliefs that we push, and one of them, one of the fundamental ones, happens to be education. There are others. Health care, a strong military. One can never be number two in the military. The stronger one is in the military, the less fights they are going to get into. Religion, family, we could talk and on about those, but let us just go down to a couple of them. First of all, let me say that also in my travels throughout the world I have an opportunity not because of Scott McInnis but because of the position as a U.S. Congressman, I have an opportunity to meet people in other countries that are very wealthy. I have had opportunities to meet kings and queens and members of parliament and members of respected governments and prime ministers. I have had those opportunities. To the best of my recollection, when I have asked the question, whenever somebody in some other country other than the United States wants to send their kids to college, a lot of the time they send those kids to be educated where? In the United States of America. What else? When those families have somebody who has a deadly disease or a terrible disease like cancer, most of those wealthy people, what their choice is, they send them for health care to the United States of America. Our country is a leader in health care. We are number one in the world. Our country is number one in the world on education. Now, sure, we have test score problems, we have areas we have to shore up on. We have to rededicate ourself to the proposition that the most important person in the classroom is the student and that the resources going to that classroom should be focused on the student, not on all kinds of Federal programs, not on all kinds of Federal bureaucracies that we find in the Department of Education and other areas. We have to focus on the student. Education is an important issue but there are some concerns that I have out there. One of the concerns that I have about education in our country is discipline in the classroom. Our country, again, another fundamental pillar to our success, is that we exercise and we expect individual responsibility; and that if an individual did not carry out that responsibility, there were consequences. There were consequences for their lack of action. It is the same thing in the classroom. There was a book, and for the life of me, I cannot think of the title of it, a lot of my colleagues out here will remember this book, I cannot remember, but anyway the book compared the 10 most serious discipline problems 30 years ago or 40 years ago. In that list, chewing gum, talking out loud in the classroom, talking out of turn, not answering the teacher ``yes, ma'am'', ``yes, sir''. It was those kind of things. I remember that. That is what I used to get in trouble for. Then it talked about the 10 most common discipline problems in today's classroom. I will tell my colleagues, I think one can draw a coalition between chewing gum and drugs. I think one can look in there and see that the government, not the teachers, the teachers, in my opinion, for the most part, have done a commendable job. Unfortunately, we keep bad teachers, and we are not rewarding the good teachers in my opinion. But if one drew a line, I think one can draw a direct coalition between the discipline, between the fact that our society, our government all of a sudden is starting to say, look, we should not have consequences. It is interesting, the other day I read about or heard about some students that got in a fight at their school. For the first time, I heard a term, ``third-year freshman''. I thought, third-year freshman? What is a third-year freshman? I asked my sister Kathleen, she is a school counselor, what is a third-year freshman? Oh, that is somebody who has been in high school three years and does not have any high school credits. What? In the old days, look, if one did not want to try in school, if one were not going to make an effort at it, get out. We have got a lot of students in our schools that want to make an effort at it. We have got a lot of students in our schools that want to succeed. Our society has become so politically correct in education that discipline has almost all but been taken away from our teachers. How can we expect teachers and instructors that will deliver the kind of product that will continue to make this country a superpower if we do not give them the tools they need? One of those tools happens to be discipline, to make our students accept responsibility for their actions and to have consequences for the actions that they take. That is where we are going to increase production out of our schools. I have been very excited lately because, frankly, in the State of Colorado, in my opinion, we have ended up with a darn good Governor, and he has been very aggressive on education reform. It is very interesting. He came out and said we are going to grade schools. What was interesting about the criticism, a number of people from schools, school administrators, and people dealing with the schools came out and said, ``Governor, how could you possibly use grades, grade schools?'' It is pretty interesting. I always thought, ``Wait a minute, schools. That is what you do. You use grades to grade students. Why should we not use grades to see whether your school is doing what it ought to be doing?'' We have got a Governor in Colorado who stood up to some pretty tough opposition from people in my opinion who do not want to change the status quo and people in my opinion that I would question whether the focus is on the student or on the well-being of some bureaucrats that have opposed this plan. But this plan was signed into law. This is a good plan. Who is the winner? The winner are the students. When students win, who else wins? The teacher wins. The teachers. I will tell my colleagues, most teachers I know are very proud. Most teachers dedicate a lifetime to a career of seeing success in their students. My sister, for example, or my aunt, Jewel Geiger, down there in Walsenburg, Colorado, they take great pride, not in the money they make, they do not make much money as teachers, they take great pride when years after they have sent a student on their way, the student comes back and has a remarkable pattern of success because they were taught responsibility at the lower levels of school. I will tell my colleagues I am excited about education. I have got to tell my colleagues I had a group of students in today. We had some students from Ouray, Colorado. We had some students from Steamboat Springs, Colorado. I had some 4-H students, one from Grand Junction, Delta. So I had several communities in my district represented today, and not all at once. So I had three or four meetings with these students. Canyon City students. I asked the students, I said, let us open it up for questions. I am telling my colleagues, they have experienced it, my gosh, these questions were solid, well-thought-out questions. Their thoughts on policy were well thought out. We have got a great bunch of young people coming up behind us. This next generation is going to have multitudes of more opportunities than any generation that has ever preceded them. This generation has more possibilities, more capabilities than any other generation that preceded them. But this generation could be handicapped by being too politically correct in our schools, by being too politically correct to say to our students they have individual responsibility. They have certain behavior that they have to recognize. There are consequences for misbehavior. If we can give this generation with so much hope and so much promise, if we can set aside the politically correct stuff and just react from our gut and let our local people work on their school boards, I will tell my colleagues this, there is nothing that will stop this next generation. They will lead our country to continue to be the greatest country the world has ever known. We can be safe knowing that, when we turn our country over to this next generation, that we are turning it over to a better management team, to a management team that will make our results look somewhat slow. But we have got to give these young people the tools. It is as good for them as it is for our society to teach individual responsibility. Mr. Speaker, let me wrap up, then, by my conclusion. Number one, I want to caution my colleagues, I am not trying to use this floor for a partisan attack, but we do have in this country, we do have a balance of powers. I spoke tonight about the Republican program, the tax reduction on capital gains, the tax reduction for the homeowners in this country, the tax reduction on the marriage penalty, our pursuit to eliminate the death tax and our elimination of the earnings limit on seniors. We have hit every category out there that I can think of. I am proud of that as a Republican. I think that we should go out, and when we talk to our constituents, we should remember these programs, because what we have done is give incentive to the capitalistic system. Now, everybody out there, regardless of their economic category, wants success. Government only impedes success with taxes that are unfair or punitive or have no sense on their face. We have recognized that, and the Republicans have taken the lead to do something about it. I thank my conservative colleagues on the Democratic side who have joined us. I also thank all of my colleagues who, when the real vote came up there, when it came time to face the music, we had all ``yes'' votes to eliminate for the seniors that earnings limitation. This country is a great country. But we must resolve to be fair to our taxpayers. We must resolve to deliver the best educational product that we can to our next generation, our young people. We must resolve to keep the foundations, the pillars in our foundations strong, those of a strong military, of a strong education system, of a strong health care system, and of a strong military.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I do want to begin this evening with a little concern I have about some hypocrisy that I think has probably gone on. As many of you know, in the last few weeks, we have had some verbiage, I guess you would say, some talk around the Capitol about the issue of Catholics. I am a Roman Catholic. I am no saint, obviously, but I know something about the church. I also know that the Roman Catholic Church, it does not matter what color you are, it does not matter what your nationality is. There are Catholics throughout the world. In the last few weeks, there has been kind of a focused effort, primarily from the Democrats, saying that for some reason the Republicans are biased against Catholics. Obviously, you can take a look at that comment on its face, and you know that it is typical political rhetoric during an election year. I thought it was especially pointed to note, not very many months ago, I stood up here in front of my colleagues and I asked for the support in condemning a museum in New York City that decided to put up a showing of an art piece called Sensation. It was a painting, a portrait or some structure, of the Virgin Mary. Now, in the Catholic religion the Virgin Mary is a very sacred symbol in our church. What happened is this museum allowed, with taxpayer dollars, allowed this exhibit to be shown. What the exhibit was was the Virgin Mary with dung, or cow pie, so-to-speak, in this particular case it was elephant dung, thrown against the picture, clearly degrading, if you want to take a shot at Catholic Church degrading that religious symbol. What was more appalling to me than this particular art exhibit was the fact that the Board of Directors and other members affiliated with this museum actually stuck up for the artist and said that the artist should be entitled to utilize taxpayer dollars to degrade the Catholic religion by putting the Virgin Mary up there in a portrait that shows the Virgin Mary with crap thrown on the picture. Excuse my language, but that is what it is. It was appalling. It was amazing to me. Come on. There is a lot of at the Brooklyn Art Museum. Why would they lower themselves to do this? It is not freedom of expression. The issue here is should taxpayer dollars be used by this museum, and then should this museum endorse that kind of degrading art towards a religion? I want you to know that when I brought that issue up, I did not have very many, in fact, I cannot remember one, Democrat who came up to me and said, ``Boy, we are with you. You talk about bias against the Catholic religion. We feel so strongly about protecting the Catholics from bias, that we are going to join you in your criticism of the Brooklyn Art Museum.'' Not one person on that side of the aisle came up. I think it is important, not to be overly combative here tonight, but I just want to point out, when I hear members on your side of the aisle criticizing Republicans because we had a Catholic mass last week, that somehow this is some kind after prejudice, and yet when the real test comes, when the real McCoy is out there, and that is that kind of exhibit degrading it, you sat silent. You sat silent. If that would have been a symbol from the Jewish religion, or a Buddhist symbol, or would have been a symbol against some other type of religion in this country, I suspect all of you would have come off your hands, gone to that Brooklyn Art Museum, you would have had protests and been protesting violently, or ``strongly'' I guess is a better word. But not one. You sat on your hands when we talked about the Brooklyn Art Museum and the Catholic church and the degrading of that symbol. So I hope this pro-Catholic, anti-Catholic stuff kind of dies down, because I am telling you, some of you that start to criticize the fact that the Republicans had a Catholic mass, I am telling you that you are not entering this with clean hands. What needs to happen is this issue ought to just resolve itself. Let everybody in this chamber practice the religion that they wish to practice. I do not think you need to go on an attack, telling a person, whether they hold public office or not, that they are biased against one religion or another. I just do not think it is necessary. The Budget and the Death Tax Let us move off of that issue to an issue that I think is fundamentally more important. First we have got to talk a little about the process when we work through the budget. We have a process back here in the United States Congress called the annual budget. The President as a guiding tool for Congress proposes his own budget. Now, this is a very complicated document, as is the budgetary document that comes out of the House of Representatives. The budget is very complex. Obviously it involves a lot of money. But when we got the President's budget, of course, and I am a Member on the Committee on Ways and Means, and the Committee on Ways and Means decides the tax issues. We have the broadest jurisdiction probably of any committee in Congress. We decide the trade issues, very active in that area this year, Medicare-Medicare issues, very active in that area, Social Security issues, very active in that area. But when the President's budget comes, we analyze that budget. We look at the fine print on that budget. We take a look and see, you know, what is in that budget that we ought to understand. Is it a wolf in sheep's clothing, what is contained in the fine print. I will tell you what we found in the fine print, we had a lot of debate about it today on the House floor, and that is we discovered there are 84, mark this, 84 new, brand new programs, in the Federal budget under the President's budget. Eighty-four new programs. I need to tell you, our economy is going well and our constituents are pretty satisfied with the economy. But let us do not try and throw a bunch of new Federal programs on them, because this economy may not stay strong forever. We know if you look on an historic basis of our economy, you see dramatic shifts throughout the years. At some point in time the big boom we are having, the strong growth that we have enjoyed, it is going to turn. We know that. It is cyclical in its nature and by its nature. So when the times are good, you have to practice self-restraint. You cannot go out and blow all the money. It is kind of like coming across a windfall of money individually in your own budget. I think it would be a mistake, personally, for you to take a sudden windfall of money and go out and spend it all, or even overcommit yourself to the future, assuming at some point in time you are going to come across another windfall of money. This is not the time to be building up the size of the Federal Government. This is the time to start reducing the size of the Federal Government and shifting these programs to the state and local government, where accountability is much, much better, where management of their budget is much more accountable to the taxpayer. That is why today we had some pretty heated debate. We had a very heated debate about these 84 programs. The Democrats, frankly, were trying to defend the programs. In fact, one of the arguments that came across was why do you just bring out the fact that 84 new programs are there? Why do you not bring out the good things in the budget? Look, our job is to point out things that I think are going to create some problems. That whole budget is not bad. There are some things in that budget that are acceptable, we all know that. But we have an obligation, in fact I think we have a fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayers of this country, to go through that budget line-by-line and point out what is going to happen. Somebody said, well, why do you bring it out? The reason we bring it out is I want all of our constituents to know that if we adopt the President's program, the President's budget, they are going to have with the signing of a pen 84 new Federal programs, in addition to what we have right now. There is also something that I found very alarming in the President's budget. It impacts my district significantly, and I venture to say it impacts every one of my colleagues' districts significantly. Let me tell you what it is about. The death tax. When you take a look at the Federal tax system, probably the most punitive element of our tax system, the element that has the least amount of justification, although it is followed closely by the marriage penalty, is the death tax. What is the death tax? The death tax means that the Federal Government comes to your estate, i.e., the property left after you pass on, they come to your estate, and if your estate is valued over a certain amount of money, $650,000 or a little more than that, they then assess what in essence is a very punitive or punishing tax against your estate. Now, mind you, this is the United States of America. This is the country where we tell our young people, go out and build a fortune, go out, and it does not have to be in money, go out and build a farm, go out and have a ranch, go out and be a great teacher, go out and find the home of your dreams. And yet when they do, if you are too successful, all of a sudden you see your own government saying whoa, whoa, whoa, you have been too successful. You actually were able to build a farm that maybe you can pass on to the next generation. We do not want that to happen. We better punish you for success. That is exactly what the death tax is about, punishment for success. The incentive that makes our country great, that makes the capitalistic system work, is that you are rewarded for success. You are not punished for success, you are rewarded for success. This death tax needs to be eliminated. It is in our system today. How did it get in the system? If you look back at the history of taxation, what happened was some people decided, hey, that is the way to transfer wealth. Instead of transferring wealth through the capitalistic system, i.e., you come up with a better idea, or you come up with a product, they decided we need to do it by fiat. We need to go ahead and have the government waive a magic wand and look at people and say hey, you have been too successful, so we are going to penalize you when you die. Instead of allowing your family to continue the operation of your small business or the operation of a ranch or a farm or for you to have assets, by the way, of which you have paid taxes on your entire life, these are not untaxed assets, these are assets of which you have already paid your taxes on, you have paid your fair share, and the government comes in and says we are going to transfer it. You know, after a while it begins to bother the person who works, if you continue to transfer things of gain from the person who works and award it to the person who does not. How long do you think a society can continue to operate if you penalize the working person and reward the person that is not working, who, by the way is capable of working? I am not talking about disabled people. I am talking about fully capable of working? This is a transfer tax. It is a defiance of the capitalistic system. It is a tax that would have Adam Smith turn in his grave. His Wealth of Nations has a special chapter devoted to just exactly this problem in a capitalistic system. But when we discuss the death tax, let us take a look at what the President's budget does with the death tax. The Republicans have a pretty simple proposal: The Republicans say about the death tax, let it meet its death. No pun intended. Let us strike it. Get rid of the death tax. You cannot justify it. It is not fair to the taxpayers. When you really look at the details of the death tax, the amount of revenue that we collect is not a whole lot more than the amount of revenue that we put in, and when you take a look what the death tax does to the environment in terms of damage, and you say, wait a minute, Scott, you are confused. You are saying the death tax has something to do with the environment, it hurts the environment? I can tell you in Colorado, the 3rd Congressional District, I am proud as the dickens of my district out there in Colorado, proud as punch of the district and proud as punch of the people out there. But our district has been discovered, and we have got a lot of people who want to move out into our district. I will tell you, we want to sustain our farm and our agriculture base and our ranches out there, it is important, and that open space, beautiful, spectacular. Any of you that have skied in Colorado, you skied in my district, colleagues. You know where it is. It is the mountains, the highest district in the Nation. Many of you would love to live out there. Many of your constituents do live out there. But what is happening, because of the punitive nature of the death tax and because of the increasing value of the property in my district, we are having families who not in their wildest imagination ever thought that the Federal Government would come in, take the ranch or the farm or the small business they put together and break it up, and break it up. Not because of antitrust, not because of some violation of the law by this family, but because that family worked too hard and they became, God forbid, successful. So our government decides to tax it. That is why the Republicans, and there is a distinct line drawn between the parties on this, has said get rid of the death tax. The President has made it very clear, and the vice president has made it very clear, and the Secretary of Treasury has made it very clear, the Secretary of Treasury as you might remember said about this: ``This is selfish for you to talk about getting rid of that. How selfish of you to talk about that.'' How dare you say to the government, why are you entitled? Maybe somebody else ought to ask the government, why are you entitled to take this? What gives you the fundamental right to go into a family and take it, a ranching family for example, who for generations struggled to make this go, and, all of a sudden the property goes up in value, and somebody meets an untimely death and the government is able to take it away? The President's and vice president's position is hey, we oppose doing away with the death tax. The reason? Well, it is unfair. It is unfair. You know, it is unfair to the government to do away with it. Not unfair to the people, but unfair to the government to do away with it. Well, I have accepted the fact that until we have a change in administration, that Vice President Gore's and President Clinton's policy is going to continue to be to have the death tax. I was not caught off guard by that. They made their statements very clear. The Republicans have made it very clear they want to eliminate the death tax, and President Clinton and Vice President Gore have made it very clear they want to sustain, they want to keep the death tax. So I was not caught off guard until I read that budget, the President's budget. I feel like they have sold us down the river on this. Do Members know what they do with the death tax? They keep it, all right. They keep it. They increase it, they do not cross it out. They do not cross it out, they keep it. Then do Members know what they do? Look at this word: Increase the death tax. That is exactly what the President's budget does. That caught us off guard. We knew the President was going to defend this tax, which I think is indefensible. We knew the Vice President was going to stand right by him, as he has with all the other troubles that the President has had. But we did not expect it, and I am not sure, maybe the Democratic Party expected it, maybe they knew about it in advance, but it caught us off guard. Today several Members on that side of the aisle got very aggressive. When we brought that up, they said, why do you bring up the death tax in the President's budget? Why do Members not bring up the good programs in the President's budget? Because there are a lot of programs that are good programs in the President's budget that we may not have a problem with. But the Republicans have a real problem with, one, the existence of the death tax, and two, the audacity of the administration through its policies, and the Vice President through his policies, to increase the death tax, increase it. If we talk about an insult to the working people of America, come on, government. Back off. Do we want to destroy these ranches and family businesses? It has always been a father's and mother's dreams that some day they could be in a business they could pass on to the next generation, or to the next 50 generations. We all work at that. Every one of us in these chambers think of our demise at some point in the future and we want to build something for our kids. We want to build something to give to them, whether it is a small business or something of a value to help them get a start. We all want that. The government ought not to be stepping in there to take it away from us, and they sure as heck should not be increasing it. I would hope that every one on the Democratic side would join us on the Republican side and say no to any further increase in the death tax. It does not take a hero to say no on this thing. It is an easy policy question. It should not have occurred. I want to move on a little and talk about some of the taxes and the tax breaks and things we talked about. Every time we have tax season, we hear people get up on both sides and they talk about, well, this is how much taxes have raised. It is true, the biggest bite in the history of the country, I think, or since World War II, the biggest percentage of tax bite in the country exists today. There are a lot of statistics I can tell Members about. But what I think we need to do, I think we need to say, hey, let us face the music. Let us talk about really what kind of substantive tax changes have taken place that benefit our constituents, the people out there who are working for a living; what really have we done? I want to take an example of what the Republicans have done. I am very proud of the Republican leadership on taxes. I can tell the Members that there has been a diversion, a red herring thrown out there, so to speak, by the Democrats talking about, well, the Republicans want to cut taxes and they are going to ruin social security, or the Republicans want to cut taxes and it is going to ruin Medicaid or Medicare, or the seniors are not going to be able to eat tomorrow. We hear all that rhetoric. Let us, though, put the rhetoric aside. Let us talk about the differences, because it is a fair discussion. It is not under-the-belt politics, it is a fair discussion, what are the differences in taxes. Another fair question is, since control of the House of Representatives is going to be up in November, another fair question to ask of the Republicans, all right, Republicans, where is your proof in the pudding? What is the proof in the pudding? What have you done for the American people about taxes? What have you done? Let us go through a few things. The one that I am probably the most proud of is the House. When we took control of the United States Congress, despite opposition from the Democratic Party, we looked out there and said, what is a reasonable tax reduction program that we can do to help the average Jane and the average Joe out there working away? What can we do to give them some help? We sat down and we had lots of discussions about this. The conclusion we came up with is that there are a lot of people in American that own homes. Even since we had that discussion, the amount of home ownership has gone like this. What a great country. It is a wonderful country that people, most people in this country have the opportunity to own their own home. That opportunity starts at a very young age. I have employees who owned their own home when they were in their early twenties, 21 or 22 years old. That is great news. But what happens with this house? How can we help the homeowner in this country, which are most of Members' constituents? Most of our constituents own homes out in our districts. So the Republicans decided as a priority we should get some kind of tax relief for the homeowner. Does it amount to anything more than a hill of beans? You bet it does. You bet it does. This tax reduction that we put in place a couple of years ago is probably the largest tax break that any of our constituents have gotten in the last 20 years. It is a huge tax break if someone owns a home in this country. What are we talking about? Let us go through a little history on this. Let me talk about the old law before the Republicans changed it. It was our leadership, and I am proud of that. Again, let me just caution, I am not trying to get partisan here, but I am describing somebody that deserves a pat on the back and a distinguishment between the parties. That is fair game, as I said. The old law on home ownership is that if you bought a home say, for example, for $100,000, and you were in an area of growth 15 or 20 years ago, although today with the kind of economy we have we see this appreciation in value occurring at a much faster rate, but let us say over 15 or 20 years you bought a $100,000 house and you sold it for $350,000. Unless you were over 55 years of age, and even then only once in a lifetime, then you would get an exemption up to, I think, $125,000. But what happened, you bought the home for $100,000. Let us say you are under 55, or maybe over, but you already took your once-in-a- lifetime exemption. Let us say this is a 40-year-old couple. Let us say they bought a home, using this example here, they bought the home for $200,000. They bought it 20 years ago. The years are not important, but let us just give the years for appreciation and value of the home. They sold the home for $700,000. That means their profit on the home was $500,000. They made $500,000 on the profit of their home. Under the old law, they were taxed on the $500,000 net profit. Under the law that the Republicans passed, and we did have, by the way, support, and initially we had opposition by the Democratic leadership, but they came around when they saw it was going to be a done deal. We did have some support from some Democrats, and some conservative Democrats helped us all along, by the way. What we did is passed a bill that goes out to couples, individual homeowners as well. It says, we are going to allow you the first $250,000. The first $250,000 of profit that you make on the sale of your home, we are going to allow you to have that tax-free. You get to put that first $250,000 per person, and now remember, most homes are owned by couples, so it is $500,000 per couple, you get to take that money, put it in your pocket, no taxes. Under the old law, the only way one could defer the taxes, and they still had to pay the taxes, but the only way to defer the taxes was to go ahead and buy a home of at least the same cost or a greater cost than the price that you sold your home for. So what we did is went out to every homeowner in this country, and we have said, if you have had any kind of value growth in your home and you sell that home recognizing that value growth, or in other words, you sell that home for a profit, that profit, up to $250,000 goes right into your pocket. Mr. Speaker, my colleagues have had many of their constituents, probably, who have sold homes in the last 2 years. Members ought to go see what kind of smile is on their face because of the fact we went out to the homeowner, and it did not break the government, and despite what the administration says, it did not break social security, it did not cost us money in education, it did not impact in any kind of negative fashion the health care delivery in this country. What it did do is it went out to people, and in most cases this is our constituents' largest asset in their holdings, is their home. We went out to their largest asset for the average American and said, look, when the time comes that you can sell that home for a profit, you get to keep as an individual up to $250,000, and you get to put it right in your pocket and walk away from the deal. If you are married, you each get to keep up to $250,000. What else is great about this? It does not happen once in a lifetime. The old law says you get to do it once. The new law says you get to do it every 2 years. You can take the money, go buy another home, and let us say a more reasonable approach, let us say you sell a home today as a couple, you make a couple of hundred thousand dollars profit, tax- free, put it in your pocket. Let us say you go buy another home. You buy a $100,000 home. You live in that home for the next 2 years. Let us say that the economy continues to grow stronger and you sell it for $175,000, so you have made $75,000 profit. Two years have gone by, you get to take that $75,000, which, by the way, it is your money, and you get to put it in your pocket tax-free. That is probably the most significant tax break that our constituents have received in the last 20 years. By gosh, I am proud to be a Republican and I am proud to say it was under our leadership that we got that done. Let us talk about another tax bill that we got done out of this House, and I am confident it is going to move out of the Senate. It was done under Republican leadership, despite opposition by the administration, although now the administration says they will sign it. Why? They see the writing on the wall. It is fair. How can anyone argue against it? That is the conclusion, in my opinion, that the White House reached. What is it? Remember some of the great things that have made our country such a superpower, a superpower in many definitions of the word? We can start it by talking about family. Family is a fundamental pillar in this country. Religion is a fundamental pillar in this country. Freedom is a fundamental pillar in this country. Education is a fundamental pillar in this country. Let us talk about one of those pillars: Marriage. This country as a policy should encourage marriage, should encourage families. Families are what have made this country great. We have an obligation to build as strong families as we can. In the government, we have an obligation to encourage families, encourage marriage. What did this government do? They penalized people who got married. Our tax rate in many cases was higher simply because of the fact that you were married. For no other reason besides the fact that you were married you paid a higher tax than if you were to file as two single individuals. Is that intelligent thinking? Is that how we encourage people to go out and get married, is to penalize them for getting married? We just talked about what we do, we penalize people, their survivors, when they die. But that was not enough for this government. They had to go out and hit in the other end, as soon as they die, and in between we are going to nail them again and again. The marriage penalty, this House passed it. Again, I am proud of the Republican leadership. We took the lead on that. We should feel no shame in going out to our constituents and talking about the fact that we want to get rid of that death tax, that it is unfair; that the marriage penalty that we lead on, we are going to get rid of that. The homeowner tax break that we put in place, there was that. We are giving homeowners an opportunity. Those are three major pieces of legislation that have been accomplished under Republican leadership. But we are not done. We are not done. What else happened in the last couple of years? A big factor, a big thing. Almost it is somewhere pushing, I think certainly over 50 percent, but years ago not very many people owned stock in the stock market. That really was kind of a rich man's, a rich woman's, game. It was a sophisticated operation. It still is sophisticated, but really one only saw the upper echelon of our society in economic categories investing in the stock market. That has changed dramatically just in the last 10 years. Today, Mr. Speaker, well over 50 percent of our constituents have investments in the stock market. Now a lot of them may not realize they have investments in the stock market because they own shares of a mutual fund or they do not know that their retirement monies are invested in a stock market, but they are. They also do not realize that when these investments are sold that this government has another tax they pull out of the sky called the capital gains taxation. Where did this tax come from? Let me say, first of all, most of the European countries do not have it or if they have it it is at a much lower rate. Why? Because it does not create capital. It defies the system of capitalism. It encourages nonproduction. It encourages people to sit on their duff and not do anything because if they do do something the government comes in as a partner that did not participate much and takes a big chunk out of it, what is called capital gains taxation. What we did in the Republican leadership, and again I am proud of it, and I do have to say there were some conservative Democrats that joined us, but frankly the Democratic leadership did not. They opposed us. They said it was a rich man's game. Well, let me say, if this is a rich man's game I have a lot of rich people in my district playing a rich man's game, and these rich people happen to be everything from stocker at the local grocery store to teachers and so on and so forth. They are not wealthy as far as an asset category is concerned. They may be wealthy in their profession and wealthy in love and so on, but this covers a lot of people. We felt an obligation to lower that tax which at one time was 28 percent. It was 28 percent when we got our hands on it. We lowered it to 20 percent. We wanted to get rid of it but the President would not hear of it. The President insisted it stay at 28 percent. We were able to compromise. We got it down to 20 percent and it was signed into law. Now one says 8 percent. Come on, what is 8 percent? What kind of a difference does 8 percent make? It makes a lot of difference and it makes a lot of difference to our constituents. Take 8 percent off that tax bite and that means something. Those are a lot of dollars. I have had several constituents come up to me and say, wow, thanks. That was terrific. Know what happened when we lowered the capital gains taxation rate? We did not break Social Security. We did not cause anyone to get less delivery in health care. We did not have all of these kind of nightmare scenarios that people that are opposed to legitimate, logical tax reductions, we did not see the sky fall in, not at all. Now let me say, some of the people who criticized some of the ideas for tax reduction, some of their criticisms are right with particular ideas. Some ideas work the opposite way. I mean, our government has to have taxes to operate. We all acknowledge that, but we acknowledge that the government ought to be accountable with those tax dollars. We think the government ought to have individual responsibility in this country and the government should not go under the days of the great society like we had under Lyndon Johnson where the government provided for everything; that they felt that the individual power and responsibility should be shifted to a central government in Washington, D.C. It was a huge failure. It was an experiment that failed. There are some ideas that are pretty wild about tax reduction. Some people would like to have no taxes at all. Logic, your gut, your gut reaction says that is not going to work. We have to approach this in a fair and in a balanced manner. That is what we have done. Let me again go through these tax reductions. Number one, we need to get rid of that death tax summarily. That death tax is punitive and it is unfair, and eliminating the death tax, certainly opposing the President and vice president's proposal in their budget this year to raise the death tax, to increase the death tax, is a non-starter. I wish the vice president and the President would work towards elimination of the death tax, not towards increasing their dependence on it and hiking it up. We are going to continue that fight. With the proper changes in November, I hope we can eliminate the death tax but in the meantime we have to fight this proposed increase by the Clinton- Gore team to raise the death tax. The second thing we have done, we repealed the capital gains tax on the sale of that home. Remember I talked about that, the capital gains, when someone sells their home we give them a $250,000 per person renewable every two years tax break. One gets to keep that income, gets to put it in their pocket. Take a look at the marriage penalty. Out of this House we said and it was under Republican leadership, it is not fair to punish people that are getting married. We eliminate that marriage penalty tax. It is not right. I think we are going to get that to the President in the not too distant future and I think the President who originally opposed it is going to sign it. Our capital gains reduction program, remember that we have taken capital gains from 28 percent down to 20. It was a logical move. If one wants to see what had a major impact and boosted this economy over the last 3 or 4 years, I think we can tie a great portion of that gain directly to the fact that we freed up capital by reducing the capital gains taxation. That was a smart, logical tax reduction. The sale of one's own personal residence is a smart, logical tax deduction. Elimination of the death tax is not only smart, it is not only logical, it is punitive to keep it. It is unfair to keep it. The marriage penalty, if we want to encourage families, it is a logical, fundamentally fair path to take by eliminating that. Now some people have said, hey, what about seniors? What is going to be done about seniors, Republicans? It is interesting how in an election year all of a sudden we hear bashing, Republicans do not care about seniors. That is ridiculous. I do not know one Member on this floor, Democrat or Republican, I do not know one Democrat or Republican, in fact I do not know anybody anywhere, who is going to stand up and say I do not care about seniors. Yet that statement is a political statement that actually picks up some votes, perhaps, for people making the statement. I mean really, think about it. How many people do any of us know, Mr. Speaker, that do not want to help seniors; that want to just abandon seniors; that do not want seniors to have health care? Well, I can say that in the 40 years when the Democrats held control of this House, they did not eliminate the death tax. In fact, it was put in place. They did not eliminate the homeowner tax. In fact, it was put in place. They did not eliminate the marriage penalty. In fact, it was put in place. Now when they talk about seniors, there is a delineation again. It is the Republicans, after repeated opposition by the President and the vice president and the Democratic leadership on the floor, it is the Republicans who stepped forward and said, wait a minute, we have something wrong in our tax system as it deals with seniors. Let us talk about what is happening to seniors out there, specifically seniors between 65 and 69 years old. Under the current tax system, if one is a senior and there are 800,000 out of them out there, if one is a senior in that age bracket and they go to work, the government, after they make more than $17,000, punishes them for working. What? Yes. Let us repeat that. The government says if seniors want to work and they are between 65 and 69 years old, we are only going to allow them to make $17,000 and no matter how hard they work, no matter how badly they need seniors to fill this job, we are going to penalize them $1 for every $3 they make. That is right, we are going to penalize them $1 for every $3 that they make. How can something like that come into being? Logically, what brought that about? What happened is many, many decades ago there were not enough jobs. Today we face just exactly the opposite scenario; there are too many jobs. I guess we can never have too many jobs. Let us say there are too many jobs that are not filled. Back then, there were not enough jobs so once again Washington, the think-tank back here in the Potomac, turned on the light and said, well, this is what we will do, let us penalize, let us force seniors, let us push them out of the job market. Let us get those old fogies, let us move them out of there, by gosh. It is not right, but that is what happened. The policy adopted just like the great society in the sixties, which was a great failure, and I guess we cannot call a failure great, it was a huge failure, this, too, has become a huge failure. Why would we push senior citizens out of the labor market? Well, under Republican leadership I am proud to say, and it is interesting to note, that after all of the years that we have tried to get this done and we have had objections from the other side of the aisle, from the Democrats, it is interesting to note that when we finally, when we finally put it up so that this bill could face the music, when we really put the challenge up there and the vote had to be registered on this board up here, I think that left the House a week or so ago unanimously. I do not think there was a no vote in the Chamber. I do not think there was a no vote in the Chamber. What does it do? We now say to seniors between 65 and 69 years old, guess what? The government has changed its policy. We have determined that it is not a good policy to punish seniors for staying in the labor market. So every one of us on both sides of the aisle can go back, but I have to say while I say on both sides of the aisle, in fairness when my colleagues go back to their constituents they ought to say it was Republican leadership that got it done. Democrats had 40 years to do some of these things: The house credit, the capital gains reduction, the death tax, the marriage penalty and now the seniors. But they deserve some of the credit. After all, they voted for it when it came up. We did not have any no votes on the House Floor. The fact is this: Seniors, 800,000 of them between 65 and 69, they have good news headed their way. The President is going to sign that bill and they are not going to pay taxes, they are not going to be punished because they want to work in the labor force. In fact, we encourage them to be in the labor force. I think it makes them live longer. I think it is great for them and I think they provide a terrific asset to our economy. Well, let me move from all of these taxes. The reason I have hit taxes in our night side chat this evening so intensely is because we have April 15 coming up but it is time for a new topic. America, The Only Superpower in the World