Scott McInnis

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would note that I will be happy to yield to the gentlewoman from the Committee on Rules when the time is appropriate. Mr. Speaker, good evening. I am pleased that I have an opportunity to visit with all of my colleagues this evening about an issue that is very dear to my heart, an issue that I am going to spend the next, say, 45 or 50 minutes talking to you on several different areas that I think we should review, an issue that is not only dear to my heart but dear to everybody's heart that is sitting on this floor. As my colleagues know, I have never been at a stage in life where I had children that were of the age that could now serve in the military. My wife, Lori, and I are very privileged to have three children: Daxon, Daxon is 22 years old; Tessa, who is 21 years old; and Andrea, who is 17 years old. As my colleagues can guess, my concern today is about the military action that is being taken in that land far away called Kosovo or Yugoslavia. I thought we would start out by covering several points. I want to give you just somewhat of a brief history, talk about what are the real interests of the United States. At this point in time, Mr. Speaker, I would be happy, so that we could go ahead and take care of the rule, to yield to the gentlewoman for the rule.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, well, we will go back to the Kosovo discussion, but I do, first of all, want to acknowledge the Committee on Rules. As my colleagues can see, it is after 10 o'clock at night back here in the East, and that Committee on Rules is still working hard. They put in a lot of late hours, and I know they are appreciated by the Members on this floor. Let us go back to my outline about what I am going to discuss this evening on Kosovo and Yugoslavia. First of all, we are going to talk a little on the brief history, just give you summary. I am not a historian, I am not a teacher or a professor, so I am not going to go into great detail, but I do want to summarize kind of the scenario or the historical perspective that I think is important for me to get to the other points of this speech. We are going to talk about what are the interests of the United States. As my colleagues know, before the United States enters any type of military action, we need to define, we need to have a clear interpretation and a clear definition of why it is that we are doing what we are doing, what is it about the authority. Do you have the authority to invade the sovereign territory of another country? Under what conditions does that authority exist, and do we meet those conditions? Talk about what the European responsibility is in this situation, what the cost is to the American taxpayers, and I think you will be surprised by the numbers that I give you this evening as to what it is going to cost the American taxpayers to complete this action over the next 2 to 3 years. We should talk about the humanitarian effort. Clearly, no matter where you fall on the side of the policy that is now being followed by this country in regards to Kosovo, we can all agree on one thing, and that is that there is a just cause for a humanitarian effort. We will talk a little bit about the humanitarian effort. We will also talk about the deployment of ground troops. I have read the press lately, I have read and been briefed and so on that there is an urge to put ground troops in over there. Let us talk a little about that this evening. What are the logistics involved? What do ground troops really mean? What kind of numbers of ground troops are we going to have to have to go into this situation, not just to keep the peace, but do we ever stand a chance of making the peace? And tonight my colleagues will see that I distinguish between keeping the peace and making the peace. We will talk a little bit about NATO, what the military facts are of NATO, and I want to visit about what I think how this conflict will probably end, what my best guess is, what the wild card is. We know what the wild card is out there. We are going to talk a little more about the Russians; that is the key, that is the wild card; talk about the refugee problem, and of course we will emphasize our support for the troops. But let us talk a little about and let us look first at the map and talk a little bit about the history. This is Yugoslavia, just an outline right here. To give you an example, right there where the red dot is, that is Belgrade. Probably as we are speaking, as I am speaking right now, there are bombing missions or sorties being taken over the community or the city of Belgrade. The important region down here, this is Kosovo, right here where I am circling with the red dot. That is called Kosovo. The reason that I brought the map is that my colleagues need to understand there are some individuals who are talking about an occupation of this portion of Yugoslavia. By going in there with a military force some have even suggested a partition, partition out this area called Kosovo away from the sovereign mother country of Yugoslavia. What is key about that is to remember that in any country and with any of us sitting in these Chambers one of the things of which we have the strongest fundamental views about is our religion. This is a key issue here. Remember that in Yugoslavia the Serbs, many of the monuments of their religion, the birthplace of their religion, is in this very territory down here that some people are suggesting to separate from the main country and to put under some type of partition or under some type of occupation by a foreign force. That is a key issue, to see whether we can resolve it by the occupation, and that is how are you going to address this religious difference? What are you going to say to those people? What are you going to say to the Serbs, the Serb citizens, by the way, not the leadership, but the Serbs and the citizens of Yugoslavia, that they cannot go down to the territory and visit their religious monuments. It is a point we ought to remember. Remember that in this country, and we have left the map now. We probably will not have to come back to where we may come back a little later on to talk about Macedonia and Albania and so on. But the history of this country, I have heard many people talk about this is a genocide. I have no disagreement with these individuals when we talk about the tragedies that are going on, but I want to point out that this is different than Hitler. I have seen a lot of comparisons to Hitler. There are atrocities, but remember the atrocities and the historical perspective have occurred on both sides. We are in between two bad characters. Now I am not talking about the innocent citizens of the country. I am talking about the leaders of the KLA, the Kosovo liberation organization, and I am talking about Milosevic and Yugoslavia, the leaders, the dictators, over in that country. They are both bad characters. And when we talk about the genocide, that would infer a Hitler type of situation where we went to an innocent population, the Jewish population. They were not engaged in a civil war. He just wiped them out because they were Jewish. In this particular country there is killing going on in both sides. It has been for hundreds of years. Take a look at the history 1389. The Serbs and the Turks engaged in the battle over the disputed territory here in Kosovo. In Yugoslavia, the Serbs lost that battle, but to this day they still celebrate it as a holiday. This conflict has lots of history. This conflict has guilty parties, so to speak, on all sides. I am going to talk a little more extensively about the KLA as we get into it, but what we are intervening in here is not a genocide. We are intervening in a war of which we know very little about, a civil war. To me, it makes as much sense as having the Mexican Army come across the borders of the United States to try and resolve the battle between the North and the South. How well do you think that would have gone over? What did the Mexican Army really understand about the conflict between the North and the South? What does the United States really understand on the historical conflict in Yugoslavia? I think our understanding is limited. I think their understanding, it is their home territory, it is their religion, it is a battle that has been going on for a long time. Take a look at the historical perspective of the United States. How successful have we been in our history when we have intervened in the civil war of another country? We have never been successful in that kind of intervention. Now there are times, if you get a mass of enough force, that we are able to step between two warring parties; for example, Cyprus. On the island of Cyprus we have something called the green line. It is the line that separates the Greeks from the Turks. We have been there for 27 years under the auspices of the United Nations. Have we made the peace between the Greeks and the Turks? No. We stood between them. We have kept them apart from each other. What will happen in my opinion the day that we will pull U.N. forces or American forces or a peacekeeping force out from between these parties? They are going to go back to doing what they have done for a long, long time. In my opinion, they do not like each other any better today than they did 30 years ago when we put the green line in. So the green line is able to keep peace between the parties as long as we are willing to continue this long-term commitment, but they have never made peace between the parties. Is the United States or NATO going to be able to make the peace between these parties? You will note during my conversation that I keep referring to the United States. Well, the United States is, in fact, operating under the auspices of NATO. But take a look at what the proportions are. The United States by far is carrying a minimum of 90 percent, in my opinion, a minimum of 90 percent of the cost, 90 percent of the forces, 90 percent of the bombs, 90 percent of the equipment. So when I talk about the United States, I understand that this is a NATO operation. But I also think it is fair for us to determine what proportion the United States is carrying, and I think it is also fair for us to explain to the American people, whom I think already know, that the United States by far has the heaviest weight on their shoulders. Well, is the United States going to be able to go into this country, into this dispute that involves hundreds of years of history, that involves religion, that involves atrocities on both sides? Is the United States militarily going to be able to go in and make the peace? I do not think so. Is the United States willing to go in and give the kind of long-term, expensive commitment, expensive not just in dollars but, even more importantly, in human lives to try and keep the peace? I do not know. I do not think so once we have a clear understanding of just how difficult this will be and what the small chances of success are. Now I do, as I mentioned earlier, believe that the United States has a very clear role from a humanitarian aspect. As my colleagues know, that is one of the things we can be awful proud about in this country. I am darn proud to be an American. I am very, very proud of our forefathers, of our children and of the obligations that this country voluntarily takes on to help people in need. This country's greatness is in part built on our humanitarian efforts throughout history for other countries, but there is a large difference between humanitarian effort and the military effort. Let me talk about the next issue that I think we need to talk about, and what are the interests of the United States? Of course, the United States, we are God-loving people. We are people who, generally, we do believe in peace. We oppose oppression. The question here is, how do we distinguish between an action in Yugoslavia and, say, an action in the Sudan or Rwanda? Now granted Sudan and Rwanda are not on the CNN news every hour or every half an hour and have not been for the last several months, but I can tell you that the atrocities that are being committed in those countries greatly exceed the atrocities that were being committed in Yugoslavia before we started the invasion. In fact, you will see that the punishment being dealt up unfairly in Yugoslavia to the Albanians, to the Kosovo Albanians, was actually much, much less prior to the NATO invasion, much, much less than any of these other countries, but the United States must make a very conscious decision on where the interests of this country are that are necessary for us to enter into a conflict. One of them is we do not like to see people being killed. We do not like it anywhere. We value human life at the very highest of the rungs on the ladder. It is supreme to us, human life. But we cannot be the world's police officer. We cannot go to Rwanda tomorrow. We cannot go to Sudan. The question is: What is the difference here? Why are we over there in Yugoslavia? What justifies that any more than acting or failing to act in the Sudan or in Rwanda? Is it a national security interest? Is the Yugoslav Army capable of a military threat to the continental United States? The answer is, no. Is it a threat to the European continent? I have heard over and over and over again about how this is going to spread throughout Europe; this is how the world war started. It is not how World War I started by the way. And this is going to lead to World War III if we do not quickly get in there and contain this situation. I disagree with that very, very strongly. I do not see this as a threat to the European continent, meaning that it is going to flow throughout its borders and create a war on the European continent. If, in fact, that is true, the Europeans ought to frankly pick up a little heavier load on this particular mission. Maybe the Europeans ought to handle the military aspect of this mission and let the United States handle the humanitarian aspect of it. I frankly do not think the Europeans are carrying their fair share of the load here. Once again, it is the good old United States that is carrying the load. So we do not have a national security threat; we do not have a threat to the European continent. Do we have an economic, a world economic threat? Do we have even a more specific economic threat as a result of the actions occurring in Yugoslavia? The answer to that is, no, as well. Once we address what kind of interests that we have, then we have to address how do we get out of it? What is the exit strategy? What is the end game? Do we have one here? I think it is very confusing out there. I think NATO is confused by it. I think the American public is confused about it. I can talk to any one of my colleagues out here and I do not think any one of us have a unified exit strategy. Now what are we going to do? That question keeps coming up, now what are we going to do? Where do we go from this point? How well did we think out the fact that hundreds of thousands of refugees would be coming across these borders; in fact, the possibility of creating now a political upheaval in some of these other countries? We have to figure out what our national interests are. I have a pretty simple test to do that. I think that before the United States puts our young men and women in harm's way, we need to, as elected officials, as representatives of the people of this country, we have an awesome responsibility, we have a fiduciary responsibility, to the people of this country, before we commit those young people to harm's way, I think we need to do this test, and this is how I do it, this is the burden I put upon myself: Can I look to the parents of one of these young people right in the eye and tell them that the loss of the life of their young child was necessitated by the best interests of this country, that this young person giving the ultimate supreme sacrifice, their life, was necessary to protect the national interest of the United States of America? My own feeling, my own deep personal belief, I do not think we can meet that standard. I cannot meet that standard because I fail to see what are the national interests. As I mentioned earlier, clearly there are atrocities, and I do not want a misinterpretation coming here, there are atrocities that are being committed. The question is, what role should the United States play? I think the role of the United States would much better be defined and much easier justified and would fall within the realm of our national interests for us to carry out the humanitarian mission, not to be the 90 percent partner, 90 percent partner, on a military action; 90 percent meaning we pick up the bulk of it. Now we have heard some people say, well, yes but the United States just has the heavy load on the beginning. Then as this action proceeds, the other members of NATO will pitch in and carry their fair share, but the United States really needs to carry the burden because they have the equipment, they have the soldiers, they have the money. I can say this, Mr. Speaker, in my opinion, with all due respect to our European colleagues, they are going to sit back and say, hey, let the United States do it; let the taxpayers of the United States pay for it; let the United States put its troops in harm's way; let the United States supply the airplanes; let the United States supply the arsenals; let the United States go in and rebuild what the United States has bombed; let the United States put in what I think is going to be necessary, a miniature Marshall Plan to rebuild all of the destruction and try and create some kind of an economy over there if, in fact, we can get the refugees back in there. This partnership ratio, in my opinion, is not going to change as long as we sit on our hands and are content with carrying 18 other partners, with us carrying 90 percent of the load. It should not work that way. This is a partnership. So we need to figure out, do we have national interests that, in fact, dictate, mandate, require, that we enter into a military action? Well, we certainly did not going into it. I would love to debate any one of my colleagues, anybody in here, to really justify it. Now, remember, we have a humanitarian mission justified but a military mission, based on the history of this country, based on our lack of success, this country's lack of success in the intervention of any civil war, I would like to debate whether we have that national interest going in. Now, of course, the question arises, has the national interest been created now that we are in? Should we just drop NATO? Does it hurt the alliance, the defense alliance, for the United States to all of a sudden stop operations? Well, there is a debate there, and that is a logical question to ask. It is a question I do not fully know the answer to, but I do think that the United States can step forward without jeopardizing the alliance, the importance of the NATO alliance. I am a NATO supporter as far as the concept of that alliance. I do not think we jeopardize that alliance at all for us to step up to our European neighbors and say, hey, the balance is going to change here; you are going to start to carry a heavier burden on your shoulders, European colleagues, European partners, and we are going to start to focus more on the humanitarian effort. That kind of shift, in my opinion, needs to take place. Let us talk about the legal authority. Remember what we had here in Yugoslavia? See the red dot there? What is that following? There is a little tiny line. That little tiny line is what humans have decided to use as a designation of what? Of a border, of a boundary. Someone wants to find a border, as a line drawn in the sand, to see how close they could get to it without going on to the other side of it. Well, that is what this is. This is a sovereign country. Every party involved in this conflict acknowledges that this right here, Yugoslavia, it is a sovereign country and that to go into the region called Kosovo, borders have to be crossed; the sovereign territory of another country has to be crossed. NATO has never gone, without invitation, across a sovereign territory of another country, but they did this time. Now remember not too many years ago the Persian Gulf War? Remember the quotes from our leaders back then? How could Iraq possibly think it is a violation of international law for Iraq to invade the sovereign territory of Kuwait? So the United States went to war with Iraq because Iraq violated that boundary, a boundary very similar to this in definition; violated that boundary, invaded a sovereign country. So the United States, justifiably I might add, went to war to push Iraq back across this sovereign territory. Once the United States pushed Iraq back out of Kuwait and back into its own boundaries, the United States ceased the action because the theory of the action was simply to defend the sovereign nation, not exclusively but somewhat simply to defend those boundaries of Kuwait. What kind of precedent do we set by allowing NATO to invade the sovereign territory of Yugoslavia and maybe even carve out a part of the country and say we are taking this part of the country from them? What kind of precedent do we set? What happens, for example, if Quebec, in its effort to seek independence, decides to secede from Canada? Does that give the United States justification to bomb Canada? How are we going to address that. That is not a farfetched scenario. What if some of the people in Mexico want Texas either to be independent or go back to Mexico? Does that give Mexico the right to bomb the United States? Sure, a lot of people who are very supportive of the action, the military action, who say do not dare question the policy of the administration, they will say this does not compare, but I am saying, and I put out there to all of my colleagues the question, think about it, try and think historically where we have been successful in a civil war; try and think of other factors or other similar situations in the country, like in the world, like Quebec and Canada, and ask the questions what if, what kind of precedent, what kind of history are we setting with the action that we have undertaken? Let us move on. I have talked about what I think the European responsibility is. I think that a lot of our colleagues, a lot of our partners in NATO, need to pick up a bigger load. I have said that repeatedly during my comments but it does bear repeating again. The United States is a good guy. It is a good country. It is a great country. We truly have been the leaders of the free world for a long time. I think our country is very capable and I think our country has a responsibility on humanitarian aid when we see tragedies, by the way on both sides of this conflict, tragedies on both sides of this conflict, we have a humanitarian responsibility. How do we measure out just how much weight we put in the backpack that the United States is expected to carry compared to the Europeans? I frankly think a lot of our partners in NATO are getting a free ride. It is not their planes that are at substantial risk. Take a look at the money that this country will pay now. Speaking of money, and we are going to talk about cost here in a minute, remember there are lots of ways to shift numbers about but when we get to the bottom line, the bottom line is this is an action by the United States of America. The United States is going to pay a bigger part of it, and I think it is time to have another partnership meeting. I think in that partnership meeting it is time to say to our partners that they are going to have to carry a larger share of the burden here. We are happy to help on the humanitarian effort but from a military point of view, they have to participate more; they have to take a bigger chunk of this. When I talk about military, I am not just talking about the bombing raids, the missions, the sorties we are carrying out over there. I am talking about the time after. Once this thing reaches a cease-fire, and I think it will at some point reach a cease-fire, I am talking about rebuilding that territory that has been destroyed by NATO bombs, or by the Yugoslavia Army. How is that rebuilt and whose obligation is it then? Is it once again going to be 90 percent of the United States of America? I propose that it probably will be, unless we have an administration and a Congress that is strong in saying to NATO, look, to rebuild this, to put in a mini Marshall Plan, there are other countries that are going to have to participate in a very substantial way. The United States cannot be expected to spend a hundred billion dollars at a minimum to put this country back on track. Let us talk about the cost because I just mentioned a hundred billion dollars. I mentioned that earlier in my comments. Now I am putting aside the cost of human lives. Obviously the most painful, the most regrettable and the toughest cost out there is the loss of a human life. With all due respect, we lost two of our military people last night in a helicopter accident. We had our first two fatalities in this action. I regret those losses and to me they are, and to I am sure every colleague I have here, republican and democrat, it is a loss that is substantial to us. Every time we lose a human life in an action like this, it is a substantial loss. Let us talk not about that cost, but let us talk about the dollars. For a moment let us talk about the less important cost, which is the dollars; let us just go to that category and talk about it. Are we in this country prepared to spend at least a hundred billion, billion not million, billion dollars on this action? That is what I think it is going to cost. Let us talk about the cost for a minute. I estimate, and now, there are lots of accounting shifts that go on out there in government books. They will say, there is a carrier out there, for example, that we have assigned to this mission, but we do not really assign the costs of the carrier to this action because we would have had to pay for this carrier to be somewhere, anyway. So we do not add this up. There are all kinds of little tricks that go on. Some of them are legitimate, so maybe the word ``tricks'' is not correct, maybe ``maneuvers.'' There is all kinds of maneuvering that goes on to allocate these costs in different slots. The fact is, I think if we looked at a true cost accounting of what this action is incurring, I would say it is about $1 billion a week, $1 billion a week. Tomorrow on this House floor we are going to have a very healthy debate on supplementing, on the first down payment or one of the first down payments to pay for this project. The expense is not just, as I mentioned earlier, our military mission. When the bombs stop falling, this deal is not over. In fact, we just signed on to a long-term contract. One of the first things that will be demanded is that America, is that the United States, through the auspices of NATO or some other organization, perhaps they will bring the United Nations into this, has an obligation to rebuild, to go in there and build those bridges, to go in there and build an economy. Remember, these refugees who have left this country, why have they left the country? One, because of NATO bombs; two, because of the Yugoslavian army and the slaughter that is going on over there as a result of a wartime action, now; three, their bridges have been destroyed, their drinking water has been contaminated, they do not have any communication abilities, they do not have heating capabilities. They do not have roads, bridges. You name it, it has been destroyed. Somebody has to rebuild it. Guess who it is going to fall upon? In my opinion, it will fall upon NATO, and NATO, of course, will look at the United States and say, look, really, you are a wealthy country. You really should pay for this. And part of it I think we should. I think we should help the refugees. I think we do have an obligation to help get that country on its feet. But I do not think that obligation extends to the percentage of 90 percent. I do not agree with that. But let us take a look. If it remains at about that 90 percent, or we continue to carry the large, unproportionate burden of this, the costs of this action will exceed $100 billion. I can tell the Members, we could do a lot with Medicare, we could do a lot with social security, we could do a lot with education with an extra $100 billion. I have addressed the humanitarian effort. I want to tonight acknowledge everyone from the Red Cross to the different religious organizations to all of the people throughout this country who have collection boxes at local grocery stores to send clothes and books and food to the refugees and to the innocent citizens that are involved in this conflict. That is what has made America great. That is what will continue to keep America great. As strongly as I question the policy of military intervention, I feel that strong about humanitarian intervention. It is appropriate for us to be in there on a humanitarian effort. Our country can handle it. Our country can carry it out. Our country can put a lot of smiles on these refugees' faces. We can clothe them, we can feed them, and we can help them rebuild their country. But where our expertise will get the biggest return is not the military intervention but the humanitarian intervention. During the discussions we have had, we hear a lot of people talk about or debate whether or not we should have ground troops. By listening to some of the government officials or by reading some of the articles in the media, we would think we could put ground troops in there tomorrow if we decided. Let us talk about ground troops. First of all, it would be a huge mistake for the United States to put in ground troops that were not of sufficient quantity and strength to expect a ground war over there. Going into Yugoslavia is not going to be like going into Iraq, where you have a flat desert where you can see your enemies for a long ways. It is not like the Colorado mountains. My district is in the State of Colorado, but it is probably very much like the Blue Ridge mountains in Virginia. I have been over there. I have seen it. This is rugged territory. This is their home territory. As I mentioned earlier, this is the birthplace of the Serbs' religion. This is not going to be an easy place to occupy. In order to do that, we cannot send in 28,000 troops and accomplish the job. If we send in 28,000, we will be grossly undermanned, we will take many, many casualties, and we will wish to God we had sent in three, four, or five times that amount of force. In order for us to really sustain the kind of military ground operation that would be necessary, I would say that at a minimum we need to send in 100,000 ground troops, and probably, more likely than not, closer to 200,000 than 100,000. Are we prepared to move those kinds of troops into Yugoslavia? Putting aside the political argument or the dispute whether or not they should be there, take a look at the logistical challenges that we face. It is an immense project to move just a division, and a division, a light army division, has say 10,000 to 12,000 soldiers. What they call a heavy division contains about 17,000 troops, 17,000 in a heavy division and then 5,000 to 15,000 more troops in support facilities. The equipment necessary to move a division would stretch 700 miles. If we put all of the equipment that is necessary to support a division bumper to bumper, we could probably run a line 700 miles. We have to move that equipment from the United States or from other military bases throughout the world into that region. Take a look at how long it took to move the Apache helicopters over there. What did we have, 24 helicopters? It took a month, 6 weeks? It was not because we were reluctant to move them over there, it is because it took a lot of manpower, it took a lot of mechanical, logistical planning to get those 24 Apache helicopters over there. Take that factor and multiply it by several hundred, if you want to move a division. Just assume several divisions. We are going to have to put several divisions in place if we want to have a successful military intervention on the ground. We cannot ignore that. Now, where do we stage it? This is a large staging operation to move that equipment over there. A lot of people say, let us go to Albania. Albania seems to be a logical location to put the equipment in. The difficulty is that Albania is a very, very poor country. Their airport does not have radar. Their harbor does not have the capability for cranes to reach in and lift tanks out of ships. We cannot move all of this equipment by aircraft. It would take significant infrastructure placement in Albania for us to utilize that as a staging area. The other countries are not very excited, and maybe Macedonia will come around, but the other countries are not very excited about the United States or NATO staging a military action out of their country. So the number one problem we have is, aside from the political commitment or the commitment to put those troops in there in the first place, is logistically, where do we start? Where is headquarters? Who has the logistical capability to help us move that equipment from throughout the world, most of it coming from the United States of America, into that area, servicing that equipment, fueling that equipment, manning that equipment, and then dispersing that equipment where we need to have it dispersed for a successful ground operation? I think it would take several months for us to get that capability in place. Now, once that is mentioned, keep in mind that we just do not have unlimited equipment in the United States. When we dedicate that type of equipment to support that large a ground force in this country, we have to get it from somewhere. Where do we get it from? We get it from other military bases, other U.S. military bases. My point is this: We are diluting the military force in this country to address this particular problem. I do not agree with the policy, but let us just, for the sake of the argument, say that the policy is correct, so we move all of that equipment over there. We have to keep in mind what kind of dilution do we now have in Korea, for example? What kind of dilution do we have in the United States? Are we taking the very best equipment away from our main forces in the United States? We know that the President has already called up the reserves, so we know that our military forces, our troop numbers, are being significantly diluted. The President asked for 30,000 more troops, 28,000 or 30,000 more. It is my opinion if we were to launch a massive ground invasion, which I think would be the safest route to go, if in fact we agree with ground troops in there, and I do not, and I do not agree with the policy, but if that decision were made, I think it is very realistic for us to expect that the President would have to call up draftees. Is this country prepared to reengage in the draft? The draft is already in existence. As we know, 18-year-old males have to register for it. Is this administration, is this Congress, prepared to draft individuals to put that kind of force in place in Yugoslavia while maintaining our strength in Korea, while maintaining our strength in the mainland United States, while maintaining our strength throughout the other areas in Europe? That is a significant question for us to ask ourselves, what kind of dilution can we afford? Even if we want to go in there with ground forces, even if we think this cause justifies an American military action, we still must stand back and say, can we afford or to what extent can we afford to dilute our current military forces? That is an important question. As we know, or maybe Members have not read in the newspapers, for the first time in I don't know how many years we no longer have a carrier in the Pacific arena. We moved that carrier. Orders were given to that carrier to move over to assist in this operation. That is dangerous. Take a look at the deploying of our military forces. In my opinion, some of these cuts have gone way too deep. In my opinion, our military could not sustain, contrary to what the administration says to us, our military cannot sustain two simultaneous major actions at once. It could not do it because the military has been so downsized. Now, to further dilute it for this kind of action, even if it is a just action, we have to assess that responsibility and what the cost of doing that is. I wanted to very quickly cover the members of NATO. We have Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, one of the new members, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. Let me say, in that list of NATO members, they are all well-intended. I am not sure that our fellow partners, as I mentioned earlier, are carrying their fair share, but I will say that, for example, the United Kingdom, I think they have been tremendous. I think proportionately they are probably carrying their fair share. But some of these other NATO members are going to have to step up to the plate. In my opinion, the United States of America is going to begin to question this policy more and more, especially when they see lives of American soldiers, we lost two of them last night, when that begins to become unproportionate, and even one death in my opinion is unproportionate; when they begin to see, the American taxpayers, what these tax dollars are costing, when they begin to see what the dilution is to our current military, I think some serious questions are going to be asked: What are the other members of NATO going to carry? What is their burden? What is their responsibility? NATO, remember, was formed as a defense alliance. This is not a defensive action. Some people will say it is to defend a spread throughout the European continent. I do not think it is, I think it is an offensive action. But nonetheless, we are there. How do we resolve this conflict? What do we do to get out of this conflict? Well, we are in it. While we are in it, I think we have an obligation to support our troops with the best equipment we can possibly get over to them. Granted, it dilutes us. We have to keep a very keen eye on how to work that. But as long as we have one American soldier over there, we have to make sure they are properly equipped and we support the troops. We may disagree with the policy, but we have to give the support to those troops. I think at some point Russia is going to play a key part in bringing a cease-fire to this situation over there. It is my opinion that Russia was not involved in the earlier stages to the extent that Russia should be involved. Why do we say Russia? I know there is a lot of resentment or a lot of ill will towards Russia. Some people will say, they are bygones, they are minute players in this. They are just the player we need, in my opinion, to bring a cease-fire. They have credibility with the Serbs, they have some credibility with the United States, they have credibility with the United Nations, and they have some credibility with members of NATO. Russia may just be the player at the right time and in the right place to bring this thing to a cease-fire. I think what will eventually happen is that the air war, which apparently right now is being stepped up, and I can say that, while I disagree with the policy of being there, while we are there, we might as well carry out the mission that the President has sent those troops over there for. So while this is going on, the sustained bombing, I think Russia will eventually, through negotiations that could be going on right now, bring us to a cease-fire. But there are several elements of that cease- fire that are going to be necessary to carry it out. One, there is going to be a huge, a huge financial obligation put on the members of NATO, primarily the United States, one, to help bail Russia out of its economic problems; and two, to rebuild Kosovo, and to rebuild the infrastructure and put an economy in place that will sustain that country. So that is where I think this action is heading. I do not think this conflict will spread like Vietnam spread, but I hope I do not later eat my words. By the way, speaking of Vietnam, I want to say to all of my colleagues, that some people have said to those of us who question the policy of putting ground troops in Kosovo, who question the policy of the United States' extent of military involvement, they say to us, look, any kind of action outside our boundaries, we must speak as one voice; do not dare question the administration's policies. We have an obligation to question a policy if we in our heart do not think that policy is right, and that is exactly what I intend to continue on doing. Granted, outside our borders we are a very strong country, and within our borders we are a very strong country. But what makes us as strong as we are is that we have the checks and balances in this country; that we are free to speak, to question authority. And that is exactly what has made us as strong as we are. Now, the wild card we have to worry about is if this bombing continues and if Russia is ignored. And to the administration's credit, I do not think they are ignoring Russia. I think the administration and NATO, and, frankly, NATO got in way over its head as far as the refugees were concerned. They never expected these refugees to come over, they never expected to have problems with balance of power in the countries which these refugees go into. NATO did not know what to do with them. I think NATO is looking for a way out. And I think the administration is treating Russia with respect, and I give the administration credit for that. But we have to be very tender with Russia, because at some point Russia may say, all right, we are going to go ahead and sail Russian oil tankers through our so-called oil blockades. And what will NATO do? What NATO will do is they will not stop that ship. If Russia decides they are going to start supplying the Serbs with weapons or, worse, they are going to put a few Russian troops in Belgrade and say, do not bomb Belgrade any more, Mr. President, that is the wild card of Russia. That is why I emphasized that Russia is an important player. They may not have the military significance that they used to have, they may not be the threat from a ground force standpoint or from an operating naval standpoint that they used to be, although clearly maybe they are even more of a threat from a nuclear capability because of our concern of an accidental launch, but they still have all those missiles, so they are a player. It is appropriate to get them right in the middle of this. I want to talk for a moment and then I will wrap it up. I know I have gone on for a while here, but I have because I feel so deeply about this, but I want to talk about the Kosovo Liberation Army, the KLA. In 1998, remember this is 1999, in 1998 the United States State Department listed the Kosovo Liberation Army on the international terrorist list. It is amazing to see the spin that is being put on these people in this Kosovo Liberation Army. Remember that the latest flareup started when the KLA, that is what we will call them, the KLA started sniping and assassinating Serb police officers. So the Serbs, in a typical over-response, started shooting innocent civilians. The KLA in our country would be known as terrorists. Our State Department defined them as terrorists a year ago. But take a look at what is happening on the spin. All of a sudden the KLA are no longer terrorists, now they are being known as rebels or as freedom fighters. The Washington Times this week, I think in Monday's publication, did a detailed article about how the Kosovo Liberation Army is running a heroin operation, the selling of drugs, to finance their military goals. We are about to jump in bed with these folks. We have taken sides with these folks. We have to be very, very careful before we hold hands with a partner like the Kosovo Liberation Army. Let me wrap it up, because I would like to yield to my colleague, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon). My summary will be this: Number one, what is the policy of the United States? What are the national interests that require our investment, require our commitment in this country? What is the history of Yugoslavia? Is it a Civil War, is it a genocide? We should ask ourselves what is the authority, what is the precedent we are setting out there? Are our European partners carrying their responsibility? Are they carrying a fair share of the burden? Are we supporting an organization that, in fact, are drug dealers, the Kosovo Liberation Army; that is, in fact, guilty of the same atrocities or many of the same atrocities as the Yugoslavian troops? And if we are, how do we make that distinction? Of great importance to this country: Are we diluting our military forces to an extent that we are putting our country in danger of another military risk because we have shifted these assets too much in this direction? How will the conflict end? What role should Russia play? Mr. Speaker, this is a very serious conflict. We lost two American soldiers last night. They died. We have a lot of decisions to make. This is a very serious situation for each and every one of us, and the final test, before I yield to the gentleman, the final test is could any one of us, as an elected official, as a government authority, knock on the door of a family and say to the father, the mother, or the spouse or the children, say to them that their loved one lost their life in this conflict and that the loss of their life was necessary for the national interests of this country? If my colleagues cannot now answer that question in the affirmative, then they ought to be questioning this policy the same way I do. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon).

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this moment to recognize the career of one of Colorado's fine physicians and outstanding individuals, Dr. Paul Salmen. In doing so, I would like to pay tribute to a man who has shown, time and again, that it pays to give a little back to the community. In our Community Dr. Paul Salmen is fondly referred to as Dr. Paul. Dr. Paul Salmen is a long time resident of Glenwood Springs, Colorado, who has made a large impact on his community. Aside from his contributions as a physician, Dr. Salmen takes time out of his day to get involved with many local organizations such as Healthy Beginnings, the Youth Recovery Center, Glenwood Medical Associates, the Sunlight Mountain Resorts Ski Patrol and the Pediatric Crisis Committee. In addition to the many organizations in which Dr. Paul Salmen is active, he still finds time to extend his knowledge to the youth as a coach for swimming, volleyball and basketball. He also participates as a soccer and basketball referee. Those who are privileged to know Dr. Paul Salmen know he is well liked and respected by the community. Given his moral character and all the areas that Dr. Salmen dedicates time to, it is no wonder that he was chosen as the recipient of the ``1998 Garfield County-Wide Humanitarian Service Award.'' I have known Dr. Salmen and his wife Nancy Reinisch (who in her own right is a bright star in our community) for years. I have deep respect for the caring they have for people. Dr. Paul and Nancy have dedicated their lives so that other peoples are improved. The Salmens succeed with the tools of compassion, knowledge, advocacy, and dedication. Individuals such as Dr. Paul Salmen, who volunteers his time to a good cause, are a rare breed. Dr. Paul is a model citizen. Fellow citizens and patients have gained immensely by knowing Dr. Paul Salmen and for that we owe him a debt of gratitude.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to recognize one of Colorado's exceptional citizens, Ruth Zemlock. In doing so, I would like to pay tribute to a woman who has shown, time and again, that it pays to give a little back to the community. Ruth Zemlock is a resident of Colorado who has made a large impact on her community through her genuine care for others. Above and beyond being a model citizen, Ruth contributes her time as a volunteer at the Valley View Hospital in Glenwood Springs. For the last 14 years, Ruth Zemlock has given more than 11,000 hours of her time to the hospital. In recognition of her contributions to the community Ruth Zemlock has recently been awarded the ``1998 Senior Volunteer Service Award'' in Garfield county. Obviously, this is a fitting award for such a fantastic public servant. It is said by those how are privileged to know her, that Ruth Zemlock is a delightful lady who dedicates her senior years to making the lives of others a little bit better. Ruth is obviously a women with a warm heart who, selflessly, gives to those in need. Individuals such as Ruth, who volunteer their time to a good cause, are a rare breed. Fellow citizens have gained immensely by knowing Ruth Zemlock, and for that we owe her a debt of gratitude.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to recognize the career of one of Colorado's esteemed reporters, Dean Preston (the recently retired agricultural reporter for The Pueblo Chieftain). In doing so, I would like to honor this man who, for many years, combined hard work and knowledge with his own special personal touch. An individual with so much integrity and compassion will be truly missed and difficult to replace. Beginning his career with The Pueblo Chieftain over 28 years ago, Dean Preston learned and experienced various positions before deciding on a career as an agricultural reporter. What began as a ``gamble'' by the city editor, led Preston to an area of reporting very suitable to him. Growing up on a dry land farm in the Texas Panhandle, Preston had gained an understanding of this type of agriculture. Preston's knowledge of Colorado agriculture was second to none, however, I think all would agree that it was his dedication to the people that made him so unique. He was known to make personal visits to check on crops, regardless of the time and miles it required to get there. During the time Dean Preston spent reporting and editing for The Pueblo Chieftain, he received several awards, one of which was ``Agriculture Champion'' given by the Colorado Cattlemen's Association. Additionally, Preston has recently received honors from the Pueblo County Farm Bureau. After 28\1/2\ years of service to The Pueblo Chieftain, City of Pueblo, and the surrounding areas, Dean Preston begins down a new avenue in life. Few have displayed the dedication and genuine interest that Dean Preston is being honored for, thus I wish him well in his well-deserved retirement.

Mr. McINNIS

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

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, some of the things that we want to talk about this evening, I want to talk about taxes. Of course, tomorrow, April 15, that is the tax day. Before I begin these remarks in-depth, I want to make a couple of thank yous. First of all, I want to thank all of the American taxpayers. I want to thank those taxpayers who are honest. I want to thank those taxpayers who go out every day of the week and they work hard to earn money, and they pay their proportionate share of taxes so that this country can remain great. I want to thank those taxpayers who make sure that they file their tax returns on time. I want to assure the taxpayers of this country that there are a number of us on both sides of the aisle, there are a number of us who are devoted to making government more efficient and making government work for you. The concept of this government is not the taxpayers working for the government but the government working for the taxpayers. I am employed and all of my colleagues here on the floor, we are employed by the taxpayers of this country. It is the taxpayers to whom we respond. It is the taxpayers to whom we owe a fiduciary duty to run this government in the most efficient way that we can possibly do it. I can say despite all the rhetoric that we have heard about tax cuts, can you or can you not have them, if we could just on a uniform basis cut the government waste that we see in day to day operation within this government, we could cut the taxes across the board, a permanent tax cut. Of course, every time we cut waste back here in Washington we are getting into somebody's pocket because that money is not just put into a hole in the ground; it goes to somebody's benefit. What they tend to do in Washington, D.C. is build a wall to protect that benefit, even though it is a waste of taxpayers' dollars. I want to say another thank you. That is thank you for the services that are being rendered, as we speak, by our men and women in uniform, not only in Kosovo and in the region over in the Balkans but throughout the entire world. When we take a look at what our military people make for pay, we will see why tax day is a tough day on them. It is a tough day on a lot of Americans that make that kind of salary, but these people are dedicated and they are showing their strength and the dedication and the patriotism toward this country not only in Kosovo in the military mission that we are engaged there, but in Korea, in Somalia, throughout the United States and Canada. We have troops throughout the world, and I want to say thank you to them tonight as well. Along with the thank you to our service people, I also want to come back to the taxpayer and thank you for helping us finance these soldiers, for helping us get them the best and most technologically advanced equipment in the world. Taxpayers, you have a lot to be proud of this evening, and it is now our duty, our continuing duty, and a number have tried to do this but it is our continuing duty, in appreciation to the sacrifices you make by sending this government money to fund it, it is our duty to make sure this government in turn gives you a bang for the buck. You deserve it. It is your money. You will hear some people say, well, the government spends its money. That is government money back in Washington, D.C. It is not government money. It is your money. It comes out of your workday every day of the week. It comes every time you go to the cash register, you pay taxes. We will go into a little more of that. Let us start with the taxpayer and the American worker. We all get a paycheck. I thought we could just kind of break down a typical paycheck. I asked someone in my office if we could use their paycheck stub. We have taken the name off, as can be seen, but let me just point out a couple of things here. This particular individual has a gross income of $1,958.33. Deducted from that is a retirement amount for the retirement account of $195.83. This particular taxpayer is a very responsible taxpayer because they are helping fund their future retirement. It is a mistake for the workers of this country, for all of us in this country, and most of us are workers in this country, for us to figure out or to depend on the government to provide our retirement for us. I think it is fair for us to depend on the government to provide a partial retirement through Social Security because we fund Social Security, as does this taxpayer, and we will look at Social Security here in a little more depth, but we also have a responsibility. We have personal responsibility to plan for those years in which we will not be employed, the golden years of our life, when we will not be in the workforce, it may be by choice, and where we are going to have a retirement. Do not expect the government to do it. We have personal responsibility. Most people I talk to accept that personal responsibility. So does this taxpayer. They put $195 a month aside for their retirement, and some evening I am going to come over here and visit a little about why I think the government retirement system works pretty efficiently for all government employees and what I think we can do with Social Security to track along the same kind of system that we have for retirement for two or three million Federal employees, and I think we will see the benefits and why that system works. This evening we are going to continue to stay focused on the taxes. So then go to the adjusted gross. The key down here that I want to take a look at is Social Security, $149.82. Now I want to talk briefly about Social Security and the kind of challenges that we face in the future about Social Security. Now why is Social Security in trouble? We have often heard that Social Security is in trouble because the government has borrowed from the Social Security funds to use that money in its general funds. Well, that is true, but let us not focus on that this evening because if the government paid back every penny of every dollar that they borrowed from the Social Security funds, and by the way the government is going to have to, I mean the government on the bottom line is obligated to do this, they are going to have to produce that, but even that said, if they paid it all back, Social Security still faces challenges, financial challenges, in the future. What brought on these financial challenges? Well, first of all, some good news. The good news is because of the medical technology in the greatest country in the world, our country, the United States of America, people now can expect to live to a later age. When Social Security first came in in 1940, when people retired at age 65 they could expect to live 12\1/2\ more years; 12\1/2\ more years. That is 77\1/2\. That was the average expectation. Today we can expect to live another 17\1/2\ years beyond that point in time, by the year 2030. So I think it is very reasonable to expect that my children and my grandchildren, although I do not have my grandchildren but my expected grandchildren at some point, will live well up into their hundreds and probably beyond their hundreds. So we have good news. Life expectancy has gone up, but Social Security premiums have never really been adjusted to allocate for that. At some point we will have no choice but to raise the retirement age, which by the way can be done pretty harmlessly over a long period of time, to allocate for this or raise the premiums. I think, of course, the fairer way to do it is do it kind of on an almost hold harmless, over a period of time raising the age limit. Let me go on and talk about the other issue that we have got here with Social Security, and that is that Social Security has kind of become a pay-as-you-go. Today, the average couple on Social Security draws out about $118,000 out of the system more than they have put into the system. We cannot have a system that operates like that for a very long period of time. So we have to figure out what benefits are going out, what money is coming in, what kind of adjustment we need to make for the extended life span. The other problem, of course, that we have is that when Social Security first came around, I am trying to remember the exact number but I think the ratio of recipients was something like 13 or 15 to 1. In other words, when Social Security came, there were 15 people working for every person retired. Today that has changed. Today it is 3.4. We have 3\1/2\ workers out there for every person retired. In the not too distant future, we are going to have two people working for every person retired. We have to stand up and face the social security. We have done that in part. The Republicans specifically have put in place a lockbox to lock money for the future of social security. That all said, and talking about the problems of social security, let me say what has gone right about social security. Number one, the checks go out every month. I cannot believe some of the propaganda that has been going out there to the general public saying, oh, your social security is going to be cut off. You can tell it is political season when we hear statements like that. I can tell Members today without exception, without condition, that everybody on social security today faces no threat of losing that social security check. Their check will continue to come. In fact, the people in my generation, which is the generation behind the retired folks today, that generation as well, there is money in there to fund that generation. The generation we have to worry about are my children. Those people that are, say, under 20 years old today or under 25 years, that is the generation that we have an obligation to plan for at that point in the future. However, up to that point in time, do not let politicians or do not let other people try and propagandize that we are going to lose our social security checks. My gosh, our seniors have enough to worry about when they reach that age. To get that fear, we sell a lot by fear. Take a look at the Y2K program. If people are like me, they get mail every day trying through fear to get us to buy their product, trying to get around Y2K. They do the same thing with social security. We should not let them throw that fear factor into us. When we see them throwing that fear into senior citizens, saying, you are going to lose your social security, the Republicans do this to social security, it is not going to happen. The money is there today for social security recipients. It is there tomorrow. It is 25 years from now that we have to plan for. We, frankly, on the Republican side, and I am proud of this, I am not trying to be partisan here, I am trying to say it is a priority. In our Republican conferences, it is good to see us talking about the future, instead of just trying to handle the problems that come in today. We are trying to plan for the future 25 years out, 25 years out. That is what a lot of people, in fact, the person who has this check is trying to plan their future 25 years out. With this retirement here, this $195.83, that is positive. Social security is positive. The lockbox is positive. I think the person with this check right now, with the three-legged approach, one, the retirement that they have, that they put aside with their employment; two, the retirement or investments they plan on their own; and three, social security, I think people will be able to comfortably retire in this country for some time to come. We are always going to find the exceptions, but in general, I think people can feel pretty good about social security. But that does not mean, that does not mean that we do not need to plan for the financial woes that will occur if we do not adequately address them today about 25 years from now. Let us go on to the Federal tax, what this person pays in Federal tax, $231.25. Their health insurance, again, good planning by an employee. Let me step back. It is amazing how many people in this country are offered health insurance by their employer but they opt not to take it. This particular employee is taking the health insurance. That is a wise investment. That is a smart investment. Regardless of what people think, whether we should have nationalized health, which I strongly oppose, by the way, but regardless of where we think we should be with health care, until that is resolved I think it is pretty smart to take out a health insurance policy. That is what is occurring here. Here is the Federal tax, $231.25. I want us all to consider, we have a pretty healthy economy today. When things seem to be going well, people tend to downplay the burden that we, the taxpayers, are actually carrying here. Once again, I think we owe taxpayers appreciation. They are funding the government. The government is not running as efficiently as it should for them, but I think they are doing more than their share, the honest taxpayers out there, by sending the money this way, by funding this government. So we owe this accountability. Let us take a look at the tax burden on Americans. I have been reading a lot of editorials, especially this week. April 15th, tomorrow, is taxpayer day. That is the day we have to drive to the postal system and drop it in the mailbox. I have heard a lot of people say, hey, the taxes are not so bad. It is because times are good, but we should not let it sneak up on us. In World War II was when we had our highest tax, in 1944, pretty understandable in a war, 20.9 percent. Then, in 1945, it actually dropped to 20.4 percent. But compared to what it is today, in the year 2000, under the Clinton budget it would be 20.7 percent. So it goes right in since 1944, it would be the second highest tax rate, total tax rate, that we would have. I do not think the taxpayer should be paying that much in taxes. I think we have a lot of efficiencies out there in government that can be realized. Let me say, I think that philosophy is shared, by the way, by Members on both sides of the aisle. Unlike some people who come to this podium just to attack, attack the other party, I think there are people in both parties trying to get some accountability, trying to get a more efficient government. But I am not a keen supporter, I can tell the Members right now, of this budget right here that would put us in at about 20.7 percent. After we pay those taxes that we showed in the previous poster, we need to take a look at what else we pay taxes on. First, as we saw, this particular taxpayer had the deduction taken out of their check, so that is what goes to the Federal Government. They also had, and I did not show it on the tax stub, they also had in there a deduction for State income tax. Let us take a look at the average day. When we wake up in the morning, generally we sleep in an apartment or a house and we have property taxes we pay for, so so far we have Federal taxes, State taxes, now we have property taxes. If we turn on the lights in the house when we get up in the morning we have utility taxes, so now we have Federal taxes, State taxes, property taxes, and utility taxes. Then we go to get something to eat, we pull a bowl out of the cabinet, we pull a coffee cup out of the cabinet, and we have sales taxes. We have paid sales taxes. It is interesting, I have a lot of young people that come to my office. I take great delight, and by the way, this generation, this new generation we have, these kids are terrific. They are bright, they are capable. When I talk to them in my office, I say, do you pay taxes? It is surprising, a lot of them say, no, not yet, not like our parents. But we probably will when we go to work. I say, no, you pay taxes every time you go to the store. No matter how old you are, you pay a sales tax. So now what we have, we have Federal income tax, we have State income tax, we have property tax, we have utility tax, and now we have sales tax. On top of the sales tax, of course, then we drive our cars to work. Take a look at our gasoline tax. I know in Colorado, in Colorado I think it is 22 cents; not think, I know, the State is 22 cents and the Federal Government charges 18 cents. That is 40 cents per gallon. It was not very long ago, it was not very long ago, that gasoline in Glenwood Springs or in Colorado was about, I don't know, a dollar a gallon. I called my friend today, Al Stroobants over on the western slope, and I called Bill Vollbraught, my friend in Denver, and asked him, what is the price of gas? It has gone up a little. For the sake of easy calculations, let's talk about a dollar per gallon. When we stop at the gas station, for every dollar we pay the attendant, here is a dollar for my gas bill, we get 60 cents worth of gas. We pay 40 cents in taxes. Take that out. For every $10 we pay the gas attendant for the $10 bill on the gas pump, for that $10 we get $6 of gasoline and $4 of taxes. So where are we so far? We have Federal taxes, State taxes, property taxes, utility taxes, sales taxes, gasoline taxes. Then what we do, we go and have a friend, let's say, that comes to visit us, or take a flight from the airport, go out to the airport. Then there are passenger taxes and other fees. We have fees to do this, fees for a rent-a-car, taxes to get on the airplane. Then, if you decide when you fly to your destination you want to stay in your hotel, you have a hotel tax that is put on top of that. Then finally if you get a little depressed about the whole thing and you decide to, without driving, by the way, without driving, you decide to have a beer, you are going to pay a tax on alcohol, and take a look at what the percentage of that is. Then, if you are unfortunate and you happen to pass away with too much property, then the government is going to put a death tax on you. No matter what level of property that you have, they still tax certain items in funeral preparations and other things like that involved with your death. There are lots and lots of taxes in our society. That is where we get to that overall tax burden, which is among the highest in our country's history. Do not let it creep up on you. Do not let these increased taxes creep up on you when the economy is good. That is when people seem to pay the least amount of attention to their taxes. That is when the economy is good. It creeps up on them. Take a look at special districts. Special districts have a special use in our country. We need them, especially in rural America, but a lot of people never see what their special district taxes are because those are paid by the mortgage banker. You send one check in a month, just like my wife and I do, we send our check in once a month to the mortgage company, and the mortgage company then turns around and pays the school tax, the cemetery district tax, the library district tax, the recreation district tax, et cetera, et cetera, so those are even more taxes. I am not up here bashing the fact we pay taxes. We cannot have a government if we do not pay taxes. What I am saying, as this tax level begins to creep up and up, you as the taxpayers, you are our employers. We work for you. You have every right to demand efficiency and productivity from your government because you are paying those taxes. You are paying them at every level. When we go to the airport and pay a passenger tax, we are entitled to have an airport that is efficient. When we go and drive on a State highway or Federal highway, we have a right to expect a highway that is safe, a highway that is well-engineered, and a highway that is built with construction dollars that are done in such a way that it is competitive. As I mentioned earlier, I think we can be very, very pleased about the efficiency and the dollars that are being spent on our soldiers over in Kosovo. I think they are doing a darned good job, not just because of the fact that they are putting their lives on the line, which of course is the most critical issue that we have facing us today, but by gosh, we are getting good delivery. We have got very efficient forces over there. In fact, I know a family, I will intercede this here, Steve and Janet Westhof, I want to say hello if I get an opportunity to in the next couple of days, but they have six kids, six kids, and five of them are in our military. We can be assured that our taxpayer dollars, we are getting our worth out of those five Westhof kids that are serving out of Colorado in the military. Let us go on and talk a little more about some of the tax breaks and things that I think are important. How we calculate taxes, it is just like when we are paying for some kind of service. If you are paying for lawn service, you are starting your lawn service this summer and you are paying for somebody to come mow your lawn, you adjust that every year. One year you may decide to have bushes trimmed in addition to the lawn mowed, so it is going to adjust what you pay. The next year if you decide to trim the bushes yourself, then you should expect you are going to pay less to mow the lawn. If you do not pay less but you are getting less services, something is wrong with that formula. You need to calculate what is going on. Right now in our government there are some efficiencies that we have realized. There are some tax credits that are very significant. Once again as a Republican I take a great deal of pride in the fact, one, we are going to have a budget tomorrow; number two, we have delivered significant tax cuts in the last couple of years. I do not know how many of my colleagues out here, and I assume most of them, own their homes, but take a look at this, and again, I am proud of it. I am proud to be a Republican. I think we have done some very positive things, not partisan, positive things for the taxpayer out there. What have we done? The house. If any Members have sold a house this last year, they need to go see their tax accountant, make sure they have given that information to their tax accountant before those taxes are filed tomorrow, because they may be entitled to one of the largest tax breaks they have received during their entire working career. What do I mean by that? First of all, let us talk about the old rule, if you sold your house for a net profit. Now remember, on a house, if you bought a house for $100 and if you were to sell the house, it is only worth $100, but you have been paying on it for several years, so you now only owe $50 on it. So you sell the house for $100 but you have been paying $50, you only owe $50 on it, you have $50 in your pocket after you sell the house. That is not net income, that is net equity. Net income would be if you bought the house for $100, you paid down $50, so you now have $50 that you owe on it, but you sell the house for $150. You have $50 of equity and $50 of net income. In the past the government has gone to that $50 of net income and they have taxed you on that. There was one exception to it. If you were 62 years of age or older, you got a once-in-a-lifetime tax exemption that one time of up to $120,000. The Republicans changed that last year. It was a Republican-led plus. This had bipartisan support, some Democrats voted for it, but it is an important one. What does it do? Let us take a look at before this tax bill, before the Republican tax bill. Let us take a look at what an individual, and now, most homes are owned by couples, so let us look at the couple column, which is right here where the red light is. You buy the House, this is before we changed the tax law, you bought the House for $200,000. You sold the House for $700,000. So you have obviously recognized a large net profit. Your profit is $500,000. The income that would be taxed under the old law for a couple would be $500,000. What did we do? We gave you an exemption that is good every 2 years, not when you are 62, but you get it renewed every 2 years on your primary residence. Here is what the status is with the same house after the tax credit bill that we put in place last year. A couple again, they buy the house for $200,000. They sell the house for $700,000. Again just like over here, before the tax break, they make $500,000. So they make $500,000 under either circumstance. But look what the difference is. Here is the column. The income that will be taxed is zero. Zero. Here the income that would be taxed was $500,000. That is significant. It will apply to every homeowner in this country whether you live in Missouri or New York or Colorado or California or Alaska. Every homeowner in this country that sells their home for a net profit will get a tax benefit, thanks to the hard work of the Congress. The hard work, again I want to come back, the hardest work is by the taxpayer, which funds the Congress. But we are the managers of that money. Through the management of that money, we have determined that those of you who own homes, and that is most of America, deserve a break today when you sell your home for a net profit. That is significant. Here is another tax break that I think is worthy of us looking at, because this means millions of families across this country will have more dollars to spend, more dollars coming back to you. Let us go again through the system of how the taxes work. The money the government has is not created in Washington, D.C. It is created by your hard work, by your contribution to capital, by your sweat, by working and showing up and working those 8 or 10 or 12 or 14 hours every day. That is how money gets to government. As you know, it comes up through several different layers of government. It means there are a lot of middlemen in the government that take a little here, take a little there. We need to make sure that we are operating in an efficient manner. If we have excess cash, we ought to give it back to you. Now excess cash is excess cash after we have planned for Social Security, after we have planned for Medicare and after we have planned to reduce the national debt. Remember, it was not very many years ago we used to be mocked. The Republicans were laughed at when we stood up and told the American people, we were not laughed at by the American people, some maybe, but we were laughed at by some of our political opponents who said we will never get rid of the annual deficit. This government is always going to operate with a deficit. We thought we could accomplish it by 2004. We actually accomplished it in 1999. That is pretty significant. Now we have got to take on the national debt. But in doing that, we have got to be fair to the people that pay the bill; and that is you, the taxpayers. Here is one of the things that we have done. It is tough today, economically, to bring up a family, even a family of four, with the kind of needs that you have. My gosh, it is wonderful in America that we have the kind of opportunities that we do. America is a darn good place to live. I am proud to not only be a citizen of the United States, to be here in America, but I am proud to be a representative of the citizens of America. But our families, we want to allow our families to have as many things as they can have. Frankly, even some of the families in worst shape, are in the lower end of our standard of living here, are still better off than a lot of the other countries in the world. But the point is, how do we get to the average family? How do we get some dollars back to the average family so they have a little better opportunity at educating their young children, at making sure their young children have the best or at least some good opportunities or good clothes, good food, good transportation, a good home with good heat, with good air conditioning, those kinds of things? What are some of the things that we could do? We took a look at the tax credit that we gave for the sale of a home. The beauty of that tax credit is most people use that to buy another home. Here we have what we call the child care credit. A family of four under this tax credit, if they have two children under age 17, they have $45,000 a year annual income; and, by the way, there are a lot of people out there, especially if both husband and the wife work outside the home, $45,000 between the two of them is not unusual. In 1998, we allowed a $400 per child credit that is a direct credit, $400 per child in 1999. That will increase to $500 per child, $500 per child. The tax credit here before the Republican tax credit went into place, this couple that earned $45,000, family of four, two children under 17 could expect on that income to pay approximately $5,134. After that tax credit, they now pay $4,334, or $800 less. To some people $800 is not a lot of money. To me it is. To most American families it is a lot of money. One of the problems in government is if the people that work for you in government begin to become somewhat callous towards the value of money. I have talked to people in government who say, well, what is $800 out there? Hey, get out there and try and earn 800 bucks. That is a lot of money. It means a lot to a family, and it means a lot to a family of four, and it means a lot to a family with young children or to a family that is retired. Eight hundred dollars are big bucks, and that is why these tax credits mean something. I know in campaign season they always say, well, the Republicans, they give tax breaks to the rich. Rich? Is that what you call rich, those people? Not all homeowners in this country are rich. Most families in this country are rich with love, family love. We have lots of love. We need more. I am not getting into the social issue here. But the fact is most of the families that own homes in this country are not rich, and that is who that tax credit goes to help. Most people in this country are not rich by those standards, certainly by $45,000 a year standards. That tax credit of $800 goes to help them. These are not insignificant numbers. The taxpayer is entitled, if the circumstances warrant, and which by the way, a good economy has allowed that to occur, a break today. Let us give them a break today. Let us go to our employers and say, what you have been paying me is great, but we think we have found some management efficiencies whereunder we can manage Social Security and make sure everybody continues to get their check and we are confident we can. Medicare will be secure. We have a lock box. We lock the money away. We will be able to take down the national debt. We are still going to have a little left for you, a little left for you, the very person that goes out there and works every day of the week or 5 days a week or whatever your work pattern is to make it possible so we have the money to run this government, by the way, run this government on your behalf. Let me once again mention Kosovo and the situation we have got over there. We have to come back to the American taxpayer. We are not going to have to raise your taxes, by the way, to fund Kosovo. But this is a very, very expensive operation. I do not know one Democrat and I do not know one Republican that wants to cut our soldiers or our people in uniform, regardless of where they are, or our manufacturers that are supplying these products as long as they supply them on a fair value. I do not know anybody on either side of the aisle that wants to short our military. We may have disagreements on Kosovo, and I think they are significant disagreements on Kosovo and the policy in the Balkans and so on, but policy is separate than the issue of support for our soldiers. We will afford, we will pay for, and we can pay for every weapon that our military soldiers need, every meal, every uniform, every paycheck. We can meet the needs of the American military. But that money means that we have to do some more financial planning back here in Washington, D.C. It means that we will not be able to reduce the national debt at the same rate that we thought we could reduce it just a month ago. It means that we have an emergency spending number in front of us. What we have to consider is how far into the future that emergency spending dollar goes. I am one of those people that happens to think that this operation will not stop today at $3 billion. I am one of those people that thinks that this operation costs us about $100 million a day and that we have many, many, many more days into the future to fund this operation. This will be a significant cost item for you the taxpayer. Let us not clown around. It is like having a meeting with your bosses. We need to report it up front. We have a very expensive item on the radar. It is on the agenda right now. It is Kosovo. It may not end when the bombing stops, by the way, because the United States, one, we have a strong sense of humanitarian belief to take care of the sick people, to go in and assist where we can. That is expensive. Number two, if we maintain a peacekeeping force through the auspices of NATO, by the way the United States carries the biggest burden there, and the United States usually carries the big burden. I am proud of that on one hand, and on the other hand, it is kind of like going camping and having everybody gather firewood. If you have got people that is capable or closest capable to you that is gathering firewood, they ought to be out there gathering firewood if they want to sit by the fire. But we have to constantly make sure everybody carries their fair burden. But this Kosovo situation can get expensive. It is expensive right now. We will fund it. We have got the money to fund it. But you need to be patient. We all need to be patient and understand that our reduction of the national debt, which is critical for the Republican Party and I think critical for many of my colleagues on the Democratic Party, that the preservation of Social Security, which is critical for all of us, that the preservation of Medicare, which is critical for all of us, that we are going to have to make some adjustments. It does not mean they are going to be in trouble or that we are not going to be able to do what we had originally committed to do. We are. But it does mean we have an emergency expenditure out there, and it is called Kosovo. Let me talk about another tax that I think is very unfair, the marriage penalty. Let me talk about a couple other taxes that are very unfair. They are inherently unfair. To me, there is no justification for these types of taxes. These are taxes that the taxpayer should not be paying because it is unfair to the taxpayer. Not that it is a heavy burden on the taxpayer, it is, but that it is an unjustified tax. It is not right to tax people like we are going to tax them, like the government has been taxing them. One of them is the marriage penalty. My gosh, folks, this is the United States of America. This is a country where we think family is of the highest priority. We encourage marriage in this country. We encourage people to stay married in this country. We know, the statistics prove, I do not care whether you are a conservative clear to the right or whether you are a liberal clear to the left, the fact is, the bottom line is we know that a married couple has a lot better chance of success at raising their young than does a single person. It is just reality out there. But yet the government, despite the fact that we encourage marriage, despite the fact that we know that married couples have much better odds of raising children and much less dropout rate, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, despite the fact that we know all of this, the government still continues to impose a marriage penalty when it comes time to pay your taxes tomorrow. So those of you who pay your taxes tomorrow, which most of the people that we are talking about, most of my colleagues here, if you are married, you pay an additional tax penalty because of the simple fact that you are married. That does not make any sense. It does not make sense to me, and it does not make sense to you. But we have a lot of people out there who are not even aware of the fact that we have a marriage tax penalty. One of the big priorities of the Republican conference this year is get rid of that marriage tax penalty. We may be delayed if we spend a lot of money in emergency dollars. Those emergency dollars are justified, and I want to make sure we get a good bargain on them. But we know that a lot of those dollars are justified. So it may delay it. But as soon as we can afford to do it, we need to get rid of that tax. We need to get rid of the tax not just when we can afford it but because it is an unfair tax. It goes contrary to the type of society we want to pursue. We want a type of society where marriage is encouraged, not where marriage is penalized. It does not make sense. What is the other tax that is unfair? It is the death tax. The death tax. We are taxed when we die. Now, granted, there are exceptions to that. We do not have to pay taxes if we have an estate up to $650,000, and that is moving up. But take a look first of all at those people who do. I do not care whether an individual is rich, I do not care whether an individual is poor, I do not care whether an individual is middle class, no one should ever have to pay a tax that is unfair. And if someone is paying a tax that is unfair, even if it just affects the poor people, the middle class and the wealthy people ought to be just as aggressive at getting rid of that tax that unfairly taxes the poor people with a lower standard of living. And, likewise, the poorer income should be just as aggressive about taking away a tax that is unfair to the middle income and so on up the line. If it is an unfair tax, it is an unfair tax whether an individual makes minimum wage or whether an individual a million a year. It is an unfair tax, and that is what the death tax is all about. Now, with the death tax, are we taxing property that somehow has escaped taxation during the life of the person who earned that? No, not at all. In fact, we are taxing once again property that on many occasions has been taxed not only once, not only twice but sometimes three and four times. So what creates the death tax is simply the fact that a person has died. And the reason it creates it is the government says, ``Hey, old Scott's gone, so let's just go ahead and go after it.'' That is a good legitimate reason to take money from our citizens; they are dead, they are not going to complain any more. But, my gosh, realize what the ramifications are of this death tax. Take a look at the State that I am from. I am from the State of Colorado. My district is the Third Congressional District. Most Americans have been in my district. If you have ever skied, you have been in the Third Congressional District. If you love beautiful mountains, you have been in the Third Congressional District. It is a beautiful area. But it has a very heavy dependency on two things. Well, on several things but two I want to talk about. One, small business and, two, agriculture. Now, what do I mean by small business and agriculture? With the values today, as rapidly as they have increased in our healthy economy, we find out that the best way to lose a small business is to die. We cannot pass it on to the next generation because of the punitive taxes that they put on us, despite the fact that we may have bought our business and grew our business with after-tax dollars. In other words, we have already paid the taxes at least once, twice or three times. We have a country that we should encourage people to be married, we should not penalize them for being married. We have a country that we should encourage one generation to pass on the small business to the next generation. We should not discourage them. We should not tax them out of it. The government is not getting cheated. The government is not getting cheated because people get married. They are not getting cheated out of any taxes. And the government is not getting cheated because somebody dies, on property that the dead person, when they were alive, owned. They are not getting cheated. It is just another opportunity to grab more money out of our pockets. What is the impact? Well, first of all, as I mentioned, you cannot pass a business from generation to generation. It is very difficult to do it. Now, if you have a lot of money, maybe you can buy the life insurance that is necessary to pay off the government. Pay them off and get the government off your back steps. That is what it is, it is a payoff to the government, but a lot of small business people simply cannot afford that. The other thing that Colorado is heavily dependent on is agriculture. We are very selfish with our land, so to speak, in Colorado. We want to preserve the land. Open space has become more and more critical to the citizens of Colorado. It is important for us to preserve our beauty. We have to work a lot more in balance than perhaps was worked 20 or 30 years ago. What we find ourselves in is a predicament. Land values have gone up in Colorado. They have gone up significantly. Well, if you have a small family farm or a ranch, and your land values have gone up, it is highly likely, highly probable that your ranch, upon your death, will not be able to be passed on to your son or your daughter but will have to be sold at the auction block to pay Uncle Sam. I will give you an example. I know a family, I will not tell you the exact location, but it is in the Third Congressional District of the State of Colorado. This fellow was a very hard-working man. He came to Colorado when he was about 18 years old. He started as a bookkeeper in a construction company. He worked his way up. Pretty soon he worked from being a bookkeeper into helping supervise construction. He dug ditches, but he soon was driving a truck and he had the books. Pretty soon he built that construction, he and a partner, into a successful construction company in a small town in Colorado. Along the way, this man and his partner found out that they were having trouble getting financing for their construction company. So they decided, well, let us start a little bank. A small bank. This is not Nation's First or some other big bank. Let us start a little bank in our little community. So they started this little bank in their community. Well, that was probably 50 years ago. About 8 years ago my friend decided to sell the bank. And by then, of course, the bank had become a very strong small business. It had grown. They put a lot of sweat, a lot of their own human capital into it and it has prospered. So they decided to sell the bank, and they sold the bank. Unfortunately, within a very short period of time, literally weeks after the bank was sold, my good friend discovered he had terminal cancer. Then, unfortunately, he lost his wife. Three or four months later, my friend passed away from terminal cancer. What happened? Well, he still had the stock in the construction company. They sold the bank and they hit him with a capital gains taxation. Do you know what the effective rate of taxation was on that estate? When you put capital gains tax, which is complicated, but a lot of you out there understand what I am speaking about, and you put the death tax on top of it, they went into this family, to that man who had worked over 50 years with sweat and toil and put human capital into this investment, the government went in there, and the property that had already been taxed at least once, probably twice or three times, and imposed a 72 percent tax on the property. Now, when I spoke with the family, I asked them, I said, ``So all you had left in the estate was 28 percent because the government took 72 percent?'' No, they said, we did not get 28 percent because the government came to us and said here is the tax, 72 percent, and, by the way, it is due within this period of time. The only way that the family could come up with that money to pay off the government on property that had already been taxed but was now being taxed simply because their father had died, the only way they could pay that off was to sell at a fire sale their assets, their property, selling it as quickly as they could. Otherwise, they were going to be penalized by the government. So the 28 percent did not really work out to 28 percent because they had to sell it under panic prices. They told me they estimated they cleared about 13 percent of that estate. Thirteen percent of what that man had worked for. That man and wife, by the way. The mother was a homemaker, but she deserves as much credit here. The money that couple had worked for for over 50 some years, the little company they had built up, the little bank they had built up, the farmland that they had was all taken in one sweep by the government. Is that fair? It is not a fair tax. The death tax is not a fair tax. And the death tax, while it may apply to people that only have assets of $600,000 or more, it impacts all of society. And you cannot under any circumstances, in my opinion, justify going to a family that has already paid their taxes and force them to pay a punitive tax on top of that. Now, has it impacted Colorado? Sure. What happens to the ranches? If you have a ranch that has to be sold, what is the highest and best use for ranch land in Colorado? Well, unfortunately, for a lot of land in Colorado, especially in my district, the Third Congressional District, the beauty of it, if it is no longer a ranch or a farm, you can put condominiums on it, build huge homes on it, put it into five-acre estates. That is where the highest value of that land is. Move the water off the land. I could talk 2 hours on water. Move the water off the land. Change the historical nature of that property. And I think in most cases it changes for the worst. It takes away our open space. It threatens our open space. It threatens generations of families being able to stay and raise their young in the mountains of Colorado, because of a tax imposed by the government that is unfair to start with. Well, I think Americans right now are paying a lot of taxes, and I think that tomorrow, on April 15, there are a few things we should consider, and let me summarize. Number one, everybody that works in the government ought to be thanking every taxpayer out there for funding it. Mr. Taxpayer, Mrs. Taxpayer, young taxpayer, old taxpayer, you hear it right now. Thank you. Thank you for your hard work. Thank you for being willing to be, one, honest on your taxes; two, to pay your taxes; and, three, to allow your government to work for you. The second point I want to make to you, we have an obligation back to you, working as the government. We have an obligation as elected officials, as appointed people working for the government, as employees of the government, no matter how you classify it, we work for you and we have an obligation to deliver the most efficient product we can on behalf of the government that works for you. Number three, we have an obligation, and the Republicans are taking charge, this is a priority for them, to eliminate unfair taxation, and we should start with the marriage penalty. The marriage penalty, no matter how we cut it, no matter whether we are a Democrat or a Republican, no matter what level we are, the marriage penalty is an unfair tax and it has costs in society, costs that are negative. It is not a positive thing to look at. Marriage penalty taxes are unfair and they should be eliminated. Number four, do not just let people dismiss death taxes as taxes for the rich. It has an impact. It has a ripple impact all the way down. Take a look at the open space in Colorado and then take a look at the very premise for that kind of tax. Is it fair? Is it on property that has not been taxed? The answer to that is no. The death tax is a tax on property that has been taxed once, twice or three times. That tax should be eliminated. It is not fair. The death tax should not go straight to the government. It is not right. Finally, let me wrap it up with a few words once again thanking our soldiers who are serving us tonight, wherever you are in the world. To me, the servicemen and women we have right now on the DMZ, in North Korea, South Korea, right on the DMZ between South Korea and North Korea, those are some pretty brave people up there, men and women, serving that duty. Throughout the world they are serving us. I want you to know that with bipartisan support, unified support, I do not think there is a ``no'' vote in the body, this body has voted to give a tax break. We will vote tomorrow unanimously, not one ``no'' vote from Democrat or Republican. We will vote unanimously to recognize the service of these soldiers and give them a tax break. They deserve it. They are delivering for us. You are getting a good product. You are getting good and efficient service from our military today. You may disagree with the policy. I have got problems with the policy, for example, in the Balkans. That is what I am referring to specifically. You may disagree with that. But the fact of what those military people are doing will be observed tomorrow on April 15 with this bill that will give them some tax relief. So I want to thank those people. Mr. Speaker, I am now ready to wrap up. Tomorrow is April 15. Folks, take a look at what you are paying in taxes. We should pay taxes for the right kind of product. But just remember, as I conclude tonight, that you have every right, it is a fundamental right to look at the people that work for you, that is the government, the government works for you, and demand from that government efficiency and a good product. If you are not getting efficiency, if you are not getting a good product, then you should demand that you get your money back. And if you are paying too much money for the product you are getting, you are entitled to get your money back, just the same as if you went to the grocery store and you overpaid there. America to me is a very positive thing. I am positive about our economy, I am positive about our soldiers, I am positive about the American people. We have a lot to look forward to. And in this country there is a lot more that goes right than there is that goes wrong. But in order for it to work, we have to be sure that we balance that payment from the taxpayer to the government.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I control the time.

Mr. McINNIS. I will not yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio. The previous speaker had an hour and now I would like to have an opportunity to have an hour.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I, of course, have been here to hear the previous remarks. Let me make a point of clarification because I think it is very important. The previous speaker stated that the Speaker of the House sits idly by, or made some kind of reference in that regards, while the farmers out there suffer. I am from rural Colorado. The Speaker is from rural Illinois. If the previous speakers would have read the newspaper recently, they would find out the Speaker's wife does not stay in Washington but remains at home in rural Illinois. The Speaker cares about farmers. I do not know anybody in here who does not care about farmers, and I think it is grossly unfair for a speaker to stand up here, any speaker, and look out here, whether Republican or Democrat, and make the kind of audacious claim that for some reason because you are Republican or Democrat you do not care about farmers in America. Frankly, I have not found anybody in America that does not care about farmers. Now, sure, there are disagreements on what can be done to help save the farming community and so on, but I think you stoop a little too low when you stand up here at this microphone, a speaker, any speaker, and would say or infer that any Republican or Democrat in this body does not care about farmers. Of course, we do. Now let me go on now. This evening I am going to speak about taxes and a number of other issues.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to recognize one of Colorado's exceptional volunteer fire fighters, Tom Morelli. In doing so, I would like to pay tribute to a man who has shown, time and again, that it pays to give a little back to the community. Tom Morelli is a resident of Colorado who has made a large impact on his community through his generous contributions. Aside from being a model citizen, Mr. Morelli contributes his time as a volunteer firefighter in Glenwood Springs. Tom Morelli responded to 447 calls in 1998. In recognition of his many years of dedicated public-service, he has recently been awarded the ``1998 Adult Humanitarian Volunteer of the Year Award'' in Garfield County. This award given to special volunteers, who give their time and energy to the community. It is said by those who are privileged to know him, that Tom Morelli is a quiet and modest man who would rather be fighting fires than accepting awards. In my view, this makes him all the more deserving of this award--he has truly earned it. Individuals such as Tom Morelli, who volunteer their time to a good cause, are a rare breed. Fellow citizens have gained immensely by knowing Tom Morelli, and for that we owe him a debt of gratitude.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, with a heavy and sad heart I take this moment to recognize the life and contributions of Shirley K. Small, one of five daughters of Paul and Lucille Krier. Shirley was a strong and patriotic American. She took immense pride in being a home maker and mother to her children Robbie, Darcy and Amy. She brought her children up with strong reverence for our great country. Often she would discuss with me her concerns for the direction of our country, its needs and its accomplishments over time. Shirley was a graduate of the University of Colorado and was preceded in death by her husband John. Shirley's children have moved on to their own success in western Colorado and they too share their parents' love of and dedication to our country. Shirley's children's success is not only realized with accomplished careers, but above all with wonderful spouses and children of their own. Even in the twilight of her life, Shirley took on her terrible disease with vigor and determination. In her last months, she attended numerous medical clinics, not for her own sake, but in the hopes she could help provide information that would lead to the cure of the disease that promised to take her life. Shirley willed her body to science so that doctors could continue to seek out a remedy for the infirmity that ailed her once she passed. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to have been Shirley's Congressman and nephew. Her unconditional love for family and country will be greatly missed.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, it is with a heavy heart that I now take this moment to recognize the life and contributions of Pauline ``Polly'' Hammack. Sadly, Colorado lost this leading citizen earlier this year. While family and friends remember Polly's remarkable life, I, too, would like to pay tribute to this great American citizen and friend. Born on June 22, 1919 in Vine, Tennessee, Polly spent most of her professional life as an employee of Denver Dry Goods beginning in the fall of 1966. She would retire as an Assistant Store Manager and Personnel Director 20 years later. In addition to her distinguished service with Denver Dry Goods, Polly long played an active and leading role in Colorado politics. For many years, Polly has been a familiar and energetic presence on various political campaigns. Most significantly, she was instrumental in President George Bush's presidential campaign efforts both in 1988 and 1996. She also served on the State Board of Republican Women for an extended period of time. In spite of being afflicted by severe illness during the last election cycle, Polly maintained an active role in Colorado politics by way of the telephone. Her commitment to America, even in times of personal ailment, is truly admirable and deeply commendable. As friends and family remember Polly's remarkable life, I am confident that the pain they feel at her passing will subside. Although all who have had the privilege to know Polly are worse off in her absence, I am hopeful that each will take solace in the knowledge that they are a better person for having known her. It is with this, Mr. Speaker, that I say thank you to Polly for her dedication to America. I am hopeful that her husband Wayne, her children Wayne and Barbara, her grandsons Richard and Douglas, her sister Mildred, and her daughter-in-law Mary will find comfort in this difficult time.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to honor Dorothy Darrow who, for the last 30 years, has served as the Secretary of the Delta County Republican Party. In this capacity, Dorothy has won both the esteem and admiration of everyone, including myself, who has had the privilege of working with her. As Dorothy moves on from her position in the party, I would like to pay tribute to her and thank her for her many years of dedicated service. First elected to the post of party secretary on February 7, 1969, Dorothy served with great distinguish as secretary where she was chiefly responsible for coordinating and organizing the multiple activities of the local party. In doing so, Dorothy played an integral part in the success of both the party and its candidates for three decades. Mr. Speaker, like those within the Delta Republican Party, I am truly grateful to Dorothy for her years of self-less service. She has been a wonderful asset to the local party, myself and other Republican candidates, as well as the Delta community at-large. As Dorothy ends her tenure with the Delta County Republicans, I would like to congratulate her on a job well done and wish her all the best in all of her future endeavors.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, it is with great delight that I now wish to honor my friend Dion Luke who, after 25 years of service as a police officer in Glenwood Springs, CO, has announced his retirement. In doing so, I would like to pay tribute to the truly extraordinary career of this remarkable individual who, for so many years, has been a beloved member of the Glenwood community. As an officer, Dion has had an uncanny knack for being right in the middle of the action. As evidence, for example, at different points in his career he would: catch a group of bank robbers, stolen bags of money in hand, as they attempted to flee Glenwood following an area heist; he would bungle one burglar's attempt at robbing a local bar after patiently waiting for the thief atop the bar's roof; and, at one point, even evaded an eight-bullet barrage fired by a man about to attempt suicide--a man he would ultimately save. This, of course, only gives mention to a few of the many instances in which Dion served distinguishedly over his lengthy career. For all of his bold exploits as a police officer, however, Dion is perhaps better known for his personable demeanor. His congenial disposition has made Dion, over the years, a local favorite. Having had the privilege of serving with Dion in the Glenwood Springs Police Department, I can say with great certainty that very few members of the law enforcement community have ever been as admired as widely, nor esteemed as deeply, as Dion. In the time I worked with Dion I obtained a respect for him that lasts even until this day. It is clear that Dion represents what a police officer should strive to be. Today, as Dion embarks on a new era in his life with his wife Dixie, I would like to offer my gratitude for his years of service and friendship. It is clear that Glenwood Springs has benefited greatly from Dion tirelessly endeavoring on its behalf. It is with this, Mr. Speaker, that I say thank you to Dion and wish him all the best as he begins his much deserved retirement.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Florida yielding me this time. The preceding speaker talked about the tragedies that are going on. Mr. Speaker, those kinds of tragedies are going on throughout the entire world. This country cannot be the world's police officer. We do have international commitments, but before we exercise these commitments, we need to look at the precedents, what we have done in regards to these kinds of situations. Number one, we have never gone into the sovereign territory of another country like this without being invited to settle a dispute within their boundaries. This is a very similar situation. If the State of Colorado that I am from got in a dispute with the State of Texas, would we invite the Turks or the Greeks or NATO to come in and resolve the dispute between Colorado and Texas? There are atrocities occurring in Kosovo. It is a proper mission for humanitarian efforts. It is not a proper mission to intervene with American military troops that will be there on an indefinite basis. Do not kid ourselves. It is an indefinite basis. Look at Cyprus, the United Nations. I just came from Cyprus. United Nations troops have never been able to make the peace there. They have been able to keep the peace because of the fact they have troops there. They have been there for 27 years. It is the same thing here. We are attempting as outsiders to intervene within the boundaries of a sovereign country to resolve a dispute that is based in large part on religion, in large part on nationality; a dispute of which we have very little historical knowledge; we certainly have very little historical experience, and we think by force and sending in troops we are going to make peace. We are not. We are going to be able to keep the peace. As long as we have troops in Kosovo, we can keep peace. But we cannot, we do not have the capability to take hundreds of years of battle and hundreds of years of rock-solid feelings and force them into a peace agreement. Finally, Mr. Speaker, let me wrap up by saying that some would suggest that this is not an appropriate time for delay. This is an appropriate time for delay before the troops go in. Do not debate after the troops are in; do it before the troops are in.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to take this opportunity to recognize former state Senator Ben Alexander who, for the last four years, has provided strong leadership and a dynamic voice for Western Colorado in the Colorado General Assembly. In doing so, I would like to pay tribute to my friend for his distinguished service and wish him well in all of his future endeavors. Following his election to the state Senate in 1994, Senator Alexander rose through the rank and file with unprecedented speed serving as Vice-chairman of the Senate Finance Committee in his first year in the legislature. In just his third year, Senator Alexander was named Chairman of the powerful Senate Education Committee where he would play a leading role in shaping Colorado's education policy for the next two years. In addition to his duties as chairman, Senator Alexander also provided powerful leadership on the Senate's Finance and Business Affairs and Labor committees. In addition to his service in the Colorado legislature, Senator Alexander also served his country distinguishedly and with great valor as an F-111 pilot for the Air Force during the Vietnam War. Senator Alexander's remarkable bravery during his 69 air combat missions earned him the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters as well as the respect and gratitude of those familiar with his extraordinary sacrifices. Senator Alexander's eagerness to serve the American people, both as a pilot and legislator, has won him the unwavering esteem and admiration of friends and colleagues alike. It is clear that Colorado is a better place because of his remarkable service. It is with this, Mr. Speaker, that I pay tribute to this true public servant and friend for his extraordinary efforts and wish him all the best in each of his future endeavors.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to recognize the career of one of Colorado's leading statesman over the past two decades, state Representative Lewis Entz. In doing so, I would like to honor this individual who, for so many years, has exemplified the notion of public service and civic duty. Now retired from the Colorado House of Representatives, it is clear that Representative Entz's dynamic leadership in the Colorado General Assembly will be greatly missed and difficult to replace. Elected to the Colorado House of Representatives in 1982--a seat he would hold until 1998, Representative Entz rose quickly to positions of great influence within the House. In 1989, Representative Entz was named Chairman of the House Local Government committee which he would chair until 1994. While serving in the General Assembly, Representative Entz was best known for his tireless work on natural resource, agricultural and local government issues. I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to work closely with him on many of these and other issues. The number of honors and distinctions that Representative Entz earned during his years of outstanding service are too numerous to list, and too few to do justice to his contributions to the state of Colorado. 1998 marked the end of Representative Entz's tenure in elected office and the state of Colorado is worse off in his absence. Mr. Speaker, there are few people in Colorado's proud history who have served as selflessly and distinguishedly as did Representative Entz. His career embodied the citizen-legislator ideal and was a model that every official in elected office, including myself, should seek to emulate. The citizens of Colorado owe Representative Entz a debt of gratitude and I wish him well in his well-deserved retirement.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. The death tax.

Mr. McINNIS. The jumping mouse, and on the eastern range, which had never been seen, never been spotted, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and they were going to regulate that as an overriding land issue. My bottom line is, we owe it to the next generation to protect our environment, but we owe it to this next generation to do it in a common-sense way that also preserves, as my colleague has very accurately defined, the fundamental philosophy of this country, and that is, as a citizen of this country we all dream someday of owning our own house or owning our own piece of the pie. And if we take care of that pie, we can all have at that opportunity. Do not let Washington, D.C., dictate and do not let Washington, D.C., try to convince the American people that they know what is best.

Mr. McINNIS. If I might, the gentleman is correct. And let me make it very clear. There are some areas, and my colleague and I have talked about this, there are some areas where timbering is not appropriate. There are some areas, regrettably, where in our history some people have abused the timber rights. They have gone out and clearcut areas where they should never have clearcut. And part of that, by the way, was the irresponsibility of the Federal Government's supervising that type of thing. But what has happened is they have taken that section of misbehavior and said, and there are actual groups out there that have said, we never want another piece of timber taken off Federal lands. We have the national Sierra Club, whose number one goal of their president is to take down the dam at Lake Powell, drain Lake Powell, which is one of the most critical resources in the western United States. What I am trying to say here is that, just as we have an obligation as citizens of this country to build a missile defense system for the next generation and just as we have a like obligation to provide a good solid education system for the next generation and just as we have a similar obligation to provide a retirement system for the next generation, we also have an obligation for this next generation to enhance the environment that we are in. But the answer for the enhancement of the environment is not necessarily, and in most cases not at all, to take away the right and the dream of private property ownership. Now, I should add, and some night we should just come and discuss that, how when the government decides they do not have the money to go in there, what they will do is go in and regulate. That way they never have to buy the land. They just go in on private property and regulate it so no one can move. In the State of Colorado we had, I think it was the jumping mouse.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, it is a heritage, like the gentleman said.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, as the government buys, for example, wilderness areas, the first thing you do is you take away local control. The gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Schaffer) and I have discussed this on a number of issues. The gentleman has a vast district in eastern Colorado, some of the most beautiful, I think, some of the most beautiful plains in the United States. I adjoin him, and I have the western part of the State of Colorado which we think are the most beautiful set of mountains. We share those beautiful mountains with States like Utah, Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming, but the Rocky Mountain range. There are certain areas there that are owned by the government, and the government should retain the ownership of that. But we must make sure that the concept of multiple use stays in place. We have to be careful because, what else happens, is when the government buys land, they drive up the price for everybody else. It is very hard today to find one's children or my children desire to go out and be a farmer, especially in our areas where the government has driven up the price of land because they are out acquiring the land. We have to encourage good and prudent management of the land, whether it is in the government hands or whether it is in private hands. But I am not sure the answer is always to take it out of private hands and put it into government hands and one is going to end up with better management. Sometimes that might be the answer, but not always. The American people need to be aware of how many thousands of acres every day across this country, through one government agency or another, at one level, local, clear up to national, go from private hands into public hands.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I thank gentleman for yielding to me. This issue of course crosses party lines. It is a bipartisan issue. It is the question of how much land should the Federal Government be allowed to continue to buy up, take out of the private marketplace, and to put under government hands and government management. I have often heard some of the special interest environmental groups try and educate the American public thinking that the government every day sells away land and gives land to mining companies and timber companies, and the land is being destroyed by millions of acres. In fact, just the opposite is true. You see dwindling industries, not just because of this, but in part related to this, you see dwindling industries in timber and so on. What you see is the government acquiring land. The government is a net acquirer. In other words, the government acquires more land than it gets rid of by many, many, many multiples. The government does not sell very much land. If they sell, it is for a right-of-way or they may do a land swap or something like that. But if one takes a look across this country, when one looks at the different lottos that are used to buy open space, the different kind of funds that local municipalities and areas have dedicated of taxpayers' money to buy land from the private marketplace and to put it into the government hands, and then you consider proposals when the President of the United States is willing to go out and spend billions and billions of dollars to take more land away from the American people and put it into the government, I mean, I am not sure that is the right answer. Clearly, all of us with today's technology have to be more concerned about what do we do for the preservation for future generations of the land we have. But I think the best managers of the land most obvious, not always, but most often are the people that live the land, the people that live off the land, the people that work the land, the people that enjoy the beauty of the land. You must always be suspicious when the government shows up and says we are here to help. We have better ideas than you do. The better ideas come out of Washington, not out of Colorado.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield just very briefly, I am sure that, when we get back to our office, somebody will call up and say, ``Are you guys aware of what is called the Anti- Ballistic Missile Treaty?" Just very quickly, to run through that again, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the basis or premise for it was that Russia got together with the United States and said, ``All right, the best way for us to provide security that we will not have a conflict between each other is neither one of us will build a missile defense system. That way, we will be hesitant to attack each other because we do not have anything to defend ourselves.'' For example, the United States, under the theory of this treaty, would not attack Russia because they would not have any way to defend themselves from Russia's retaliation. Well, those days of that treaty are over. If one reads the treaty, the treaty can be abrogated by the United States and by Russia. It is foolish for us to continue under the pretense that this treaty is going to preserve us from an incoming missile attack at some point in time by some rogue nation. At the time this was signed, technology was different, the thoughts were different, the atmosphere was different, and the number of countries that had this kind of weaponry was different. So I think it is important, as the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Schaffer) and I have discussed, do not let that ABM Treaty be a diversion from what is a necessary and, frankly, an obligation of this Congress and to the people of this country for this generation and future generations to defend our country.