Scott McInnis

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Herger).

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis). (Mr. LEWIS of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Packard). (Mr. PACKARD asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. First of all, dittos on the remarks about the gentleman from California (Mr. Fazio). I have appreciated his work and appreciated the service that he has given to us. Although I have often found myself on the other end of the voting scheme of the gentleman from California, I can say the gentleman from California has always acted with integrity and honor. Mr. Speaker, I think an important thing about the legislative appropriation we have here is that this year still reflects a significant amount of money less than when we first took the House in 1995. I had heard earlier somebody on the other side of the aisle commenting about how this House had brought this House into fiscal order. In fact, I think Members will find that this House, speaking literally of the House, was brought into fiscal order when the Republicans took control. We have had cooperation from the other side of the aisle. Clearly this rule indicates that we have cooperation as we put this budget together. This House really a leaner and meaner machine. We have taken a look at all the different operations contained within the House. We have looked at where we have needs and, where we have needs, we have accommodated those needs. For example, this year in the Capitol Police force, I know that my colleague from Ohio is a big fan of the Capitol Police and has worked very hard for this appropriation. We have made that allocation. We know that we have one of the top police forces, but we know that we are also now providing the resources that they need. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh), and I want to acknowledge all his efforts. We appreciate them very much. It says something when one is able to work on this kind of basis, in a bipartisan way. What the gentleman has done with the legislative appropriation budget, coming into the Committee on Rules where he received a voice vote, not even contested up there, that says a lot.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Hall) pending which I yield myself such time as I might consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. Mr. Speaker, the proposed rule for the conference report to accompany H.R. 4112, the legislative branch appropriations for fiscal year 1999, waives all points of order against the conference report and against its consideration. The rule provides that the conference report will be considered as read. Mr. Speaker, the underlying conference report for the legislative branch appropriations for fiscal year 1999 represents achievements towards a smaller and smarter government. It shows the progress that can be reached when the will and the effort to make necessary reforms are present. Some of my colleagues Mr. Speaker, may point out that this conference report provides a slight 2.71 percent increase in spending over last year's level. I would like to note that, in fact, the fiscal year 1999 legislative branch appropriations are still $40.6 million less than fiscal year 1995 levels. Next year Federal employees will receive a 3.6 percent cost of living adjustment. The legislative branch appropriations conference report only provides for a 2.71 percent increase overall. Of the whole legislative branch budget, 80 percent of the funding goes towards salaries. The increase of 2.71 percent in the fiscal year 1999 legislative branch appropriations conference report represents less of an increase in salaries than the Federal salary cost of living adjustments. Moreover, the legislative branch appropriations conference report reduces the employment level by 1.7 percent. In fact, since 1994, over 15 percent of the legislative branch has been downsized. Mr. Speaker, no other branch of the Federal Government comes close to this amount of downsizing. The fiscal year 1999 legislative branch appropriations conference report does include some important spending increases where necessary. For example, the legislation will increase the level of our Capitol Police salaries and expenses, recognizing the important job the men and women who make up the Capitol Police force perform. I would like to take this opportunity to commend the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh) and the ranking member, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano) for their bipartisan efforts to create a smaller, smarter government to provide leadership by example. Mr. Speaker, this is a noncontroversial rule which the Committee on Rules reported by a voice vote. The underlying legislation and conference report is bipartisan and financially responsible. The conferees did an excellent job of allocating scarce resources while building upon internal reforms we have adopted in recent years to improve congressional operations. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote yes on this rule as well as to agree to the conference report. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 550 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. McINNIS

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

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, as I begin my remarks this evening, I know some Members may have to leave the floor. Some may have other business. But there are three words that I ask Members when they leave this evening to remember: duty, honor, and country. Those words obviously come from the speech given in 1962 by General MacArthur: duty, honor, country. Our country right now is not in a constitutional crisis. Our country right now is not like the situation in Russia, where, because we have a bump in the road dealing with the highest levels of our government, our government is on the verge of collapse. It is not on the verge of collapse. Our country has the strongest economy yet remaining in the world. Our economy has the strongest military in the world. Our economy has the strongest educational system in the world. Our economy has the strongest health care system in the world. Our country clearly has more freedoms than any other country in the world. Our country helps more immigrants than any other country in the world. Our country welcomes more immigrants than any other country in the world. So as we go through these times, trying times in Washington, D.C., do not be mistaken, for there is a lot more that is going right in our country than there is that is going wrong. But tonight, by necessity, I want to talk about some of the things that I think are necessary for this country to continue to have that reputation, that reputation being that there are more things going right in this country than there are going wrong. I think, as an elected official, and this would apply to any publicly elected official in this country, we must remember three other words: always for them. Always for them, that is our duty, that is our obligation, and that is our commitment. We come second, you come first: always for them. Let us go back to duty, honor, and country. As some watch the news here, as we watch it here in the next few days, and hopefully we can expedite through the difficulties we have back here in this city, but as it goes on for months, as we watch it through the months, if we have questions about integrity, if we have questions about actions, if we have questions about commitment, if we have questions about leadership, I think we can always safely return to General MacArthur's words: duty, honor, and country. I am not going to go through all of General MacArthur's speech this evening, but I think there are some appropriate spots to talk about within this speech, and then we can get to a little more of the substance of the other issues which I earlier discussed. The address by General of the Army Douglas MacArthur to the cadets of the United States Military Academy, on May 12, 1962, was a memorable tribute to the ideals that inspired America. As long as other Americans serve their country as courageously and honorably as the general did, our country will remain great, and General MacArthur's words, duty, honor, and country, will live on. Let me take an excerpt from the speech: ``Duty, honor, country. Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, and what you will be.'' ``They are your rallying point to build courage when courage seems to fail. To regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith. To create hope when hopes become forlorn. ``Unhappily, I possess neither the eloquence of dictation, that poetry of imagination, nor the brilliance of metaphor to tell you what they all mean. The unbelievers will say they are but words, but a slogan, but a flamboyant phrase. Every pundit, every demagogue, every cynic, every hypocrite, every troublemaker, and I am sorry to say some others of entirely different character, will try to downgrade them even to the extent of mockery and ridicule. But those are some of the things they do. ``These words build your basic character. They mold you for your future roles as custodians of the Nation's defense. They make you strong enough to know when you are weak and brave enough to face yourself when you are afraid. ``What the words teach. They teach you to be proud and unbending in honest failure, but humble and gentle in success. Not to substitute words for actions, not to seek the path of comfort, but to face the stress and spur of difficulty and challenge. To learn to stand up in the storm, but to have compassion on those who fall. To master yourself before you seek to master others. To have a heart that is clean, a goal that is high, to learn to laugh, yet never forget how to weep. To reach into the future, yet never neglect the past. ``To be serious, yet never to take yourself too seriously. To be modest so that you will remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength. ``They give you a temperate will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a freshness of the deep springs of life, a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of an appetite for adventure over love of ease. They create in your heart the sense of wonder, the unfailing hope of `what next?' and joy and inspiration of life.'' Those words should be read by everybody in this country who is running for public office in this November's election. These words should be read by every teacher, every college professor, every minister, everybody who has someone younger than they or everybody who has somebody looking to them for advice. Those words should be read, because this country is a country of standards. This country is a country of expectations. This country is a country of great people. But it is a country that is tested at every turn. And if we do not meet these standards, truthfulness, dedication, patriotism, and it goes on and on, if we do not meet those simple standards, this country will go around a bend and go right off the curve. Now, we have been tested, as I said, for 300 years. Tested before the country became a country. Tested when we came to this land. Tested throughout this history. And, of course, overall we have succeeded. But most of the time if we look at our success, it is not a matter of luck. It is a matter of standards. When we talk about some of the areas that we need to look at that make this country great, there are three areas I think are specific. One of them is called the rule of law. Now, the basic philosophy of the rule of law in our country is that the law is king. Remember that. The law is king. The king is not the law. Now, there are other countries in the world, and of course throughout our history, where the king was above the law. In our country, we do not make that exception. In our country, the law is the king. Nobody is above the law. It is elementary for the success of this country. Mr. Speaker, I want to visit for a minute, we have had lots of discussion in the last few weeks about telling the truth, about fundamental honesty, about a word called ``perjury.'' I have here the definition of perjury. For the rule of law to work, we have got to have a system that demands honesty. In our system, we have an oath that we take before we testify in court. We have all heard that oath 100,000 times on TV shows. Some have experienced that oath in a court of law. Those who, like me, went through law school and were accepted by the local courts went through an oath with that court. We swear to tell the truth. We swear to it. Those who serve in public office were sworn to an oath and in that oath if it was not explicit, it was certainly implied that they had a commitment and a duty to tell the truth. Perjury: False declarations before a grand jury or court, or a court, any jury, any court. Whoever, under the oath at any proceeding before or any ancillary to the court or grand jury of the United States, knowingly makes any false material declaration. Notice that for our rule of law to prevail, we do not put a comma there and we do not put the words after the comma, ``except when it is uncomfortable.'' We do not allow an exception to perjury if it is uncomfortable to tell the truth. We do not allow an exception to perjury. We do not put a comma there and allow an exception to perjury if it is embarrassing to tell the truth. We do not allow an exception to perjury if it is a private matter and we do not want to share it with anybody. We do not allow someone not to tell the truth because they do not want to share it with anybody. We require, it is very simple, that they must tell the truth and the reason is that our system has to work. Those out there could put a lot of blanks behind this comma. We could come up with any kind of exception we want. But at end of the day, we are going to find out that it is very simple. There are not exceptions. At the end of the day, we will say to ourselves: It is a beautifully designed definition. Because, Mr. Speaker, if we allowed exceptions, how could we stop? And certainly if we allow an exception for one person, let us say we have somebody who is a great friend, a good citizen in the community, he has done a lot for the community. We do not put a comma on there that says, ``Except for Scott McInnis.'' We do not put a comma on there that says, ``Except for Good Guy John'' or ``Good Lady Jane.'' We cannot do it. It will not work. The system cannot afford a leak like that. Through years and years, our system, our court system, public officers, publicly elected officials, have sustained this definition by following it. Recently, I have gotten some interesting correspondence, as some might guess, from constituents regarding issues. Let me say this evening and make it very clear, there may appear to be gaps in my comments tonight. As we all know, we have the strictest protocol in the country as to what we can and cannot say on this floor, and I am doing everything I can to stay within those rules. It is my obligation as a Congressman to follow the rules of this House. So, the comments I am about to make have been heavily edited so as not to offend the protocol or the rules of the House of Representatives. Mr. Speaker, this is a constituent letter: ``I've never written to any elected official before.'' By the way, this is dated Friday, September 11. ``I've never written to any elected official before. But in light of current events, I find it necessary to write now. I am a resident of Denver County and currently not registered as either a Republican or an Independent. I am a swing voter, since I usually vote for the person and not the party, having voted for Bill Clinton in 1992, Bob Dole in 1996, Dukakis in 1998 and anybody but Reagan in 1980 and 1984. ``I do not know the answers yet to the action that should be taken about the current presidency. I do not know whether impeachment is the ultimate answer until all the facts have come out. But I do feel strongly that hearings should commence. If nothing else, if no action winds up being taken, this country needs to address morality and honesty for all of us. ``What is it that makes this country great? I used to be a court reporter and administered the oath daily and it means something to me. It is hard for me to hear anyone saying, ``Everybody does it. Nobody prosecutes people that do not tell the truth under oath.'' If that is so, why do we, Mr. Congressman, bother to even administer the oath? ``I have two young men that I am raising as a single parent. One is 12 years old and one is 8 years old. My 12-year-old son, Alex, and I were talking about the current events one evening and he remarked, `Can someone not tell the truth and get away with it?' When I said it is possible and I do not know that they will be punished for not telling the truth, he had a stunned look of disbelief and it was somewhat painful to me. ``This is a young man who cannot lie. He has a job walking dogs and one day he forgot to do his job. He did not try to hide or conceal it. He called up the woman he works for and he told her what had happened. He was sorry; to not pay him for that day because he had been careless and irresponsible. He could have committed a lie of omission, but he did not. He fessed up immediately and he took responsibility. ``That is the kind of adult I want him to become. Though I did not tell him right when he made his decision on what course to take, I would have made him quit his job immediately had he not done the right thing. I am trying to raise children in a society that is coming apart in many ways. But I will raise them like my parents raised me. To respect the truth, to take personal responsibility immediately and effectively. ``The greatest sin of character in my mind is to take the easy path, the path of least resistance, the popular way. ``Holding hearings, Mr. Congressman, may not be popular, but it may be the only way we the American people can sort out who we are and what it is that means something. Can our leaders take as much responsibility as my 12-year-old son? Make no mistake, Mr. Congressman, that job means as much to my son as the President's job probably means to him. ``This country must find the will to figure out who we are again. Do we make excuses for everything and everyone, or do we take the more difficult path? We are trusting you, Mr. Congressman, to do what is right, not what is expedient or popular. I am not sure I know what that is, but I know this country cannot crumble just because of a scandal. This must be looked into and the facts must be determined.'' Mr. Speaker, John Adams wrote a dissertation on the canon and feudal law and the rule of law, and I quote from John Adams: ``The people have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefensible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge. I mean of the characters and the conduct of their rulers.'' Let me repeat that. ``I mean of the characters and the conduct of their rulers. Rulers are no more than attorneys, agents and trustees for the people. And if the cause, the interest, and the trust is insidiously betrayed or wantonly trifled away, the people have the right to revoke the authority that they themselves have deputed and to constitute and have abler and better agents, attorneys and trustees.'' The people have that right. Remember, you can always come back, throughout this speech this evening, if you are leaving us midspeech, walk out of here with just those three words: duty, honor and country. For those of you who have to leave tonight that want to continue your public service, remember the other three words: Always for them, always for them. I want to say to some of you, as an elected official, let me tell you, I am not perfect. I had some entertaining days in my younger days. I was one of those people that got out of high school and people said I could not wait to get out. I had a blast. I had a great time in college. In fact, every day I have had the opportunity and the privilege by the Good Lord to be on this earth, I have enjoyed it. Sure, we have gone through some tragedies, but I am not pretending to be perfect. I remember one time when I was young, lying in my folks' hammock with my air gun, it is like a BB gun, that is what they used to call it. I was shooting through the hedge. What I did not think about was, as I shot through the hedge, I was shooting out the neighbor's windows. Now, I can tell you that when the neighbor came over, alarmed and, of course, the police came because they thought somebody was shooting at them, I thought they had kind of overexaggerated the situation, but now when I look back, I wonder why they did not shoot back. But when they came to my folks and my folks got me, I told my folks I was sorry. My dad said to me, that is good. We forgive you. But there are consequences. Just saying you are sorry does not mean you get to keep your BB gun. You do not, son. Give us the BB gun. We are locking it up. And by the way, locking up the BB gun is not your only consequence. You not only give up the privilege that we trusted you with, and that was that gun, but, son, you have damages. You have consequences. We have got some windows over there in the neighbor's house that you broke. Your apology does not go far enough. You will go out and work to pay for the cost of those window repairs. What am I alluding to? I am alluding to the fact that as a public official, our private lives are to an extent private. For example, I do not think that the public that I represent as a Congressman, mind you, I am a Congressman from the State of Colorado, I am voted for by the people of the 3rd congressional district of the State of Colorado, but I represent the United States of America. I am a Congressman of the United States, not just Colorado. Obviously, I would love to tell you more about Colorado. That is a lot of my heritage and so on and so forth, but the fact is that my constituents in Colorado or constituents throughout this country should not have the right to go in and photograph me going to the bathroom. My private matters with my wife are not necessarily matters of the public. But when we step up to the plate to represent you, there are matters of our private life that do become public business. You have a lot of trust in us. You have a lot of faith in us. So do not let somebody say to you, well, their private lives are of no consequence. What if Scott McInnis was a sleeping Chinese spy? That is of consequence. What if I was driving a brand new Rolls-Royce every day and you knew my income was $136,000 a year? You have a reasonableness to inquire as to, Scott, where did this money come from. What if I do not show up in Congress to represent you. I show up for roll call and leave the day after. And when you say, where have you been all day, you are missing a lot of votes? Sorry, that is my private life. That is my private life, my private life. You have no right to inquire just because you elected me as to what I do with my day if I am doing it privately. Of course, our private lives have windows in them. That is to be expected. We knew that in advance. Sometimes that can go too far. Let me move on to the next part that I spoke of, I think it is important to address tonight. That is moral character. There are 6 pillars of character, core elements of character. Not too many years ago an organization called Character Counts, which is a bipartisan organization, had people like Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, actor Tom Selleck and many other people from across the country, sat down and said, as I said earlier in this speech, the pillars of this country are based not on the person but the character of the person. It is character that builds a person. And our country, to assure ourselves of the future as much as we have had comfort and satisfaction out of the past, must continue and enhance its obligation to character. And they outlined 6 areas that I think we should look at every time we question somebody who serves you. If we have a general in the military, we should question about these 6 pillars. If we have a private in the military, we ought to ask, we ought to look at it. If we have a school teacher, we ought to look at it. If we have a Congressman, we ought to look at it. The President? We ought to look at it. These are 6 standards of character. Let me say to you that if we drop any of these standards, you have created not a small leak, you have just put a gap in the Titanic. You have got to have standards. I am not saying perfect. I have already told you, I shot out the windows of my neighbor's house sitting in a hammock, not knowing what I was doing, when I was 8 or 10 years old. Of course, we do not have perfect leaders, but we all know right here in the gut, we know in the gut what common sense tells us is a good leader. What common sense, right here in the gut. You know when you are doing something wrong. You know when somebody else is doing something wrong. You also in the gut know when it is about time to stand up and say, what about the 6 pillars of character. Trustworthiness. You have every right in private life, in public life when you elect somebody to serve you in public office, when you appoint a public official to serve you, when you have a police officer that is hired, when you have a school teacher, your clergy, you have every right to trust them. You have every right to have an expectation from them flowing to you of trustworthiness, respect. How can you have leadership without respect? Let me bring this point up. Do you know that since about August 17th, every group of people that I have met with, say, three people or more, there has not been one group that somebody has not pulled me aside and told me a joke, not to be mean or anything, but told me a joke degrading the Presidency of this country. We cannot do that. We have to have respect for that highest office. If we do not have respect for the highest office in the country, then we have got to sit down all of us, Democrat, Republican, unaffiliated, nonregistered, we have to sit down and we have to say, what do we need to repair a model? The model has to have respect. Responsibility. Obviously, you have responsibility. You have to be responsible for your actions. I used to be a police officer. That is why I keep coming back with these police officer examples. If a police officer goes through town and he runs through a red light, he has got lights and sirens, you have a code 1 call, an officer is down, you have the responsibility to drive that vehicle at a safe speed in a safe manner to get to the scene where you are going. You have a responsibility with that job. In the letter that I just read to you from a constituent, that young man had the responsibility to walk his dogs, walk the neighbor's dogs. His mother had a responsibility to make sure that when her son did not carry out his responsibility, that it was her responsibility to tell him about that and fill the gap. Responsibility. It comes from the top down. Remember the boy that walked the dogs. He looked from the top and said, what if at the top there is not responsibility? Do I have to have responsibility? That is the consequences of not keeping this pillar of responsibility strong. Justice and fairness. We talked about justice and fairness. The rule of law. Let me repeat that for those of you who have just come on to the floor, the rule of law. Remember, in our country justice and fairness says that the law is king. The king is not the law. Caring. Caring is important. There are not a lot of people that I have met in my life, met one or two that I have seen through the criminal court system that were not caring, but I have met very few people outside of that that did not have a caring bone in them. Of course, they care, either a death in the family or somebody, despite the stories you read about once in a while in the newspapers. When I travel the highways, as I do extensively in the State of Colorado, whenever there is an accident, usually the biggest problem the police have is there is too many volunteers. There is too much help. So people in this country care. That is an important pillar. I think our country has a lot of it, and it is demonstrated by what we do for hungry people. We feed more hungry people than any other country in the world. I am talking about hungry people in other countries as well as our own country. Civic virtue and citizenship. Of course we need to have citizenship. Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, we will talk about them in a few minutes. Mr. Speaker, we are going to talk about here in a minute about the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts and some other societies and our clergy. We have civic virtue and citizenship. We talk about that. We talk about that in schools. I commented to my wife, Lori, the other day, I said, do you know something, is it not neat to go to any event where they play our national anthem? You do not see anybody sitting. They all stand. You do not see anybody that has to be helped up, hey, stand up, stand up, this is our national anthem. It is automatic. There is a lot of pride. There is a lot of citizenship. What builds that? Greatness. What builds greatness? These 6 pillars. Let me talk about integrity for a moment. I was going through the different books and looking, I love quotes. I love reading quotes. I found one on integrity by John F. Kennedy, our President. Let me read it: For of those to whom much is given, of those to whom much is given, much is required. And when at some future date the high court of history sits in judgment on each one of us, recording whether in our brief span of service we fulfilled our responsibilities to the State, our success or failure in whatever office we hold will be measured by answers to four questions. First, were we truly men of courage? Second, were we truly men of judgment? Third, were we truly men of integrity? And finally, were we truly men of dedication? Every one of us on this House floor, every one of us and everybody in public service, whether elected or appointed, should ask those four. First, were we truly men of courage? Second, were we truly men of judgment? Third, were we truly men of integrity? And finally, were we truly men of dedication? There are lots of questions that we need to ask when we talk about integrity. There are lots of questions that we need to ask when we talk about these 6 pillars of character. Today, Mr. Speaker, let us ask them of ourselves. What would happen and what should happen to us in the United States Congress if we did not tell the truth, if we did not have that kind of integrity? Unfortunately, as you and I know, in the past, as in any profession, whether it is the clergy or whether it is any profession, some people have not lived up to that standard. Thankfully, during my tenure here, when some of our colleagues have failed to live up to that standard, the process has stood up to them. So we have had accountability. Let us ask about the rule of law. We need to ask ourselves about the rule of law. How is not telling the truth any different than a burglar? In fact, my way of looking at things, it could be much, much more significant, because we all hold positions of trust. There are a lot of people that depend on us. There are not a lot of people in this country who watch what we do day-to-day. Why? Because they depend on us. There are not a lot of people who do not have to go to work, who can sit and watch C-SPAN or read books or read reports on us or come observe us here on the House floor every day. Why? Because they have other things to do. They expect us to do our job. Is it asking too much of us to do our job right, to do the thing that is right? Oh, sure, we are going to have disagreements on philosophy. Somebody may agree with welfare reform; somebody may oppose it. Somebody may want to spend more government money, raise taxes; somebody may want to cut taxes. That is not what I am talking about, not honest dispute. What I am talking about is integrity. I am talking about these pillars of character counts. Does not the character of our leaders reflect the people that they represent? It does, and it can be seen here. I have been lucky enough to serve with my colleagues. I consider it a privilege. I consider myself very, very fortunate. As John F. Kennedy said, for those of us to whom much is given, much is required. I, like my colleagues, work many, many long hours. I, like my colleagues, travel to the district, travel throughout, listen to lots and lots of people. Not because we are great leaders but because we have great people that we represent. What is the difference between us and others? We actually have a higher standard. The average person, for example, a few minutes ago my colleagues will remember we were talking about the private life and the public life of an elected official, well, the average citizen has a much larger parameter protecting their private lives. In fact, in our Constitution we go to great length to make sure that the government cannot, without warrant, knock down a door and come into someone's house. When we are serving the public, we give up a portion of that. When we give up a portion of that, we come to those standards I talked about, and we have standards and we have standards that are fairly uniform. Let us take a couple of examples. In the military, in our military academies, we have all dreamed at one time or another probably of our kids having the privilege to go to a military academy; one of the highest honors in your college, when you go to college, one of the highest honors you can achieve in this country. Let me say, those standards are impeccable, impeccable. If someone lies at the academy, they are out; if they go out and do something they are not supposed to do, they are out. Why? Because these people will go on to be great leaders. Well, it ought to go on up the ladder and it does go on up the ladder. Not long ago we had a military pilot. This military pilot flew nuclear bombers. This military pilot was alleged to have an affair, something else on the side. It was against the rules. We could not risk it. We cannot risk that high standard because of the consequences of what could happen. It may not have happened with that particular individual but it could happen if we allowed this standard to be lowered, if we put a comma behind the definition of perjury. We have other military examples. We have people that go through a pretty rough sledding, for example, our Supreme Court appointees, before they get put into their slot. Ladies and gentlemen, we have an obligation in this country, Democrat, Republican, whatever, we have an obligation in this country to make sure that that standard becomes higher and higher as it goes up the ladder of leadership. They should expect it of us and we should expect it of the leaders that we have amongst ourselves, and the people have every right to expect that. We want it from our teachers, we want it from our coaches, we want it from our policeman. Listen to Thomas Jefferson, ``He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the worlds believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good disposition.'' Ralph Waldo Emerson, not referring specifically to these six character, pillars of character but referring to character in general, said, and many of my colleagues know this, if you act, you show character; if you sit still, you show character; if you sleep, you show character. Thomas Jefferson again: ``Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself.'' Let me repeat that. ``Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he then be trusted with the government of others?'' That is the first inaugural address, March 4, 1801, Thomas Jefferson. We have certain standards in our society. We have oaths that we take. You remember the letter I read earlier. I have other letters I will comment on but the one that says, hey, not everybody does it. Why do we administer an oath? I was a court reporter. I gave those oaths. I was not, but I am quoting from this letter. We have standards in office. We have the oaths to the office of the presidency, I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully, faithfully, faithfully, execute the office of the President of the United States and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. We have standards for many other jobs, which are very important, and in their own regards, as important as perhaps the office of the presidency is to the occupant of that office. Remember the lady who wrote about their 12-year-old that walked the dog and she said, you know, to that 12-year-old boy of mine his job was as important to him as the President's job is to him. Well, let us look at what we have. Policemen, remember, policemen, 24 hours a day, I used to be one, 24 hours a day, you are on duty 24 hours a day. You are expected to respond to the standards, to the needs of the citizens, to the commitment to this country, to the commitment to your department, 24 hours a day. That does not mean you have to be perfect, but it does mean you have to come in above those standards. Firemen, same thing; minister, rabbi, my gosh, what a crushing blow it would be to any one of us to find out that our rabbi or our priest or our minister did not meet the standards of which he spoke to us, of which he taught us, of which he guided us. The coach, the teacher, the CEO, chief executive officer, the judge, a supervisor at any level, a supervisor at any level, we all have standards. If any of these people worked for you, think about that, if any of these people worked for you, what would you do? By the way, I work for the people. We all work for the people of this country. The President works for the people of this country. Police officers work for their community. A coach works. Let us take an example. You all know a good teacher. You all know that your communities had good teachers and good coaches. Think what would happen in your community if you had the best teacher you had ever had in the history of your school, best teacher you had ever had and let us say that allegations of sexual impropriety between that teacher and a student became known in your community and were factually shown to be true. How long, despite the fact that this teacher was an excellent teacher, despite the fact that this teacher was your good friend and a friend of many people in the community, how long would it be before that teacher or that coach lost their job? It would happen like that. You cannot show me one school district in this country where a teacher would get a report like that on a Friday and be in a classroom teaching again on a Monday. It does not happen. We have basic standards. I can tell my colleagues that we cannot have higher standards for our teachers than we do for our congressmen. We cannot have higher standards for our teachers than we do for the President of the United States. It is called the rule of law. It is called the greatness of this country. It is called the standards of character. We are role models. Every one of us in this chamber is fortunate to be here. Every one that I know, and I know every one of the Members personally, some not as well as others but I know my colleagues well enough to know that they take their oath seriously; I know them well enough to know that they work a lot of long hours in here. Sure, we get a lot of criticism, some of it deserved, a lot of it not, but the fact is I know that there are a lot of dedicated people on both sides of the aisle. That is what it should be. That is how it ought to be. Remember that when Kennedy in his speech, again going back to those words he said to us, for of those to whom much is given, much is required. What are one of the elements that is required? I will tell my colleagues what is required: Be a role model, to be a role model. Now, our Boy Scouts take oaths, our Girl Scouts take oaths, our students stand up for the National Anthem because we have role models in this country. If we have a role model who for some reason can no longer be a role model, it is incumbent, it is incumbent upon us, it is our responsibility right there, it is our responsibility to get a new role model because we cannot afford to have poor role models in this country. Take a look, for example, about the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts principles. The Boy Scout law, do you know what the first element of the Boy Scout law is? Trustworthy. A scout tells the truth. He keeps his promises. His honesty is a part of his code of conduct. People can depend on a scout. Girl Scout law, I will do my best to be honest. It is honesty. It is honesty. Let me go back and talk about the scout for a moment, a letter that I got recently, very, very discouraged because the Eagle Scout award is signed by elected officials in our country. In fact, the Boy Scout, Eagle Scout award is signed by the President of the United States. The question that came in on this was, my son just got his Eagle Scout award. What does this certificate mean? We should ask ourselves, should the certificate that has our signatures on it meet those standards? I think it should. It is kind of automatic that we put the President's signature on something like that because we expect the office of the presidency to meet those kind of standards. Have they been met? I do not know. I do not think so. Do we have a role model? If we have a problem with a role model, are we ready to look at the role model? What do we need to improve the role model? Because we want the future Boy Scouts to be proud of that. We want, when you go in a classroom anywhere in this country, and you ask these young people, name the 5 people for which you have the most respect, we want the very highest elected officials in our country to be on that list of 5. How did you get on that list of 5? By fulfilling standards, by living up to those standards, by being great. That is what takes you to greatness. I want to talk now and switch gears for a minute and talk about integrity and honesty. We have said they are the key components of leadership, obviously. We said that the key components of leadership are not a private matter but it is of extreme public interest, whether our elected leaders have such characteristics and use them daily in their important decisions. We talked about that. We talked about standards. We talked about duty, honor, country. Now let us talk about something very practical: Effectiveness. You may be an honorable Congressman. You may be a well liked Congressman. You may be a well liked president. The question is, are you effective? And I think the best example to use when we talk about this is to talk about football. This is football season right now. We have a pretty clear understanding of what football is, and what we need. Now, from Colorado, of course, I take great pride in John Elway of the Denver Broncos. I probably just lost some of my colleagues here on the floor, but that aside, I want them to know I think we are going to have a repeat year for the Broncos, for those who might be interested, but let us talk about a football example. Let us say we have got a great team, that is the United States of America, and let us say that our line people, the people that defend and allow us to move forward in progression or stop our opponents from moving against us, let us say those line people are your elected officials or your appointed public officials. Let us say that for a minute on this example. Let us say we have got a quarterback that is a very popular quarterback, and a quarterback who, in some people's mind, a quarterback who has performed very well in his past performances, a matter of controversy but let us just say for the sake of the argument the quarterback was well liked and performed well. The quarterback shows up one day and kind of has hidden in his coat his arm, he will not bring his arm out. Finally the fact comes out that the quarterback has a broken arm. Now, you may disagree but we all huddle together and we argue and say, well, how did he break his arm? Well, I happen to think, says one, he broke it himself but somebody else says, no, no, it got broken but it was not his fault. The guy has been such a great quarterback, he should not have a broken arm. The bottom line is our quarterback has a broken arm. Now, no matter how much you like the quarterback, no matter how unfortunate you think it is that the quarterback got his arm broken, no matter what party affiliation you are, no matter whether or not you are a registered player or a voter, the fact is you have got a lot of risk, you have got a lot invested in this football team. It is your team. It is the greatest team in the world. Now, do you put the quarterback with the broken arm back on the field no matter how much you like him? The fact is with a broken arm, the quarterback cannot pass, the quarterback cannot hand off, the quarterback cannot run with the football, and because the quarterback came into the locker room kind of concealing the fact that he had a broken arm, not everybody is sure what the quarterback is up to. So our line, our front line is beginning to say, ``Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You know, if I had to ask, maybe that quarterback would have come on the field or maybe the quarterback did come on the field and it was not until we started running plays that we figured out he had a broken arm.'' That is what we have got here. Let me come back to saying that our quarterback has to be extremely effective. Now, the beauty of what our football team has, again comparing it to our country, is that we have got a backup quarterback. We do not have to give up and forfeit our game. We do not have to walk off the football field because our quarterback has got a broken arm. We have got a backup quarterback. Without missing one beat, without missing one play, we can put a backup quarterback in that slot and our team can continue with its great progress forward, or it can stop with great strength the progress of the other team or the attempted progress coming this direction. The system has got checks and balances in it. Folks, we need to think about what is the effect of the difficulties that our country is now facing. We need to ask ourselves the question, does our quarterback have a broken arm? We need to also say to ourselves, ``I love that quarterback. I like the guy. You know, it's not right that he got his arm broken.'' But even those of you who say that, and I do not think that is widely shared, but even those who say that, I think you especially have an obligation to step forward to the rest of the team and say, ``Look, I love the guy, I love the quarterback, but he can't pass the ball. He can't be top-notch. He can't deliver as he has delivered in the past. It is time to bring the backup quarterback onto the field.'' Now, I should tell you that effectiveness is questioned in a number of editorials across this country. Let me just for a couple of minutes say to all of you, I hope that tonight you have gotten the gist of my comments. As I have said to you, my comments have been highly edited. Not because there was nasty language, not because there were sexual terms that should not have been used. None of that was in the speech to start with. None of it. But we have very strict protocol. I agree with that. I have an obligation and a duty to follow it. But I hope you have gotten the gist of it. The gist of it is that we have a moral duty in this country to make sure that the leaders that you elect are there and there for you. We have the rule of law that we have to live by. And we have the standards of conduct that we have got to stand by. Let me just say to you that our effectiveness at this level has been called into question by probably 166 major newspapers. This is a list of calls for resignation: Asheville, NC; Appleton, WI; Amarillo, TX; Albuquerque; Cincinnati Enquirer; Columbia, SC; Los Angeles; Lynchburg, VA; Kingston; Hamilton, OH; Franklin, IN; Rocky Mountain News, CO; Denver Post, CO; Durham, NC; Douglas, AZ; Des Moines Register; Dalton, GA, Daily Citizen; Mobile Register; Monroe, LA; New Orleans; New London; New Orleans Times; Newport News; Newton Kansan; Norfolk; North Platte; Ogden, UT; Orange County; Rochester; St. George, UT; San Antonio, TX; Washington; Watertown, NY; Wisconsin; Topeka; Stockton, CA; Oregon; South Carolina; South Dakota; Washington; Seattle, WA; Nebraska; Savannah. You name it. One hundred sixty-six major players in this country are saying to us, ``Your quarterback has a broken arm. This team needs to get the backup quarterback onto the field.'' Mr. Speaker, let me conclude the same way that I started. That is, with six words. First of all, the three words of General MacArthur's speech. As I said earlier, those three words. Any time that you have got a question about what is occurring here, anytime that as you go through the pressure that we are talking about, that we are seeing here in the next few days, anytime any of you out there have a question about the standards and the character and the ethics and can our quarterback play, remember, let me forget the other three words, let me just talk about the three most important words: Duty, honor and country. Let us do what we can do. Let us do what we were elected to do. Let us do what we are committed to do, to be sure that General MacArthur's words live on: Duty, honor and country.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the notice requirements of House Resolution 544, I announce that the following bills will be considered under suspension on Wednesday, September 23, 1998: H.R. 2000, AK Native Claims; H.R. 4068, Native American Tech. Changes; H.R. 2314, Kickapoo Tribe; S. 1279, Indian Employment; H.R. 1481, Great Lakes; H.R. 1659, Mount St. Helens Monument; H.R. 3381, Gallatin Land Consolidation; H.R. 2223, Education Land Grant Act; H. Res. 144, Lewis & Clark; S. 1355, Lee Courthouse; H.R. 3598, White Federal Building; H.R. 1756, Money Laundering & Financial Crimes; H.R. 4005, Money Laundering Deterrence; H.R. 4244, Federal Procurement; H.R. 4283, Africa Seeds of Hope; H.R. 633, State Department Agents Retirement (GOV too); H. Res. 505, Pacific Islands; H. Con. Res. 315, Kosovo; H.R. 4558, Welfare Tech. Amends (Commerce too); H.R. 4017, Energy Conservation Reauthorization

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution. The previous question was ordered.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Moakley), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During the consideration of the resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. Mr. Speaker, this rule truly is noncontroversial. It simply allows that we have suspensions in order on September 23, 1998. It also provides that the object of any motion to suspend the rules shall be announced from the floor at least 2 hours prior to its consideration. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 544 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Moakley), made a point earlier after my introduction that he was going to vote for the bill, and that is correct. I did not want to imply that he was not. I understand from sitting in the Committee on Rules and listening to the gentleman from Massachusetts last night, there is no question about his commitment to fight these drugs and to do whatever will effectively fight them, and I want to make sure that is of record. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution. The previous question was ordered.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) surprises me. If the gentleman thinks there is mischief in the bill, he should vote ``no.'' The gentleman says on the one hand there is mischief in the bill, and then says that he is not going to vote against this bill. If what the gentleman is saying is true, he ought to vote against it. He has an obligation to vote against it. Mr. Speaker, the reason the gentleman is not going to vote against it is because there is not mischief in the bill. The gentleman knows that this bill is a good bill that helps us fight this problem on the streets, and that is the drugs. Now, as far as the process, and we go back again, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) earlier, and now the gentleman from New Jersey, are suggesting some type of secret process. Hey, this is our fight. It is a Democrat fight. It is a Republican fight. We are all together on this. Our common enemy here are the illegal drugs on the street. This is not a battle in secret. The secrets are held by the drug cartels. We are going after them and we want the help of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and I hope they support us today and help us in that battle. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Of course, the gentleman's verbal assault that we have just listened to for the last 7 minutes if anything indicates it is an election year. It is his words. Put all that aside. Obviously, we are not disobeying the rules of the House. If we were disobeying the rules of the House or if we were not following the rules of the House, the Speaker would rule us out of order. It is within the rules of the House of exactly what we are doing, and we are dealing with the drug problem. I know that the gentleman is concerned; that he claims this was done in secrecy. This was not done in secrecy. This is not a defense secret. This is done in the public. We see it. We see everybody in the streets, the problem. The gentleman has every right to vote against this bill. The gentleman has every right to get the Members on his side of the aisle who, by the way, did not pass this kind of legislation, who did not do something about this, in my opinion, when they controlled both Houses and the Presidency. Instead, when we do, we get a few Members over there that take a verbal assault on what I think is a well-intended bill with lots of substance in it. Let us talk. The gentleman there spent 2 or 3 minutes on something about the provisions in the bill dealing with market incentives to pharmaceutical manufacturers. If the gentleman would read the manager's amendment and if the gentleman would vote the first amendment up, all his concerns spent in the first 3\1/2\ minutes of that verbal assault will be taken care of like that. That amendment handles it. It was a legitimate point that the gentleman brought up, but the staff needed to tell him, sir, this is covered in the first amendment if we vote for the first amendment, which I think will pass by a strong majority. It is taken care of. That is why we have that manager's amendment. We want to cleanse this bill to get it out there. But we do not want to delay the bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he might consume to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert) who has put a remarkable amount of time into this. We appreciate it very much. The gentleman understands this issue. He understands the significance of it. I think it is important we hear from him for a few minutes.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I have great respect for the gentleman from Massachusetts, and I know that from a personal standpoint he is very adamant about our involvement in the war against drugs, but he also represents the views of some people perhaps who have come to him and complained. Let me point out a couple of things that I think are important that the gentleman brought up in his statement. Number 1, anybody who does not like this is free to vote ``no.'' Number 2, the Democrats, when they controlled the Congress, they controlled the Senate, they controlled the House, and they had the current President as President of the United States, they could have put this bill through overnight. It took the Republicans, frankly, who only control the House and the Senate, we do not control the presidency, it took us to push this thing forward. And at that, we are making it bipartisan. The bill itself is constructed from the components of a number of other bills. This is a good bill. This takes on the illegal drugs out there. I am a parent. I used to be a cop. I know what we need to do. Carroll O'Connor, as I said earlier in my testimony, said, get in between the drugs, intervene any way we can. The Democrats did not do it when they had the House and the Senate and the presidency. This bill does, and it is a bipartisan bill. Now, there was some comment made about one of my colleagues here did not get his amendment put in order. It was not the content of the amendment that caused the problem, it was that the amendment was not germane to the bill. We agreed to an open rule; we are going to have lots of time for debate. In fact, Mr. Speaker, the time we are allowing for debate here is exceptionally generous. The basics of the bill are pretty simple. We have 4 or so amendments, we have one hour of general debate and several hours for the amendments, but we have to keep it germane, we have to keep it on subject, and that is what we were attempting to do there. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Portman), a gentleman who has spent a lot of time on this. He is very knowledgeable on this subject, and I think a lot of merit goes to him for the substance he has put together on this bill.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Moakley) pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During the consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purposes of debate only. Mr. Speaker, the proposed rule is a modified open rule providing for 1 hour of general debate equally divided between the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert) or a designee of Mr. Hastert's and a Member opposed to the bill. After general debate, the proposed rule provides for a 3-hour time limit on the amendment process. House Resolution 538 further provides, prior to the consideration of any other amendment, for the consideration of the amendment printed in the report of the Committee on Rules if offered by a Member designated in the report. This amendment shall not be subject to demand for division or to amendment and shall be debatable for the time specified in the report, equally divided and controlled by a proponent and an opponent. Mr. Speaker, finally, the proposed rule provides that should the amendment be adopted, the bill, as amended, be considered as original text for the purpose of further amendment. The proposed rule provides that the Chairman of the Committee of the Whole may accord priority in recognition to Members who preprint their amendments in the Congressional Record. The proposed rule also allows the Chairman of the Committee of the Whole to postpone votes on amendments and reduce to 5 minutes the minimum time for electronic voting on any postponed votes provided voting time on the first in a series of questions is not less than 15 minutes. Finally, the rule provides 1 motion to recommit, with or without instructions. This rule was reported out of the Committee on Rules by a voice vote. Mr. Speaker, the underlying legislation, the Drug Demand Reduction Act of 1998, is intended to intervene and reduce the demand for illegal drugs and the inappropriate use of illegal drugs in this country. The Drug Demand Reduction Act of 1998 complements other anti-drug legislation like H.R. 4300, the Western Hemisphere Drug Elimination Act, and seeks to interdict drugs before they reach the United States. This proposed rule will allow ample time for the House to consider this measure, any amendments to it; 1 hour for the proposed rule, 1 hour of general debate and 3 hours on the amendments; a total of 5 hours devoted to the debate regarding H.R. 4550 and the Drug Demand Reduction Act of 1998. The underlying bill is a recent product of the Drug Task Force headed by the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert). However, the provisions of the underlying bill have been under consideration for the past year. Most of the provisions contained in the bill can be found in our bills, bills that have been thoroughly considered in other committees. I am not happy to note that illegal and illicit drug use in this country have doubled in the last several years. As a former police officer, Mr. Speaker, as somebody who has been on the street and somebody who understands illegal drugs, as somebody who has dealt with illegal drugs on a firsthand basis in my law enforcement days, I can tell my colleagues that this is a situation that is a serious, serious situation, and the Members ought to support this rule and move on to address the substance of this legislation. And it is my forecast the majority of our colleagues on this House floor will, in fact, support this bill because we share a common thread, and that thread is, cut out the illegal drugs. I think the Republicans have worked very strongly on this issue, an issue that has been driven in our Republican conference for a long period of time, and finally we are bringing it to some time of fruition. As Members noted in the earlier debate on the Western Hemisphere Drug Elimination Act, for kids 12 to 17, first-time heroin use, which has been proven to kill, surged 875 percent from 1991 to 1996. There is a problem out there, and it is a big problem. We, the Congress, have got to address this drug problem in this country. The Drug Demand Reduction Act of 1998 seeks to address the prevailing attitude towards drugs and shift that attitude. As a father of three children, actually three teenagers, two now in college and one that is now a junior in high school, I can tell my colleagues firsthand, we deal with lots of issues in our family discussions; but the one that concerns my wife Laurie and I the most is, what about illegal drugs? And constantly we have conversations with our children, as my colleagues do with theirs, about how deadly these things can be, how any kind of enjoyment on them, if it is there, is temporary at best, and the damage is long term. These discussions should be amplified by everybody in this country, and this bill helps our country move towards that War on Drugs. It is critically, critically important. The Drug Demand Reduction Act of 1998 seeks to intervene and send that message that drug use is not only dangerous, it is wrong, it is illegal, and it is illegal for a purpose. It is illegal because it gets people nowhere. I like the advertisement on TV with the gentleman who says, ``Intervene any way that you can.'' I will talk about that a little bit later on, but I think that is a message that we should do here. This is one way that we can intervene. As he says, ``Get between your kids and those illegal drugs.'' This bill is a step in that direction. It helps us intervene any way we can. And we should not spend a lot of time on semantics. We know what it does, this bill is clear. Contents of this bill have been in front of a number of committees. We have put it together as a model, it is ready to go, and I encourage my colleagues to support the rule and the underlying legislation. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 538 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to take a moment to applaud and honor an individual of enormous skill, dedication, and achievement who I am lucky enough to count as one of my constituents. His work, which has already been widely recognized, deserves to be mentioned here on the House floor. Dr. Malik Hasan, who lives in Pueblo, Colorado, is considered one of the finest neurologist's in Colorado, if not the nation. Dr. Masan has worked at the Parkview Medical Center since 1975 and gone to extraordinary lengths to enhance patient care and service in a geographical area in dire need of assistance. Just a few of his accomplishment over the past twenty-three years at Parkview Medical Center include: establishing and developing a Neurology Services department; establishing a Neuro Intensive Care Unit equipped with the area's first CT SCAN; setting up extensive outreach programs in such communities as Alamosa, Walsenburg, Trinidad and Raton; revitalizing the EEG Lab and beginning an EMG Lab; and donating nearly $175,000 to help fund Parkview's expansion in order to bring quality health care to those in need. It is this type of community involvement and unselfish dedication to making the world a better place that has earned Dr. Masan the admiration and appreciation of so many. His deep personal commitment to improving the lives of those who are less fortunate, and to providing the best medical care possible, speaks volumes about the true character of this remarkable man. Dr. Hasan immigrated to the United States in 1971 with only $32 to his name, but has a wealth of desire and passion to succeed in his chosen field. His numerous honors and achievements are too lengthy to list, Mr. Speaker, but suffice to say that he is a man of tremendous accomplishment and vision. Not content with what he has already done for health care, Dr. Hasan is now in the process of designing health care for the next century and beyond. This bodes well for the residents of Southern Colorado. Mr. Speaker, Dr. Hasan is not only a credit to Parkview Medical Center, but to his community and his country as well. His record of success and achievement is one that should inspire us all to improve our own lives as well as of those around us. I am proud to stand here today on the House Floor and talk about this man, his efforts, and all that he has done to touch the lives of so many.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I stand before my colleagues again to reaffirm my position made a couple of weeks ago that the President of the United States should resign from office. Now, I know that a lot of my colleagues are engaged in a very active debate which will continue for some period of time about whether or not the President in fact should continue in office, or whether or not the President is guilty of certain allegations that have been brought forth. But I want to put this on a practical point of view. I think the best comparison that we can make is to compare it to the quarterback of a football team. Our President is the quarterback of this team. He is the most important and most responsible, is supposed to have the most responsibility of any individual citizen in this country. Frankly, we now have a quarterback with a broken arm. Now, think about it. No matter how we think that quarterback got his arm broken, and I happen to think it was self-inflicted, I happen to think he brought it upon himself, but there are those of us who think that it was not brought on by his own actions, or that he did not deserve a broken arm, but the fact is, the President has a broken arm. He cannot quarterback the team. Now, our team is the most powerful team in the world. There are a lot of people that are gunning for us. We cannot afford to have a quarterback who cannot carry out the responsibilities of the team on the field. But we had the foresight to think about this. We have in this country a backup plan. We have a backup quarterback. We have a backup quarterback on the sidelines ready to go. It is important for this team, it is important for the United States of America, to have somebody who can carry out the responsibilities that are placed upon this job. I also want to speak about standards. Coming on the airplane today back to Washington, D.C., I heard people say, well, let us just take a wink at this thing. Let us put it aside. I said, wait a second. What would happen to a school teacher? How many teachers in any district in this country, if they got that kind of report on them, on Friday, would be in a classroom today, on Monday? Let us go back to sports. Look at Marv Albert. He had some kind of a sexual problem. He had a public job, he was in the public. It is the same thing here. People say, well, it is one's private life. Folks, this is a public job. It is public business. The same thing with Kelly Flynn. She was flying a nuclear bomber. They relieved her of command of that bomber because that position involves so much responsibility, is so important to the team, we could not afford to have her on this with the lies about her affair. What about the Commander in Chief? We have standards. We have standards for a Boy Scout or a Girl Scout to get a good citizenship award. How can we explain to them that, well, the standards are applicable unless one is in elected office in this government, and then we kind of wink about it? I heard somebody on the airplane say, well, you know, everybody lies. Everybody does not lie. Everybody does not lie to a spouse or a grand jury. Everybody does not deal in that way. Everybody does not lie to a civil jury. Everybody does not do this kind of behavior. I am one of those people that is pretty optimistic to think in fact everybody or most everybody in this country has a sense of responsibility. Most people in this country want high standards for their schoolteacher. They want high standards for the principal. They want high standards for their Congressman, and they certainly want high standards for the President of the United States. Whether we agree or not that the President got himself into his own problems, the question is can he now, with the situation as it exists, meet those high standards? Has he met those high standards? Is this the example that any one of us would go into a classroom tomorrow and say I am proud of the President of the United States; this is what the Presidency should reflect? How many of our young people at our schools when we ask them the four or five most admired people in the world, how many of them are going to list the President of the United States as one of them? Since the President's speech on August 17, I have not been to one group, not one group of three or more people, where I have not heard a joke degrading the Presidency of the United States. Folks, put our arguments aside about whether the President should or should not be there. The question is: Can he effectively quarterback our team with a broken arm? And the answer is very, very simple. He cannot. The President of the United States should resign. It is his responsibility. It is his duty. It is his country which comes first.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Miller).

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that I have about 4\1/2\ minutes remaining.