John Mica

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) makes an excellent point in what I was going to lead up to. With this signature heroin program results, we see a dramatic increase in Mexican heroin. This is heroin produced in Mexico. Just a one digit several years ago is now double digits, 14 percent. We see South American heroin 75 percent, most of it coming from Colombia. But if my colleagues remember the other chart, most of it is flowing through Mexico. Almost all of it is transversing through Mexico. What does this budget have as far as dealing with the Mexico problem? U.S.-Mexico border security funds, again not adequately provided for. So do we have in the President's budget a proposal to deal with the problems, to deal with the narcotics, and to deal with it in a cost- effective manner? We can throw money at problems. This Congress is an expert at throwing money at problems. But are we solving the problems? Are we putting the money into it, and sometimes small amounts of money? The program we started in Peru and Bolivia, those countries in the next several years, will almost totally eliminate cocaine production. Will we start? We need to get our program started back in Colombia. We have a new president there, a new opportunity. We need to get equipment resources and assistance to stop that production there. So this budget is a little bit scary to me because they have not learned. We have paid a high price. Thousands and thousands of our young people have died. One could not do more damage if one had launched a chemical attack on the United States. Over 14,200 died last year from drug-related deaths. If we add that up, probably since I served in Congress, it is probably close to 100,000 people dead. Most of the narcotics are now coming through Mexico. That leads up to this past week when the President went to Merida and presented this document. This document is a whitewash of the entire Mexican-United States drug problem. I have read through it. Some of the proposals, some of it, the cooperative efforts are almost laughable. I stood on this floor, and we debated decertification of Mexico 2 years ago. This House voted to decertify Mexico. We made several minimal requests 2 years ago asking for Mexico's cooperation. What were those items? Let me repeat them if I may. First of all, we asked Mexico to sign a maritime agreement. Have they signed a maritime agreement? No. We asked Mexico to extradite major drug traffickers. Have they extradited major drug traffickers? No. We have had one minor drug trafficker who actually killed a border patrolman, but not one major cartel trafficker extradited to the United States, despite countless requests. We asked for the protection of our DEA agents. Why would we do that? I would like to have my colleagues come and read with me sometime the autopsy report of what Mexican drug traffickers did to our agent, Mr. Camarena. It is the most frightening thing that I have ever read. But our DEA agents asked for the ability to protect themselves, not only with arms, but also insulation in a crime- and corruption-ridden country to have basic minimal protection while they operated. We have a cap, I cannot talk about the exact number, I do not want to, but it is just a few DEA agents in that country. We have requested additional DEA agents. Only a minimal number have been allowed in. Quite frankly, to allow them in without adequate protection does not make a lot of sense. Next, again, we passed this here in the House by an overwhelming vote in the decertification 2 years ago. We asked simply that Mexico start to put radar and some protections across its southern border. Have they done that? No. Not until the threat of decertification just a few weeks ago and the President must present his certification proposal in the next few days. Have we seen any action from Mexico? They are now proposing to do what we asked them to do 2 years ago as far as protecting that southern border where all those drugs are coming through, and we will see even more drugs. Then we asked them to execute some of the laws that they had passed relating to money laundering and corruption. Money laundering and corruption. What have they done? Last year, United States Custom agents conducted a sting operation in Mexico. They found incredible corruption. We had briefings on it, and it involved hundreds of millions of dollars in corruption throughout the financial institutions. We went after some of those traffickers. Do you know what Mexico had the nerve to do? They threatened to indict our Customs officials. It was called operation Casa Blanca. The nerve. So instead of enforcing and helping us to go after the drug traffickers, they made our Customs officials the villains. Only because of the threat of decertification has there been a resolution within the last 30 to 60 days on the matter called Casa Blanca and the threat to indict our officials for doing work to help save their country. These are some of the items we asked for 2 years ago. This is the report. This report again is almost laughable. It was done with great fanfare. Do you know where it was done? It was done in Merida. I have been to Merida, a beautiful place in Mexico. Merida is located in the Yucatan Peninsula. Do my colleagues know what we have been told by our Federal agencies and those dealing with intelligence and this whole international drug trafficking situation? They told us that the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico is lost. It is a narcoterrorist state. They are quivering now whether or not to even arrest the governor of that state who is up to his eyeballs in illegal narcotics trafficking. So the Mexicans have lost the Yucatan to a narcoterrorist state. Then we found that, in the Baja Peninsula, another cartel has taken the entire Baja Peninsula. Not only have they taken it, they have slaughtered and intimidated. They lined up 22 people just recently, women and children, to create in the Baja Peninsula a narcoterrorist state. They have killed 315 people in the last year and lined up 22 women and children and taken that region. As we go over the map of Mexico, we see more and more of Mexico that has now been encircled by drug traffickers. So we have a friend, we have a neighbor, we have a trading ally who we have provided financial assistance, who we have provided trading benefits, who is now being taken over by drug trafficking. It is a very, very serious problem. The gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) and I and other members of our subcommittee visited and we met with the president of Colombia, President Pastrana, last week. He is doing and committed to an eradication crop substitution and going after drug traffickers at every turn. He is committed to that. We met with President Fujimori and President Hugo Banzer who are both not only committed but also have dramatically reduced the production and trafficking of illegal narcotics. Now we have the big problem of Mexico. Will the President, will this administration certify a country that is not meeting its responsibility; who has not followed through on the requests of Congress from 2 years ago; who does not have before us any requests or plan to deal with what has happened with their country being taken over by narcoterrorism? So we are in a very difficult situation. Wall Street will not be happy if we decertify Mexico, because now we are doing business with them. But is it worth it to sell our souls for a few bucks? We have some very serious questions to answer before us in the next few days and the next few weeks. The President must certify or decertify this major drug trafficking Nation, Mexico, by Monday, March 1, and the Congress has 30 days to act. I will continue to review the information. I will continue to extend my hand to the Mexican government and officials to come up with a plan that has some measurable objectives on how to deal with this horrible problem. But right now I do not see in this budget a plan to deal with this situation. I do not see in this proposal that was presented in Merida anything concrete to deal with the situation that has grown out of control. Now, we can whitewash this, we can forget it, or we can address it. The results are going to be pretty dramatic for our young people and for our Nation. I yield back to the gentleman.

Mr. MICA. In closing, I thank the gentleman.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to take this opportunity to thank the distinguished gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) for yielding. He reserved the time tonight. He has been a tireless worker in the effort to bring to the attention of the Congress and the American people the situation that we face as a nation and communities relating to illegal narcotics. He has been at the forefront of trying to save our children, trying to save the resources of life that are being drained and sapped by this problem and crisis that we face across this land, the scourge of illegal narcotics, and I salute the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) on his tremendous and tireless effort since he has come to Congress. I also want to take this opportunity to thank the chairman of the Committee on International Relations, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman). I had the opportunity to see the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman) when I was a staffer. I worked for the United States Senate back in the early eighties. The gentleman from New York was there when they helped put together the drug programs that we have today. The gentleman from New York was there when drug use among our population was increasing in a dramatic fashion and he helped turn that around and decrease it. The gentleman from New York was there when they developed an Andean Strategy to stop drugs very cost effectively at their source. The gentleman from New York was there when I worked with him and others to create a certification process by which countries that did not cooperate do not receive foreign assistance, do not receive trade benefits, do not receive international assistance, all benefits of the United States. The gentleman from New York, myself and others said these countries should not receive these benefits if they are not cooperating in stopping drugs and illegal narcotics at their source and also in international trafficking. Again, the gentleman from New York was there. Again, the gentleman from New York has taken up the cause. I remember when I came as a freshman in 1993 and they would not listen to us. This administration would not listen. The other side of the aisle would not listen, and they controlled the other body, they controlled this House and the White House. What happened is they cut those programs. They slashed the participation of our military in interdiction. They cut dramatically the source country programs. They denuded the programs that stopped the growing of illegal narcotics in these foreign countries. The Coast Guard was kept from participating as the head in keeping drugs away from our shores in particularly places like Puerto Rico which became a sieve through which the drugs have flowed. So the gentleman from New York and others, their voices were heard. My voice was not heard then. In 2 years from 1993 to 1995, and I had bipartisan support, Republicans and Democrats signed a request for hearings on a national drug policy that was headed for disaster. One hearing was held; one hearing was held on a drug policy that was leading to disaster. Let me say the disaster is here. Ladies and gentlemen, we have 1.8 million Americans behind bars. The estimates are somewhere between 60 and 70 percent of those individuals incarcerated in our prisons, in jails across this land, are there because of drug-related offenses. I am not talking about purchasing a small amount of narcotics. I am talking about drug dealing. I am talking about major drug transit. I am talking about murders and heinous crimes committed while under the influence, who were trying to obtain illegal narcotics. Our entire nation has been devastated and now one can almost ask anywhere, at any level, the inner cities, the affluent, the rich, every family in this country can point to someone who has been involved and a victim of illegal narcotics and narcotics abuse. What concerns me is this problem has grown from a minor problem to, again, a major problem. Who is it affecting? Well, the apologists would say it is not affecting the adult population. They are sort of leveling out, and maybe those statistics are true but the fact is, this is causing devastation among our young people. Now listen to this statistic: 14,200 young people, mostly, died in this country from drug overdoses or related effects last year. Over 14,200. That figure has nearly doubled since 1993. The heroin deaths have doubled in a short period of time from 2,000 to 4,000. Let me talk about the national drug crisis that we have and how it is affecting particularly the most vulnerable in our society, our young people. In 1998, more than three-quarters of our high school teens report that drugs are sold or kept at their schools, a 6 percent increase over 1996. Are drugs increasing with our youth or decreasing? From 1993 to 1997, youth age 12 to 17 using illegal drugs has more than doubled, 120 percent. And there has been a 27 percent increase between 1996 and 1997 alone. Has drug use and abuse among our young people increased or decreased? That is a 1998 national household survey. The overall number of past month heroin users increased from 1993 to 1997 by a whopping 378 percent. Between 1993 and 1997, LSD emergency room incidents increased 142 percent. That is a 1997 Dawn report. And during 1997, statistically significant increases in heroin emergency room incidents were observed in Miami, a 77 percent increase; in New Orleans, a 63 percent increase; in Phoenix, a 49 percent increase; and in Chicago, a 47 percent increase. Just a small sampling of dramatic increases in a drug that is deadly and devastating. These are the hard, cold facts about what has happened. The most astounding figure to me is for kids from 12 to 17, first-time heroin use, first-time heroin use, which is proven to kill so many of these young people, surged a whopping 875 percent from 1992 to 1996. Mr. Speaker, I come from central Florida. This is the headline from my newspaper. Read this headline. This is a recent headline, the last few days of last year: ``Drug deaths top homicides.'' We are not talking about Detroit. We are not talking about New York City. We are not talking about Los Angeles. We are not talking about some inner city population. No one should die or suffer from illegal narcotics. We are talking about one of the most affluent, one of the most economically advanced, one of the highest educated populations in the State of Florida, and drug deaths top homicides. Again, what is devastating about this, again what should shock the conscience of everyone in this Nation is most of these deaths are young people. I was asked to take on the responsibility of chairing a subcommittee to oversee our national drug policy. I inherited that position, was requested to take that position by the Speaker of the House, Mr. Hastert. Mr. Hastert, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder), myself, all served on a subcommittee in the previous Congress that had that responsibility. We did everything we could to put back together the programs that had been taken apart and destroyed during the 1993 to 1995 period. I took on that responsibility because of this headline and because of other headlines in my State. I took on that responsibility because, and maybe for a selfish reason, because of the drug crisis in my State and my community. But I also see what it is doing to our Nation. In central Florida, I will tell a little bit about what has happened in my area. Heroin killed twice as many people in 1998 as it did in 1997. The death toll is expected to break 50 when the final results are in. And we are just getting those results now from autopsies and other reports. Sampling of heroin tested in central Florida revealed purity levels ranging from 58 to 92 percent. The national average for heroin has been about 40 percent. High purity levels and increased drug availability is contributing to the increase in heroin deaths in central Florida and across our land. Now, if young people are listening, if Americans are listening and Members are listening, the heroin that is on our streets, the crack cocaine that is on our streets, even the marijuana that is on our streets, is not the drug that was on our streets 10 or 12 years ago. These are drugs that are deadly. These are drugs that are pure. These are drugs that will kill. And they are killing. They are killing our young people. Mr. Speaker, what is shocking is that in my area in 1995, there were 1,500 teenagers between the age of 12 and 15 arrested in central Florida for using or selling illegal drugs. This number has doubled over the last 5 years. Now, when we let down our guard, when we stop the eradication programs, when we stop the interdiction programs as they did again from 1993 to 1995, when we take the military and the Coast Guard out of the effort to stop drugs before they reach our shores, what happens? In 1991, the cost of 1 kilo of heroin was $210,000. In 1997, the cost of one kilo of heroin was $80,000. So what we have done is increased the flow, decreased the price, made it available to our young people. Let me talk, if I may, a little bit about the pattern of what has taken place with illegal narcotics trafficking. This chart here shows from the 1970s to the 1980s, the flow of illegal narcotics, primarily from Colombia and primarily cocaine. Cocaine or coca is only grown in three countries in the world. It is grown in Peru, it is grown in Bolivia, and it was grown a little bit in Colombia, but most of it came from Peru and Bolivia. That cocaine came up, some to Miami. As I said back in the 1980s, we had a crisis which the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman) and others addressed through different legislative initiatives, including the Andean Strategy, stopping drugs at their source, and the certification process. That cocaine and other drugs also went to New York and also to Los Angeles. That was the 1970s and the 1980s. Ronald Reagan and George Bush developed programs, and people like the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman), Senator Hawkins who I worked for, developed programs to stop those drugs, and we saw a decline in the flow of drugs and the use of drugs. Then look at what has taken place in the 1990s. In the 1990s, we now have Colombia producing more and more cocaine, growing coca. We have a decrease in Peru and Bolivia where we have started and working in cooperation, as we heard just a few minutes ago, we have a cooperative effort, a restart of those Andean eradication and crop substitution programs. A few millions of dollars to again stop drugs at their source. Very cost-effective. Mr. Hastert, the Speaker of the House who chaired this responsibility, helped restart those programs; the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder); the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman); myself; and others. And we have found dramatic decreases in the production of cocaine and coca in Peru and Bolivia through the cooperation of President Fujimori in Peru, through the courage and cooperation of President Hugo Banzer in Bolivia. Now Colombia has, for the last several years, become a source. In fact, it is now producing, the statistics we heard when we visited these areas last week, it is now producing more coca and more cocaine than any other region in the world, Colombia. Now, why did Colombia suddenly become a source of narcotics? What is interesting, again, if we look at the history of what took place, this administration has blocked consistently any assistance to Colombia to eradicate drugs at their source, to go after drug traffickers and to stop the production of drugs. So what has happened is they are now becoming producers. The gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder), myself, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), the previous chair of this responsibility when the Republicans took over the Congress, we went down to Colombia some 4 years ago. Four years ago, there was almost no heroin being produced in Colombia. They told us then, unless the administration freed up the constraints on sending ammunition, helicopters, eradication resources into that country, there would be a flood of poppies and heroin produced. Guess what? That is exactly what has happened. An incredible amount of heroin is now being produced, and it is now flowing from Colombia. Look at this chart. Into Miami. Some came through Puerto Rico, because the administration cut the Coast Guard's budget. The Coast Guard protects the air around Puerto Rico. They cut that in half. So it came into Puerto Rico, it came into Miami and came into central Florida and also is coming in through a weak link in the chain which is Mexico. This is the new pattern that we see. Mexico has approximately 60 to 70 percent of the hard narcotics coming into the United States, coming in through Mexico, transiting through Mexico. Now we have a new development. In addition to a failed policy in Colombia which this administration, over the objections of Congress, the new majority in Congress, we repeatedly sent letters, requests, we passed resolutions, we did everything we could to get them to give General Serrano, the head of the National Colombian Police, and others the resources and ammunition, eradication equipment to do away with drugs at their source. Cost-effective. When they get into our streets, into our schools and law enforcement in this country tries to go after narcotics, that is the most expensive solution to an expensive problem. Mr. Speaker, the problem is now a quarter of a trillion dollar problem. And that is just the dollars and cents, not the lives lost, the families destroyed, and the terrible scourge, again, of illegal narcotics. This is the new pattern. Now, what concerns me as chairman of this new subcommittee and with the responsibility given to me by the Speaker is the presentation just over a week ago of the national drug control strategy by this administration. One would think that they would learn. One would think that if we had an experience and had a bad experience, that one would learn from that experience. What disturbs me, and tomorrow we are going to hear from the national drug czar, and I think General McCaffrey has tried to do a good job. I think the former drug czar, Mr. Brown, did a horrible job. He presided over death and destruction of this land unparalleled, unequal to anything except an attack that we had in Pearl Harbor. But this is the proposal by the administration to deal with the problem. Now, again, one would think that they would learn. Let me tell what is in this. First of all, they have one of the most clever charts I have ever seen in my life. It is, I guess, Clintonesque in its explanation. But last year this Congress appropriated $17.9 billion for the war on drugs. Now, they managed to develop a chart that showed us going from $17.9 billion to $17.8 billion, a net decrease of $109 million, and show it on a chart as an increase. Now, that is clever in its presentation, but it is disastrous in its effect. Where do the cuts come in? Let me tell you where these cuts are that disturb me, that concern me. Again, have we not learned? Interdiction has been cut dramatically again. Crop substitution programs cut again. International programs cut again, cut from last year to this year in this proposal.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, that is right. The gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) and my other colleagues, we requested of the administration to put some specifics in their budget that we know will work, that we know will be effective. For example, we have been promoting a microherbicide program and research and development because we know we have the technical capability to destroy drugs as a crop. It is a simple process. It can be done. We are making advances in that. We asked for a few dollars to effectively develop the final techniques to make this happen. Is it in the President's budget? No. Is it cost effective? Yes. Now, the other thing that the administration did back in the 1970s and 1980s and 1990s, in the 1970s and 1980s, as my colleagues heard, we increased our Customs, our air interdiction, our going after drug traffickers. We must have learned that, from 1993 to 1995, when we decreased that, when this administration, this Congress decreased that, that a mistake was made. Here we go again. Customs interdiction program, funds lacking. We know that is effective. We know it stops drugs before, again, it gets into our streets and our communities. Counterintelligence. If I have learned nothing else in dealing with this problem, I have learned that the most effective means of stopping drugs, of getting drugs close to their source before they get into our country is counterintelligence. I intend to speak with the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss), who chairs that committee. But, again, they have not learned. We requested more funds in this area, and they are not in the President's budget; and that disturbs me because it is cost effective. If we have the intelligence, we can get large quantities, we can get the production facilities, we can stop the routing of drugs into our Nation even before they get close to our border. So, again, lacking in this budget, in this proposal is a concrete expenditure or program for counterintelligence. My colleagues heard about stopping the Coast Guard and cutting their involvement, particularly around Puerto Rico and other places around the United States. The Coast Guard was very actively involved. I remember working with Admiral Yost and others back in the 1980s who helped develop programs that stopped drugs again before they got to our streets. In this budget, here it is, folks, in this budget, this proposal, the Coast Guard operation and maintenance again not properly funded. We have the most serious problem facing me as chairman of this subcommittee, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder), the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman) who chairs our Committee on International Relations; and that is the question of Mexico. Mexico has become the sieve. Look at this. Just take a moment and look at the drugs coming through here. Sixty to 70 percent of all the narcotics, the hard drugs coming into this Nation are coming in through Mexico. Mexico is the tough enchilada in this whole equation.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 21, because of my participation in a Florida Anti Drug Summit and meetings with Florida Governor Bush in Tallahassee I was not present. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes.''

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, today is a difficult day for both the Congress and the country. I truly believe that if we could search the hearts and souls of every Member of Congress, that none of us would like to undertake the impeachment of any President of the United States. We are not here today because of the single action of any one individual except the President, William Jefferson Clinton. We are here because nearly every Member of the House of Representatives voted to conduct an impeachment inquiry of this President. We are here because this Constitution requires us to do our job and faithfully adhere to its principles and our laws. Every Member of Congress knows exactly why we are here. We are here today because the President of the United States committed offenses that leave us only to debate the question of an appropriate punishment. The majority members of the Committee on the Judiciary and its distinguished chairman, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde) in my opinion have presented a very clear and factual documentation of acts by this President that to me constitute impeachable offenses. Today the action required again by this Constitution in fact defines the very essence of our Constitution, that under our system all men and women are treated equally under the law. That means if you commit perjury or obstruct justice, you will be held accountable. If you are a Member of Congress or President of the United States, you will be held accountable. Even if you are popular, even if you do 1000 good deeds, you will be held accountable. Whether you are powerful or powerless, rich or poor, our Constitution and law, under it no one is above the law. What we do today is not about politics or the next election. What we do today is about the next generation. Millions have died to preserve and protect our democracy and system of justice and equality. Unfortunately, the actions of this President have threatened the very foundation and basis of our progress, our justice and our democracy. What we do today is not about politics or the next election. What we do today is about the next generation. Earlier today I heard the Minority Leader as he spoke and I would like to respond to some of his comments. He said we are sending the wrong message to the world, our foes, the Chinese and Russians. In fact I believe we are sending the most significant and important message that America has set an example of true democracy and equality under Constitutional law. He said this is the wrong time because our armed forces are in harm's way. This is the right message because those in uniform are serving to protect and defend the tenets of our Constitution. He said this is the most radical act Congress could perform. I submit it would be radical for Congress to shirk its Constitutional responsibility. He said we need to get back to values of decency, respect and trust before our nation is degraded. I submit that that is in fact why we in Congress are here today to return under the provision of our Constitution to the principles of decency, respect and trust. The saddest part about this whole matter is how the actions of this President have so divided this Congress and the people of our great nation.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk about scandal in Washington. The scandal in Washington really is what the Democrats and the former majority party did to public education in 40 years. In 40 years, when they controlled the House and the other body, they nearly destroyed public education. If you ask anyone, any teacher, any high school principal or elementary principal in our public schools what is wrong with our schools today, they will tell you, very simply, it is not just a need for more teachers and better teachers, it is a question of some fundamentals. We have lost control of our classrooms, they will tell you. There is no discipline in the classroom. Why is there no discipline? Because the liberal policies of the other side for 40 years has eroded the principles of discipline, the power to the teacher, the power to the local school board, the power to the parent. That is one of the major problems facing our public schools today. So the scandal is what they have done to public education in the United States. Let me tell you about the other scandal that they have committed in education. The scandal is they have created a bureaucracy that is unparalleled in any civilization in education. Now, listen to this quote from Investor's Daily, just an observation they made: ``School funding in 40 years has quadrupled. Teachers' salaries have only increased during that same period 43 percent.'' Teachers only account now for barely half the personnel in public schools. That is because they have built an unparalleled bureaucracy. That bureaucracy starts right here in Washington, DC. There are 5,000, count them, full-time employees in the Department of Education; 3,600 of them are in Washington, DC. Now, we may need a Department of Education, I do not want to get into that debate, but I do not have in my school district teachers who are making the $50,000 to $100,000 that these 5,000 bureaucrats are making in the Federal Department of Education. This is about control, this is about bureaucracy. What do 5,000 Federal bureaucrats and 10,000 more contract bureaucrats that they have hired to hide, what do they do with education, public education today? They regulate. It is unbelievable. Talk to a teacher, talk to a principal, I beg the Members. They will tell us the scandal that has been committed by the other side of the aisle. They have passed so many rules, so much red tape, so many regulations that our teachers cannot teach. We see here that most of our school budgets now are going for bureaucracy, administrators, regulators, and all the myriad obligations that have been mandated from Washington, because they control and they want to maintain power. They have created 788 Federal education programs, dozens and dozens, and bureaucrats. They all have their programs, so a teacher cannot have control of the classroom. Ask any teacher. A teacher is inundated with paperwork, and school boards and even State agencies are mandated to create this huge bureaucracy. What we need is 100,000 less bureaucrats in education. That is what this battle is about. That is why we are here. That is why I am almost hoarse, because I got up the other night and tried to explain this to my colleagues and the American people. They want to pass regulations. They want to make certain that teachers do not teach. They want to have the most expensive approach to education. They have ruined public education. We are trying to take that back. It is simple: We want the money to go to the classrooms. We voted 95 percent, that it should go to the classrooms, to the teachers, for basic education, not for the bureaucracy that has been created. We said that we want the teacher and the parent to have control. That was the foundation of public education. My wife was an elementary teacher. I have a degree in education. I did not want to teach because of the conditions in our classrooms. That is the same reason that we have this. We need to keep control with the parents and we need to stop the control of Washington. That is what this is all about.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, quite frankly, I have had it right up to my eyeballs with the rhetoric from the Democrats and the White House. Now Vice President Gore has the gall to go to my state, Florida, and slam Republicans for too many investigations. Mr. Speaker, this is like Clyde saying to Bonnie, ``I can't believe the law continues to pursue us.'' He does this as he is under investigation by his Attorney General. Then the Vice President has the audacity to say that Republicans are dragging their feet on investigations. Do they think the American people and the Congress are fools? When over 100 witnesses have either fled the country or taken the 5th Amendment? The fact is that more independent counsels have been appointed by their Democrat-appointed Attorney General for this administration, their administration, than all the previous in the history of the United States. The fact is the Independent Counsel law expired in 1992 under President Bush. The fact is President Clinton signed into law and 243 Democrats, all but two, voted to pass the Independent Counsel Law, and put these investigations in place only after their Attorney General finds substantial and credible evidence of wrongdoing. Those are the facts.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take the time previously allotted to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Davis).

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor this afternoon in support of this resolution. I wanted to also comment for the record about a particular concern that I have. My grandfather was a Slovak American and came from Slovakia. He came from a country that was dominated for a thousand years by other interests. When I visited Slovakia last September, I visited some of their museums and their cultural heritage facilities and what stunned me is I found that many of the artifacts and cultural objects that were native to Slovakia were missing. I hope that when we talk about returning properties of people from former communist regimes that we can call on those who have expropriated cultural heritage objects from the Slovak Republic and native Slovakia to return them to their rightful owners. Unfortunately, Slovakia was plundered under the various communist regimes and many of the artifacts and art and cultural objects disappeared. In light of us passing this resolution, it would be my hope that we could do justice in also requesting that the Slovak people have returned to them things that are so precious to them. They had, again, years of domination by the communists. For many years, they had domination from communists in Prague and what is now the Czech Republic. I also sent recently, October 10, a letter to His Excellency Vaclav Havel, the President of the Czech Republic, asking that they help expedite the return of some of these historic items from the Czech Republic. I come to the floor in support of this effort to see that properties and other rightful objects are returned to their rightful owner; that we correct the injustices of the past, particularly under communist regimes. I come to the floor also to congratulate the Slovak people on their recent elections, which will allow them with a new western leaning government, their rightful place in the community of free and independent nations. They have only been free since 1993. They gained their independence and now I hope with this movement by Congress today we can also have them retain their right title and ownership to properties that a country has been deprived of, a people have been deprived of, for many, many years under a communist totalitarian regime. I commend the authors of this legislation on both sides of the aisle. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the letter of October 10. U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC, October 10, 1998. His Excellency, Vaclav Havel, President of the Czech Republic, The Embassy of the Czech Republic, Washington, DC. Dear Mr. President: I am writing to request your assistance in securing the return to the Slovak Republic certain objects of art and cultural heritage that currently are in the care or possession and held with the authority of the Czech Republic. With Slovakia's independence and status since 1993 in the community of free and recognized sovereign states, it is both proper and legal that objects of art and national Slovak cultural heritage be returned to the Slovak Republic. For generations, Slovakia and the Slovak people have been dominated and ruled by other people. Now it is only fair and just that art, paintings, sculptures, antiquities and culturally significant artifacts native to Slovakia be returned to the Slovak people. I seek your personal intervention and remedial action to correct this situation. Hopefully these objects can be returned through a cooperative effort. If not, it will be my intention as a Member of the United States Congress to seek redress by legislative action in the 106th Congress. In that regard, my action may include a Congressional Resolution relating to the matter and/or legislative and appropriations action disapproving of future economic, military and financial assistance to your country. I believe this to be a very serious matter that should also be raised by the United States Ambassador to the United Nations and to the appropriate international organizations and tribunals. Hopefully we can work together to correct this injustice, identify and return art and antiquities rightfully belonging to Slovakia and amicably resolve this matter. Respectfully, John L. Mica, Member of Congress.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be here tonight, as Congress winds up its responsibilities and completing its 13 appropriations measures, most of which have been agreed upon. And I think it is very important that tonight I address why Congress is still here and what some of the differences are that remain. Most of the eight or nine easy appropriations bills have been agreed upon, and we are now down to the last few measures which Members of the House and the other body and the administration must agree to. Tonight I want to discuss some of the major differences between what separates the Democrats and the Republicans at this juncture. The major difference really on most of the issues boils down to just a couple of items. One is keeping control in Washington, and then also the other part is whether we spend significant amounts of taxpayer dollars on bureaucracy, on waste, on administration and control in Washington, and not really addressing the real problems that our country is facing. Tonight I would like to focus on the differences, what I consider real differences, between Republican proposals and the Democrat proposals. I think that one of the problems that we have is some of the proposals that our colleagues from the other side of the aisle, particularly those with a liberal bent, are proposing at this stage are ideas and concept whose time have really passed. I think they have old ideas. They have been used to spending more and getting less. I think we have a different approach. We want to look at new ideas and how, with taxpayer dollars, we can get a better return, spending either the same amount of money or increasing it within the terms of the budget agreement for a balanced budget that we agreed upon. Tonight I would like to talk a little bit about education, which we have heard bandied about the House Floor the last few days. I would like to talk about the subject of drug abuse and that problem facing our Nation. If I get the opportunity, I would like to talk a bit about health care reform, which I think health care is a very important issue and particularly a reform that is necessary. Let me review for a few minutes, if I may, what has taken place while the other side of the aisle controlled this body for the last 40 years. In 40 years, I believe, the other side was very well intentioned and well meaning, but unfortunately run and directed by liberals, again with old ideas, who during that tenure built a very costly and unresponsive bureaucracy, particularly in the area of education, which I would like to address first and then I will talk about several others. I believe, never in the history of mankind, has there been created a bureaucracy in education that the liberals have come up with for this Nation. In 40 years, they have taken American public education from the greatest system to one of the weakest education systems in the world. In the process, they have taken teaching from a profession and turned it into a weakened, common labor and also into an endurance contest for those teachers who are dedicated and willing to remain in the classroom. In 40 years, they have also managed to take any reverence or acknowledgment of a supreme being out of the classroom. In 40 years, again, these well intentioned but, I think, misguided Congressmen and women and liberal jurists have taken discipline out of our classrooms and replaced teaching with teacher endurance and teacher abuse. In 40 years, they bogged down State and local authorities in an incredible morass of red tape, paperwork and endless regulations. Let me say also at this point that I consider myself a very strong advocate of public education. My studies and my degree at the University of Florida were from the School of Education. I am pleased to be married for the past 27 years to an individual who spent many, many years as an elementary school teacher, and very devoted to public teaching and taught in public schools. I believe that we have no more important responsibility in our society than to provide for good, sound and useful educational opportunity for every American. Somehow we have really strayed away from the right path in public education, and we have destroyed that great system of public education that I received and so many Americans had access to. All one has to do is ask any parent, ask any teacher, any principal, or anyone who takes time to really observe education today, and they will hear the same response. Let us take just a brief look at what, again, this liberal and misguided Federal education policy has produced, and I might add it has produced some of the problems we have at tremendous expense to the taxpayer who is paying the bill for what they have created. In 40 years, Democrats have created 788 Federal education programs. We have so many programs, it is almost impossible for Congress to oversee or even count or keep track of all of the programs. All of these programs have one thing in common. They keep control in Washington. They actually have another thing in common that really costs the taxpayers a great deal and does not contribute much to education, and that is they, in fact, have created huge bureaucracies. Mr. Speaker, the bureaucracies start right here in Washington with the Federal Department of Education. The Federal Department of Education has a total of 4,900 full-time employees in the department. There are 3,600 Federal Department of Education employees in buildings here in Washington, D.C.; 3,600. Just imagine if we reduced that number, if we reduced the number of programs, and that is what we have recommended, we have recommended consolidating some of the Federal education programs, the duplicate programs. We have recommended that the money should not go to bureaucrats in the Department of Education. We can have a Department of Education, but do we need 4,900 in the Department of Education? Some might say this number is a little bit lower than it has been in the past. What the Department of Education has very cleverly done at the Federal level is if they have reduced the full-time number of employees but have an army of nearly 10,000 consultants on contract with the Department of Education. So we are paying somewhere in the neighborhood of 15,000 Federal bureaucrats and administrators. Of course, each one of these 788 programs need a small host of administrators. I will never forget in an oversight hearing, when we had from Detroit a teacher who came and talked about Federal education programs and the constraints, the bureaucracy, the rules and regulations that had been created. This teacher was asked the question, what is it like trying to deal with these different programs and trying to make your program work? I will never forget what that educator said: Well, it is a little bit like giving birth to a porcupine. That is how complicated this morass of Federal regulations is. Now, these people in Washington must have something to do, and they have created this incredible maze of Federal education bureaucracy. So in order for any of our local officials or our state officials, our local school boards, to get an answer on any education program and the morass and reams and pages and pages of Federal regulations which they now justify their positions by producing, they must go to this maze in Washington, D.C. This maze, one might wonder where the rest of these folks are, these 4,900. There are 3,600, as I said, in Washington, D.C. The rest are in regional offices. There is not one in classrooms. I venture that if one looks at the salaries, and I chair the Subcommittee on Civil Service, one would see most of these individuals are earning between $50,000 and $100,000. Imagine the results if that money was sent to each of our hundreds of school districts across the Nation. Again, I think there is a place for a Federal Department of Education, but do we need the mass of bureaucracy that we have created? Again, their number one responsibility is administering these 788 programs and producing the rules, the paperwork and all of the other requirements that are cast on our local school boards and our principals and finally on our classrooms. So that is a part of what we are facing as a Nation and as a Congress. The easy part was done a little over a year ago, when we came up with a balanced budget plan. We know that we have to limit the amount of increases. We are increasing, and Republicans have increased education funds almost in every single area, more money in scholarships, more money in almost every single education program. It may not be as much as the President would want or as some of the liberals would want, but we are doing it in the context of a balanced budget to limit the increases, not taking in and then spending more than we have taken in. Let me say something else about what has happened under this well meaning but somewhat gone askew policy that has been established by the other side. School funding has more than quadrupled in the past 40 years, but teacher salaries have only increased 43 percent. That is a four-fold increase in the money that we put into schools, but less than a 50 percent increase for teacher salaries. Where has the money gone? This article was in Investor Business Daily, who did a study in February of this year. The money has gone to the administrative bureaucracies. Consequently, teachers now barely account for half of the personnel in public schools. Listen to that. Where has the money gone for education? It has not gone to the classroom, and it certainly has not gone to the teachers. Let me repeat this again: The money has gone to administrative bureaucracies. Consequently, teachers now barely account for half of the personnel in our public schools. So we are not spending money in the classroom. One of the great debates that we have had here in Congress was a Republican proposal that said that money, Federal money, which only accounts for about 6 percent of all of the money in education, that our Federal money, 95 percent of it should go to the classroom and to the teacher and to the student and to basic education programs, and now that does not happen. That is why we have teachers leaving the profession. That is why teachers are not adequately compensated, because of the huge bureaucracy that we have built and that we require with this massive administration. That is what part of this debate is about, and I am going to talk about some specific programs in just a few minutes. The President wants 100,000 teachers. Mr. Speaker, I would propose that we turn that around and we do away with 100,000 administrators. We could start in Washington, D.C., with the army of 15,000. We take over 10,000 on contract and another 4,900, then the mass of bureaucracy and administrators that must support us to the point where over half of school funding now goes for nonteaching activities. So if we want to do something beneficial, why not do away with 100,000 bureaucrats. What is interesting, too, if one studies this, one will find how much these administrators make and this bureaucracy makes as opposed to the teacher in the classroom. The teacher, whose ultimate responsibility it is to produce the students, and we have another problem with the quality of teachers in our classroom, not to mention the compensation, and I will talk about that in a minute. I come from the State of Florida, and I served in Tallahassee. The only building that I think is bigger in Tallahassee, Florida, than the capital, and Tallahassee is our State capital, the only building that is bigger I believe than the State capital building or as tall as the State capital building is the Department of Education. So we have required the building of a bureaucracy in Washington, in regional offices, and a good number of these folks that are not in Washington in the Department of Education are in regional offices and then in State capitals throughout the Nation. So this is a part of the problem, and this is part of the battle. The easy part was when we balanced the budget, and we were called all kinds of names, and it was going to be the end of civilization as we knew it. But all we said is we are not going to take in and then spend more than we take in. It was a simple plan, and it worked, and it did balance the budget in record time. Now the tough part is improving these programs and getting quality, putting in dollars and getting a better return. Now I ask any member of this body to sit down and talk with teachers, principals and school officials and see what some of the basic problems are with education today. And those individuals will all tell us the same thing. First, they will tell us that there is a need for fewer regulations and paperwork. I met with our school superintendent, one of them, last week, and they will tell us that the regulations, the edicts, the mandates from Washington, D.C., that go to the State capitals and on to our local school board are financially bankrupting our local school system. And the money is not going into the classroom, but this mass of regulations is paperwork, is requiring that everyone do something other than educate our children and on a quality basis. So everyone will tell us the same thing. That is part of what this battle, why we are here a couple days late, but that is part of what we are talking about, is how those taxpayer dollars are spent and how effective these programs are for our children. Mr. Speaker, ask any teacher, again, ask any principal or school official, and they will tell us that another problem is rewarding good teachers, that we adequately compensate, we reward, we hold them in respect, and that we also have a way of eliminating poor performers. We must do that. I chair the Subcommittee on Civil Service. In our Federal workforce we have many people who go to work every day and they do a great job, but there are a few folks, just like in Congress, except in Congress people get to vote them and they vote out the poor performers, unless they subvert the process, but eventually they are kicked out. The same thing we need to do in the classroom. We need to reward good teachers so that the money that we are spending here in Washington that less than 6 percent finds its way to the teacher and to the classroom, and we reward good teachers, and they have a mechanism to deal with poor performers. But we have built up such a shield in all of these regulations that it is almost impossible now and also with turning a profession into a labor position to deal with the poor performers, and we have the same problem in our Federal workforce. It is unfortunate, and we heard these statistics on the floor, that in some States teachers who have been tested cannot pass basic tests, and this must be addressed, the question of quality teachers in the classroom. So these are some of the items that need to be addressed. This third item I want to address, and, again, this is one of the problems I hear recurring everywhere I go. Every teacher mentions it, every principal mentions it, everyone who deals with education today. The problem of discipline in our classrooms. Here, again, these regulators have passed an incredible maze of regulations. That is their job. They have passed all of these regulations, and we have liberal Members of Congress who side with liberal jurors, and there is no longer discipline, there is no longer respect, there is no longer order. How can a teacher teach without discipline in the classroom? One of my district staff member's teacher is a teacher in central Florida. She has been attacked twice, and I am not talking about a school that is in Detroit or an urban setting or New York or Los Angeles. I am talking about a suburban setting. She was physically attacked, twice. I brought into central Florida, because of my interest in trying to curtail the problem of drug abuse and the heroin deaths and cocaine deaths we have had with our young people in central Florida, I brought an oversight subcommittee in for a hearing in Lake Mary, Florida, a beautiful area, one of the loveliest places in central Florida to reside. And we had, in the drug hearing that I conducted, we had school security officers, we had school principals, we had law enforcement, local officials, teachers, parents and students all testify and talk about the problems of the classroom. I was stunned and the members of our panel were stunned that the principal told us that they have lost control of discipline, that the school security officer told us that they can do nothing about students who violate the law in their classroom, because, again, of these liberal regulations, rules and judicial decisions. They are really captive to a classroom that has no discipline. And when that happens, a teacher cannot teach. So this is another problem, again, well-intended, but it is something we are trying to address as a new approach, and it may be tough love like balancing the budget, but until we get control of our classrooms and return discipline to the classroom, allow a teacher to teach, we will continue to have these problems. Again, I point to my suggestion, rather than 100,000 bureaucrats starting in Washington, Atlanta, Tallahassee and the others that are required, even requiring our school board to have the massive administrators to carry out the mandates from Washington, that we reverse that and that we concentrate on paying our teachers that are in the classroom, giving them the resources for the classrooms, making that 95 percent of Federal money, only 6 percent of all the money going into education effective. What is interesting is we at the Federal Government in this Congress only supply 6 percent of education money but we provide 90 percent of the rules and regulations and mandates. That is why we have had this loud cry across the land for charter schools. Enough is enough. Let us run our schools. The problem again we have is people in Washington think they know it all. That folks at the local level are too dumb, too ignorant, incapable. They cannot run their own schools. They cannot educate. The decisions have to be made here. The power must stay here. And that is basically what this whole battle is about, is who controls the purse strings and the power. That is why we are here late into the evening, that is why the appropriators are still meeting, because it is a question of power and control and changing all of that from up here in Washington to the local school boards. Finally, I think it is important that we look at the results that 40 years have brought us. Again, I am a strong advocate of public education. I attended public schools, my children attended public schools, and we have to look at the incredible amount of money we are putting into the system, and then what the results are that we are getting. Here are some of the results after 40 years: Reading test scores. Reading is fundamental, absolutely basic. Mr. Speaker, 60 percent of 12th graders cannot read at a proficient level. That is absolutely astounding. Mathematics test scores. The average score for eighth grade United States students on the math portion of the third international math and science study was 500, 13 points below the international average of 513. At least 20 countries scored higher than the United States. Science test scores. How important for the future. The average score for eighth grade U.S. students on the science portion of the third international mathematics and science study was 534. Some countries, such as Singapore, Japan, and Korea achieved scores of over 600. History test scores. Only 17 percent of fourth graders, 14 percent of eighth graders, and 11 percent of twelfth graders, that is graduation level, are proficient in history. Scholastic Assessment Test scores, commonly known as SATs. In the 1994-1995 school year, 41 percent of the graduates took the SAT test. Of those, the average combined score was 910. This has dropped from 937, the average score in 1972. Let me tell my colleagues another appalling statistic in my State, in my locale. Across the Nation, those entering our community colleges, of those entering freshman, over 50 percent require remedial education. One of my community colleges, the president of the community college told me it is 70 percent of his entering freshmen. And this failure of education costs us money. Here is an article recently from central Florida, Orlando, Too Many Students, the headline is, Not Learning Basics. The State is spending $52 million on remedial education, just to bring community college students up to speed. Now, it would be easy to come and just criticize what has been done in the past, but I think it is important that we look at what our side, the Republican majority, has proposed in the field of education. First of all, again, this mass of hundreds and hundreds of highly bureaucratic, expensive-to-administrate 788 programs. Our Dollars to the Classroom Act consolidates 31 Federal education programs into a single flexible grant program for States and communities. The legislation will provide $2.74 billion funding for local schools. Instead of, again, increasing money for bureaucrats in Washington, our Republican majority's plan eliminates a tangled web of red tape, which ensures that tax dollars will really reach our individual students, our classrooms and our teachers. While the Republican majority tries to always speak out for parents, students, and teachers, the other side remains mired in the politics and the policies and the approach of the past. They end up defending groups and organizations who are intent on keeping the status quo in education. The most important thing we can do, I believe, is again, getting funds to the classroom. We have a very specific proposal to do that, as I said, through this proposed consolidation. We also have another proposal for increased parental control. Funds from this legislation can be used for a wide variety of activities, including new technology, instructional materials, education reform, and professional development. Individual school districts will be able to work with parents to select what activities are best suited to their communities and to their needs. This is a unique approach. Rather than Washington telling them what they must do, they will be partners in deciding what is done. In fact, if local communities are happy with their current programs, this legislation does not require that they make any changes at all. So these are some of the proposals that we have made, again, trying to improve the quality and get dollars to the classroom. Mr. Speaker, let me go over a couple of the other proposals that we have made. I want to repeat them, although Members have heard the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling), who has done an incredible job leading the committee of jurisdiction, and other Members talk about them. But let me reiterate some of the things that the Republican Congress is doing to improve educational opportunities for all Americans. First, we have improved our public schools by sending more money to the classroom for teachers, for computers, for safer buildings, and for teacher testing. Again, we have sent the money there. We had a great proposal in the tax bill which the President threatened to veto which was also to allow for local school bonds to be issued and some tax credits for additional school construction. As we know, there are needs for additional classrooms, but we want to work as a partner and allow the schools to take advantage of Federal assistance, rather than dictate what is done in each of these school jurisdictions. We made college more available and affordable to all students through tuition tax credits. We have created also through our policies the lowest student loan interest rate in 17 years. We have lived up to our commitment to special education by taking money away from Washington bureaucrats and sending it to our children's classrooms across the Nation to improve the quality of their instruction and their learning opportunity for all children. We tried to give opportunities and choice, and make them available to students who were stuck in school systems that just do not work, or do not fit into this maze of regulations and this square box that the bureaucrats in Washington have created. I think that we have done an excellent job in framing the issues here in Washington. What we have not done, I think, is gotten our word out to the American people about what we intend to do in these different programs. That is sometimes because of the shrill rhetoric of the other side. I want to also talk tonight in the field of education about one of the areas I have tried to improve in the committee. Again, under the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling), the Committee on Education and the Workforce has done an incredible job in improving education, and part of that, again, is the battle that is being waged here about what gets put in the final product. I want to talk about Head Start. I consider myself one of the strongest advocates of Head Start, and any program, education program, that will take the neediest children in our society and give them an opportunity to have an advantage, particularly those who are needy, those who are disadvantaged, and to give them every opportunity to succeed in our educational system. Long before they created Head Start, I was involved in a Head Start program in a local community where I went to college. And again, I was in the School of Education at the University of Florida. If we look at disadvantaged students, if we look at students that are needy, that do not have educational opportunities, we must realize as a society that we are creating our future problems in society if we do not address their needs. We must correct them at the earliest possible age and stage, because that is when they learn the basics and fundamentals: reading, writing, mathematics, all of these foundation skills that are so important. So I became involved early on. I support Head Start. The concept is great. But unfortunately, what has happened is what has happened with the bureaucracy I described here, and this chart could be used to describe the bureaucracy we have created in Head Start. The same thing has happened. I have testified before the Committee on Education and the Workforce in this Congress and in former Congresses to try to explain the need to assist communities such as my community, and one of the Head Start programs in my community, with the need for flexibility; the need to address, again, areas of our country which have needs but do not fit into that Washington bureaucratic mold. Let me say that the Republican majority has funded Head Start at its highest levels, and our FY 1999 appropriations bill will have more than $150 million. I am sure when the final figures are in it will have an increase, and that is important. It is not just how much money we throw into these programs or put into these programs, it is what happens with the programs, what results do we get from the programs. I had a parent come to me several years ago who alerted me about one Head Start program in central Florida. I might say that there are many Head Start programs that work very well. We may or may not need to make changes in some of these programs. I have advocated a change as far as the quality of opportunity, the quality of the Head Start program. I am very pleased that the Republican majority, with some help from others on the other side of the aisle, we will incorporate some of my recommendations into improving Head Start. Let me give the Members a great example of how this program does not work the way it was intended everywhere. Again, I had a mother come to me and alerted me about a program. She was a single parent, a very smart lady, and wise to put her children, her two children, into this program. Her husband had departed and left her with the children. She wanted to give them every opportunity. She put them into a Head Start program, and then she was on the local advisory council. She started looking at what was going on with this Head Start program. Two of my counties, actually, one in my district and one in another congressional district, have so few students that they cannot make a total program that meets all the requirements of the Federal Head Start. Again, there are these regulations and mandates. So they came together, even though they are miles and miles apart, and it does not make much sense, but that is the way we have to do it in order to participate. This parent asked me to look into what was going on in the Head Start program. I got a copy of the budget. I visited all the Head Start programs in my district. I visited the private school programs. I got a copy of their budget. I have a copy of their budget. The budget for this Head Start program requires over 20 administrative or bureaucratic positions, and some may be necessary. There are various education coordinators, family services coordinators, nutrition coordinators. Someone has to decide whether you have a lot of peanut butter or too much jelly, but they require all of these folks, and they may all be necessary positions, some of them, but we have 20- some administrators. We have 18 teachers, so-called teachers in the program. The teachers in the Head Start program make from $12,000 to $18,000. Here is the list of their salaries. I should say it starts at $11,618. The administrators make from, well, the lowest one I can find here is $17,000 up to $50,000. I have in this program less than 500 students, and I have over 20 administrators earning from $17,000 to $50,000 to administer this program. The cost per pupil in this program is nearly $6,800. The very best private preschool program in my district I could send a child to, and it has longer hours than the program that currently exists, which would benefit the single working mother, because sometimes they cannot get their child out of school in the middle of the day when the Head Start program ends. How does it make sense to have that many administrators? I begged and pleaded with the committee and with the bureaucrats to change this. Unfortunately, they would not change this. They granted us very little flexibility. But this is exactly what this argument is about. It is how many bureaucrats, how many folks we can mandate from Washington, and they do not want to give any flexibility. We built this into a great little bureaucracy; not a little bureaucracy, unfortunately, but a big bureaucracy. Who gets the disadvantage from this? It is those children that need it the most. We are spending the money on overhead, not on classrooms. Let us look at the teachers who earn, so-called teachers, from $12,000 to $18,000. I won part of this battle, but they fought us tooth and nail. We are demanding quality in these Head Start programs so that that disadvantaged child has the best opportunity. I will tell the Members, this is not all of the Head Start programs, and we must sort through them to make certain that we have quality. But when I went into some of those programs, I saw that the students there did not have the best opportunity. They did not have opportunities to the best exposure. So if we take them out of a tough setting, a setting where they are not exposed to the culture, to the education, to other opportunities, language skills, and we put them back into that in some type of a minority hiring program, what have we done to these students? We have done them a great disadvantage. So this has been one of the great, fundamental debates that is going on here. It is not just about dollars or number of dollars into these programs, it is about the quality of the programs, how the taxpayer dollar is spent, to give the flexibility. There are small districts and there are small areas in rural areas with disadvantaged students who have no opportunity to participate because they cannot afford the administrative overhead that this requires. They would not grant us the flexibility to do that. We did get some concessions. Let me describe some of them in the legislation that will pass, I hope. We have provisions, and our side insisted on language and literacy growth assistance for children. We proposed new education performance standards and measures. We are asking for legislation that ensures that children, and listen to this, that they develop print and numeracy awareness, that they understand and use oral language to communicate for different purposes, they understand and use increasingly complex and varied vocabulary, they develop and demonstrate an appreciation for books, and in the case of non English speaking children, progress towards acquisition of the English language. I think back to my grandparents, all of whom were immigrants. If their children had gone to public schools and they had not been given the opportunities we are talking about here and the exposure, if we had put them into another immigrant or minority setting, if we had not exposed them to the language skills, if we had not given them the opportunity to learn English, where would my parents and others in my family have gone? So, we have lost track of where we wanted to go with this program. We, as Republicans, want to bring accountability. We want to bring quality to Head Start. We support Head Start. We will fund Head Start. But the battle is about how the dollars are expended and what are the results with taxpayer dollars. Because there are many Americans who work very hard to send their money to Washington. They want that money spent on programs that assist those most in need. We are a very compassionate society and we have a responsibility because, again, those children, if they do not develop these skills, they will be our discipline problems, they will be our learning problems, they will be our dropout problems, they will be our crime problems, and we will pay for them at the other end. So, it is important that we fund viable Head Start programs. That we have flexibility, but we also have accountability. That we reach out. We are now serving in Head Start 830,000 students. With just a little bit of flexibility in my community, if they had granted me that flexibility, I could have sent half the kids to the best preschool programs and sent the other half to any program of their choice, if they had granted us a little bit of flexibility. So, instead of serving 500, we could have served a thousand. But, again, this need to control things here in Washington, to maintain the bureaucracy, the control, and set all these regulations in one box, whether they serve Central Florida or a rural area in Texas or Michigan or whenever, they did not want to do that. So, that is what this fight is about tonight. The battle is not because Republicans do not care about education. In fact, the battle is because Republicans care about education and they care that in fact we are not getting a return for our tax dollars. I would like to also take an opportunity to talk tonight about another issue which I think is very important. We have heard the other side talk about children and how they are concerned about children and care about children. I think it is an area that we need to talk about as Republicans, as majority members. I came to this Congress, Mr. Speaker, in 1992 when Bill Clinton was elected President. When Bill Clinton was elected President, he began a dismantling of our drug enforcement programs. I spoke more than any other Member on the floor of the House and in committee about what was going on. Bill Clinton dismantled interdiction. He dismantled use of the military. He dismantled the Andean strategy to stop the drugs at their source. He hired Joycelyn Elders, the infamous Surgeon General, our chief health officer, who said ``Just say maybe'' to our children. He took the Coast Guard and the military out of our fight in the war on drugs. Just one disaster after another, and we are paying for it today. We have the highest incidence of drug use and abuse, particularly among our children, that this Nation has ever seen. From 1992 to present, the statistics for heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines, hard drugs has skyrocketed. In today's paper, in the Washington Times, there is a big article about cocaine cartels taking on a new product, heroin. Heroin that has killed so many in my district. Let me read what Tom Constantine, the Drug Enforcement Administrator, said in this article. And I quote, ``For years we have seen a hard-core, older population of approximately 600,000 heroin addicts. Today, we are seeing 11th and 12th graders turning to heroin. These initiates are at the outset of a long, downward spiral into hard-core addiction or death.'' That is what has happened. In every area, our young people, some in the elementary schools, are now exposed to hard drugs, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines. We have 15,000 deaths, many of them teens. I come from Central Florida. I have held this up many times on the floor of the House, Orlando number two in cocaine deaths. Long out of sight, heroin is back killing teens. We have lost nearly two dozen teens in Central Florida to drug--heroin and cocaine--abuse just in the last year or so. It is almost becoming routine to see our young people dying. Let me tell my colleagues what the Republicans have done. During the Democrat administration, we held one hearing on the national drug policy and that was closed within an hour and I was denied the opportunity to speak. Under the leadership of the Republican Majority, we have held over 50 hearings on our national drug policy. Part of the battle and part of the reason we are here is we wanted 3 additional billion dollars to reorganize and reinstitute the programs that were cut, the interdiction programs that were cut, the source country programs, the involvement of the military and the Coast Guard that were cut by this President. Mr. Speaker, that is why we are here tonight, because there is a major battle looming on the streets and in the communities across our land dealing with drug abuse and misuse. It is an incredible sad commentary on this administration. And also I am concerned about the American people when they have a couple of dollars in their pockets that they do not care or express concern or outrage that this is allowed to go on. And it affects them in every community, because crime is tied into this drug use and abuse in every one of our communities. It is particularly affecting our young people. Again, this administration has ignored any hard steps in this fight. Now, today, they are still fighting us, as the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), the chairman of our Subcommittee on National Security, International Affairs, and Criminal Justice is fighting to put the dollars that we need to stop, in a most cost-effective way, drugs at their source. We know where the cocaine comes from. It is coming from Bolivia. It is coming from Peru. It is coming from Colombia. And there is no reason why we do not have the resources, the dollars spent there to stop drugs at their source or in interdiction where we can stop them. Trying to catch them when they get into our communities is like going out on the lawn and having a lawn sprinkler and running around with cans trying to catch all the sprinkles. We will never do it in that fashion, but we can restore the cuts that were made in 1993 through 1995 that destroyed our ability to repel drugs at our source. That is why we are here. We are here to improve education. We are here to correct the mistakes of 40 years. Again, well-intended but misguided, and very liberal solutions which have gotten us into a fix in education that appalls every teacher, every parent, and every American who takes a serious look at public education today. We are here because we are having a battle over where we put our resources. Do we put our resources in failed programs? Do we put our resources in programs that are cost-effective that stop drugs at their source, that restore the cuts in the Coast Guard that bring the military back into this battle so we stop heroin, cocaine and hard drugs before they ever reach our shores? We have 2 million Americans in jail, and any sheriff or any law enforcement official will say that between 60 and 70 percent of those folks are in prison at great public expense because of drug abuse and misuse. So, my colleagues again we come before the American people. We are winding down. Some of the easier bills are behind us. We have 13 bills to fund the government to make our system of government work. 13 bills. Eight or nine of them have been decided upon. The tough ones are still to go. But they are very important and they are very important differences in the American people and every colleague should know those differences. Our intent again is to do the very best job for the people who sent us here with their hard-earned tax dollars. So as I conclude, I thank the Speaker for his indulgence this evening. It is my prayer and hope that we can work together to resolve these differences; that we can learn from the mistakes that have been made in the past; that we can come together in the best interest of the American people, the children that are talked about so much, whether it is education or drug policy and resolve these source social problems facing our Nation.

Mr. MICA

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

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, during the six months March-August 1968 the world witnessed a revolutionary drama which began in Bratislava, now the capital of Slovakia, and ended in Prague. The world's audience was fascinated especially by the leading player, a Slovak, Alexander Dubcek. Within that short time, Dubcek became a well-known symbol for his reform efforts in the totalitarian centralist Czechoslovakia in which Slovakia was treated as no more than a region. Dubcek's reforms became known as the ``Prague Spring'' although they would equally deserve the title ``Dubcek Spring''. His reforms involved the free speech, economic experimentation, open borders and open debate over the country's political future. Dubcek was faced by Stalinist with the same courage, as he had faced the Nazi fascists in the Slovak National Uprising in 1944 in which Alexander was wounded and his brother Julius was killed. It was not just by chance that the Spring 1968 started in Slovakia. In the first and last post World War II democratic elections in Czechoslovakia in 1946, the clear winner in Slovakia had been the Democratic Party, while in the larger Czech part of the country it had been the Communist Party that finally grabbed the overall power. However, during the night of August 20-21, 1968 Dubcek's revolution was crushed by more than 600,000 troops with 7,000 tanks from the Warsaw Pact countries--Soviet Union, Bulgaria, East Germany, Hungary and Poland. For more than twenty years Dubcek remained under constant state security scrutiny. In spite of his ordeal, he always believed that people were essentially good and he never gave up hope. With the start of the Velvet Revolution in 1989, Dubcek reemerged at the Slovak National Uprising Square in Bratislava and Wenceslas Square in Prague, convincing thousands of demonstrators that their Revolution would succeed. Few people know that Dubcek's parents came to settle in the United States. They lived in Chicago for more than five years in the second decade of this century but returned to Slovakia shortly before Alexander's birth on November 27, 1921. Alexander literally had his very beginning in the U.S. It is also rather symbolic that the American University in Washington, DC, was among the first in the world to award Dubcek with an honorary Doctorate in April 1990, in the Spring immediately following the Velvet Revolution. The moral and ideological impact of the ``Dubcek Spring'' spilled beyond the borders of his country, infiltrating the whole of the former Soviet Bloc. His message was that even the harshest dictatorship cannot prevent men of courage and honesty to reach far ahead of their time and keep their true conviction despite years of oppression. The Dubcek Spring started a process crowned by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the new democratic perspective for Central and Eastern Europe. Alexander Dubcek and Vaclav Havel became known as the two symbols of the Velvet Revolution with great international prestige, opening the doors to the world for their respective Republics. By a fatal irony, on September 1, 1992, the day when the new Constitution of the Slovak Republic was adopted, Dubcek was gravely injured in a car accident and he died just a month before the independent Slovakia was born. Unfortunately, he died when he was the most needed by his mother country. This year the 30th anniversary of the ``Dubcek Spring'' is commemorated in many countries of the world. The American University, jointly with the Embassy of the Slovak Republic, organized a series of events in which the guest of honor was Dr. Paul Dubcek, Alexander's son. I had the honor and pleasure of accompanying him through the U.S. Capitol and introducing him to such distinguished Congress Members as the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Jesse Helms, and the Chairman of the House International Relations Committee, Congressman Benjamin Gilman. I had the opportunity to witness that the name of Dubcek still echoed in the ears of America's leaders. It is my honor to recognize Alexander Dubcek and also symbolically pay tribute to hundreds of thousands of Slovak Americans who not only provided a key contribution to the American industrial revolution-- working hard in coal mines, factories and steel mills of America's past. But also to the Slovak Americans who now lead American business, industry and science. Alexander Dubcek, the man symbolizing what a giant contribution of a small country at the heart of Europe can provide to the rest of the world, definitely has his place among the great historic leaders of world democracy.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Cook) and that he be allowed to manage that time, as I am about to lose my most valuable asset as a Member of Congress, and that is my voice.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2109) to amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to require reports filed under such Act to be filed electronically and to require the Federal Election Commission to make such reports available to the public within 24 hours of receipt, as amended.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I have no further speakers, but I would like to take this opportunity to close. Mr. Speaker, this legislation indeed is a significant step forward for all of America's veterans. That is why all of the major veterans service organizations in the United States support this bill. They and the 12 million veterans they represent know how much veterans will benefit when we pass this legislation this evening. I thank these organizations and the many, many veterans who have contacted me and other Members for their very strong support, active participation and hard work to make this legislation possible. Their efforts were indispensable. Mr. Speaker, America owes a very great and deep debt of gratitude to the men and women who have kept our Nation free and strong and who fought our battles and served in lonely and harsh outposts around the world to preserve the peace. This bill will not repay that debt. No measure this Congress can enact will ever fully repay that debt. But S. 1021 is a down payment and, in fact, a good one. The gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Stump) has called my bill the most significant advance in veterans' preference in 50 years. That can also be said of this legislation, S. 1021. The relief and benefit it will bring to those who have served our Nation under arms is long overdue. This bill commands the support of every Member of the House. So in closing I urge my colleagues to pass this legislation this evening so it can be made the law of the land. We can do no less for those who have done so much.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. Morella), a tireless worker and advocate on behalf of our veterans and our Federal employees.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the Senate bill (S. 1021) to amend title 5, United States Code, to provide that consideration may not be denied to preference eligibles applying for certain positions in the competitive service, and for other purposes.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks on the bill, H.R. 2675.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and concur in the Senate amendments to the bill (H.R. 2675) to require that the Office of Personnel Management submit proposed legislation under which group universal life insurance and group variable universal life insurance would be available under chapter 87 of title 5, United States Code, and for other purposes.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. My colleagues, this legislation makes improvements in the Federal Employees Group Life Insurance program generally called FEGLI. The House passed this bill after the Subcommittee on Post Office Civil Service conducted the most comprehensive review of benefits under this program in over 40 years. As a result of this legislation, there will be major improvements in the life insurance benefits for our Federal employees for the first time in 16 years. Our Federal employees will be able to obtain better life insurance for themselves, their spouses and their children. They will also be able to carry more insurance into retirement. The House bill required the Office of Personnel Management to submit a legislative proposal for offering group universal life insurance, group variable life insurance and voluntary additional accidental death and dismemberment to Federal employees. The Senate has substituted a requirement that the Office of Personnel Management review and study this matter. I believe OPM can and should submit that study within 6 months and recommend to the Congress legislative language to make these life insurance options available to our Federal employees. The Office of Personnel Management will not be required to establish a new Federal program to make this insurance available. Commercial insurance carriers have been offering these products to private sector employees for years. The Office of Personnel Management should be able to find suitable products virtually off the shelf. There is no need, in fact, to reinvent the wheel. It is important that Federal employees and also our Federal retirees be given these up-to-date choices. It would be the first time since the program was started in 1954 that employees would have a life insurance choice other than just term insurance. The Senate amendment also allows Federal employees to purchase life insurance for their foster children and allows them to pay their life insurance premiums directly under certain circumstances. The amendments also allow individuals who are wrongly covered by life insurance to remain covered if the policy has been in force for 2 years. The Senate also expanded the open season during which our Federal employees may begin or increase their life insurance. One final amendment, not related to life insurance, provides the Office of Personnel Management employees with an additional 30 days to appeal Merit Systems Protection Board decisions to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal circuit. This is a good bill. A long overdue review of this program and Federal employees will benefit from the improvements we make with this legislation. I urge all Members to support this legislation. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. Morella), a member of our Subcommittee on Civil Service and, again, a tireless advocate for our Federal employees and retirees.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I have no additional speakers, and I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, first I just want to take a moment to thank again the ranking member, the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. Morella) and other members of our subcommittee. Tonight we brought before the House two pieces of legislation, the Veterans Employment Opportunity Act, which provides veterans preference, which is something our veterans have sought for decades since really World War II. It is an important piece of legislation. The staff and Members, in a bipartisan fashion, showed today what we can do working together. Today has been a difficult day for the Congress and for the American people. It does show, in fact, what we can all do for the benefit of those who served us. Finally, on this bill, this bill is important because we have over 4 million Federal employees and retirees. This bill saves money for the taxpayer. This program has not been bid or really examined in some number of decades, and we can provide better benefits at lower cost to those who are actively serving us in Federal employment now. So I ask my colleagues to support this legislation, and I urge all Members to support this bill tonight. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 575, I am pleased to announce the following suspensions to be considered Friday, October 9: