John Mica

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. Again, I urge passage of this and, finally, thank the staff on both sides of the aisle for their tremendous contributions.

Mr. MICA. I yield to the gentleman from American Samoa.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would like to conclude my remarks on this legislation and just take a moment, as we finish our comments, to thank the gentleman from American Samoa for his assistance tonight in moving this legislation forward. Also to thank the ranking member of our subcommittee, the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Moran] who is not able to be with us but who has provided great leadership on this and other civil service issues, and particularly the gentlewoman from Maryland [Mrs. Morella], as part of this legislation and, in fact, as part of her initiatives, continuing efforts on behalf of our civil servants whom she holds so dearly, both their service and their contribution to our Federal Government. I thank her. I thank the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Davis] of our subcommittee and also, as I mentioned, the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Wolf], who is not on the committee, who has contributed to this and other productive civil service legislation; also the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon] for his tremendous interest and efforts on behalf of our veterans. His service goes on and on in their behalf and on behalf of the Congress. The gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Buyer] who is not with us tonight but chairs one of the veterans subcommittees, also contributed greatly. Finally, Mr. Speaker, by combining title II with three Senate bills we are, in fact, giving the other body a very convenient way of addressing veterans preference in the few remaining legislative days that we have left in this session. Mr. Speaker, the bill before us today and tonight is, in fact, a good one. It authorizes emergency leave for our Federal employees. It strengthens our veterans preference. It improves the thrift savings plan and makes desirable modifications to the employment status of employees at the Fire Administration. This legislation tonight and bills that we hope to pass in tomorrow's session can go a long way toward making it a better Federal workplace and a better Federal work force. I urge my colleagues to vote for these measures and for this bill.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon], who is one of the strongest advocates in the Congress on behalf of veterans and also has the honor and distinction of serving as chairman of our Committee on Rules.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the bill before us contains actually three bills that have already passed the other body, S. 868, S. 1080, and S. 1488. The Senate passed two of these bills by unanimous consent, and the third by voice vote. In addition, title II of this bill is virtually identical to H.R. 3586, which the House passed by voice vote on July 30, 1996. Title I of this bill is identical in all material respects to S. 868, the Federal Employee Emergency Leave Transfer Act of 1995. This title authorizes the establishment of a special leave bank for Federal employees in the event of a presidentially declared emergency. The tragedy at Oklahoma City is an example of the situations in which these special leave banks may be established. Mr. Speaker, this bill provides for a humane and a just opportunity for our Federal employees to help one another. Title II of the bill, Mr. Speaker, is essentially the same as the Veterans Preference Employment Opportunity Act of 1996. This measure, H.R. 3586, is legislation that I introduced, and we passed the earlier version of this bill by voice vote in July. Title II creates an effective redress system for our veterans. It strengthens veterans protections in the case of a reduction in force, and it extends additional economic opportunities to our veterans. In addition, the bill extends veterans preference to certain jobs in the legislative branch, in the judicial branch, and at the White House. In our handling of this matter, we found that sometimes our veterans are the first fired and the last hired, and this bill moves to correct that situation. We have slightly modified the language of H.R. 3586 in an effort to respond to concerns raised by the American Postal Workers Union after we passed our original bill from the House. The APWU's concern is that the language of the original bill might have interfered with the operation of job bidding procedures in their collective-bargaining agreements. It was not our intention, Mr. Speaker, to interfere with the Postal Union collective bargaining agreements, and we hope that our changes have in fact clarified this matter. In addition, the Department of Defense has been given more time to comply with the rif provisions of the bill and another modification they requested. In title III, Mr. Speaker, our provisions make the Thrift Savings Plan even more attractive to our Federal employees. They establish two new investment funds for Federal employees, an international stock index fund and a small capitalization stock index fund. In addition, these provisions will make it easier for Federal employees to borrow their own money from the Thrift Savings Plan and provide for a onetime permanent withdrawal at age 59\1/2\ or when they experience a particular financial hardship. Title III also contains an improvement to the Thrift Savings Plan that was not in S. 1080. Under this bill, employees who come to work for the Government will be able to deposit the funds from their private 401(k) plans into our Thrift Savings Plan. This is an additional rollover authority, which should make Government employment more attractive to many in the private sector. Finally, Mr. Speaker, title IV of this bill incorporates the provisions of S. 1488. That bill converts certain accepted service positions in the U.S. Fire Administration to competitive service positions. It also authorizes the Fire Administration to appoint new faculty members to competitive service positions. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that we have had the cooperation of the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Moran], the ranking member, and the gentlewoman from Maryland [Mrs. Morella] a leader on our Civil Service Subcommittee that I am so pleased to have the opportunity to chair. I also want to recognize the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Davis] for his fine work and contributions, and also, not a member of the subcommittee or committee, but the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Wolf] who is a strong advocate on behalf of our Federal employees and workers. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the Senate bill (S. 868) to provide authority for leave transfer for Federal employees who are adversely affected by disasters or emergencies, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I come before the House today, as we debate this immigration reform legislation, from a State that has been impacted and sometimes devastated by a lack of a national immigration policy. I notice we have some reforms in here, and there are some good reforms. We are doubling the number of Border Patrol, but also in this we are also restricting some payments, some benefits, to illegal aliens, and we should go even beyond that. But I tell my colleagues that unless we stop some of the benefits, unless we demagnetize the magnet that is attracting these folks to come to our shores--we can put a Border Patrol person every 10 yards across our border, and we will not stop the flow because people will come here because of the attraction of the benefits. How incredible it is that we debate whether we give education benefits or medical benefits and legal benefits and housing benefits and other benefits to illegal aliens and even legal aliens in this country when we do not give the same benefits in this Congress, and that side of the aisle has denied them to our veterans who have served and fought and died for this country in many cases, or their families, and to our senior citizens. So this is a much larger debate. Finally, my colleagues, we must have a President who will enforce the laws, and we have not had a President who will enforce the immigration laws, and we have a new policy every day, and we cannot live that way.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for yielding me time. I want to also recognize the gentleman's outstanding leadership and hard work on this piece of legislation. He, as chairman of the House Subcommittee on Government Management, Information, and Technology, and his able staff have worked diligently to craft, working with the minority, a bill which I think the House can be very proud of. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Chairman Clinger, of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Chairman Goodling, of the Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities, the gentleman from Illinois, Chairman Hyde, of the Committee on Judiciary, and the distinguished gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Shays, and the gentleman from New Hampshire, Mr. Bass, for their leadership on this measure. Each of them has in fact made invaluable contributions to this legislation. I also want to take just a moment and pay particular thanks and commendation to the gentlewoman from New York [Mrs. Maloney] for her hard work and her leadership as the ranking member. I know the gentlewoman has a few problems with the bill, but I think they can be worked out. Without her leadership, the bill would not be on the floor today. Mr. Speaker, I introduced this bill because, like many Americans, I have really become concerned about the White House, which in fact even the casual observer today would find the White House lacks accountability and operates without responsibilities to laws that apply to the rest of us. One of the things we did and I did as a member of the new majority was to make this Congress live under the same laws as everyone else. This legislation in fact extends that same requirement to our highest office in the land, and should do so. This bill addresses three major areas of concern. The first concern is that the Executive Office of the President is not subject to the same employment laws that cover business, private business and the Congress. Second, it would create a chief financial officer and also an inspector general to improve financial management and responsibility at the White House. Third, it would clarify the definition, as you have heard from the gentleman from California, of special government employees with respect to presidential advisors. This Congress again took historic steps in its first 100 days when it made itself live under the same laws that have been imposed under the private sector. Now it is time to really just close that loop and put the White House under these same laws. It is time to end what I have called ``the last plantation,'' where wages and working conditions of many of the employees remain unaffected by Federal employment laws. When this is done, I think the political components of Government and the White House will be required to wrestle with the same knotty problems that private citizens and private business face every day. The President and the White House will face compliance with the same laws and edicts imposed on all Americans. Let me turn now, Mr. Speaker, to the second objective of this bill, the improvement of the management of the financial operations at the White House. Through the hearing process during the past year we have observed that the White House financial operations in fact lack both accountability and structure. The Travelgate hearings highlighted some of the shortcomings in White House financial responsibility. Mr. Speaker, had there been a chief financial officer at the White House back then, he or she who was in charge would have reviewed the White House travel financial management practices and said ``Wow.'' They would have said, ``Wait, let's look at this.'' The chief financial officer would have in fact detected any discrepancies and could have helped the Travel Office managers correct them. The Congress failed the American people by not having adequate financial structures or safeguards in place. In fact, we must take part of that responsibility as overseers. White House employees were used, unfortunately, as scapegoats, because we failed to have reliable management or financial accountability in our Chief Executive Office of the land. Likewise, Madam Speaker, hearings conducted by our Subcommittee on National Security, International Affairs, and Criminal Justice also reveal very serious deficiencies in oversight and accountability at the White House Communications Agency. I sit on that subcommittee. I was stunned when we heard the egregious examples of waste and abuse, all a result of almost a total lack of controls in this agency, which is under the operational control, in fact, of the Executive Office of the President. The accounting controls were so poor that the agency recently had $14.5 million in unobligated obligations. It has been paying for equipment and services. Madam Speaker, now, let me restate this. The accounting controls were so poor that the agency recently had $14.5 million in unvalidated obligations. It has been paying for equipment and services that are, in fact, no longer necessary. It has been paying for items that were never delivered to the agency, and it has occasionally paid for the same items twice. An audit by the Department of Defense's IG also found that the agency paid only 17 percent of its bills on time, causing the taxpayers to pay for interest and penalties on the remaining 83 percent. We are fortunate, in fact, Madam Speaker, that the White House does not have a mortgage, because of the way it operates. It would have, in fact, been repossessed by now. Again, Madam Speaker, these are problems that we believe a chief financial officer would have identified and corrected. The addition of an inspector general at the White House will also help eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse in the Executive Office of the President. I think, in fact, we can all agree that strong financial management at the White House is imperative. This bill will achieve that goal. The third and final objective is to require more public accountability in so-called volunteers who advise the President in the Executive Office of the President. Once again, Madam Speaker, the Travelgate hearings have revealed why Congress must take these actions. The activities only, if we use Harry Thompson as exhibit A, will reveal that this Clinton operative, an unpaid volunteer, had office accommodations, roamed the halls of the White House, participated in meetings with employees of the Executive Office and, in fact, with the President, and, in fact, attempted to influence policy in some places with a potential personal conflict of interest. In short, he acted as if he was a White House employee. Under this bill, he would have been subject to conflict-of-interest laws. Madam Speaker, the Presidential and Executive Office Accountability Act is a good bill. It will bring the Executive Office of the President under the same employment laws and civil rights laws that Congress and the private sector must live under.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I was just on the floor a few days ago and talked about a headline I saw where the trade deficit last month had gotten worse, and today I woke up to see today's news, and trade and jobs and opportunity for my children and for the future of all citizens of our country have been one of my top priorities since I got elected some 3 years ago. Today I saw a headline that should send chills into the spine of every American and every Member of Congress. It says ``U.S. trade gap grew by 43 percent in July.'' Now if that does not knock your socks off and you are not concerned about this, then you are not awake. The opportunities that we are destroying for our children by not getting our international trade functions in order are going to really ruin the future again for our children. Let me show you our current international trade organization. This is 19 agencies deal with promoting, financing assistance for international trade. This is the current structure. It is a rat's maze. Any business person who could get Federal assistance from this rat's maze and have Government cooperate with business and industry so we could provide good paying jobs, they cannot do it under this structure. When I first came to Congress, I introduced a reorganization that would put trade finance, trade promotion and trade assistance all together in a sound, reasonable package to provide assistance to give us an opportunity to increase our jobs. Now look at what Mr. Kantor, our Secretary of Commerce, former Trade Representative said. His comment was ``The U.S. trade picture reflects the underlying strength of the U.S. economy.'' I cannot believe that he said anything. In fact, I pulled his bio to see if he had any business experience, and he does not. Neither does the gentleman who currently occupies the White House. They just do not understand at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, they do not understand in the Department of Commerce, and they do not understand in the trade agency or the 19 other Federal agencies that spend $3 billion in tax money. Then you read about where the big trade deficit is. It is in Japan. Now where does 85 percent of all that money we that we spend promoting U.S. products, assisting U.S. companies go? It goes for, and would you believe this, it does for promoting raisins in Japan, and we already control the market there. So you see why our children do not have an opportunity for the future. This is the disorganization, these are the comments, this is the statistics. We heard about 10 million new jobs in this country. Where are those 10 million new jobs? They are part time, they are low paying, they are service jobs. They do not tell us that between 1993 and 1995 we lost 8.4 million good-paying jobs in this country. People were fired. They were fired in Binghamton, NY, they were fired in Tennessee, they were fired in Florida. They lost their jobs, and a majority of those 8.4 million people had to take lower paying jobs. So the 10 million jobs, people I talked to in my district have two or three of them to make a living. So they have destroyed jobs. They killed the bridge to the future because they killed our bill to reorganize trade. I worked with the gentleman form Michigan [Mr. Chrysler], a hero of this Congress, and others who tried to bring some business sense to our international trade effort, and they have destroyed that bridge. Maybe Mr. Canter is smiling today, because he helped destroy a bridge to the future, a bridge to good-paying jobs, a bridge to increase the median income of the average American. That median income has gone down. That is why Americans have less in their pockets today, because taxes went up, because this Congress will not address the problem of overregulation. One hundred thirty-two thousand Federal employees do nothing but regulate, so we take those jobs out of New York, Pennsylvania, California, Florida, and we send them across the border. Finally, litigation. This administration vetoed litigation reform. When you sue everybody, what do you do? You send business and industry and good-paying jobs out of this country, so they have destroyed the bridge to the future for my children, for your children. They have relegated us to $5.15 an hour jobs. In my State, for not working, on welfare you get the equivalent of $8.75 for not working, and you get health coverage. So why work? You have to be dumb to work at $5.15, which they are promoting. I urge my colleagues to look at this. Let us build bridges to the future, not destroy them.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. What is that?

Mr. MICA. Certainly.

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to take just a minute to also express my deep appreciation to the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Portman] for his leadership on this issue. He has brought the issue to the Republican Conference, he has brought it to the Congress and to the attention of the American people and to his community, and he has tried to take steps in a positive way to bring people together to solve this problem. It is a problem that we have to address from the White House to the courthouse, and it is a problem that is destroying our young people. Unless we act we will not have a future generation that is drug free. And until we act, we will continue to see juvenile crime and problems across this great land. Seventy percent of the crimes in America, ask our police chiefs, ask our sheriffs, ask our State law enforcement and Federal officials, 70 percent of all the crimes in this Nation are, in fact, drug related. And people serving behind bars, there are 1.6 million Americans incarcerated, and about 70 percent of them are there because of drug use or abuse or some criminal activity that has led from crime.

Mr. MICA. Absolutely. If the gentleman will yield again.

Mr. MICA. I come from central Florida. I have a wonderful area in east central Florida, from Orlando to Daytona Beach. Our blaring headlines are that teenage heroin use is at record epidemic levels. In the last few weeks, just in the last weekend, we had one of these home invasions where a gentleman tried to defend someone. These people were out trying to get drug money and they shot in cold-blooded murder a young person in our peaceful community. Another incident in my community just the week before. I admire hard work. I was raised to work from the time I was just a young person. And here in my community was a gentleman at 5 o'clock in the morning who was out filling newspaper racks in Orlando and trying to make a living and taking the change from his newspaper rack. He was a little vendor, again working in the early dawn, and these drug crazed individuals came up and blew him away. Just destroyed his life. Here is a man working, dogging, trying to make it. I have thousands of senior citizens, but I met a young lady in K-Mart in my community, and I asked her how things were going and was she working and making it, and she is trying to go to school. But she says, Mr. Mica, I have to take the bus to get to work, and I can only work during the day, and it is difficult for me to get to class because I am afraid to be at a bus stop. I am afraid to go out at night. Here is a young lady trying to make it into community college. So these are the problems. When we have 70 percent of the criminals behind bars and involved in this, and then we have a President that says just say maybe. I have had two teenagers, just like the other gentleman from Florida [Mr. Miller], in the last 4 years in my house, and I say just say no as a dad, just say no as a caring parent, just say no as a citizen of the community, and my wife joins me in that. And then we have the highest elected officer in the Nation, everyone we have always looked up to, just say, ``Ha-ha-ha, I'd try it if I had the opportunity again.'' Now, what message does that send? The other things that disturbs me, and one reason I came out tonight, is again I see the President on television saying that Republicans have cut drug programs. And nothing can be further from the truth. Nothing can be further from the facts. Let me, in fact, give my colleagues the facts. I serve on the committee that oversees our drug war and have been working on this with the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Portman] since we both got elected some 3 years ago, when we called for hearings and they ignored us. When we said this is not going to work, putting all the money into treatment and ignoring the other parts, interdiction, enforcement, and education. They gutted these programs. Now they have the nerve to say that we cut these. Let me talk about the safe and drug-free school program. Republicans never cut the safe and drug-free schools. First, I want everyone to understand that the Republicans did not take control of the Congress until just the last 18 or 20 months. The first 24 months, from 1992, with the election in the fall and taking office in January, the President in fact controlled the executive branch. As I recall, there were over 250 Democrats in the House of Representatives, a great majority, greater than we ever had, and they controlled the other body by a majority. They had control of all three bodies. They never held the hearings. In fact, in fiscal years 1994 and 1995 the Democrats controlled the Congress and cut the programs, safe and drug-free schools. President Clinton, in 1994, requested $598.2 million for the program; the Democrats in Congress cut this to $187 million. $187.2 million, to be exact. His own party cut $174 million from his request in 1995. Again, when we did not control this. They did that. They should be held responsible for it. Now, what are we trying to do to restore it? Let me tell my colleagues. First of all, the drug czar's office. The President says he has downsized Government. Well, he started in the drug czar's office and he cut the staff of 150 positions down to about 25 positions. This Congress, through the leadership of the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Portman, the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Clinger, the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Hastert, Denny Hastert, the gentleman from New Hampshire, Mr. Zeliff, and others who worked so hard on trying to put this back together, we have put in the Treasury, Postal Service, and general government appropriations bill an increase in the budget of $7.9 million over last year, and we have restored from 25 to 154 positions in the drug czar's office. So they dismantled it. It did not work. And we restored it and we took action when we controlled the House of Representatives and the other body. In the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, and related agencies appropriations, in the drug enforcement budget, we have increased the budget. We have added 75 new agents for source country programs. They killed the interdiction program. They gutted the interdiction program. They put all the money in treatments; sort of treating the wounded in the battle and forgetting the rest of the battle. We have been there, our subcommittee, and not one Member of the minority went to South America, to Columbia, to Bolivia, to Peru. They boycotted the visit. They did not go with us to any of those countries and meet with the leaders, meet with out DEA agents. In fact, they tried to sabotage the trip and told the press we were taking too many staff when we included DEA agents and Customs officials and others to go down with us and see what we could do at first look at the situation: Was it as bad as the reports were; that this interdiction program, the cuts in it were a disaster by this administration? They did not want us to go and see firsthand. We went and they tried to sabotage the trip and did not participate in the trip. An offense to the Congress and to our subcommittee. So, then, they cut the military participation in the drug war and we have restored them. In military and drug interdiction and counter drug activities we are $132 million higher than the President's request. In fact, when I was in the jungles of Bolivia, I was told by one of our agents that they took $40 million out of their program and sent it up to Haiti for their nation building program. Our agents, which were left in the jungle with a shoestring budget, actually some of them were even taking money out of their own pockets to make sure that some of these programs went forward, and what were the results? We had a hearing in our Subcommittee on National Security, International Affairs, and Criminal Justice. The result was that there are 10,000 hectares, expansive areas of heroin growing in Colombia. We even found in Peru heroin growing. When you cut the interdiction, when you cut these programs to stop drugs at their source, these cost- effective programs, you see the results. Heroin, the hearing that we held this morning, is flooding this country, in fact. So we have restored money for all of these programs. We did not cut these. I take great offense at the President's comments that we cut them. We did not have control of the Congress at that time. Mr. Speaker, then again you get back to the point of the leadership. When you appoint the chief health officer of our great Nation, a high office of respect, a chief health officer, and that health officer, Joycelyn Elders, says just say maybe, what message did that send? How did that echo across our land to our children, to our schools, and then have the President make a joke of inhaling on MTV as my colleague from Florida had just commented. So, Republicans have again restored these programs. We have held hearings on the problem. We are not trying to politicize it. Some people say, oh, we are just making political commentary. This is not political commentary. This is the future of our next generation. This is the root of the problem of crime in this country. This is the root of many of the social ills that we see. This is why we have the wrong people behind bars. In my State and here in Washington, DC, you have to live behind bars because you fear for your own life. You fear for going out at night if you are trying to make a living or go to school or be a productive citizen or student in this society. So, again, I believe that you cannot cut interdiction, you cannot cut enforcement. You cannot cut the education programs, and we cannot cut the treatment programs. Mr. Speaker, let me say one thing about the treatment programs that concerns me. We have put a great deal of money into the treatment programs. I am really concerned that the information we have gotten back, it is repeated information, studies. I know General McCaffrey got a report from the Department of Defense and has squashed that report. But those treatment programs have not been effective, 90 percent of those programs are a failure. We find, in fact, that sometimes even some of the private sector programs, the church-related programs, the community programs that have been established are much more effective and should have our support. So yes, we have to attack drugs on four prongs: on education, interdiction, and we have got to look at treatment and enforcement. We cannot let any of those four legs of that stool be broken or damaged. So we have done our part. When I was a Member in the minority and the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Portman] signed with me and the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Miller] signed with me, we called for hearings. Over 119 of us, I believe, signed petitions calling for hearings, and our pleas were ignored. The last day of the session, a hearing was held for a very brief period of time. The meeting was adjourned when I tried to ask questions. It was a farcical charade, and now we see the result of it. The results are very clear, and someone has to take the responsibility. Mr. Speaker, the leadership is not just Mr. Portman from Ohio, Mr. Miller from Florida, Mr. Zeliff from New Hampshire, Mr. Clinger from Pennsylvania, Mr. Mica from Florida. The leadership starts at the White House, the highest level. Tomorrow I have to do something that I wish I did not have to do, but as chairman of the House Civil Service Subcommittee that overseas our Federal employees and our Federal work force, I have to hold hearings tomorrow on the question of the employment of individuals to the highest office of the land, the White House. We are not talking about some little remote Arkansas community or some Third World country. We are talking about the White House, the highest office in this land. I am holding hearings tomorrow to find out why our chief law enforcement agencies, the FBI and the Secret Service, became so concerned about people who were coming into this administration, who were not taking background checks, who could have access to national security, who could be advising the Chief Executive of the land who makes the decisions about what we do on an instantaneous basis, what prompted them when they testified before us that these folks that were coming in had recent histories of not just-- we are not talking about marijuana 20 years ago. We are talking about hallucinogenic drugs. We are talking about cocaine. We are talking about hard narcotics and subverting the process. Do we need a law to protect us from this type of situation? So I will chair that hearing, but it is with great dismay that I have to examine the highest office of our land in this fashion and bring this into question but provide in fact, as my responsibility as chair of this committee, as part of the oversight responsibility of this Congress, to see what is going on in the highest office of our land, and to see that our national security is protected and to see that future White Houses have the respect of this Congress and of every citizen. If our highest office sets our lowest standards, what have we come to in this Nation? So, again, I commend the gentleman. He has been outspoken. He has been persistent. He has been productive because he has helped get the attention of the Congress, of the leadership. He has helped us put Humpty Dumpty back on the wall and back together again; and, hopefully, hopefully, my children and children of people around this country will have a safe street; will have safe schools, where we are not employing another law enforcement officer at the school and following the arts teacher and the music teacher and the teachers that we need; where we can walk our streets as free Americans; where seniors do not have to fear walking outside in their own streets and neighborhoods and only go out in daylight. So I thank you for shedding light and for the leadership of the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Portman]. I thank my colleague, my dear friend from Florida [Mr. Miller], for his leadership and I yield back.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor again. I have been here just about every day recently, talking about what I consider a national crisis, as a parent, as a father, someone concerned about the future of my children, how I tried to raise my children, and talk about the serious problem of teen drug use and abuse. What prompted me today to come to the floor is really an ad I have seen which features the President talking about his efforts to curtail drug use, and I just do not think that the President is really dealing with the facts here. Now, if we listen to the ad, the President says the Republicans cut funding in programs. Now, I just have to remind the Congress and the American people that, in fact, from 1992 to 1994, the House of Representatives was controlled, by an overwhelming majority, 250 Democrats plus, I believe, and the Senate was controlled by the other party, and the White House was controlled by the Democrats. Now, we did not have the power to do anything in that time period except raise concerns. I came to this floor repeatedly and raised concerns. I had over 100 Members sign a letter to the committee of jurisdiction asking for hearings because we knew then what was starting to happen; that we cannot put all our eggs in one basket in treatment, in the end, treating only the wounded, as it may be in a battle, and not paying attention to education, to interdiction, and also importantly to enforcement. Here we see the results. Again I bring this to the floor. Twice as many teens using drugs as in 1992. These are the facts. This is not something that the Republicans have manufactured, the new majority has manufactured. It is the result of firing the Drug Czar's office, of hiring a Surgeon General, the chief health officer of the country, who says, ``just say maybe.'' Then we had a President who got on TV, and I still cannot believe it. I was personally offended by it because I have children, and he said if he had it to do over again, he would inhale. What kind of message does that send to our people? And what does it do? And the evidence is here again. These are the statistics and the latest. Overall drug use by our teenagers 12 to 17, up 78 percent; marijuana use up 105 percent; LSD use up 105 percent during this time frame; and, cocaine use up 166 percent. And heroin is epidemic even in my own community. I brought the headlines from my community. So what the President has sown, now we are reaping with our children. First of all, they controlled the House of Representatives, the other body, and the White House. Then, to top it off, they killed our interdiction program. And I spoke out against it on the floor. We even met with the President in Miami and we said this is a disaster. We stopped our radar sharing and our information sharing to shoot down drug planes in the Andean region. They transferred, this administration transferred, and I met with the agents in South America who told me that they transferred, $40 million and left them with a shoestring operation in Haiti for their agenda and nation-building in that country. So the facts are in that just treatment does not work. You have to have education, you have to have interdiction, and you have to have enforcement. The fact is in. The Republicans expressed concern, I expressed concern on the floor of this House in letters to the chairman and to the administration about what was going to take place. The fact is that now this new majority is taking steps to restore money in interdiction. We are giving our military and our Coast Guard the tools to stop drugs cost-effectively at our borders and at their sources. So we are taking positive steps. We are providing the leadership that is lacking in the White House. And, again, the President is wrong when he tells the American people that the Republicans, or the new majority, cut. We did not even have control. We did not have votes to change anything here, but we did express concern and this is the results you see today. Again, a situation out of control, a situation where we have lost our streets, lost our children, and we must turn this around.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Madam Speaker, I come before the House tonight to and I spoke earlier today about the lack of a national drug policy or strategy and failure of this administration to protect our young people. We now see skyrocketing drug use and abuse, and tonight I am here to talk about another thing that affects our young people, and that is their opportunity for the future, their opportunity to have jobs, their opportunity to have employment, their opportunity to have income in our society which has always provided such great opportunity. You know, we have heard from this administration about the 10 million new jobs that are created, and in fact we need to just take a minute and look at those 10 million new jobs because I have talked to people that have 2 and some of them 3 of those 10 million new jobs. They are part-time jobs, they are low paying jobs, they are service jobs, and what in fact has happened they are not telling us. The fact is that during the years from 1993 to 1995 we lost 8.4 million good paying jobs in this Nation, people who had good paying jobs in technical areas that paid a good living wage, and those jobs were destroyed, and they have not been replaced. They have been replaced only by these part-time low paying jobs, and that is what I hear when I go back to my district; and that is not what I want for my children or for the children of America. You know I heard the most startling news. First I hear the news on the drugs for our teens that are offered up by this administration. Now I see the trade deficit. This is the headline in the Washington Times: ``The Trade Deficit Worse in a Year, Productivity Crawls Higher.'' Trade deficit, startling trade deficits; they are running $10 billion a year. That means every single month we are sending more and more money overseas and we are losing a trade war, and at the end of this session it galls me to see this happen, because we had a proposal, a good proposal, to reorganize our trade activities, our international trade activities, in Washington at the Federal level. Right now we have 19 agencies dealing with Federal trade. This is the flow chart. This is the most disorganized, disjointed, unorganized mess you have ever seen: 19 agencies, right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing, spending $3 billion taxpayer dollars, and we are getting our pants beat in the trade war. And this they reject, the President helped defeat it, the new Secretary of Commerce helped defeat it. Instead you know what they have done for us? They negotiated lousy trade deals, and then I see in my district what those lousy trade deals have done. You cannot see this very well, my colleagues, but this is an auction notice to sell equipment in my State near my district in Florida. It is because they have wiped out through negotiating a bad NAFTA agreement, giving up the opportunity for this Nation to produce agriculture to sell to its own people, and internationally we once led in agriculture. This is selling the equipment. And do you know what the farmers told me that went to this sale? They did not buy the equipment; they were selling equipment. That there were people with cellular phones speaking in Spanish, and this equipment is being shipped to Mexico. So here we see the fruits. They destroyed a good plan for organization to have some sense made out of our trade effort. Now we are selling through their bad efforts our equipment at nickels on a dollar overseas. Madam Speaker, this is a national tragedy. What hope does this hold for our children: Lower-paying jobs, service jobs, part-time jobs, jobs without benefits? Here they are talking about $5.15 an hour. That is what their goal is, to pay $5.15 an hour, when in my State you get $8.75 an hour for not working on welfare, and you get medical benefits in addition. So these are the choices that have been before this Congress. This is what we see this administration has done. You have seen what we proposed. I proposed an organization to have our trade financing, to have our trade assistance, to have our trade negotiation together so we could help our businesses, rather than hurt our businesses and send our opportunities overseas. Instead of building a bridge for tomorrow, we are building bridges to Mexico and to other countries, with our assistance, so our goods and services cannot be shipped there, but their goods and services can come here. We are shipping those opportunities overseas, because they will not listen. Do Members know why they will not listen? They cannot stand a new idea. It drives them crazy. If they have done it this way, if it is disorganized this way, you keep it disorganized this way. If you have 33,000 people in the Department of Commerce and 20,000 plus are in Washington, DC, my God, we need every one of them here in Washington, DC. Madam Speaker, I have had it and I hope the American people have had it, too.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor again today, I was here last week, I was here last year, I was here every year since I was elected in 1992, to talk about the problem of drug abuse and drug misuse in our country. I am here, sadly, 3\1/2\ years later again talking about what has taken place with this administration. We see across our great land and in my district the results of what has taken place. Mr. Speaker, let me recap what has taken place with this administration on the question of drug use and drug abuse. First, this President came in, and what did he do? He cut. He gutted, in fact, the White House drug czar's office from 140 to just a handful of people. The next thing he did, he employed as the chief health officer of our Nation Joycelyn Elders. Joycelyn Elders began the campaign of just say maybe, kids. Just try it, kids. Maybe we should legalize it, kids. Sending out that message, there was such an uproar that she finally was dismissed. Then the President took the step of dismantling the drug interdiction program. He dismantled it piece by piece, stopping drugs at their source. We know that cocaine, 100 percent of it is grown in Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia. We know its transit points, and we can stop it inexpensively at its source. Yet, he dismantled, he gutted this program. Then finally the ultimate insult to the American people and to the Congress and to the high office of the Presidency, the White House, which is supposed to set the standard for Americans, to set the highest level of performance of acceptability in our society and our Government. What did they do? Things got so bad in the folks that they were employing, and I sat on the committee that heard this testimony and was appalled. The Secret Service was so alarmed that folks were being hired with recent and past drug use histories, and we are not talking about marijuana here folks, we are talking about hallucinogenic drugs. We are talking about crack, about cocaine. We are talking about hard drugs being acceptable, used in the past, recent past in some cases for employment in the White House. Mr. Speaker, this is not acceptable. And this is what has been done by this administration, what has been done by this President, and this is the result. This is the result in my community. Look at this headline: Long Out of Sight, Heroin Is Back Killing Teens. In the past year central Florida has had more teenage heroin deaths than all the rest of the State. It is epidemic among our children. This is the result. Look at this: With Reagan and Bush, drug use and abuse went down in this country among our teenagers. And in 1992 it starts to shoot off the charts. Look at how it has affected our children with heroin, with crack, with marijuana, with hallucinogenic drugs. It is epidemic. We now have 1.6 million Americans in our prisons across this country, and 70 percent of the people that are in our prisons are there because of drug use and abuse. So we have set a bad example from this White House and this administration, and we can see the bad results here, crime and death. The wrong Americans, too, are behind bars. Our elderly and senior citizens across this Nation are afraid to go out at night because of the crime that this has created. And we know, again, that nearly 70 percent of those incarcerated and convicted of crime are drug-related incidents. But there is hope. This Congress, under the leadership of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Chairman Clinger, under the leadership of the gentleman from New Hampshire, Chairman Zeliff, we are restoring the funds for the drug czar's office and the positions that were cut by this administration. We are bringing back together interdiction. We are going to use the military. We are going to use the coast guard. We are going to stop drugs at their source. Mr. Speaker, we are not going to just spend all the money on treatment. Spending all the money on treatment like Clinton wants us to do is, in fact, like treating only the wounded in a battle. We have to fight this with education, interdiction, enforcement, and treatment; all four. The leadership must start in this Congress, and it must start at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue or we will see these results continue. So, Mr. Speaker, it is not acceptable. It is not acceptable in my community. I ask for assistance to help us make a positive change.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I come before theHouse once again, I intent to come before theHouse as many times as it takes, to see what we can do as a Congress, as a Nation, as parents, as concerned citizens to see how we can stem the drug epidemic in this country. I cannot think of any greater failure of an administration in my lifetime then the failure of this current administration in addressing and in fact ignoring the problem of drug abuse and drug misuse. It is a very documentable history. It is a story that began in 1992, and we see the results today in our communities and our streets and our schools and in our homes. What is interesting to note with this chart that I brought here today is the use of illegal drugs and the history of our efforts in that war on drugs. In 1980, we see where President Reagan took over and said, just say no. And his wife, Nancy Reagan, said, just say no, and provided the leadership to this Nation and to our young people and said, drugs are the wrong way to go. We see the chart from 1980 going down and then we see President Bush and Mrs. Bush, and they continued that policy of just say no, that drugs will destroy lives and drugs will destroy our young people. Then we see 1992, and the latest statistics are absolutely astounding. We see 1992, when President Clinton took office and he first fired the drug czar. Then he hired Joycelyn Elders, our chief health officer for this Nation, who said, just say maybe, maybe take drugs, kids. Then we saw the destruction of our interdiction program to stop in a most cost-effective manner drugs at their source. Then finally, in the insult to the highest office in this land, we saw the WhiteHouse failing to curtail the employment of people with admitted recent drug use and drug abuse histories, which just startled me as a member of the committee that investigated that matter. So this is what we see, this is what they did, and this is what we get. Take this second chart, if you would, teen drug use. These statistics should shock every Member of Congress and every parent and every person in the media, the rampant increase in drug use by our teenagers, 12 to 17 years old. I repeated this yesterday, drug use up 78 percent, marijuana use, not the kind of marijuana of the 1960's and the 1970's, we are talking about more potent, more brain destructive, more gene destructive marijuana than kids have ever used before, up 105 percent. LSD use, 105 percent, cocaine, 166 percent increase. This is among our teenagers. So we see why we have 1.6 million of our Americans in jail, 70 percent of them in jail because of drug-related incidents. We see why we have honest citizens and senior citizens and Americans living behind bars in fear, afraid to go out at night, afraid to go out of their home because we have created this situation. Mr. Speaker, this is the problem, and what are we doing about it? As part of this new majority, as someone who called on the previous Congress to look at the situation and do something and examine it and restore drug interdiction, we are doing something. Today we are meeting and there are hearings on restoring our Coast Guard effort. Today we are working in the appropriations measures that are before this Congress to restore our military effort to stop drugs in a cost- effective manner at their source. We are going to restore also our efforts with our Drug Enforcement Agency that were proposed for slashing by this administration, not by this new majority. So, Mr. Speaker, it takes leadership. It takes leadership from the WhiteHouse. It takes leadership from the Congress. We must set the standard. We cannot lower the standard. We cannot have a WhiteHouse or a President that in fact lower the standards for our young people because this is the results we get. This is a headline that every American should see, every American should see that.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I come before theHouse for just one moment to announce the passing of one of our staffers, a dear friend, Martha B. Morgan, affectionately known as Marti Morgan, who I had the great pleasure and honor of working with on the Committee on Government Operations, which is now the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight. Marti was a professional staffer. She was from New Mexico, I believe, and she sat behind me for several years on the Government Reform Subcommittee with the gentleman from New York [Mr. Towns] and others, and she was truly one of those unsung heroes of this Chamber and of this Congress. She worked so hard. On the minority side we had very few staff members on the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, so she used to have to do double duty. But she was always there and did a great job and I appreciated her service so much to me and to our committee and to our subcommittee. And then she joined the majority, as I did, and we cut the staff dramatically, eliminated many positions, so our staffers had to work even harder. But she was one of those people who cared about this Congress and who cared about this country and whose efforts will be missed. I just want to wish Marti's family my sympathy, express the sympathy on behalf of our committee and the subcommittee and this Congress to her family and remember her in this hour.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I come before the House once again, and I have been before the House before, to talk about the problem of drug and substance abuse and the problem with our young people in this country, and the problem of the drug epidemic across this Nation. Tonight I want to again call to the attention of my colleagues these absolutely startling statistics that have come out within the last month about teen drug use skyrocketing, particularly in the years since 1992 to 1995, under this administration. If we look at the overall drug use and abuse, particularly, again, among our teenagers, 12 to 17 years old, it is up 78 percent. Marijuana use, 1992 to 1995, is up 105 percent. LSD use, up 105 percent also. Cocaine use is up 166 percent. Even in my area, a wonderful, calm, traditionally family-oriented area of central Florida, heroin use and abuse is skyrocketing, particularly among our young people. I am alarmed as a parent, I am alarmed as a father, and I am alarmed as an American about this trend. It is easy to trace this trend. In the Clinton years, from 1992 to 1995, we saw the steps that led to this. First we saw the firing by the new President of two-thirds of the drug czar's staff. Then we saw the appointment of Joycelyn Elders, the chief health officer for the Nation, who said: Just say maybe; just say maybe try it. We saw the dismantling of our drug interdiction efforts to stop drugs, cocaine and heroin, at the borders and at their sources, almost a total dismantling proposed by this administration. And then finally, a great insult, we saw the lowering of the standards in the highest office in this land, the While House. The White House, which is supposed to set the standards, in fact, lowered the standards, and we saw the records of people being employed that were so bad that they had to institute a drug-testing program at the insistence of the Secret Service. Mr. Speaker, that is the problem. This is the situation. What do we do about it? This Congress, this new majority, and I, as a parent and an American, think we must act. This Congress is taking steps. Under the leadership of this new majority, we are restoring money to the drug czar's office. We are working with a new drug czar to see that that is an effective office. We know that we must fight drugs on four fronts: by education, interdiction, enforcement, and treatment; that we cannot, as this administration has said and proposed and done, just treat the wounded in battle. That is what we are doing by putting all of our sources and resources in treatment only. Mr. Speaker, we are going to restore those funds, and we are going to make a four-pronged approach. We are going to lick this problem, but it is going to take everyone from the White House to the courthouse, every parent, every concerned citizen, and every Member of Congress to join this effort, because we are losing a generation. We cannot afford to lose our young people in this war on drugs. We must band together. This Congress must act in a positive fashion. We must approach this in a bipartisan manner. Then we can take back our children, we can take back our streets, we can take back our neighborhoods. We have 1.6 million Americans incarcerated in this land. Seventy percent of them are in jails and prisons because of drug use and abuse. This is the problem we have created. This is the problem we need to address. We must join together to start with our young people and bring this drug epidemic facing our Nation and our youth under control. Mr. Speaker, I urge your cooperation in this effort, and that of my colleagues.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I come before the House tonight to talk about issues that I think are important to me, not only as a Member of Congress but also as a father and a parent and someone who is concerned about the future for my children and the future for all children in America. It is good to get away from Congress and to go out and talk to people in the district, and it has been great to have a congressional work period where I have had a chance to talk to folks and hear their concerns. I come from central Florida. It is basically a pretty prosperous area. We do not have some of the problems of the urban areas, but one of the concerns that I hear repeated and that I personally have been concerned about is job creation. Now, we have heard the President lauding some of the economic figures and unemployment figures, and we have heard touted the creation in this administration of 10 million jobs. So I thought I would look into these 10 million jobs and see what has been created, what has been done and what the future is for our children. One of the interesting statistics, although 10 million jobs have been created in this administration, the bulk of those jobs are part-time jobs, they are low-paying jobs, they are contract jobs, and they are service jobs. In fact, I was startled to find that during just a 2-year period, from 1993 to 1995, that in fact a startling 8.4 million Americans lost their jobs, and that is the concern that I heard out there, is people fear losing their jobs. What is interesting about 8.4 million people, Americans, losing their jobs during this 2-year period of the 4-year job expansion is the majority of those 8.4 million people who lost their jobs lost a good paying job, a high-technology job, or a job that was in a sophisticated area, and the majority of that 8.4 million had to take a job in a lower paying, a lower level, a less sophisticated job. And, really, that is the question that I heard asked of me and the question that I asked myself: What about the future? What about jobs for our children, when half of those jobs that are lost, that 8.4 million, we relegate our citizens to lower paying jobs? Now, in 1989 there were 1 million more jobs in manufacturing than there were in Government. This is an alarming figure in what has happened since 1989. And listen to this: Last year there were 1.5 million jobs more in Government than there were in manufacturing in this country. So we are employing more people on the Government rolls. And this story about ending big Government as we know it and the era the big Government is over, it just does not hold water because we have more people on public payrolls and less in manufacturing than we have ever had. I had a conversation with a mother whose daughter was one of the few students in advanced physics, during the past weekend, and some time ago she told me about her daughter at the University of Florida, one of the few students in advanced physics. The next area after nuclear physics is the area she is in, advanced physics studies. Now she has transferred to Northwestern University and she is the only American student in her class in advanced physics. This is scary for the future. Her choices are going to be to work probably in Tokyo and Geneva when she finishes. What kinds of jobs are we creating? And then we look at the job and education programs and they are a total failure. In my State we spent $1 billion on job training in the State of Florida, and a State report recently released said that less than 20 percent of those students who entered the job training program completed the program. Of that, only 19 percent, 19 percent of the 20 percent, ever got a job. So we are paying much more and we are getting less. We are not giving good opportunity for the future. We are replacing good paying jobs with jobs that do not pay much. And the debate in this chamber has been about whether we pay people $5.15. That is not acceptable to me. That is not acceptable to the future. We can and we must do much better.

Mr. MICA

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

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I was absolutely astounded this morning to learn that this administration was provided $80 million within the last 2 years to establish a terrorism center, and it has sat on its hands for the last 24 months and not done anything to institute action against terrorism. This Congress has already provided resources; this administration has not done a thing about this. I was stunned to find this out. Now, the FBI can find time and resources to hand over and provide files on Republicans. The FBI, as I learned in shock last weekend when the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Clinger] came to the floor, can send agents to harass our witnesses in congressional hearings, but they cannot find the time and the resources that this Congress gave them to fight terrorism. We must act together to fight terrorism and we have provided the resources.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 3586.

Mr. MICA

Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3586) to amend title 5, United States Code, to strengthen veterans' preference, to increase employment opportunities for veterans, and for other purposes, as amended.