George Miller

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, there is a discussion here about whether or not they want to change, the Republicans want to change the gift rule to allow for charity golf outings. I think the list that the gentleman just read makes a point here that, in each of these instances, these are sponsored by corporate entities that have business before the Congress of the United States. Most Members of Congress that play in a charity golf tournament of that nature could not name the charity that is the beneficiary or the charities that are the beneficiaries. What they know is they got there because Kemper invited them or some insurance association invited them, not because the charity invited them.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Bill Milano of Pittsburg, CA, who was honored by his brothers and sisters in the labor community and the city of Pittsburg last Saturday, October, 14, 1995, when the United Steelworkers Union Local 1440 renamed its union hall for him, their founder and distinguished leader. First and always, Bill Milano is a union man who grew up in the coal mines of Kansas and moved west to work in the steel mills of Pittsburg, CA. He is the very heart and soul of the United Steelworkers Local 1440, having served in every possible capacity for over 50 years. Even in retirement, he is a constant source of pride, enthusiasm, and inspiration for his fellow union members. Not only is Bill Milano a leader in union halls, he has also served his community with distinction and honor as a former member of the Pittsburg City Council, founder and member of the Pittsburg Boys club, and service to the Pittsburg Red Cross, Pittsburg Community Hospital, Contra Costa Park and Recreational Council, Pittsburg Schools PTA organizations, Pittsburg Lions Club, Boy Scout troops, American Cancer Society and many, many more community service organizations. His long- time support of Ducks Unlimited and his keen interest in hunting is legendary among his family and friends. I grew up hearing about Bill Milano from my father and how he organized local party politics in Pittsburg at a time when only shoe leather and hard work got your people elected to office. Bill Milano supported my father in his campaigns for the California State Senate, as well as my elections to the U.S. House of Representatives. He has been a friend of our family for three generations, and I am proud to call Bill Milano my friend. I would like to share with my colleagues the attached article from the Ledger Dispatch, Wednesday, October 4, 1995, ``Bid for Better Life Lead to Long Union Career.'' [From the Ledger Dispatch, Oct. 4, 1995] Bid For Better Life Led to Long Union Career (By Sam Richards) Pittsburg, CA.--Bill Milano came to Pittsburg on a freight train in 1939, looking for a better life for his family. Now, almost two decades after retiring from his job as financial secretary of United Steelworkers Local 1440, Milano will have his name attached to the Steelworkers' building in Cumberland Street. For a guy who has spent the past 53 years either working or volunteering at the union hall, a guy who helped oversee tremendous growth of the local during World War II, and then saw the union shrink again as local steel employment declined . . . is this honor a surprise? Yes, in a way, the 82-year-old Milano said. ``I've been retired 17 years and they've never done a damn thing to honor me,'' said Milano, with a smile on his face. ``But I never really pursued that anyway.'' Milano's time has finally come. Local 1440 will formally rename their building after Milano at a ceremony Oct. 14 at the building, 677 Cumberland Ave. Everyone is invited to attend that, and a reception following at the Marina Clubhouse, 31 Marina Blvd. ``This isn't just any man . . . this is the man,'' said Rose Cavallaro, office secretary for Local 1440 since 1959. ``He's the `godfather' of the local union; he's the one who got the union going.'' Milano grew up in Kansas, and was working in the coal mines there in strip mine shafts and driving a steam locomotive shuffling coal hopper cars. But he wanted something better for his family. ``The coal mines just weren't working too good,'' he said. ``We'd heard a lot about California, so we went to California.'' Without enough money to take a passenger train, Milano and a friend hopped a Frisco Railway freight train near Cherokee, Kan., Aug. 14, 1939. A week later, they arrived in Pittsburg on a Santa Fe freight train. Within days, both were working at the Columbia Steel Co. mill, Milano as a ``reeler'' putting steel wire onto reels to be galvanized. Also, Milano found the local union office quickly. ``I'd had `union' drilled into me by my dad and everyone around me for years,'' Milano said. ``The first thing I did was go down to the union.'' In 1942, he was elected 1440's financial secretary, a post he held until 1979. During that time, he saw the union change from the Steelworkers Organizing Committee to the United Steelworkers Union of America. Milano also oversaw wartime expansion at Columbia Steel swell union membership from about 265 to more than 4,000. Milano also plunged into community involvement in Pittsburg. He served on the City Council from 1944 until 1952, helped found the Pittsburg Boys Club (the predecessor of the East County Boys and Girls Club), was a secretary for the Contra Costa Grand Jury and numerous other civic, fraternal and local school activities. His wife, Virginia died in 1990. And the USS-POSCO Industries plant in Pittsburg employees number fewer than 1,000 people now. But he is still involved with Local 1440 activities. ``Anytime there's something wrong here down at the union, Bill gets involved,'' said Carl Meilicke, 43, a former U.S. Steel employee in Pittsburg. ``He started the union, and he knows more about it than anyone.'' The union hall opened in the 1940s. It almost didn't outlast Milano, because the city had wanted to knock it down as part of redevelopment in 1992. As it was. The Village at New York Landing housing tract was literally built around the union hall, which also includes the Union Club tavern. ``If you start pushing us, we'll get the whole rank and file coming after you'' Cavallaro said. ``We're never going to leave this building now.'' Still a hunter and fisherman, Milano gave up abalone diving only two years ago. But he hasn't given up being involved in politics; in keeping with union tradition, he's supported, almost exclusively, Democrats over the years. This includes three generations of George Millers, including. Assembly candidate George Miller IV . . . sort of. ``I know him and I'm friends with Tom Torlakson (Miller's election opponent),'' Milano said. ``I told them, `Whoever wins the primary, I'll put my full weight behind you.''' Tickets to the Bill Milano Building's dedication are $10 each, and are available by call 432-7396.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, for purposes of debate only, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Vermont [Mr. Sanders].

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone].

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon [Mr. DeFazio].

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Hawaii [Mr. Abercrombie]. (Mr. ABERCOMBIE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Vento]. (Mr. VENTO asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, already this evening Americans have begun to learn the tragic manner in which this legislation treats the elderly and treats our students and treats our children and the poor of this country, and that is a shame, and it is tragic. It is embarrassing for the Congress to do that to its citizens. But there is much more in this legislation, because this legislation is being used to hide a whole series of decisions by the Republicans in the Committee on Resources to just be lavish and to lard on taxpayer subsidies to a whole series of industries that cannot justify them, do not need them, and that this Congress has voted against extending those subsidies time and again. So what have the Republicans chosen to do? They chose to fold them into the reconciliation bill so they will not be visible to the public, so the public will not be aware of the fact that the decision has been made by the Republicans to continue to give away public lands at essentially no cost to mining companies, to foreign-owned mining companies, and let them extract billions of dollars of gold, silver, and platinum from the public lands owned by the taxpayers. The House of Representatives has voted time and again against that provision. It has voted twice this year not to allow that to happen. But that is in this reconciliation bill because the Republicans cannot tear themselves away from that type of corporate welfare. We see that they do the same thing with the grazers, people using the public lands to graze cattle. In this legislation we are giving reduced fees when, in fact, the recommendation by GAO and others is that they should be increasing those fees for the use of those public lands, that they do not pay what people pay on private land, but this bill continues the subsidies to those individuals. This bill sells off the forest lands of some of the largest ski resorts in this country, and it does not guarantee that the American public will continue to have access to areas like Aspen and Vail and other areas of recreation. No, it turns them into a private domain. That is what this bill does. Why does it do it in this legislation? Because that legislation cannot win a majority of the vote on this House standing alone, just as the deepwater royalty subsidies that have been inserted into this legislation in the Senate were turned down in this House, turned down in the Senate. In this legislation, you cannot amend them out, take them out. So they lavish hundreds of millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies to the largest and richest oil companies in the world. Who pays for those subsidies? The children that you heard about earlier, the poor people in this country, the elderly with their health care. That is who pays for those subsidies. We continue to see the Committee on Resources just go after and continue to lavish taxpayer subsidies on industry after industry where there is no demonstrated financial need for that subsidy but simply doing it because they did it. We could not even tear ourselves away from providing double subsidies, where we provide water subsidies to irrigators in the West, and they grow subsidized crops with the subsidized water. We tried to say pick one subsidy. Do not double dip us. No, that was not good enough. Again, this House has voted numerous times to end that practice, but it is in this reconciliation bill, because they know that if it was brought to the House floor by itself, it in fact would be turned down by this Congress and by this House, because the water subsidies have been turned down, the grazing subsidies have been turned down, the royalty provisions have been turned down, on a bipartisan basis in the last several months in this House. So they put them all together, and then they put them into the bill, and there is no amendments allowed, it is up or down tomorrow. Corporate welfare for the western extractive industries worth billions of dollars is maintained in this legislation, and it will be reported off of the House floor tomorrow. Of course, then there is the granddaddy, and that is giving away the Arctic Wildlife Refuge in this legislation. Once again, that provision cannot pass on the floor of the House of Representatives as a freestanding bill. They say it is an emergency; that we must open up the Arctic Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling because America imports half of its oil. Well, they also have legislation here to make sure that we allow the export of Alaskan oil to Japan and to other countries on the Pacific rim. so it is not for America, it is for their corporate clients. It is for the opening up of these kinds of areas, and they cannot only do it in a reconciliation bill. They cannot do this in a freestanding bill, because these provisions, these provisions, cannot stand the light of day, they cannot stand the scrutiny of the taxpayers, they cannot stand the scrutiny of our constituents, and that is why they are in this legislation. This legislation is an absolute Christmas tree. This is absolutely a Christmas tree of gifts to special interests in the form of corporate welfare. The tragedy is that every dollar that is given away to mining companies and to irrigators and to grazers and timber companies, is paid for by Mr. and Mrs. America. It is paid for by people paying the payroll taxes, paid for in reduced Medicare benefits, paid for in reduced Head Start and reduced education. That is the tragedy of this legislation. Mr. Chairman, this legislation is supposed to reduce the deficit, cut the cost of Government, and protect taxpayers from waste. But the resources portion of this bill is truly Christmas in October--a legislative rummage sale of valuable Federal assets at bargain basement prices that runs rampant over the environmental laws of our country. Many of those who implore us to run Government like a business are leading the fight to give away these public resources. The bill breaks with over 30 years of law and policy and opens the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil development. And we may not even get the money. This bill breaks a legal agreement with Alaska that could reduce revenues to one-tenth the amount projected. And why are we doing this in reconciliation? Surely not because of the need for energy independence: this House just passed--at the urging of ANWR proponents--legislation to allow the export of Alaska oil. This bill's phony mining reform package would make the Mineral Kings blush. Not 2 yeas ago, this House voted for real mining reform that would impose a real royalty for the first time, raising $540 million over 7 years and initiating the cleanup of contaminated abandoned mine sites. This phony reform raises a total of $76 million over 7 years, virtually none of it from a royalty, which is so laden with deductions and exemptions that any mining company that pays it should fire its accountant. The House voted three times this year to maintain the moratorium on giving away public mining lands to multinational mining conglomerates. This bill ignores those votes and instead charges the mining company the surface value only, which is like selling Fort Knox for the value of the roof. This bill contains an absolute sham reform of national parks concessions, an irresponsible plan that makes a mockery of the true bipartisan concessions reform that was approved by the House of Representatives by a vote of 386-30 just last year. This sham reform locks in the current concessionaires--who have enjoyed bargain basement contracts. This bill orders the Government to sell national forest lands used as ski resorts--places like Vail and Aspen--to monopoly bidders, promoting the intensive development of these lands and potentially closing access to millions of Americans. Why is this in reconciliation? It violates PAYGO by increasing direct spending and locks in place the ski industry's fee schedule that GAO says fails to provide a fair return to taxpayers. This bill has a phony reform of Federal grazing policy that lets cattle graze for discount rates on public lands--far cheaper than on adjacent State or private lands. Antireform leaders pretend this has something to do with family ranching, but they know that just 25 percent of the permittees control 75 percent of the forage, including ``wingtip cowboys'' like J.R. Simplot, a national brewery, a Japanese land and livestock company, and a national oil company. The House has voted 5 times since 1990 to substantially raise the grazing fee, most recently, in 1993 by a vote of 317 to 106. This bill gives the victory--and the subsidies--to the ranchers. This is a disgrace, and a very costly disgrace for the American taxpayer. The majority is using tiny so-called savings to qualify for the reconciliation process gigantic changes in resource and environmental law. On ANWR, on mining, on grazing, on concessions--they not only fail to pass stronger provisions, they undermine and repeal vast areas of existing public law before they turn the miners and the grazers and the drillers loose on the public lands. Now, there is another way to do this: We can reform resource management, protect the environment, strengthen competition and the free market--and raise serious money. But the majority would rather shill for the exploiters than vote for the taxpayers. The majority failed to accept Democratic proposals to end below-cost timber sales by the Forest Service that would save $315 million over 7 years. The majority voted against ending double subsidies to farmers who receive Federal subsidized water, although the House has voted for this reform time after time. So, we will continue to pay farmers to grow crops we are paying other farmers not to grow--and cost the taxpayers a half billion dollars over 7 years. Now, why are all these destructive, wasteful policies loaded into a budget reconciliation bill, especially when many of them do not really raise money? Why have the Republicans insisted on including phony reforms when it is readily apparent that, given a fair vote on the floor, the House would be willing--and has been anxious--to vote for real reform? After all, the House has voted against mining patents, against deep water royalty holidays--not under Democratic control, but this year. I will tell you why this is all loaded into reconciliation. It is to protect these outrageous, expensive giveaways to corporate interests from real debate and real review. These capitulations to corporate welfare are unacceptable to the American taxpayer and unacceptable to this House: But they can get loaded into a great big reconciliation bill, hidden away from scrutiny and amendment, and then strongarmed through without amendment. These proposals are in this reconciliation bill because they could not survive on their own on this floor. They cannot stand taxpayer scrutiny. They cannot survive the light of day. Giveaways to the mining corporations, the ranching corporations, the irrigation conglomerates, the recreation industry. Billions of dollars, our dollars, dollars that belong to the American people, given away without real scrutiny. And the environment gets devastated to boot. This is a cynical and deceptive act of legislative sleight-of-hand. They are raising pennies, but giving away billions. These provisions alone more than justify a vote against corporate welfare, against the destruction of the environment, and against this bill. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 5 minutes. (Mr. MILLER of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New Mexico [Mr. Richardson]. (Mr. RICHARDSON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. Farr].

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, if I might inquire of the Chair, am I correct that I have 10 minutes remaining?

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. For unanimous consent?

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, did you run out of people for the 5-minute special order list?

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I object to recognizing the gentleman.

Mr. MILLER of California. I thought you had to be on the list.

Mr. MILLER of California. I object, Mr. Speaker. We have people who have been waiting who were on the list.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, the reason that we are forced to discuss this matter on a nongermane bill is because we are not allowed to discuss this matter when it is germane. The Republicans, I believe three or four times now, have opened up the rules of this House to make minor changes to the rules and the runnings of this House, and yet they have refused even at that time to take up the gift ban. All that is necessary for the gift ban in this House is for the Speaker just to say ``no'' to the lobbyists and just to say ``yes'' to letting the bill come up. It affects only the rules of the House, as the gentlewoman has pointed out, and it can be done in a matter of moments, and we can be done with it, and we can then go to the public and show them what we have severed, that relationship with lobbyists and with others who seek on a daily basis to shower the Members of this House with gifts hoping to seek an audience, time, effort, or whatever on behalf of their interests. Many of us have done this in our own offices, but it ought to be the policy of this House, and what is standing in the way is the Speaker and the majority leader who want to keep telling us about the procedure that they want to consider as opposed to the changes in the laws, and therefore, we have to raise this issue on the legislative appropriations bill, or now in the transportation bill, because we cannot get an audience, and we cannot get a hearing, and when we raise it where it might be vulnerable, we see the bill is taken from the schedule because there may be a vote in support of this position, and now we see that when it looks like gift ban is coming to a head, they want to sever it from the lobbying bill. The lobbying bill has been sitting at the desk. We know that another bill can be sent, it can be sent to conference, and our colleagues can finesse this, and the public will never get lobbying reform that they are clamoring for and that they are demanding from this institution. Mr. Speaker, we cannot go through a legislative dance. Our leadership went through this legislative dance 2 years ago, and we ended up with no results. Our colleagues can go this legislative dance again, and those of us who are interested in lobby reform, gift reform, and election law reform, and even campaign finance reform, we can sit here and watch the dance, and nothing will happen, and the public will be deprived. We are entitled, as Members of this House, to better than that, and the public is entitled to better than that. What they are entitled to is the consideration of this legislation. I appreciate proxy reform, but it does no good if we do not allow proxy voting and the members who are sitting in the committee are there burping from the dinners that they have had with lobbyists and others as they vote on legislation that is before the committee. It is more important that we take care of the severing of those relationships, that we reform the lobbying practices around here and we get on with campaign finance reform. That is what we ought to do, that is what the public wants us to do, that is what they thought our colleagues were going to do when they voted for them in the last election, but that is not what has happened, and it has not happened because Speaker Gingrich, majority leader Armey, they continue to thwart the path of this legislation and consideration of it to the floor of the House. We ought to be able to deal with that and deal with it now, and the continued delay, when we have the rules up, it is not the right time; when we have the bill up, it is not the right time; when we have the conference report up, it is not the right time, it is not germane. That is the dance of legislation that has kept us away from these kinds of reforms for the last 20 years.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, the reconciliation legislation, that legislation which will end up controlling all spending and tax cuts to come before the Congress this year, is about choices. It is about choices that the Republicans have made for millions and millions of Americans. It is about the choice that they made to cut Medicare by $270 billion. It is about the choice they made in those Medicare cuts, Medicaid cuts, to remove nursing home standards for the protection of our elderly, to remove our elderly from the entitlement of having nursing home care paid for if they and their families cannot afford it in the twilight of their lives. It is about the choices that they made to cut $10 billion from student loans so that now America's students, their families, are deeper in debt to pay educational costs than any time in the history of this country. It is about the choices that they made to cut the school lunch program and to cut back on nutrition programs for those who are the most vulnerable in our society. Mr. Speaker, those are the choices of the Republican Party in this budget reconciliation bill. Those are the choices that they made about this generation of Americans. Those are the choices they made about that generation of Americans that fought the world wars, that fought the Korean conflict, that fought in Vietnam, who fought hard for democracy, who fought hard to save Western civilization in its time of need, but the Republicans are not prepared to fight for their Medicare. Mr. Speaker, we should fight as hard for their Medicare as they fought on the beaches of Normandy, or the beaches of Iwo Jima, or Okinawa, or in Korea. But we are going to cut that Medicare $270 billion. Why? Because the Republicans did not want to make other choices. They chose not to have high-income Americans continue to pay their fair share. In fact, what they chose was what the Wall Street Journal points out. The choose to give them a tax cut. As the Wall Street Journal said to the rich of this country, ``Don't do anything yet, but start salivating.'' Why should they start salivating? Because the tax bill passed on Wednesday by the House of Representatives could turn out to be the biggest tax saving bonanza in years for upper-income Americans so we have $270 billion in cuts in Medicare to pay for $245 billion in cuts to some of the wealthiest people in this country. As we see, under the Republican plan, Mr. Speaker, 64 percent of the wealthy families in this country get a tax break, but 86 percent of middle-income families get a tax increase or they pay the same. Those are choices that the Republicans have made in this proposal. They have chosen to give the wealthy, the rich, those who do not need a tax cut, a tax cut. They chose to pay for it by cutting the health care to our elderly, by cutting the health care to our poor, by cutting the health care to millions of Americans' children. They chose to pay for it by cutting student loans, and they chose to pay for it by cutting school lunches. They chose to create millions of desperately poor Americans so that they could take care of the wealthiest in this country. They also chose to hold the Defense Department harmless. Everybody else has to contribute to balancing the budget, but not the Department of Defense. They also chose to hold harmless corporate welfare, the large timber companies, the large mining companies, the large oil companies on which this bill lavishes billions of dollars in subsidies to those who do not need it, to some of the most profitable companies in this country. But those were the choices that the Republicans made. They chose to lead those people out of the sacrifice that millions of Americans will be making in the coming years to balance the budget, to balance the budget so we can have a prosperous economy, but they chose that some would not have to enlist in that fight. Mr. Speaker, I say to my colleagues, If you're very wealthy, you won't have to enlist in that fight. If you're a defense contractor, you won't have to enlist in that fight. If you're on the corporate welfare dole, you won't have to enlist in that fight. But if you're aged, or if you are a student seeking an education, or a child seeking nutrition, or a family seeking a safe, a safe and healthy, nursing home for your grandparents, or your parents, or your spouse, you have to enlist, and you have to pay, and you have to pay more because the Republicans chose that many of the well off in this country would have to pay less and not contribute at all.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, once again we are confronted in the press with reports of violations of House rules with respect to our Speaker of the House, Speaker Gingrich. That is the bulk sale of his books to organizations that have connections to the Speaker and have been supportive of the Speaker or in fact have contributed to the Speaker in the past. We saw, unfortunately, in the past when the Speaker engaged in this same activity, he later had to resign from office for this transgression of House rules. The suggestion here is because the commission is somewhat smaller, therefore it is right. No, it is not. The house rules prevent that. This is the second time in a matter of a week and a half where revelations have again appeared in the press suggesting that the Speaker's political action committee, GOPAC, was more deeply involved and involved earlier in Federal campaigns and campaigns for Members of Congress and trying to change the majority in Congress before it was authorized to do so. The New York article that was published a couple of weeks ago outlines exactly what took place in communications between GOPAC and members of the Republican Party. So where are we? We are a year later. What is an ethics committee and a chairman of that ethics committee doing that continues to try to manage the investigation and to manage the spin and to manage the flow of information to Members of Congress, to the press, and to the public rather than engaging in an investigation. A year later, when witnesses still have not been called, when documents have still not been subpoenaed, and information has not been gone through that is relevant to this information, according to the popular press. What we need, what this House needs and what this House deserves and what the American people deserve is a full-blown independent investigation, not an investigation managed by Members of the Speaker's party who are indebted to the Speaker politically in this House or for their daily activities in the House or to their districts. What we need is an investigation, as the Speaker called for for the previous Speaker, and that is an independent counsel. As the Speaker said of the previous Speaker, if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear. What this House cannot tolerate and what Members of this House cannot tolerate and what the public should not tolerate is the continued efforts to try to manage this investigation, to get past the Contract With America. Then they wanted to manage it to get past the Medicare fight. Then they wanted to manage it to get past reconciliation. Then there is a question of whether the Speaker is going to run for President. Will the revolution continue? Those are all interesting. Those all my be consequences of the Speaker's activities and the consequences of this investigation, but they are not reasons of which an independent investigation should be forgone. We are talking about the most powerful Member of this House, obviously one of the most powerful politicians in the country, one of most powerful people in line of succession to the President of the United States. The suggestion is somehow that we are going to manage and we are going to change the nature of the investigations that this Congress is engaged in in the past when it has to unfortunately investigate one of its own. That is that you have to eventually get to an individual, an independent counsel. Apparently the ethics committee has arrived at this conclusion after a year of seeing that they could not properly handle this investigation. So now what they are trying to do is to manage the charter of the independent counsel, to suggest that he can only go down road A, but he cannot go down road B, he [[Page H 10639]] can only go down so far on this path of evidence, but he cannot go down too far. He cannot stumble across things that may come up in the nature of that investigation. If they had done that to the independent counsel in the Espy case, they would have never discovered Jim Lake and his scheme to provide illegal contributions to a Federal candidate. That is the nature of an independent counsel, to be independent and as free to go as far as the facts and the truth take that individual; not as far as the facts and the political realities of the political debts and the political obligations take that investigation, but as far as the facts and the truth take that investigation. The time has come for the chairman of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct to admit they cannot do a job that will satisfy the needs of the Members of this House of Representatives in terms of telling their constituents that we have a different way of doing business, that we have a different way of handling congressional ethics, that we have a different way of handling the transgressions of those ethics because it is now Speaker Gingrich, as opposed to Speaker Wright, or it is not Speaker Gingrich, as opposed to 9 or 10 other Members of Congress, that had independent counsels. Let us meet the standard that Speaker Gingrich has set our for the House, and that is an independent counsel.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, today is the day that the Republicans trade the health care of our seniors for tax cuts for the wealthy. Today is the day that the Republicans take on the best health care system in the world, the least expensive health care system in the world, in terms of overhead, and the most comprehensive health care system in the world for senior citizens, and today they trade that in for tax cuts to the wealthy. Mr. Speaker, they do so by taking away benefits that seniors have. They do so by making sure that seniors will not be able to pay and to purchase the same health care levels and benefits that they have today 5 years from today. They will not be able to arrange for the same level of health care. And so we leave our seniors stranded so that we can provide tax cuts and capital gains cuts to the wealthiest individuals in this country. One of my seniors from Pittsburg, CA wrote and said, ``Congress must understand we seniors built this country and we deserve better. You should not do this to us.''

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, Members of the House, it is a good thing my colleague, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Fields], has hospitals that charge $35 a day, because they are going to lose $102 million, and so that is about all they are going to be able to provide is $35 worth of service. Mr. Chairman, and Members of the House, today the Gingrich Republicans snatched from the elderly of this country the finest health care system in the world, the most comprehensive health care system in the world, that gives the finest quality of health care in the world, and they do so not to strengthen that system, not to preserve that system, they do so simply to snatch over $200 million in excess cuts to provide a tax cut to the wealthiest. This day is the day that a system that has been built up to provide security and protection for America's elderly, for the people who built this Nation and fought its wars, this is the day we start to shred that system, and in a matter of years it will not be whether they force you out of the system, there will be no system that people have come to expect in this country.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate what the gentleman from Georgia just said, but when you go into white houses and white neighborhoods, they want white dealers put away, that sell it to white people. But they do not say put them away for a longer period of time than black people, or put black people away for a longer period of time than white people. It is a crime problem. You know what cocaine does in the suburbs? People shoot people in the suburbs. They beat their children. They beat their spouses. They screw up their businesses. They leave home. They have dissolutions of families, of marriages and children are left and are wards of the State. It is the same drug. It is the same scourge on communities. The suggestion that somehow because black people believe in law enforcement and do not like people selling drugs in the streets that that means they are for the unequal treatment of people is crazy, is absolutely crazy. We ought to deal with this as it is. You have a little luxury because you come through parts of my district and pick it up in your BMW and go to a home where a cop would not go unless you called them and you get the luxury of using it and dealing it, you get a different penalty.

Mr. MILLER of California

Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, as the House gets ready to vote on the Medicare proposals coming from the Republicans and the Committee on Ways and Means, it has become crystal clear what exactly is taking place now. It has become very clear you do not need to cut $270 billion from Medicare to preserve it to the year 2006. We now see that that can be done for somewhere in the range of $90 billion. So what is it that is happening to the other $170 billion that the Republicans are taking out of Medicare? What has become clear is this is the means by which they can provide the tax cut, the predominant benefits of which go to the wealthiest people in this country, and still balance the budget. They cannot afford a tax cut. This country cannot afford a tax cut. We can only make room for that tax cut if we take an additional $170 billion out of Medicare. That is unconscionable and it is wrong and it should be rejected.