Brad Miller

Mr. MILLER of North Carolina

Mr. MILLER of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise also in support of the Bell amendment. The potential benefit of nanotechnology is truly astounding, but there are also potential harmful consequences. I come from a part of the country where a century ago we imported an ornamental Japanese groundcover, kudzu. It was thought to help prevent soil erosion. Now 7 million acres of the South is covered with kudzu. It covers crops, forests, houses, barns. Many of us suspect that we have lost slow-moving relatives to the kudzu. We are now talking about manipulating matter at the atomic and molecular level. I want to make sure we are not turning loose upon the world a molecular, atomic kudzu. We do not know how manipulated particles, atoms and molecules, will interact with the environment, particularly human tissue. And we do not know if self-replicating molecules and atoms will know when to stop replicating. Mr. Chairman, I hope that all of these concerns will prove to be overblown, and we will look back in 30 years and think of this the way we now think about the concerns about the astronauts bringing back Moon germs from the Moon. But we certainly have plenty of examples of things that we should have worried about and we did not worry about. It includes concerns about toxicity, the toxicity of manipulated molecules and atoms, and the effects on the environment. I want to make sure that our societal and ethical concerns about nanotechnology is not limited to philosophers and theologians wondering if we are playing God, but rather if we are creating matter that is going to be harmful to human tissue and will harm the environment. I support the amendment.

Mr. MILLER of North Carolina

Mr. MILLER of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time of the gentlewoman from Indiana (Ms. Carson).

Mr. MILLER of North Carolina

Mr. MILLER of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, we speak of the generation that fought the Second World War as our greatest generation. The men and women now serving our Armed Forces, the soldiers now in harm's way in Iraq and Afghanistan, are pretty great, too. They are dedicated and courageous, and I am proud of them. I am not proud of the budget that this House passed less than 2 weeks ago in the dead of night, however. The budget makes severe cuts in benefits for our veterans, benefits that our Nation has seen as simple gratitude for more than a century, as the least that we could do for those Americans who defend our freedom at the risk of their own lives. The House budget cuts veterans benefits across the board, health care benefits, disability benefits, survivor benefits, pensions, everything, a total of $28 billion in cuts over the next decade. In my State, in North Carolina, more than 30,000 veterans will be pushed out, forced out of the VA system. Tens of thousands more North Carolina veterans would face sharply higher costs. The budget cuts benefits when needs are increasing. World War II veterans and Korean War veterans are aging. Their health care needs are pressing, and Vietnam veterans are just behind them. There are already waiting lists, and those lists will only grow longer, if the benefits are available at all. The men and women in uniform in Iraq and Afghanistan must see this budget and wonder if our praise for them today is simply hollow rhetoric intended to score political points, not a sincere appreciation for their service. The House budget walks away from our debt to veterans so we can cut taxes. I know that I am not the first today to point out on this floor how lopsided that tax cut favors the richest Americans. I know that I am not the first to point out that Americans making more than a million dollars a year get a tax cut of $90,000, but ordinary Americans fare much less well. Half of North Carolina families get less than $100 a year. One-third of North Carolina families get nothing at all. Madam Speaker, the Americans who would benefit the most from proposed tax cuts owe the most to our veterans, and the veterans who need their veterans benefits the most would benefit least from the proposed tax cut. The majority party is now saying that they did not really mean it, they had their fingers crossed behind their backs the whole time. They knew the Senate would put veterans benefits back into the budget and that they would go along. Just minutes ago, the majority party voted to repudiate the very budget that they adopted less than 2 weeks ago. Veterans deserve better than that kind of political double talk. There should not be bargaining chips and back-room budget deals between the House and Senate. They have earned better than that. Madam Speaker, I do not believe that the House budget adopted less than 2 weeks ago reflects our Nation's values. I do not believe that we have become a Nation of ingrates.

Mr. MILLER of North Carolina

Mr. MILLER of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 47, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. MILLER of North Carolina

Mr. MILLER of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, President Bush recently announced his opposition to the affirmative action plan used by the University of Michigan in admissions. It is troubling that the academic achievements of white students and African American students at Michigan are markedly different, but it is troubling for a reason that President Bush apparently did not consider. It is troubling that almost a half century after the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education there remain such disparities in the academic achievements of white students and African American students. Mr. Speaker, the public schools are where we deliver on the promise of equality of opportunity. The public schools must deliver on that promise to white children; to black children; to children whose parents do not speak English in their homes; to the children of parents who care passionately about their children, who read to them every night, who join the PTA and volunteer at their children's schools; to the children of parents who are themselves children and are as little prepared to be parents as their parents were before them. Just days after President Bush announced his opposition to the University of Michigan's affirmative action plan, he announced his proposed budget. We see from that budget what he would do to close the achievement gap so that universities can achieve a diversity in population without affirmative action plans like Michigan's. Mr. Speaker, he would do very little. The very programs that are most effective in closing the achievement gap and delivering on the promise of equality of opportunity for every child are hardest hit. The proposed budget cuts No Child Left Behind by $9 billion. The act gives a nod to the promise of equality of opportunity, but the budget breaks that promise. The budget cuts after-school programs by more than 40 percent, teacher training by almost $200 million. It cuts individualized instruction in math and reading for disadvantaged children. President Bush's budget guts Head Start, our effort to reach disadvantaged children who now arrive for kindergarten so far behind they can never catch up. I sat in a first grade class in my State and had one child after another read out loud to me. Some children read effortlessly in a sing- song voice because the material lacked such challenge. Other children read laboriously, sounding out every word, getting every third or fourth word wrong. When those children apply for college 13 years later, I fear there will be the same differences in their academic achievement, and we will still need affirmative action plans like Michigan to achieve diverse populations in our colleges. Mr. Speaker, it is not acceptable to me that our children's chances in life depend so greatly on the circumstances into which they were born. President Bush's budget shows that he is not bothered by that.