Major Owens

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Well, we introduced a jobs bill as a progressive caucus jobs will as a result of our understanding clearly what the message was on the November 8 election. At the exit polls they clearly pointed out that the No. 1 priority was jobs security. Those who were working are worried about the fact they are making less than they were making before, they cannot keep up with inflation. Many who were working were worried about losing the jobs they have already because of economic downsizing and streamlining, and of course many others are unemployed and work because they have no hope of getting a job. We keep sending manufacturing jobs overseas, chasing the cheapest labor in Bangladesh, out of prisons of China of whatever. So why not address this as Democrats, even if the Republicans refuse to? They had in the Contract With America something about the Job Creation, Wage Enhancement Act which had not a single thing in it about job creation. It was all about removing regulations, and it was a back door way to make an assault on the kinds of regulations of the environment that are very necessary to protect the health and welfare of Americans. Our jobs bill talks about creating jobs. In fact, one of the major functions of a modern government has to be the creation of jobs. The economy, stupid, has to be translated into jobs, stupid. You can have a bustling economy. We have a very prosperous economy. The stock market is doing very well. But jobs are not being created. You know, in addition to economics, we need a new science called ``jobenomics.'' How do you create jobs? We propose an old-fashioned way to create jobs. First of all you recognize the fact that there is plenty of work to be done, it just needs to have some way to pay people to do necessary work. We need public infrastructure to be sort of rehabilitated. Physical infrastructure in terms of bridges, and roads, and schools across the country which need to be repaired or rebuilt, all those things need to be done, and we should wasting our public dollars on obsolete weapons systems and other kinds of things. We should be moving it toward job creation in every way possible.

Mr. OWENS. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I would like to congratulate him on the special order and the focus you started with, emphasizing what we have been trying to emphasize all year long, is that the American people are angry. Large numbers of people are angry. Large numbers of voters are angry. Certainly, working-class people are angry, certainly for good reason. We have to focus on what it is they should be angry about. They focus their anger sometimes in the wrong direction, not understanding the forces at work which make their lives miserable or make them see themselves as sinking in quicksand in terms of their lives are getting no better as they go on working harder, but their wages are less, their wages have not kept pace with inflation, benefits like health care which all the other industrialized nations enjoy and help to stretch your wages because you do not have to pay large amounts of money for health care, are denied to the American workers. They get less fringe benefits, vacation time, family leave. As you pointed out, countries that we went to war with, and we are glad the war is over and it is all peaceful, but Germany now has a higher standard of living than any nation in the world. I am not criticizing them for creating a higher standard of living for their workers. But workers here have to understand, workers in the industrialized world of 1995, it is possible to have decent salaries and also have 6 weeks' vacation, also have family and medical leave where you get paid, where you take time off. It is possible in an industrialized society to have this and still come out ahead of this Nation in terms of balance of payments. Because we are in relationship with Germany, we owe them more money than they owe us. The balance of payments is negative on our side, just as in the case of Japan, you also have a standard of living and much more security. This fact, or that, has just been highlighted by a study, and thanks to the New York Times, certainly emphasized in the mass media of the gap between the rich and the poor in this country which you mentioned before, just has to be looked at more closely. I have the editorial from the New York Times on the same day that the major article appeared on April 17, 1995. That editorial, you know, says quite a bit. We cannot say it anymore clear than stated here. ``The Rich Get Richer Faster,'' is the title of the editorial, and I want to read a few excerpts from the editorial: The gap between rich and poor is vast in the United States, and recent studies show it growing faster than anywhere else in the West. The trend is largely the result of technological forces at work around the world, but the United States Government has done little to ameliorate the problem. Indeed, if the Republicans get their way on the budget, the Government will make a troubling trend measurably worse. Now, this is the New York Times editorial page talking, not partisan Democrats. Some inequality is necessary if society wants to reward investors for taking risks and individuals for working hard and well, but excessive inequality can break the spirit of those trapped in society's cellar and exacerbate social tensions. Extensive inequality can break the spirit of those trapped in society's cellar and can exacerbate social tensions. I am not going to excuse anybody for the Oklahoma bombing, and I am not going to say that any set of conditions in society justified that kind of murderous act, but I am going to say that when you have a mixture in this country of the culture of the gun where we permit, and another way in which we are different from all other western nations is, the other industrialized nations, is we permit the proliferation of the guns in this society. We encourage a culture of the gun, which leads to a fascination with other, more complicated weapons. When you have an atmosphere like that and you also have the exacerbated tensions, the likelihood that individuals or small groups will go off half-cocked and do outrageous things is greatly increased. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I just want to reemphasize something I read from the editorial earlier: Some inequality is necessary if society wants to reward investors for taking risks and individuals for working hard and well. But excessive inequality can break the spirit of those trapped in society's cellar--and exacerbate social tensions. We are not proposing a change in capitalism. We are not proposing an attack on capitalism. Capitalism is the way of the world. It is the best economy that mankind has been able to fashion. But capitalism should be tempered by democratic government. Democratic government should extol the necessity to make sure that there are safety nets, that the wealth is shared. When people go to work for Xerox or IBM or Microsoft, they do not take an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States. They do not have to be true to the doctrine expressed in the Declaration of Independence. The pursuit of happiness is not a concern of a corporation, per se. The pursuit of happiness of the American people is not their concern. The pursuit of profit is their business. But government must make certain that in the process of pursuing profits, corporations are part of a total society and that policies are promulgated where everybody is properly taken care of, not everybody shares equally but we have public policies which guarantee that everybody will have decent housing, public policies which guarantee that the opportunity to get an education will be provided. We cannot afford to have a budget like the budget that is about to be proposed by the Republican majority that is going to slash job training programs tremendously, they are going to slash education programs, and, of course, there is a notion existing that they may completely eradicate the Department of Education. What does it say to the world, to the civilized world, to the other industrialized nations that the United States of America is going to eliminate the Department of Education? What does it say to the other competitors that we have in the world about our future competitiveness? I think they will chuckle and say we are going to have less of a problem with a competitive America in the future if they are going to eliminate a Department of Education at the Federal level which gives a sense of direction for education in the country as a whole. It is not responsible, we do not have a system like France or Great Britain or most of the European countries, we do not have a centralized system of education. The education budget in this country, most of it is paid for by State and local governments. The proportion of the budget of the Federal Government's share of the budget is about 8 percent now, fluctuating between 8 and 6 percent. Under Ronald Reagan it went down to about 6 percent. But at most it is 8 percent of the total budget. Of the more than $360 billion spent on education from kindergarten to higher education last year, the Federal Government only paid for about 8 percent of that. So it is not our contribution financially that is so important. It is the leadership that the Federal Government offers in terms of giving a sense of direction to where we have to go in the global economy in order to be competitive. It is the leadership of the Federal Government that brought forth a document called ``A Nation At Risk'' where we said this Nation cannot survive unless we pay more attention to how our children are educated in order to be able to compete in the modern world. It is the leadership that led George Bush to put out America 2000, his own program for improving education. Behind George Bush came President Clinton with Goals 2000. Goals 2000 is not so different from America 2000. They were both at the same conference where the Governors came up with the same six ways to improve education. We were moving forward, we are moving forward in terms of Federal participation without Federal domination of education. The Federal Government offers leadership. But now I dread the budget that is coming because that budget proposes to eliminate the Department of Education. That is a barbaric act. It would be a barbaric act, an unreasonable act, an unscientific act to eliminate the Department of Education at this time. I say the barbaric philosophy, people who are committing barbaric acts are a real danger. They are not barbarians themselves but each act should be examined by itself. I think I mentioned before a philosophy of economic cleansing that has been proposed by the mayor of New York City. The mayor of New York City is a nice guy when you get to know him. He is a decent fellow, he has a family, he has kids. I cannot call him a barbarian, but I can think of no more barbaric thinking than to believe that poor people should get out of town, they should leave, in order to make the city's economic situation better. That is barbaric in the extreme. It is a philosophy of ethnic cleansing that has been expressed by an elected official. Those who think it, I consider that bad enough, but this has been expressed and it must be challenged. The mayor of New York City cannot say to the poor people of New York City, ``You don't belong here.'' He cannot say to the African-Americans in New York City, ``You don't belong here.'' New York City was a major slave port. Millions of slaves were poured into New York City in its early days. As New York City was built starting at the waterfront and moved back up to Central Park, even when Central Park was cleared, there are photographs of slaves working to clear the ground. That city was built in its infancy by slave labor. There is a Negro burial ground that was unearthed as they were building a new Federal building in a downtown section of Manhattan, and the Negro burial ground revealed massive numbers of graves, there must have been epidemic sickness, large numbers of people died, large numbers of children died. In order for there to be so many graves and so many people dying, there had to be many slaves there and they were the ones who cut down the trees, made the lumber, did the construction. Long before the white immigrants came, the slaves who were kidnapped and who were the hostages and not immigrants, they helped to build New York City. And now to say to the descendants of those slaves who built New York City, ``Get out of town, you're not wanted.'' Where will they go? Where will the poor people of New York City go? Who else wants them if New York City does not want them? Will they go to Marietta, GA, where they are building the F-22 fighter plane? The F- 22 fighter plane is one of those obsolete weapon systems that we do not need. We do not need a fighter plane more sophisticated than the one we already have because the Soviet Union is not building another one. We have the best already, so why build another one? It is going to cost us $12 billion over the next 5 years to continue creating, building the F- 22. Can you give us some jobs in the F-22 plant in Marietta, GA, which happens to be the Speaker's district? Can you give us jobs for the poor of New York City? Can we send them to Marietta, GA? Where will they go? Can we send them to Groton, CT, where they are building another Seawolf submarine? Can you give the poor people of New York jobs at Groton, CT, where they are building another Seawolf submarine? Can they go to Texas where they made a killing? Texas is responsible for the savings and loan debacle. Half of the savings and loans that collapsed, half the swindles took place in Texas. But they benefited even from the collapse because, since they have most of the problem in their State, the Resolution Trust Corporation and all of the effort to straighten out the debacle created by the savings and loan swindle, half of it is in Texas. So workers are hired by the Resolution Trust Corporation, by those people who are trying to straighten out the savings and loan mess. They are Texas workers, so Texas benefits twice. Can we get some jobs for New Yorkers in Texas so that they can benefit from the savings and loan swindle, jobs that are created as we try to straighten it out? Where can the New York City poor people go? are farm families, and they have been averaging $30,000 to $40,000 in government checks over the last decade. According to an article in the New York Times, they get $30,000 to $40,000 for doing nothing, except what they do raises the price of food, and we pay more for food in New York because we are keeping the price of farm products high by subsidizing them with taxpayers' money. There is something barbaric about paying people not to grow food and driving up the price so the poorest people have to pay more money. The farm price program was created by the New Deal, by Franklin Roosevelt, when farmers were poor, to save poor farmers, when large numbers of people lived on the land. But now we have less than 2 percent of the population of the United States living on farms, and we are spending billions of dollars to take care of those pretty well-to-do farmers and the agribusinesses. I want to read one more editorial from the New York Times about the farm program. This is a program which we all accept nobody wants to cut. Recently the President made a trip to Iowa, and he pledged that he would defend Federal farm subsidies to the end. The New York Times editorial says that farmers, quoting the New York Times, farmers are the Nation's richest welfare recipients. Farmers are the Nation's richest welfare recipients. Full- time farmers typically earn four times as much as nonfarm families. The Federal Government pays farmers and huge agribusinesses not to grow crops or send food abroad. Mr. Clinton says that is a nifty way to boost exports, but taxpayers who foot the bill might take exception. The Federal program stifles food production, which jacks up prices and hurts both consumers and the economy. The farm program costs taxpayers about $10 billion a year and adds an equal amount to food bills, driving up the price of milk, fruit, sugar and many other necessities by about 10 percent. That quote was from the New York Times editorial, which is entitled ``Mr. Clinton Bows to Farmers.'' Many of those farmers live in Kansas, the State of Kansas. Can we send New York City's poor to Kansas to share in the welfare checks that the farmers get? Our welfare checks average no more than $600 for a family of three a month, so surely the welfare recipients in New York would greatly benefit if they could get welfare checks at the level of the checks that are being received by the farmers in Kansas. Mr. Giuliano should know that there is nowhere else for the poor to go. They will not take them in Kansas; in Texas; in Groton, CT; in Marietta, GA. They have a right to stay in New York City. The inhabitants have a right, the citizens have rights. If a government cannot take care of the needs of their citizens, they cannot provide decent services, they cannot provide educational opportunities, then that government should resign. The public officials who cannot do that should resign. Do not exhort the people to leave. That is barbaric. That is not ethnic cleansing, it is economic cleansing, since you want all the poor to go. First we had the tax on the illegal immigrants. Then we had a tax on the legal immigrants. Now we want all poor people to go. That is barbaric. We must resist that kind of barbarism. In closing, what I am saying is that the budget process is taking place at every level in the country. In New York State, the budget was supposed to be completed and submitted on April 1. Now it is more than a month later and it is not completed because there is a struggle under way in New York State between the elite oppressive minority--you have the same elite oppressive minority with the philosophy that the poor are expendable, that you can throw overboard certain people. You have the high-technology barbarians in control in New York State, and in New York City, in city hall you have the same philosophy in the mayor. Yes, there are budget cuts that have to be made. Yes, there is a need to balance the budget, and Democrats should not get off the hook. We should come forward with proposals about how the budget should be balanced. We should not hesitate to talk about revenue. In New York City, the State has always robbed the city blind in terms of revenue, doing very little for the city. They have taken far too much from the city. In New York City, you have a Port of New York City, a Port Authority of New York-New Jersey which owns all the most valuable land where the airport is and the ships dock. Revenue that ought to be going to the city is going to the Port Authority. That ought to be corrected. In New York City, you have two- and three-family homeowners who pay taxes which are far lower, about one-fourth the taxes that are being paid by the people who live in the suburbs surrounding New York. You have a number of ways that revenue could be increased. Yes, we do need to decrease expenditures. Yes, we do need to adjust programs. There is not a program that has ever been invented that could not be trimmed, could not be adjusted, could not be refined. All that should take place in an atmosphere of an evolutionary process, and not a revolutionary process which says that ``We are going to destroy, we are going to slash and burn, we are going to have a blitzkrieg attack on all the social programs that were invented, that were developed over the last 60 years.'' We do not need to go into the budget process next week with so much dread, so much fear, so much foreboding. We do not have to look forward to a process that is going to tear down and wreck the best that America has ever built. It could be very different. We could go forward with a philosophy of FDR ringing in our ears. There is nothing radical or new. The ``FDR's Economic Bill of Rights,'' I ran across it in a magazine the other day, and I will just close with this. Franklin Delano Roosevelt said many years ago: In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, or race or creed. Among these are: The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries, or shops or farms or mines of the nation; The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation; The right of farmers to raise and sell their products at a return which will give them and their families a decent living; The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad; The right of every family to a decent home; The right of adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health; The right of adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, and sickness, and accident and unemployment; And finally, the right to a good education. All of these ideas were espoused by Franklin Roosevelt many years ago. You have heard the Speaker of this House quote Roosevelt and speak of him admirably as a person who created new order in our society. Why does he want to tear down an order that was created by Franklin Roosevelt as we go forward in the budget process and appropriations process? This Nation is great because carefully, painstakingly we built a system that demonstrated we care about everybody in America. Let us not let the oppressive elite minority destroy what has been put there by and for a caring majority.

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I will read from the editorial a few excerpts that I did not have a chance to cover before. The New York Times is not a radical publication. The New York Times editorial says the following: ``After years of little change, inequality exploded in America starting in the 1970's. According to Prof. Edward Wolff of New York University, three-quarters of the income gains during the 1980's and 100 percent of the increased wealth went to the top 20 percent of the families.'' In America, the top 20 percent got three-quarters of all the income gains. The 80 percent on the bottom, 8 out of 10, shared the rest. I continue the quote from the New York Times: ``The richest 1 percent of households control about 40 percent of the nation's wealth.'' One percent versus 99 percent. The other 99 percent take the rest. ``. . . 1 percent control 40 percent of the nation's wealth--twice as much as the figure in Britain, which has the greatest inequality in Western Europe.'' In Britain, which used to have the greatest inequality between the rich and the poor, now we have twice as much inequality in the New World, in America. We fought the British, we got rid of that system, that privilege and wealth. Now we have twice as much inequality as Britain. ``In Germany,'' and I am quoting from the New York Times editorial, ``High-wage families earn about 2.5 times as much as low-wage workers,'' 2.5 times. The number in Germany has been falling. In America the figure is that the high-wage families in America earn four times as much as low-wage families, and the high-wage families' percentage of income is rising. The difference between the high-wage families and the low-wage families, people who work every day for wages, we are not talking about wealthy people who have stocks and bonds and they get their income from their investments, we are talking about wage earners, people who work every day, the highest wages in America have been going up for the top and down for the bottom, so you have the top wage earners, the difference is four times as great. I continue to read from the editorial in the New York Times: ``The best guess about the factor behind the burgeoning inequality is technology; the wage gap between high- and low-skilled workers in America doubled during the 1980's. College graduates used to earn about 30 percent more than high school graduates, but now they earn 60 percent more.'' College graduates used to earn 30 percent more than just mere high school graduates, and now they earn 60 percent more. Why is it barbaric that the Republican budget proposals are going to cut the student loan program by $12 billion over 5 years? Why is it a barbaric act, an act that has no vision, no logic, no science? Because you limit, when you make those kinds of cuts and make it more difficult for people to go to college, you limit the number of people who can enter the high-technology job market, and you cut off the possibilities of their earning livings at that level. I go back to the New York Times article: ``Prof. Sheldon Danziger of the University of Michigan estimates that trends in private pay rates explain about 85 percent of recent increases in inequality; Reagan-Bush tax cuts for the rich and spending cuts for the poor explain much of the other 15 percent.'' However, even if government is not the main factor, and this is the New York Times, not me, I think government policies are certainly not what makes the economy, but government policies are the main factor in the way a society operates, including the economy. To quote the New York Times, ``Even if government is not the main factor, it could be a part of the solution. Changes in the Canadian economy during the 1980's also hit hard at low-wage workers,'' changes in the Canadian economy. In Canada, there the government stepped in to keep poverty rates on a downward path. In the United States, poverty rose, but in Canada, poverty dropped, because the government policies were used to intervene in their economy in ways to help the poor. ``House Republicans are now,'' and I am still quoting the New York Times, ``House Republicans are now pushing the Federal budget in the wrong direction. At a time when employers are crying out for well- educated workers, the GOP proposes to cut back money for training and educational assistance. America needs better Head Start, primary and secondary education. It needs to train high school dropouts and welfare mothers. The GOP policy would leave the untrained stranded. That would harm the Nation's long-term productivity--and further distort an increasingly tilted economy.'' Mr. Speaker, I imclude the New York Times editorial in its entirety at this point in the Record: The Rich Get Richer Faster The gap between rich and poor is vast in the United States--and recent studies show it growing faster here than anywhere else in the West. The trend is largely the result of technological forces at work around the world. But the United States Government has done little to ameliorate the problem. Indeed, if the Republicans get their way on the budget, the Government will make a troubling trend measurably worse. Some inequality is necessary if society wants to reward investors for taking risks and individuals for working hard and well. But excessive inequality can break the spirit of those trapped in society's cellar--and exacerbate social tensions. After years of little change, inequality exploded in America starting in the 1970's. According to Prof. Edward Wolff of New York University, three-quarters of the income gains during the 1980's and 100 percent of the increased wealth went to the top 20 percent of families. The richest 1 percent of households control about 40 percent of the nation's wealth--twice as much as the figure in Britain, which has the greatest inequality in Western Europe. In Germany, high-wage families earn about 2.5 times as much as low-wage workers; the number has been falling. In America the figure is above 4 times, and rising. Interpreting these trends requires caution. Inequality rose here in the 1980's in part because the United States created far more jobs--many low-paid--than did Western Europe. Low- paying jobs are better than no jobs. Rising inequality in the United States has also been caused in substantial part by middle-class families that moved up the income ladder, opening a gap with those below them. About half of Americans move a substantial distance up or down the income ladder over a typical five-year period. In a mobile society, where workers rotate among high-and low- earning jobs, earning gaps are less frightening because any given job would be less entrapping. But mobility has offset none of the increased inequality of income. Studies at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University show that mobility in America is not higher than in Germany. Nor does mobility here appear to be higher today than it was in the early 1970's. The best guess about the factor behind burgeoning inequality is technology; the wage gap between high- and low- skilled workers in America doubled during the 1980's. College graduates used to earn about 30 percent more than high school graduates, but now earn 60 percent more. Prof. Sheldon Danziger of the University of Michigan estimates that trends in private pay rates explain about 85 percent of recent increases in inequality; Reagan-Bush tax cuts for the rich and spending cuts for the poor explain much of the other 15 percent. But even if government is not the main actor, it could be part of the solution. Changes in the Canadian economy during the 1980's also hit hard at low-wage workers. But there the Government stepped in to keep poverty rates on a downward path. I the United States, poverty rose. House Republicans are now pushing the Federal budget in the wrong direction. At a educated workers, the G.O.P. proposes to cut back money for training and educational assistance. America needs better Head Start, primary and secondary education. It needs to train high school dropouts and welfare mothers. The G.O.P. policy would leave the untrained stranded. That would harm the nation's long-term productivity--and further distort an increasingly tilted economy.

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, we just returned from recess this week, and it is a fairly slow week here in the Congress. But next week we will move into the process of finalizing the budget for the coming budget year, which begins October 1. It is a situation which I am quite concerned about. There is a kind of calm around here before the storm. As far as I am concerned, I feel a sense of dread before a massacre takes place, because that is what I feel is in store; a massacre of very useful programs is about to occur in this budget finalization process that is going to start next week. We already have a $17 billion rescission package. The majority party, the Republicans in this House, have already reached into this year's budget and pulled back $17 billion, mostly from very good programs. So $17 billion is being cut out of the budget that is now in process, now going on. The budget year that will end on September 30, they are trying to take out $17 billion. The Senate has passed their version of the rescission package, and a conference is about to occur. There is nothing to feel optimistic about there. They put back a few vital items. I heard the Senate is going to restore the Summer Youth Employment Program. The Summer Youth Employment Program employs millions of young people across the country every summer. That had been wiped out by the Republican-controlled House rescission budget. Now the Senate says they will put it back, and I hope that they do restore that. But I hope the President vetoes the whole bill. I hope that he understands there are numerous other cuts in that same $17 billion package, for instance, the cutting of the Department of Housing and Urban Development to the tune of $7 billion. You cut $7 billion out of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and most of the money that is cut is for low income housing. I hope that the President will veto the whole package. But I dread what is going to happen with that package, that rescission package. But beyond that, I dread the budget finalization process, because what has happened with the rescissions package is a preview of coming attractions, a preview of where this majority in this House is going. It is not exaggerating to say that we are about to behold something similar to a group of barbarians burning down a city. It is not exaggerating, because we are going to destroy, and maybe this is a serious flaw, a serious weakness in the Constitution of the United States, that a party in power for 2 years can wreck havoc. It can destroy a great deal. You can destroy the Department of Education by just denying funding. You can vote the funding out. It is difficult to vote down the authority for the agency, but if you don't fund it, you can destroy it, or so cripple it, until to matter who comes into power the next year, they will have to try to rebuild a crippled agency. That has been the history of the Department of Education. It has always been a crippled agency. It came into created the Department of Education finally. But during the years of Ronald Reagan they tried to destroy the Department of Education, and it has never been able to function fully. But finally it has begun to function and do the kinds of things it needs to do in terms of leadership. The threat now is in the process of cutting the budget, one of the items that is being targeted by the Republican majority is the Department of Education. We are going to eliminate the Department of Education, in an age when high technology is so important, in an age when we say that every worker, every student, should strive to go to college, and in order to do that they have to come out of high school with the best possible education in order to get a decent job and function in a very complex society. At this time we are hearing leaders in this House talk about eliminating the Department of Education. An invaluable piece of our civilization is about to be assaulted in this budget making process. A way of life created for Americans by Americans is about to be wrecked. That is how serious this year is. Why is this year so different from any other? Because the majority party in the House, which is the same as the majority party in the Senate, have made it clear that they want to assault many of the programs that have been created over the last 60 years. They want to get rid of what has been painstakingly developed since Franklin Roosevelt's days. They want to get rid of the kinds of programs that make our society as great as it is. They want to get rid of the kinds of programs that reach out and say to every American that our great wealth, the fact that we are the wealthiest Nation that ever existed in the history of the world, is to be shared not equally, and we are not communists, we are not proposing that everybody should have an equal share, but we are proposing that everybody should have some share of it and some kind of decent living as a result of a prosperous America. Now there is a barbaric philosophy. And I want to just pause for a minute and say I would like to see us lower our voices and use less extremist language. So I do not want to call my colleagues who propose these doctrines barbarians. I think that is a little extreme. I just want to focus on each act. A decent person can be guilty of a barbaric act. So you have some decent people who, I will not question their decency in general, but they are subscribing to barbaric policies, barbaric actions. Let me give you one or two examples, and I will come back in more detail later on. It is a barbaric action to propose that we fund a Seawolf submarine for about $2.1 billion, and at the same time propose to cut the school lunch programs by about $2 billion. There is controversy about whether the school lunch programs have been cut or not. I think the conservative Congressional Budget Office has put that to rest. The conservative estimate of the conservative Congressional Budget Office is at least $2 billion will be cut from the program. It will lose that much over the 5-year period it is being proposed. So at least $2 billion. I think it will be more like $6 billion, but we will take the more conservative estimate. You are going to cut school lunches by $2 billion, hungry kids will have less food, and at the same time propose to build a Seawolf submarine. What is a Seawolf submarine and what does it contribute to anything? Nothing. A Seawolf submarine would have been useful in a way with the Soviet Union. But the Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore. No other nation has these submarines. What I am trying to do is bring this down to a level where it can be clearly understood. When I say a barbaric act has taken place when you propose to fund an obsolete weapon like a Seawolf submarine at the cost of $2.1 billion, while at the same time cutting school lunches by a like amount, that is a barbarian's reasoning at work. There is no sense, no compassion. What will the Seawolf submarine do for America? It can do nothing now. It could have been very useful in a war with the Soviet Union. They have very sophisticated submarines; therefore, we had to prepare a more sophisticated submarine. We already have Seawolf submarines. Why build one more? The cold war has been over for several years. The Soviet Union is not building any more submarines. This submarine cannot be used for peaceful purposes. If you do not use it for warfare, you can take the kids on a ride under the sea, you could put it in New York harbor and use it as a tourist attraction. But that is too dangerous. They will not use submarines for tourist attractions, because even the best submarine is risky to the point where you wouldn't take kids for joy rides underneath the sea. So it has no peaceful purpose. yet we are going to build another Seawolf submarine. We are going to continue funding the Central Intelligence Agency to the tune of at least $28 billion, at least $28 billion. We do not know, because it is still secret. The Soviet Union has revealed secrets about their secret intelligence agency, but we haven't divulged the budget to the American people, so we just guess at $28 billion. It is a barbaric act to say we should continue the funding of the CIA at that level, while at the same time you cut the Summer Youth Employment Program, a program that provides jobs for youth during the summer and costs so much less. It is a barbaric act. I will come back with more examples later on. But this is what we are up against. I said that we have high-technology barbarians in charge in the House. I would like to retract that and say that the people are not barbarians because they certainly love their families; they do a lot of things that are decent every day. It is not that they are barbarians, but they are committing barbaric acts. We need to pinpoint each act one by one. In New York City, we have some barbaric philosophy that has been proposed recently. We have this epidemic of barbarity in public service breaking out all over in New York State government, New York City government. We are proposing to give huge tax cuts to the rich while we are cutting programs for Medicare and Medicaid already. The mayor of New York, I think, has expressed it openly. He has said what most of the leaders in the House of Representatives have not been willing to say. The mayor of New York has come right out and said it: Poor people, if they would please get out of town, get out of town and we will not have to be bothered with them. We would like to have policies which do not encourage poor people to stay around. The mayor of New York City actually came out and said that. In the process of saying he did not say it, he kept saying things which were just as horrible, that as you cut programs and you squeeze neighborhoods and you refuse to build more housing and you cut the hospitals and you make life unbearable for poor people, let them get out of town, let them go. That is the kind of economic cleansing, it is a new statement by a public official of what many others are thinking but they are not stating. We had a gentleman named Roger Star who was prominent in city civic circles and once served on the editorial board of the New York Times even who years ago said we should pursue a policy of ethnic, of planned shrinkage, that New York City should pursue a policy of planned shrinkage. That is, do not build any housing for the poor, do not bother to create infrastructures in a poor neighborhood for new sewer systems and new water systems, et cetera, do not do those things and do not build and, therefore, you plan, as a result of pursuing those policies, there will be a shrinkage of the city. As you shrink the city and the number of people in it, certainly the number of poor people, the responsibilities of the city go down and you can give tax cuts to the rich and take care of them as a result. That was a private citizen making that statement. It was horrible enough then, but now we have the mayor of the city, the mayor who was elected by the people to govern all of the people. As you know, we know as elected officials here in the Congress, once we are elected, we are no longer elected to serve the people who elected us or the members of our party, we are elected to serve everybody. This mayor is openly saying that he really does not want to take care of a large part of the population of New York City. philosophy. That is a barbaric philosphy. The thinking is barbaric; the policy is barbaric. I will come back to that later on. What I am trying to say here is that I want to emphasize that the budget-making process that we are about to undertake is the most important thing that this Congress does. It is the most important event that happens in Washington. The budget-making process in any government is very important. I have used the example before of the British Government; the BBC, the British Broadcasting Corporation takes several days, used to take several days to just discuss the national budget. Nothing is more important than the budget-making process, whether you are making budgets at the Federal level or you are making the budget, going through the budget making-process at the State level or the city level. Citizens should pay close attention because how we spend our money shows what our priorities are, how we spend our money shows what our values are. And how we spend our money determines whether our side is going to function properly or not. So in the budget-making process, all things that are most important to government and society are in motion at that time. Everything of value will be impacted by the budget process. And the budget process takes place first, but the appropriations process follows that and the two are inseparable. The budget process sets general guidelines, the appropriations process spells out the details and they cannot be separated. The budget and appropriations process are the most important functions of our Government or any other government. How and why is this budget and appropriations process different from all others? I have said it is different from all others because in power now we have a majority that insists that America is facing a crisis. They have created a crisis atmosphere. They have created a goal that is very difficult to attain, the goal of a balanced budget by the year 2002. If you insist that we have to balance the budget by the year 2002, then you have to take some drastic measures to do that. You cannot accomplish that unless you take drastic measures to cut the existing budget, unless you bring an axe to chop down programs that were created carefully over a 50- or 60-year period. We had the New Deal. We had the Great Society. And there is a tendency to take all of this for granted. The Great Society was sort of an offshoot of the New Deal. Lyndon Johnson was a disciple of Franklin Roosevelt, and although we might criticize President Johnson for making many connections with foreign policy and with the Vietnam war, we recognize his devotion to the principles of Franklin Roosevelt as expressed through the Great Society programs: The Community Action program, the Medicaid program, the Medicare program; these things did not come from God directly. They did not fall out of heaven. They were created by Democratic administrations, and they represent an expression of the very best that is in America. America, we have some things in our past and our tradition which we are not proud of, but we certainly can be proud of the tradition that is reflected in the New Deal and in the Great Society because it reflects a reaching out and a caring for all of the people of America and it was all done without a revolution. We have done more for human beings and for the citizens of our Nation without a revolution than other countries have done that had revolutions which professed to have this purpose. But now we are engaged in a situation where in 2 years, in 2 years the people who have come to power are going to take advantage of a weakness in the Constitution. There are no safeguards in the Constitution against having a 2-year period be a period where you can destroy what was created in 60 years. There is something wrong with our Constitution. I do not propose to talk about it now. I do not know what the remedy is, but it has just occurred to me as a result of the kind of protestations and the kind of declarations that have been made by the majority Republicans in the House this year, it just dawned on a lot of us that in 2 years you really can have a structure of the policies of the country totally turned around, totally altered. That is a great deal of change to take place in 2 years. It is revolutionary. I have a suspicion of revolutions. We should always be suspicious of revolutions. Revolutions at best are necessary evils when there is no other alternative. Revolutions always cause almost as much harm as they do good because of the very nature of the upheaval of revolutions means that a lot of people are going to be trampled on, a lot of suffering is going to take place that would not take place if you follow an evolutionary process. We have in America always followed an evolutionary process, even at the time of greatest crisis during the Depression, the transfer from Herbert Hoover to Franklin Roosevelt was not a revolution. It was an evolution. It was a use of the legislative process at its very best. Franklin Roosevelt did not go into the basement of the White House as Oliver North did and come up with secret plans about how to make the American Government operate in a way which was not approved by the Congress. Franklin Roosevelt came to the Congress, the New Deal legislation was passed in concert with the Congress. Step by step we worked our way through a very difficult period. We entered World War II, and the same process was followed as we moved through the necessary processes to win World War II under the leadership of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. So we have always moved in an evolutionary way. Sometimes you have to speed up the evolutionary process, and sometimes the approach to the evolutionary process has to be comprehensive, across the board you have to move and move fast, but to move in a way that is being proposed now, where an artificial crisis is created, an umbrella of emergency has been created. So we have a situation where extreme changes, extreme radical changes can be justified because we have created a crisis. Who is it who said that we have to have a balanced budget by the year 2002? What economist has said that that is absolutely necessary to keep our economy healthy? Our deficit is coming down already. Our deficit has never been as great as certain European countries who are not in a panic and not making their people suffer in order to get a balanced budget within a 7-year period. Where did this come from? Olympia? Did some oracle predict that we had to have a balanced budget by the year 2002? That is an artificial goal. A crisis that is created by setting that, the rationale for it, we still do not know. It is forcing us into a revolutionary mode. You are going to have to make $700 billion in savings. You have to pull out of the process, out of the present budget over a 7-year period, you have to get $700 billion. My colleagues previously were discussing the Medicare cuts, because one of the places where you have the largest Government expenditures is in health care costs, Medicare being probably one of the highest expenditures. Medicare is on the chopping block now because if you have to save $700 billion over the next 5 to 7 years, where are you going to get it? It is like slick Willie Sutton who when he was asked, why do you rob banks, said that is where the money is. They are going to take it from Medicare because that is where the money is. They are going to take it from Medicaid, too. Medicaid is a health care program for the poorest people in the country. And they are going to rob Medicaid, too. But nobody is discussing that because Medicaid does not have any defenders in this capital, in the city of Washington you do not hear from the White House any discussion of drastic cuts that are being proposed for Medicaid. You do not hear them on the Hill, here in Congress, but they are going to cut Medicaid for poor people drastically also. Cuts are already under way in the States and in cities across America to cut health care for poor people. What is the problem when you start cutting health care for poor people? When the Medicaid program was first developed a statement was made which is still true. The statement is that there is no such thing as bargain basement, second-class health care. Health care is either adequate or it is not adequate. You health care where you use old needles to save money because if you use old needles to give injections, you are likely to create more disease than you are to create health. You cannot have health care where the hospitals do not wash the linen except once a week. You cannot have health care where a doctor makes a diagnosis that a patient needs a certain medication that exists and we know it exists and the doctor decides that that is too expensive for that person. That is not health care. That is making judgments about human beings that nobody should have the right to make. So health care costs cannot be trimmed and cannot be cut without damaging the health care process. It is either adequate health care or it is not. So when Medicare cuts are made, what we are saying is we are going to give bargain basement health care to poor people and that is going to be inadequate health care. And those of us who are here, those who propose it and those who are against it, we all know that what we are doing is unethical and dangerous, but there are going to be cuts for Medicaid and there are going to be cuts for Medicare if they continue to insist, if they insist that we have to balance our budget in America by the year 2002. Now, why does it make sense to balance the budget? They offer this homespun logic that says every family balances its budget. You know they have to balance your budget. That seems like a great truth, something that Einstein might endorse, except any mother, any father, anybody in any family knows that you do not balance your budget, you do not balance your budget year by year. Your mortgage is not paid for in 1 year. Your mortgage is spread out over a long period of time. Otherwise you could not afford, you cannot pay for a house--there are some rich and famous Americans who can, but most of us cannot pay for a house in 1 year. You cannot pay for your car in the same year, either. Most of us cannot pay for a car, so you do not balance your budget. Balanced budgets are not something that heaven smiles upon because they work in the economy. They are something invented by the Republican majority here as a great good that we should all strive for which does not exist. They say cities and States have balanced budgets. Most cities and States do not have balanced budgets, they have operating budgets that are balanced and then they have capital budgets. They take all the items, like your car and your house and things that have to be paid for over a long period of time, because they are so tremendously expensive, and they put that in a capital budget. What this Government needs to do, if you want to have an intelligent approach to the budget, is we should have a capital budget for items that cost a lot of money over a long period of time, and an operating budget for the items that you pay for on a yearly basis. I would be the first to support a balanced budget operating budget if you want to propose it that way, as long as you take the capital items like the building of airports and highways, and if we need new weapon systems in the future, weapon systems are a large expenditure that come out, and you can look at it in a more intelligent way. However, the people who are in charge now, they have the votes. They say we are going to have a balanced budget. It is dogmatic, it is not scientific, it is not logical, but they have the votes, so they have created a crisis. I serve as the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus Alternative Committee on the Budget. We hope that we are going to be able to offer an alternative budget on the floor, and show our vision of where America should be going and how you can deal with the budget versus the vision of the majority that is in control right now. We are going to do that, despite the fact that we have been told that no budget will be allowed on the floor for discussion unless it meets the requirement that has been set forth to move toward balance. You have to have a balanced budget, a budget which is going toward balance, by the year 2002. That means that since our budgets are really projected on a 5-year period, not a 7-year period, we have to show in our fifth year in our budget that the deficit is down to $59 billion, which means that in 2 more years it will be eliminated completely. We are going to accept their challenge. I am not sure what the Democratic minority is going to do as a whole, but the Congressional Black Caucus, we will accept that challenge. We will show how, even if you accept the illogical, unscientific approach of the Republican majority, you can produce a budget that will be in balance by the year 2002, and you can still do that without making large numbers of Americans suffer. You can do it without cutting Medicaid drastically; you can do it without cutting Medicare drastically. What you have to do, however, is stop the fantasy, stop the fantasy of increasing the defense budget because you identify with that in some kind of romantic way. The defense budget cannot be increased while you are making all of these cuts. We do not need to increase the defense budget. We need to cut, instead, the $100 billion for overseas bases. We are still supplying bases in Germany and Japan. These are prosperous nations. They can take care of their own needs if they want to man those bases, or even if they do not need the bases, they are there for the security of Europe as a whole, or the bases are there for the security of Asia as a whole, then Japan should pay their share of maintaining security in the world. It is about time. They are rich nations, Germany and Japan. Let them pay for the security of Europe instead of an egotistical America. Our ego is costing us billions of dollars, an egotistical sense that we, we should make sure that Europe is secure by paying for the bases in Europe. We should make certain that Asia is secure by paying for the bases in Europe. Ego. That is how Tom Sawyer whitewashed the fence. Japan and Germany stand back and they chuckle while their economies go forward, while their workers earn higher pay, they have longer vacations, their society is much more secure than ours. They chuckle at our egotism that says we must maintain bases across the world in order to guarantee security and freedom, we must have a huge Navy that guarantees the freedom of the sea lanes of the world. Why do we have to have a huge Navy to guarantee the freedom of the sea lanes of the world? If we want the freedom and security of the sea lanes to be guaranteed, let us give more support to the United Nations and let us have all nations join together to guarantee the security and the freedom of the sea lanes of the world. It is our ego that costs us billions of dollars in defense, while other nations sit back and let us do it and chuckle at us while they pour their resources into their economy. They pour their resources into the creation of jobs. In our budget, if you want to insist on balancing the budget, we say to the Republican majority, then let us balance the budget by cutting those things which are not necessary, like $100 billion in overseas bases. We have, unfortunately, an attitude, a philosophy, that comes first. The attitude has to be confronted. We have to confront the fact that we are dealing with an elitist attitude, an attitude which says that we want an America which gets rid of all of the people who are a nuisance to those rich and famous who want to have an opportunity to make more and more money faster and faster. We already have the largest corporations in the world. The Fortune 500 corporations are bigger than most of the countries in the world, their budgets. They have more money, more assets than most of the countries in the world. We already have more billionaires than any other country in the world. We do not have maybe the richest person in the world, maybe Japan or Germany might have him, but we have more people in the category of billionaires than any other nation in the world, yet we want to set conditions which will guarantee that they get rich faster, instead of setting conditions and making policies that guarantee that the pie is shared. All of us participated in the building of America. Every soldier that died in every war made a contribution. Every person that worked in the factories during the war made a contribution. translated it into some practical application, you know, everybody participated in the building of this civilization and this society. Everybody deserves some rewards. Not everybody deserves to be rich, but everybody deserves to have a decent opportunity to pursue happiness, the right to the pursuit of happiness. We have forgotten that it is our duty as a government to supply the right to pursue happiness. Let us just take a moment to look at the study that was reported in the New York Times on Monday, April 17. The study was reported, and I also have an editorial, and I am not sure if it was on the same day, but it was either on the following day or the same day. On Monday, April 17, the article said ``The gap in wealth in the U.S. is called the widest in the West.'' In the previous special order with my colleagues, I mentioned this, and they talked about it, too, we have a situation where the United States has replaced Great Britain as being the nation where the gap between the rich and poor is the widest. There is a chart which shows that over the years, since 1925, in Great Britain, the gap between the wealthiest people and the poorest people has come down steadily, while the gap in America has risen steadily, and we are way above the British at this point. The gap between the average income of the richest and the poor is wider in America than it is in Germany, in Japan, or anywhere else in the world. Mr. Speaker, I will include this article which appeared in the New York Times on April 17 for the Record: [From the New York Times, Apr. 17, 1995] Gap in Wealth in the United States Called Widest in West (By Keith Bradsher) Washington, April 12.--New studies on the growing concentration of American wealth and income challenge a cherished part of the country's self-image: They show that rather than being an egalitarian society, the United States has become the most economically stratified of industrial nations. Even class societies like Britain, which inherited large differences in income and wealth over centuries going back to their feudal pasts, now have greater economic equality than the United States, according to the latest economic and statistical research, much of which is to be published soon. Economic inequality has been on the rise in the United States since the 1970's. Since 1992, when Bill Clinton charged that Republican tax cuts in the 1980's had broadened the gap between the rich and the middle class, it has become more sharply focused as a political issue. Many of the new studies are based on the data available then, but provide new analyses that coincide with a vigorous debate in Congress over provisions in the Republican Contract With America. Indeed, the drive by Republicans to reduce Federal welfare programs and cut taxes is expected, at least in the short term, to widen disparities between rich and poor. Federal Reserve figures from 1989, the most recent available, show that the wealthiest 1 percent of American households--with net worth of at least $2.3 million each-- owns nearly 40 percent of the nation's wealth. By contrast, the wealthiest 1 percent of the British population owns about 18 percent of the wealth there--down from 59 percent in the early 1920's. Further down the scale, the top 20 percent of Americans-- households worth $180,000 or more--have more than 80 percent of the country's wealth, a figure higher than in other industrial nations. Income statistics are similarly skewed. At the bottom end of the scale, the lowest-earning 20 percent of Americans earn only 5.7 percent of all the after-tax income paid to individuals in the United States each year. In Finland, a nation with an exceptionally even distribution of income, the lowest-earning 20 percent receive 10.8 percent of such income. The top 20 percent of American households in terms of income--$55,000 or more--have 55 percent of all after-tax income. ``We are the most unequal industrialized country in terms of income and wealth, and we're growing more unequal faster than the other industrialized countries,'' said Edward N. Wolff, an economics professor at New York University. He will publish two papers in coming months that compare wealth patterns in Western countries. Liberal social scientists worry about poor people's shrinking share of the nation's resources, and the consequences in terms of economic performance and social tension. Margaret Weir, a senior fellow in government studies at the Brookings Institution, called the higher concentration of incomes and wealth ``quite divisive,'' especially in a country where the political system requires so much campaign money. ``It tilts the political system toward those who have more resources,'' she said, adding that financial extremes also undermined the ``sense of community and commonality of purpose.'' Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington research group, observed, ``When you have a child poverty rate that is four times the average of Western European countries that are our principal industrial competitors, and when those children are a significant part of our future work force, you have to worry about the competitive effects as well as the social- fabric effects.'' Conservatives have tended to pay less attention to rising inequality, and some express skepticism about the statistics of their significance. Marvin H. Kosters, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute here, said he thought the gap, as measured, was being used as a false villain. ``I think we have important sociological problems,'' he said, ``but I don't think this gets at it all that well.'' Murray L. Weidenbaum, professor of economics at Washington University in St. Louis and chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Ronald Reagan in 1981-1982, said he thought the measures tended to overstate the gap by overlooking Government programs like food stamps or Medicaid. Still, he said he was uncomfortable with greater concentration of wealth ``unless there's a rapid turnover'' in which ``this year's losers will be next year's winners.'' He noted that many wealthy people have bad years and that a lot of middle-class people, like graduate students, briefly look statistically as if they are starving. The United States does have ``very substantial mobility,'' he added. Mr. Weidenbaum said he doubted that the Republican agenda, if it became law, would have any substantial effect on the gap. He added that the ``static'' impact might be somewhat more concentration, but that the ``dynamic'' impact would produce a bigger economic pie for all to share. There is no agreement as to why inequality is rising faster in the United States than elsewhere. Explanations include falling wages for unskilled workers as automation spreads, low tax rates on the rich during the 1980's, relatively low minimum wages, the decline of trade unions and the rapid rise in the 1980's of the stock and bond markets, in which rich people are heavily invested. The most common view seems to be that the United States has witnessed the more extreme effects of several international trends toward greater economic inequality. ``While many of the countries experienced many pieces of inequality, the United States is the one country that seems to have experienced all the pieces,'' said Peter T. Gottschalk, an economics professor at Boston College. Mr. Wolff's papers are based on data that run through 1989. But Census Bureau figures show that the trend toward greater income inequality continued during the first year of the Clinton Administration. While incomes rose for the most affluent two-fifths of the nation's households as the economy expanded in 1993, the rest of the country suffered from falling incomes, after adjusting for inflation. ``U.S. wage distribution is more unequal than other countries and we do less in terms of tax and transfer policy'' to cushion the disparities, said Timothy M. Smeeding, an American who is director of the Luxembourg Income Study Project. Mr. Smeeding is writing two papers drawing international comparisons of income. The project, based in Walferdange, Luxembourg, is supported by the national science foundations of nearly two dozen countries including the United States, and has gathered Government data from the member nations showing that the United States has the greatest inequalities in income distribution. Most economists believe that wealth and income are more concentrated in the United States than in Japan. But while data show that wealth is more equitably distributed in Japan, the Government there has not released enough detailed information to make statistical comparisons possible. Anecdotal information strongly suggests that Japan has a more equal distribution of income. The chief executives of Japanese manufacturing companies, for example, make an average of 10 times the pay of their workers. American chief executives in manufacturing are paid 25 times more, according to a 1994 study by Towers Perrin, a management consulting company. Professor Gottschalk said Canada and the Netherlands seemed to have avoided the trend toward relatively higher wages for high-skilled workers because they had sharply increased the number of college graduates. But other trends toward inequality, like a widening wage gap between experienced and inexperienced workers, have affected these two countries, as well. The time American inequality began to increase is also debated, with various economists putting it anywhere from the mid-1970's to the early 1980's. The double-digit inflation and stock market slumps that followed the quadrupling of oil prices in 1973 temporarily produced greater equality, as the stocks and bonds of the rich lost value. But that effect gradually disappeared, with Mr. Wolff's data showing that the concentration of wealth among the richest has consistently exceeded Britain's level since 1978. British records are especially complete, making such comparisons easier. The comparison with Britain is all the more striking because President Reagan and pursued broadly similar economic policies in the 1980's. Rising housing prices have helped the British middle class and limited the growth in inequality there. Still, Mr. Gottschalk said most evidence indicated that income inequality rose much faster in the United States and Britian than elsewhere. Richard V. Burkhauser, an economics professor at Syracuse University, said that in studying thousands of people in Germany and the United States over seven-year periods in the 1980's, he found that the two countries had roughly the same level of social mobility. As part of the Contract With America's tax provisions, the House on April 5 approved an increase in individuals' exemptions from the estate tax, which is the main Federal tax on wealth. By the Treasury's estimate, this could cut in half the number of people subject to the tax, to one-half of 1 percent of the estates of those dying each year. Republicans have argued that the overall tax-cut provisions would reduce annual tax bills by roughly equal percentages for rich and poor. Democrats say that because the annual tax bills of rich Americans are much larger, reducing them by about the same percentage means that most of the money goes to the rich rather than the poor or the middle class, further concentrating wealth and income.

Mr. OWENS

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

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, Members of this House certainly have the right to change their parties. But when such soul changing operations occur in ways that humiliate fellow Members, the swindled parties have a right to express their bitterness. Some Democrats can still hear the riotous mocking laughter in the Republican cloakroom as a former Democrat from Georgia announced that he was now ready to expose himself as a Republican. The problem for some of us is that this crossing of the bridge into the enemy camps was staged to achieve maximum humiliation for Democrats. The turncoat chose to first play the role of Pied Piper playing the tune of welfare reform compromise to gullible, juvenile Democrats. He led the children of the Donkey through their own manure of illusions. He even had some political babies believing that his decoy legislation might pass. The lesson of this latest fiasco should be perfectly clear: Democrats should stop wasting their energies laboring to construct compromises with the Republicans: Instead, Democrats must jettison their sluggishness and take a bold new set of alternatives to the masses of the caring majority that refused to vote in the last election. We must denounce the deals and loudly state exactly what Democrats intend to do for this Nation. Democrats must work to create jobs not only for welfare recipients but also stimulate job development for the unemployed and the underemployed. Democrats must fight for reform that eliminates taxes on personal wages of less than $50,000. Democrats must sponsor all necessary increases in the education and job training budget while we decrease wasteful spending on the CIA, Seawolf submarines and F22's for Defense. Democrats must insist that prosperous Germany and rich Japan pay the full cost for overseas bases. Democrats must do whatever is necessary to rebuild the Nation's physical infrastructure and provide greater economic security for citizens at all income levels. Instead of stepping in the manure of Trojan horse deals; instead of being confused by covenants and ad hoc compromises; Democrats should acknowledge and celebrate the solid rock foundations of Roosevelt's New Deal. On these foundations--full-employment, Federal deposit insurance, a national conservation program, fair labor standards, social security, et cetera--Democrats must resolve to keep building a magnificent tower of sharing that spreads light over all Americans. Manure of the Trojan Horse The Trojan plot They now reveal A low down dirty deal Majorities have Power appeal Democratic cowards Are an easy steal Loyalty the turncoats Never feel The Trojan plot They now reveal The real deal Camouflaged An Aldridge Ames fox In the Gephardt henhouse Solidarity forever Licking the rear Of the sly rude right Cunning Caucus Clan Benevolently bowing To the Benedict Arnolds Til all reason Sinks way out of sight Brief unity was real We rallied round the deal Liberals waded thru manure and dirt Even while it smelled and hurt We voted for the deal But the Judas hug Proved poisonous and unreal Prostitution was the thing A slimy partisan sting Compromise Is on the rise From the halls of the White House To the shores of the DNC Adulteration duplication Invitation is the Grand fascination Our nation needs to feel Which is the clear and pure Just and honest real deal The lesson should be learned No more should we be burned On this plagiarized chapter Set tight the sad seal Democrats to compromise Never again must kneel Destiny demands That we construct Own own dam daring deal The Trojan plot We all now know In a separate direction With dedicated speed Democrats must go.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, recent background checks of public officials and candidates for public office have appropriately caused concern. The legal practices of a professional physician have been thoroughly scrutinized. A sitting cabinet secretary has been cited for not telling absolutely everything about a personal sin. It may be that the background checks by the FBI have been assigned too great a role in deciding who is fit to serve in public office. Or it may be that the well developed skills of the brigade handling these background checks could perform a higher service for this increasingly mean-spirited and merciless nation. Why not go deeper with background checks and tell us about the ancestors of our public spokespersons? The world can clearly see that some of us are the descendants of the victims of the criminal slave industry. We do not know which officials are the descendants of the oppressors who were the beneficiaries of the heinous slave industry. Such identities were not important in the past; however, now a new level of evil has been unleashed and all kinds of knowledge is needed to compare this attempt to wipe out all progress achieved by the descendants of slaves. As the scorched earth fiscal policies of the Republican majority escalate in unison with a blitzkrieg attack on affirmative action, it would be illuminating to review a more detailed background of the leaders in this public policy assault. To increase their profits, over a two hundred year period, whose ancestors promoted slave breeding with teenage pregnancies? Whose ancestors for two hundred years worked mightily to obliterate all sense of family and humanity from slaves in order to make them more efficient beasts of burden? Backgrounds should be checked and it should be a crime to tell a lie to the FBI. It's a Crime To Tell a Lie It's a crime To tell a lie To the background brigade Of the FBI Did your great Great grandfather Rape his slaves Or torture the males Are you the descendant Of greedy knaves Enriched by human sales It's a crime To tell a lie To honest interrogators From the FBI To meet their labor need Did your ancestors Make teenage girls breed Were young females Forced to go Or could they choose Their own Romeo Slavery was legal In white men's eyes But judged a moral crime By the ruler of all skies Don't tell a lie To the background brigade Of the FBI List deeds done To cleanse the shame Attach records Which clear Your family's name Remember It's a crime To tell a lie To the background brigade Of the FBI.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I am disappointed that the Senate has not restored the Summer Youth Employment Program in the rescissions package. The rescissions package zeroed out the Summer Youth Employment Program, a very vitally needed program across the Nation in both rural and urban communities. Thirty-two thousand youngsters, teenagers, were employed last summer in the New York City Summer Youth Program. I am disappointed in the Senate, but I am shocked at the rumor I hear that the President will support this package and not veto it. If the President does not veto this package, it is an abandonment of the youth in our cities. We are going to restore money for national service. At the same time, you are going to leave the zero out for the Summer Youth Employment Program. That is unfair to any national service components that are going to go into our cities. To go into our cities and not have the youth there employed when they get there, they are going to find a hostile environment, I assure you. I appeal to the President. He should demand the restoration of the Summer Youth Employment Program or veto the bill. Please do not abandoned the poorest teenagers in America.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 1215 and in support of the Democratic substitute. Mr. Chairman, last weekend, we moved our clocks forward to begin daylight savings time. I was shocked that the Republicans allowed that to occur. After watching the action in this chamber for the past three months, I thought that our clocks only moved backward. Today, the Republican leadership brings to the floor yet another bill that takes us back in time. H.R. 1215 takes us back to the 1980's when Reagan-Bush policies created a huge chasm between the rich and poor. This bill sets out to make that gap even wider and drive a wedge between the ``haves'' and ``have-nots'' of our society. ``Republican tax fairness'' is as much an oxymoron as ``you have to be cruel to be kind.'' In the name of deficit reduction, House Republicans have slashed programs serving the nation's most needy by $76 billion, while preparing to dish out $189 billion in tax breaks, mostly to the nation's wealthiest Americans. Releasting $189 billion to the American people would not be so bad if it were done equitably, but equity and this bill are far from synonymous. The average tax cut for the top 1% of income-earning families would be $20,362 under the Republican proposal. But for families in the bottom one-fifth, the average tax cut would be a mere $36. So while wealthy families are out purchasing expensive, foreign cars, poor families will be buying a couple of tanks of gas. The Republican bill also takes us back to the early 1980's when giant corporations were tax freeloaders. Through massive corporate depreciation loopholes and the repeal of the corporate ``alternative minimum tax,'' H.R. 1215 would guarantee that more than half of the largest companies in America would pay no taxes at all, just as they did prior to enactment of the 1986 tax reform package. Additionally, Republicans are leading us in the wrong direction on capital gains tax policy. Capital gains already enjoy preferential treatment--a lower rate than earned income. That sends a message to hard-working Americans trying to move up the economic ladder that we value the small minority of people who own most of the nation's wealth more than we value the large majority of people who work at back- breaking jobs for barely a living wage. Mr. Speaker, that is the wrong message. Instead, we should be rewarding people who earn their income through hard work the most while rewarding those who earn their income passively the least; for the latter group already owns the wealth they need to take care of themselves--they are already at the top of the economic ladder. I have a bill that would lead us in this direction, the right direction. H.R. 538, the ``Citizens' Tax Relief Act of 1995,'' would lower the first income tax bracket from 15 percent to for it, a huge tax loophole would be eliminated--the favorable tax treatment of inherited property. To be equitable, the bill also would exempt from taxes the first $250,000 of capital gains on the sale of inherited homes (which is currently available only to individuals over the age of 55 and only for the first $125,000) and provide lower capital gains tax rates on the inherited property of heirs who pay the tax in the first four years after enactment of the bill. Currently, when a person dies and leaves property to a family member, the amount by which that property increased in value during the person's lifetime is never taxed. Such a policy is fundamentally unfair considering that if the same person sells the property before dying, the individual is taxed on the gain. My bill would reverse that policy. A study conducted by two Cornell University professors showed that more than $10 trillion worth of property will be inherited over the next 45 years. That means that there will be several trillion dollars of capital gains that should be taxed. If Congress takes advantage of this opportunity, we would have more than enough money to pay for my proposed tax cut, so that the bill actually would increase the revenues of the federal government. With the money left over, we could invest in job creation and job training programs so that every American who is willing and able to work would have the opportunity to do so. H.R. 1215 and other Republican proposals do very little to create jobs for those who need them. In fact, the combination of tax cuts and budget cuts is proving to be a one-two punch for America's poor. The bottom 26 percent of families who have incomes below $20,000 a year would receive less than 2 percent of the Republican tax cut benefits. Meanwhile, most of the budget reductions proposed by House Republicans have been in programs targeted to the poor. These reductions are only a small fraction of those needed to balance the budget over the next 7 years, which means that more bitter pills are on their way. Republicans have offered nothing to poor and working class Americans this session and have taken much away. Now they are proposing to make federal employees pay, on average, an additional $905 a year to participate in the federal retirement program. That will effectively wipe out any benefit federal employees might have received from the tax cut. Republicans, however, have offered sweetheart tax deals to the wealthiest corporations and sweetheart tax breaks for the wealthiest individuals. One of these individuals is Rupert Murdoch, a special friend of the Speaker of the House. The Republican leadership made sure that tax incentives for media conglomerates to sell broadcasting properties to minorities were eliminated from the law, but at the same time made sure that Rupert Murdoch's $150 million deal was untouched.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, the final word has not yet been said about the Republican swindle of the children who receive free lunches in the schools across our Nation. But the final, most authoritative figures have been established by the Congressional Budget Office. The very conservative but thorough CBO has estimated that the Republicans will capture slightly more than $2 billion from their block-granted School Lunch Program. This will be $2 billion more to go into the tax cut for the rich. This is a scenario filled with horror. It conjures up the image of the poster where Uncle Sam is pointing his finger and saying to potential military recruits: ``I need you!'' While the Republicans advocate a $50 billion increase in the defense budget and turn their backs on welfare for corporations and rich farmers, they are saying to the children of America: ``This nation needs your lunch.'' The Nation Needs Your Lunch Kids of America There is a fiscal crunch This great nation Now needs your lunch To set The budget right Go hungry For one night Don't eat What we could save Be brave Patriots stand out Above the bunch Proudly surrender lunch Kids of America Nutrition's not for you Sacrifice for the rich few When tummies hurt Go to bed Be a soldier And play dead The F22 then Might rescue you The Sea Wolf sub Might bring hot grub Now hear this There is a fiscal crunch This nation needs your lunch Pledge allegiance to the flag Mobilize your own brown bag The enemy deficit Must be defeated Nutrition suicide squads Are desperately needed Kids of America There is a fiscal crunch This great nation Now needs your lunch.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. What amount of debt was accumulated under each President?

Mr. OWENS. Is the gentleman aware of the fact that during the last 12 years, beginning with Ronald Reagan that debt accelerated greatly? Jimmy Carter, when he left office, left a national debt of less than $100 billion. It rose to almost $400 billion under President Reagan, who counseled that lower taxes would mean increased revenue. It never happened, and the deficit exploded. Jimmy Carter left there was $1 trillion worth of national debt and now there are $4 trillion, but your point is well taken. Pick the President you like the least. Over the last 26 years we have had how many Presidents? Seven. So I would pick out Jimmy Carter who was playing on the tennis court, and you would pick Ronald Reagan who you say would sleep through all the Cabinet meetings. Then you take Bill Clinton who despite all the rhetoric on cutting the budget is going to add a trillion dollars. Pick the President you want.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lengthy discussion of the tax cut that will be on the floor tomorrow. It is very relevant to the subject that I would like to discuss and that is the coming budget. It is all interwoven. You cannot separate one part from the other. The $17 billion in rescissions that have been passed by the House already, the tax cut tomorrow, the coming budget that we will deal with in May, all of it is interrelated and very complex. I wished there was some way to really simplify it so anybody could understand it without all of these lengthy discussions, but the discussion is necessary. The charts and the graphs, all of it is necessary but I think it could be summarized and we could take some guides to lead into an understanding of what is happening. There are a few basic facts that must be understood from the beginning and I want to start by explaining an interchange, a dialogue that I had with one of the speakers where I said that under Jimmy Carter the deficit was less than $100 billion and under Ronald Reagan it went up to $400 billion. I want to correct that. The deficit for one year under Jimmy Carter never exceeded $100 billion. I think the highest annual deficit that Jimmy Carter had in the budget was $64 or $68 billion. Under Ronald Reagan, it soared to an annual deficit of $400 billion. It all added up to, between the time Jimmy Carter left and the time Ronald Reagan left and the present, a $3 trillion difference. The deficit when Jimmy Carter left office was $1 trillion, overall deficit, and it is now $4 trillion. But the annual amount was as low as $64 or $68 billion under Jimmy Carter. It is the highest annual deficit that he ever created. Under Ronald Reagan it went up to more than $400 billion. Part of the reason it went up so high under Ronald Reagan was due to the fact that there was a philosophy dubbed by many before he was elected as voodoo economics which said that you could lower taxes, lower taxes but increase revenue. We have heard the same argument here on the floor today. Instead of offering it in a voodoo economic package, he came with higher mathematics and said something about cosines and sines and I guess what simultaneous equations must have shown. He said it was complicated. We how complicated you make it, he is still saying the same thing that Ronald Reagan said: You can lower taxes and at the same time increase revenue. No matter how many charts you bring, experience, the years under Ronald Reagan and the years after that have shown us that the lower taxes produce lower revenues. Why do you have a deficit? Because the revenues could not keep pace with the spending. The revenues did not match the previous revenues even after you had found ways to lower taxes. It is simple and any high school sophomore would validate that. You cannot lower taxes and increase revenues at the same time. That is a basic set that we have to put in place. We have to understand part of the problem is the continuing addiction to voodoo economics, the continuing addiction to a kind of magic, an attempt to make the public believe that you can have everything at the same time. The Contract With America proposes, first, to balance the budget by the year 2002 in a 7-year period. We usually handle budgets over a 5- year period. They projected they could balance the budget by the year 2002 and they have issued a statement that any budget that comes on the floor of the House during the budget debate in May must show that it is on a glide path toward a balanced budget by the year 2002. If it is on the glide path toward a balanced budget by the year 2002, it means about $59 billion is the amount of the deficit 5 years from now. Our budgets are using 5-year projections, so the budgets that come to the floor will be for a 5-year period and you must show that the deficit is down to $59 billion by the 5th year, which means that it is estimated in 2 more years that the budget would be totally balanced. They have created that condition, the insistence that there must be a balanced budget by the year 2002. At the same time, the same Contract With America says we are going to increase the defense budget. We are going to increase the defense budget dramatically, although there is absolutely no need to increase the defense budget. I will talk about that later. It insists that the defense budget must be increased. So you are going to balance the budget, you are going to increase the defense budget, and on top of that, there will be a cut in taxes, a cut in taxes which would generate additional deficit if you do not have simultaneous cuts in expenditures. So we are down to the problem, is what shall the expenditures be that are cut. If you out there have asked the question, ``Why did the Contract With America in the fine print or no print at all, why did it go into such strange budget saving tactics as cutting school lunches?'' The Congressional Budget Office says that, yes, there will be a cut over a 5-year period, it is more than $2 billion when you add all the factors in. The conservative Congressional Budget Office confirms that there will be a cut of $2 billion, a savings of slightly more than $2 billion. Why did the Republican majority reach into the school lunch program to get a paltry $2 billion? Because that is part of what they need to make all of these magical things work together. In order to balance the budget by the year 2002 and give a tax cut, they need every dime they can get. So they have reached into the school lunch program. They have reached into the Aid to Families With Dependent Children Program and related programs, food stamps. They have reached in there to get additional billions of dollars. They are cutting in order to be able to give the tax cut and at the same time move toward a balanced budget. Why do we have to have in the middle of the year a rescission package which reaches into an existing budget? We are in this budget year now. We have allocated that money after a lot of deliberation. We authorized the money. We appropriated the money. It is in the budget now, but they reached in to get $17 billion, slightly more than $17 billion to pull it out in order to save money and move toward the balanced budget and to give money for a tax cut. What do they get? What did they reach in to get? The biggest cut was on low-income housing in HUD. Seven billion dollars was cut out of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, most of it for low-income housing. What did the get from education? Most of the programs they cut in education, $1.7 or $1.8 billion out of the education budget. Now they are contemplating moving toward a cut in the student loan program. The student loan program is subsidized. We pay interest on the loans during the time the students are in college. And what they are saying is we will take that away, which increases the amount of the student loan programs to the students and places a burden on that segment of our population which we are most dependent upon to carry forward the America of the year 2000, the America of new world order which must have the best possible technicians and scientists and managers. They will come out of your colleges and universities. So we are going to tamper with the mechanisms that allow us to educate students. We are going to lessen the numbers of students. So these are the parameters of what we are dealing with. Where shall we get the money to balance the budget and, at the same time, give this tremendous tax cut to the rich? Because I think all the charts confess, when it is all over, the charts say that the rich will get the biggest benefits on the Republican side. We heard arguments that, yes, the rich are paying the most taxes; and by, yes, they are paying the most taxes, they, in essence, said, of course they will get the benefits because they are paying the most taxes. I am sure there are many Americans out there who would like to share in the wealth and would be happy to pay the taxes that the very wealthy pay. If they had more money they would pay more taxes, and they would be quite pleased to be in that category. So any way you cut it there is an admission that the people who are going to gain most from the tax cut are the wealthiest Americans. They gave the percentages. They showed the graphs and the charts. I will not go back into that, but it is clear what is going to happen. Then the last speaker issued a challenge: What are you going to cut if you are not going to deal with the deficit? It looks as if any Democrats who want to bring a budget to the floor of the House and offer that budget as an alternative budget is going to have to play by the rules that have been set by the Republican majority. They say you must present a budget which shows that it is going to be balanced by the year 2002. Any budget that comes to the floor as a substitute, and we hope that they will allow substitute budgets as we have had in past years, will have to be on a glide path and have a deficit in 5 years of no less than $59 billion. So I am the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus alternative budget. We are working hard to prepare that alternative budget. We accept the challenge. We do not think that it is necessary. We do not think that you should create an artificial crisis the way the Republican majority has done. They created an artificial crisis, and we have to squeeze everybody very hard in order to meet these artificially created goals. But if that is the challenge, we accept the challenge. The last speaker sort of threw that challenge to the Democrat side here and said, ``What are you going to cut.'' Well, we say that we will balance the budget. We will cut what is necessary in order to balance any budget we bring, and we are going to make cuts that need to be cut. There is waste in government. There is waste in government that can be cut. There is waste in the defense budget that can be cut. There is a bloated CIA that can be cut. There are places where we will show that the American people can get a better deal with a more streamlined government without having to cut the people who are most in need. The Congressional Black Caucus will again offer its own substitute budget as we move toward the year 2000 and into the 221st century. More than ever before, our alternative budget is needed to offer a vision of America which includes all of the people. America and the Republican majority is a vision for an elite minority. An elite minority will be taken care of, and they are proposing to go dump overboard certain other groups. They are going to play a game of triage and just forget about certain segments of America. They have cut part of the budget which deals with children with disabilities. Part of the Social Security budget has already been proposed to be cut. They are cutting school lunch programs. They are going to cut the aid to dependent children programs. Wherever they are cutting, low income housing, the HEAP program which provides money for heat for people during the winter, all of those cuts are for people most in need. Americans who are most in need are the ones who are going to be cut. We are going to show how we can offer a vision of America that does not play the game of triage, that is a vision of America which includes all of the people. To counter the scorched earth approach of the oppressive elite minority which presently controls the House of Representatives, the Congressional Black Caucus must discharge its long-standing obligation to present a budget which promotes the general welfare and advances the interests of the caring majority. The overwhelming majority of American people can be taken care of in the process of moving toward the year 2000 and balancing the budget and streamlining government. The CBC, the Congressional Black Caucus caring majority alternative budget will encompass the interests of all Americans. However, it will also represent a moral counterattack against the forces of the oppressive elite minority which have launched a blitzkrieg against the political, economic and social infrastructure of the African-American community. Our budget will speak for the caring majority of America. It will also specifically address the issue of what the oppressive elite minority which presently controls the House of Representatives intends to do to the black community in America, to the African- American community. We have been singled out for special attention. Black people in America are presently being subjected to a powerful and dangerous double-barrel assault. Devastating budget cuts of programs developed over the last 60 years threaten to deny basic necessities to ordinary black citizens and thus break their spirits and cripple their will to fight back. At the same time, a dirty war, assault on affirmative action, designed to serve as a campaign weapon in the 1996 elections, will seek to brainwash America into the belief that every black is a new kind of Willie Horton threatening to rob them of their job. You will recall in the Bush campaign against Dukakis, they were running neck and neck until an advertising campaign was introduced of a monstrous person who had been in prison and released and committed murder and all of a sudden, all you saw on the screens was this black Willie Horton and the threat that he was to the American people and that turned the tide and the polls began to show Mr. Bush climbing over Mr. Dukakis. It was such a great success, it has been repeated in various ways since then. In the campaign of Harvey Gant against a senator, who is now sitting in the Senate from North Carolina, there was a close race until the senator from North Carolina introduced a campaign ad which showed a white hand with a job application and a black hand reaching out to take the job application away from them. So that kind of racist appeal, the gut racist appeal, has proven to be workable. It is a case where civilized people appeal to very primitive instincts. Parties that used to act very responsibly, both the Republican party and the Democratic party, the leadership at one time refused to succumb to the temptation to make their campaigns racist. But the Republicans broke with that tradition when Ronald Reagan decided to go to Philadelphia, MS and launch his campaign. Philadelphia, MS is a place where three civil rights workers were murdered, two Jewish young people and a black--Chaney, Schwerner, and Goodman were murdered in Philadelphia, MS. Mr. Reagan chose to go there to launch his campaign and send a message to the south and the people who believed, like those in Philadelphia, MS, that there was a new Republican party. And since then the use of racism, the use of racism in campaigns has been dignified, has been made acceptable. So we go from Philadelphia, MS to Willie Horton and now the kingpin of the 1996 campaign is going to be an assault on affirmative action. The budget process is one attack on the African-American community. The assault on affirmative action is the other. Tonight I am dealing with the budget process. For African-Americans, the present declaration of war by the oppressive elite majority which controls the Congress represents the clearest and most overwhelming threat to the black community since the first black reconstruction effort was brutally demolished shortly after the Civil War. There were many Members of Congress who were black at one time and, shortly after the Civil War, when the reconstruction effort was underway, they came into Congress. And after the Hayes agreement, the blacks were driven from Congress as they were driven from office all over the country. And the Ku Klux Klan began the riots and murder, brutality, lynching, 100 years of that took place. So we are not going back to that, but there is an attempt to roll us back into that by taking the second reconstruction, we call the second reconstruction from the time of Martin Luther King, the Montgomery bus boycott to the time we got the Voting Rights Act. It was the launching of the second reconstruction, that reconstruction now they are going to attempt to demolish. The CBC caring majority alternative budget will be a major component of the master plan which will guide the counteroffensive that we must launch in order to guarantee our survival. Because this budget will clarify and highlight important goals and objectives for all of us, it will serve to strengthen and accelerate a renewed struggle by the African- American community with the help of the other millions who make up the caring majority. The other millions are the enlightened white Americans, Latinos, Asians, native Americans, Jews, Christians, immigrants, and important people everywhere. We are confident that with their help, the total caring majority, we will be able to defeat the deadly design of the oppressive elite majority. We are confident that we should be able to overcome. We have, in the Congressional Black Caucus, laid out a set of about 11 basic principles and themes that will guide our preparation of the budget. As you know, we will not be doing the budget until May. The Committee on the Budget is late in that process so we will not be considering it on the floor here until May. But we have set out a set of principles that will guide us. First of all, we began by condemning the entire rescission package that I have just spoken about a few moments ago. The rescission package was the launching of those devastating cuts primarily aimed at the poor, the urban poor and more specifically aimed at the African- American community. At least 65 percent of the cuts in that $17 billion rescission package, 65 percent of those cuts are aimed at poor urban communities. We condemn that. We hope that the President will veto that package. We hope that the Senate, first of all, the Senate will make some drastic changes. But if they do not make those changes, we hope that the President will veto that package. It is necessary that those $17 billion in cuts not take place in this year's budget. We also particularly condemn the zeroing out of the Summer Youth Employment Program. We call for the immediate restoration, as the number one item that is most urgent, immediate restoration of the summer youth employment program. The Summer Youth Employment Program provides jobs for teenagers during the summer. It is a very successful program. It has worked very well. Nobody challenges its effectiveness. It provides 32,000 jobs in New York City. And in big cities all across America it provides thousands of jobs during the summer for teenagers. been given except that it is part of the plot aimed at the poorest communities, the urban communities and particularly aimed at the African-American community. We insist that the teenage employment program in the summer be restored. Item three is the basic principle that we support a tax cut for the working class, as set forth in the progressive caucus budget. They have a tax cut for the people who make the least amount of money, and we are united with the progressive caucus on giving a tax cut to the people who are working people and need the cut the most. Item five, we support the establishment of a commission on creative new revenue options to develop new sources of Federal revenue and shift the primary tax burden from personal income taxes. I agree with the other side that personal income taxes should be cut. We should find ways to cut them and cut them fairly. Personal income taxes are too great a portion of the overall Federal revenue package. There was a time when corporate income taxes bore at least half the burden of the Federal revenue package. Corporate income taxes need to be raised. But that is not creative. That is just an adjustment that needs to happen. We need to look at more creative sources of revenue. As I have said on this floor before, we are selling the spectrum above us. There was a time when the Government gave land out to people. They did not sell it. When this country was first established, you got land grants and there were land rushes, various ways that people were almost given the land. Now we have above our heads a realization that above our heads is wealth. The atmosphere above our heads, the spectrum can be sold and is being sold. Why not find ways to get more revenue from the leasing or the selling of the spectrum? Technology has brought us to this point. The technology was produced by the genius of people over many, many years, but it has brought us to the point where suddenly the atmosphere above our heads is valuable. It is worth a great deal of money. Let us find a way to tax that for the benefit of all Americans. That is just one of the taxes. Let us place a royalty on all the products that have been developed with Government research. Let us go back and place a royalty on them and let us make certain that all future products developed with Government research have a royalty on them which exists forever, going to the American people, giving the American people the benefits of those technological advances. There are a number of ways we could change the tax structure, end personal income taxes as we know it. Get rid of personal income taxes or bring it down to such a low level that it is a minor part of the budget by finding other creative ways to tax people. We want to call for this commission. I see the leadership of the Senate, the Republican leadership of the Senate, the Republican leadership of the House have called for a similar commission. We join with them in the call for the commission, and we would like to offer some ideas. And if they are not going to be creative, we call for creation of a special commission that is going to look for real creative options and not find new ways to bleed the same old people with personal income taxes. We have a very important item in this set of principles with respect to cutting programs and cutting expenditures. We support means testing for all agricultural subsidy programs. Here is a bombshell. Here is Republican pork. Here is rancid Republican pork. Go look in the districts of people who represent Kansas and a large part of the Midwest, who claim that they do not want any help from Government. They have been getting help from Government for years and years. A program created by the New Deal to help farmers has been expanded to a program which is an almost racketeering enterprise. Checks are being pumped into big cities to people who have never set foot on a farm. So the agriculture subsidy programs and various programs run by the Department of Agriculture need to be examined closely. We propose to streamline and downsize the huge Department of Agriculture. They did a great job so we have a most effective industry, an agriculture industry that is unparalleled anywhere in the world. Government can step out now. The agriculture does not need to be the second largest bureaucracy. Right now the Department of Agriculture is the second largest bureaucracy in the country, second only to the Pentagon in the number of employees. Instead of calling for the eradication of the Department of Education, which we need very badly, let us downsize and streamline the Department of Agriculture. We will show you how to save money in that process. We support the collection of fees for the difference between current rates and market rates for electric power, the various power marketing commissions, administrations are giving away revenue that could be gained by charging market rates for electricity where Federal projects are involved in pricing that electricity. We support the maintenance of foreign aid at the present level. We support the continuation of Federal benefits to all eligible immigrants. We support the elevation of education and job training as the highest priority item in the budget. We are going to offer increases. We are going to call for increases in education programs. We want Head Start to be available for all eligible children, all eligible children. We want no cuts in the college student loan programs or the work study programs or anything related to higher education. We are going to place the increases where they should be. Finally, we will call the drastic cuts in defense. We do not need, after the cold war is over and the evil empire is defeated, we do not need to spend $28 billion, $28 billion for the CIA. We could, over the 5-year period, cut the CIA by 10 percent a year and by the fifth year you would have it down to about a $14 billion budget. Nobody really knows. This is a conservative estimate, that the CIA and intelligence agentagency budget is $28 billion. First of all, we would like to end the secrecy. We see no reason why the American people cannot know exactly what this fumbling, very deadly, some things have been revealed, it is a very dangerous agency. It should let the American people know what the budget is. We want to cut the budget that is there. We certainly want to cut the F-22. The F-22 is a fighter plane, the most sophisticated ever conceived. It is being manufactured in the district of the Speaker of the House, Marietta, GA. It has great benefits for the district, but we do not need it. We do not need a super-sophisticated fighter plane because we already own the most sophisticated fighter plane already. If the Russians are not building another one, no other country is building another one, why do we need a plane to compete with our own sophisticated fighter plane? So we will cut the defense budget. The Congressional Black Caucus budget will go forward to achieve balance, but we will show you where the waste is. We will show you what sensible, compassionate people will look at. We can cut without throwing people overboard. We can cut and have a balanced budget, a sensible budget without cutting school lunches, without making the lives of senior citizens miserable. We do not want to touch Medicaid. We do not want to touch Medicare. We can show you what the vision of America should really be like. We represent the caring majority as opposed to the oppressive elite majority. Our budget will reflect that. The caring majority budget will be for all of the people of America.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, last Friday, on March 31, President Clinton and President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the Secretary General of the United Nations presided over ceremonies in Haiti for the transition from the multinational force led by the United States to the U.N. force. It was an impressive ceremony where the nations of the world, many contingents of the nations of the world, agreed to submit and march under the U.N. banner in order to continue the progress in Haiti toward democracy. In the United States, this historic landmark received only moderate attention, but throughout the world and the international community, where most of the people of this planet live in underdeveloped nations, there was great rejoicing. I think that this was a special occasion where a new and special high standard was set for the new world order. A model for protecting democracy has been set in place as we go into the new world order. The U.S. Government also has given new meaning to the concept of superpower. The U.S. superpower was used in this case to nurture democracy. The U.S. superpower was used to give the poorest nation in this hemisphere an opportunity to be born again. The U.S. superpower has demonstrated unmatched generosity and compassion. This is a superpower that has earned the right to prosper for a thousand years. This is a superpower that all Americans should fight to maintain. The hard job has been done. The great risks have been taken. It took a lot of guts by President Clinton to make unpopular decisions. Troops went into Haiti at great risk, anticipating great risk at first, but the decision was made despite that, and we have moved the situation with almost no casualties. The great risks have been taken. But now a very important part of the job remains, and that is to help Haiti through a period of economic development. The nations of the world have made a commitment in Paris several months ago; nearly $1.9 billion was committed to various activities to improve the Haitian economy, to jump start the economy until the private sector could take over. It is unfortunate that despite the fact that this decision was made several months ago, almost no dollars have flowed to Haiti. The bureaucrats of the world, the bureaucrats in the various financial world organizations have moved at such a slow pace that they are tending to smother the greatness of this magnificent international deed. I would like to quote from Strobe Talbott's report to the Congress some time ago: For its part, the international community is doing its fair share by providing aid and technical assistance. Prior to the deployment of the multinational force, international donors and lenders met in Paris in August and determined that Haiti would need $650 million in the first year after democracy was restored. This group met again in Paris last month to review the progress that has been made since President Aristide's return, and the general assessment of this progress was so positive that the donors actually pledged $1.2 billion, nearly double what had originally been proposed. It is anticipated that $900 million of that $1.2 billion will be available over the next 12 to 18 months. That was anticipated several months ago, but it has not happened. The bureaucrats are not moving the paper. The bureaucrats, because of their indifference or maybe laziness, what ever, the bureaucrats are threatening to smother the progress toward reestablishment of democracy in Haiti. Troops have been there. Hard political decisions have been made. All has been put in place, but very little is happening. I think Mr. Strobe Talbott again summed up the situation very well: Mr. Chairman, the best defense of our Haiti policy is a simple one: We intervened in Haiti because it was in our national interest. We intervened after every other alternative had been exhausted, and we intervened because it was the right thing to do. Mr. Chairman, the American intervention in Haiti has been successful thus far. Now we must see the job through, and that means until the completion of the United Nations mission 12 months from now. As I have already stressed, we cannot solve Haiti's basic problems. The Haitian people must solve it themselves. But they will do it with the help of the international community. international community's bureaucrats, executives, failed to do their job at this point. Let us move the paper. Let us do the job. Let us complete the job of restoring Haiti's democracy. Let us do what is necessary to rebuild the economy of Haiti.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, is there a list of Members for 5-minutes?

Mr. OWENS. There is a list? Can we follow the list?

Mr. OWENS. Can we follow the list?

Mr. OWENS. Well, I thought the practice was to follow the list, and then after the list is finished to entertain unanimous-consent requests.

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I object.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow the Republican assault on sane gun control laws begins. A hearing will be held on the repeal of the assault weapons ban. And that is only the beginning. Gov. George Allen of Virginia wants felony-free citizens to be able to carry concealed weapons in public. Never mind that gun control measures have been a God send for our children's safety. The Brady law alone has stopped 70,000 felons and other prohibited individuals from buying handguns. But facts do not seem to matter to the Republican juggernaut bank-rolled by the NRA. The gun industry with its fistful of dollars has churned out 210 million guns into circulation in this country. That's more than one gun per adult. Moreover, the gun industry provides yet another example of corporate welfare. It is exempt from the product safety laws which cover every other industry. This special treatment must stop. I have introduced the Firearms Safety and Violence Prevention Act, H.R. 915, which would halt this form of welfare for the gun industry by recognizing firearms for what they are--inherently dangerous consumer products. The bill would give the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms [ATF] the ability to set safety standards, issue recalls of defective firearms, and mandate warnings. The firearms industry's assertion that guns don't kill you rings as hollow as the discredited promises of tobacco companies that cigarettes don't cause cancer. For more than a century, America's gun manufacturers have operated in the shadows, avoiding public scrutiny. It is time for Congress to look behind the gun store counter to the industry that manufactures these deadly weapons.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, a large part of what we do here in the House of Representatives relates to budgets and appropriations. I would say 75 percent at least of what we do is related to the budget and appropriations process. It is the most important thing we do, and I think that there needs to be far more discussion of the budget and appropriations process. It is a highly complex process, it is a very important process and the details are very important also. Mr. Speaker, one of the problems with term limits is that it trivializes the functions of the Congress. It makes it appear that this is an easy job and it is easy to understand what goes on here. The budget and appropriations process alone is a tremendously difficult job, and no one would recommend for a difficult job related to their health care that they go and seek the surgeon who has the least number of years, that nobody wants to have open heart surgery done by a surgeon with 15 or 12 years experience. On the contrary, most people seek the most- life and death matter. If you have a complicated legal case in the courts, you go seeking a lawyer who understands the complexities of the law and who has a lot of experience in the practice of law. No one automatically says it is more desirable to have a lawyer who has been practicing for 6 years only or 12 years only. That is a bit ridiculous. The whole premise, the arguments that I have heard for term limits, are unscientific, they are illogical, they just do not hold water. It is based on an assumption that the work of the Congress is trivial, anybody can do it. We should have a citizen Congress. Any citizen can make these decisions. Yes, we should have a Congress more reflective of the citizenry. We should have a greater cross section of the citizenry. But to throw out experience as being important is to say that you do not think the job that we do here is important. Eisenhower was how old when he led the forces in Europe? MacArthur was how old when he--not how old, but how many years had they been in the Army? How many years had they been generals. Would you want inexperienced generals to lead your armies? No, nobody would want that because that is too important. That is a life or death matter. You would not want a surgeon who is inexperienced; you would not want a lawyer who is inexperienced when a large amount of money is at stake or even in a civil suit, let alone a criminal case. So why suddenly does it become a virtue to have less experience? To deal with the budget process here, to deal with the appropriations process requires a great deal of experience. It may be that there are some arguments, like those we have just heard, which are very important and there ought to be a more scientific and reasoned analysis of what this body is all about and what kind of structure we may need to deal with term limitations and being most efficient. It may be that the prohibition on being Speaker for more than 8 years is a good idea. It may be that the prohibition on serving as the chairman of a committee for more than 8 years or 6 years, whatever it is, is a good idea because with the size of the body, the concentrations of power may be the problem and not so much that 435 people have been here too long. One of the charts that was just presented said that the average Member of Congress stays 8 years; 8 years is what the average is. Then they went on to say the leadership is here for 22 years. There is a problem then with leadership that may concentrate too much power for too long. Let us correct that problem.

Mr. OWENS. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

Mr. OWENS. There are no term limits on special interest groups, no term limits on bureaucrats, no term limits on the lobbyists.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 849, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act Amendments of 1995. This legislation would permanently exempt State and local public safety agencies from the Age Discrimination in Employment Act in order to permit them to consider age in their hiring and retirement policies. This exemption is urgently needed to provide State and local agencies the flexibility they need to ensure that all public safety employees are fit and able to carry out their very demanding jobs. Comparable legislation passed the House unanimously on two occasions last year but was prevented from even being considered by the Senate by the threat of a filibuster. It is imperative that there be no further delay. As a rule, Congress must avoid exempting whole classes of employees from the protection of civil rights laws unless it is absolutely necessary. We should not carve out exemptions merely because an employer finds civil rights compliance to be costly or inconvenient. Exemptions must be made only when there is a strong compelling need to do so and there is no other reasonable alternative. This is one of those rare instances. State and local fire and police agencies must be exempted from the ADEA in order to protect and promote the safety of the public. This is literally a life or death matter. If a police officer or firefighter cannot adequately perform their duties, people die and people get hurt. Age does indeed affect an individual's ability to perform the duties of a public safety officer. This is not a stereotype. This is not ageism. This is a medical fact. Physical ability declines with age. For example, aerobic capacity declines at a rate of 1 percent per year after age 30. Strength declines at a rate of 10-13 percent every decade. The risk of sudden incapacitation also clearly increases with age, increasing sixfold between the age of 40 and 60 years of age. These physical effects are not experienced by all people to the same degree or at the same precise time. But they pose a significant problem to public safety agencies in their efforts to maintain a fit and effective work force. A public safety agency can respond to age-related declines in ability in 1 of 2 ways. It can establish an age-based mandatory retirement policy. This will reduce the risks to public safety, but it may result in some capable individuals being forcibly retired. Alternatively, an agency can try to use performance and physical ability testing to try to screen out employees who might pose a threat to public safety. Unfortunately, there are numerous problems with trying to use tests as an alternative to age which makes this option untenable. It is simply not possible to devise a test for all tasks carried out by a public safety employee. For example, no test could have possibly simulated the kinds of physical conditions public safety employees in California have faced over the past few weeks of severe flooding. No test, no matter how comprehensive, can measure all of the skills and abilities a public safety employee must possess. Moreover, there is no current test that can effectively screen for the risk of sudden incapacitation among asymptomatic individuals. A mandatory retirement age, used in conjunction with screening for other risk factors, continues to be the most effective way of reducing the risk of sudden incapacitation by public safety officers. Testing can also have a very serious negative impact on other individuals and groups that historically have been discriminated against in employment. Tests have been proven to have an adverse impact on women and minorities. Women on average are less strong than men. Written tests may underpredict the on-the-job performance of minorities. To assure that such factors did not prevent women and minorities from serving in public safety positions, many agencies within-group normed the results of certain tests. Unfortunately, a provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 now prohibits that practice. As a result, any increase in the use of physical and mental testing of public safety employees will jeopardize employment opportunities for women and minorities. Another, but lesser concern is that it is enormously expensive to administer performance and ability tests on a periodic basis to all public safety employees, consuming scarce resources that are needed to keep police on the streets. In addition, testing often entails considerable litigation over the content of the tests. In Tennessee, for example, there were several years of litigation over the State wildlife officer's entrance exam which focused on the question of whether the fences recruits had to scale should be 8 or 10 feet tall. For these reasons, testing does not today represent a viable alternative to age-based agencies. If public safety agencies are exempted from the ADEA, those agencies who wish to experiment with testing in lieu of retirement ages will be able to do so. But given the uncertainty about the effectiveness, effects and implications of using tests as a substitute for age, the Congress must not force every public safety agency to implement them. This would be the effect if we did not enact an exemption. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting passage of H.R. 849. All public safety employees must be fit, effective, and fully capable of fulfilling their duties. An ADEA exemption will assure that State and local police and fire agencies will be able to pursue that goal using the same age-based employment criteria which is now used by the FBI, the Secret Service and other Federal public safety agencies.