Major Owens

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, most of the world knows that Ossie Davis was the ``Man with a Plan''. He urged the African American leadership to unite behind a blueprint for liberation, progress and prosperity. Today I would also like to note that Ossie Davis was the man always available to support a just cause. His great fame and success never led him to succumb to the isolation of stardom. He was a natural superstar who never lost his touch with activists and the common man. Personally I owe many debts to Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee. I first met him at civil rights rallies in the sixties. When he was called he showed up for rallies and demonstrations and never indicated any fear of reprisals at the box office. In 1982, as I campaigned for Congress, he responded to my call for help and hosted a fundraiser for Major Owens, the little known, underdog candidate for the district previously represented by Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm. Some years later he responded to my plea for his presence at an ``All-Night Teach-In'' held at the Borough of Manhattan Community College to protest devastating budget cuts of education and social programs. My last face to face meeting with Ossie Davis occurred at a Brooklyn College ``Rally for the Restoration of Democracy in Haiti''. That was in October of 2004, just four months ago. Again, not worrying about the consequences of his public statement, Ossie Davis denounced the murder of democracy in Haiti by the Bush administration. To the very end he was a ``Man with a Plan'' available to promote truth, freedom and justice. His life and the record of his achievements will long endure to inspire millions in the future.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, we are all celebrating Iraq's election, and I certainly join in the celebration. But I hope we realize that the great slogan that was almost universal, every candidate, every party says, Vote and the Americans will go home soon; the more you vote, the faster we will get the occupying troops out. I think we should understand that. We have a problem here with the trust of the Iraqi people. The problem is, who will gain the trust of the Iraqi people. Will we be able to gain that trust by behaving in a certain way, not just speaking and talking about guaranteeing liberty and freedom, but also justice? Will we be able to gain the trust before the outside forces of bin Laden? Time is on bin Laden's side. The longer we wait, the longer we hesitate, the longer we occupy Iraq and stay there, the more he will gather in new forces and recruit new people to come in. So we don't have an infinite amount of time. We should prepare an exit strategy and move on that exit strategy immediately. The problem is, how do you gain the trust of the people of Iraq in order to guarantee that the insurgents will have no support among the people. The less support the insurgents have among the people, the more secure Iraq will become. Step one in any successful departure from Iraq, and I think we can have a successful end to this occupation, step one in that successful end to the occupation would be to put a discussion of oil on the table. An open and truthful discussion of the oil revenues of Iraq should be on the world table. Oil is part of the problem. Oil can be a part of the solution. In fact, oil is possibly the major problem, and oil can be the major solution. Let us have an honest discussion of what is going to happen to the revenue earned by the oil of Iraq. Iraq is quite fortunate. Despite all of its great troubles, it does have beneath the soil enough oil to keep the country prosperous for many decades to come. It does have enough oil to rebuild the country and to do things that resources can provide. Within the next 90 days, if you want a successful exit strategy, within the next 90 days a conference should be called. An international conference should be called on the distribution of the oil revenue of Iraq. What will the distribution of that revenue be? I think the conference should guarantee that the great majority of the revenue, most of the revenue will go to the Iraqi people. Whether that is paid directly to the Iraqi Government or whether it is through some taxing arrangement on privately produced oil from private companies does not matter. Some way, we should guarantee that the benefits of the oil, the revenue, most of it, goes to the people of Iraq. There are other problems, because people have invested in the oil wells of Iraq. There are problems, because a great deal of money has to be poured in the provision of technical assistance. Technical assistance, and the cost of that, is part of the problem with respect to France and Russia's and Germany's involvement in Iraq before the war. France, Russia, all must be invited to the table. Germany, China, everybody should come to the table. We need the sanctioning of whatever agreement is reached by the entire international community. If the Iraqis will trust what happens and believe it is true, it must have all the people at the table who can guarantee it will be carried out appropriately. Step two would be to say, once we have dealt with the problem of oil, and there is so little discussion of the problem of oil, of what exactly is the role of oil in this whole conflict, it is frightening. It is dishonest, of course, not to discuss oil and how oil brought us there and how oil is being handled right now. When we moved our troops into Iraq, most people don't know it, but we immediately secured the oil wells. Before they dealt with the museums or the city halls, the hospitals or any other facility, the Marines and the invading forces secured the oil wells. There are some written agreements already, I understand, that the oil industry in the future in Iraq must be privatized. I do not know how such agreements can be enforced. I do not know how they could be generated, but I hear rumors that privatization of the oil is a condition that is written somehow into the agreement with the Iraqi interim government, and it has to be a part of the constitution, et cetera. Oil is a problem. Let us guarantee that the greater benefits of that oil go to the Iraqi people. Once you have done that, in the next 90 days, that can be done, once you have done that, then steps can be taken to move forward toward a constitutional government. The people elected now were elected primarily to write a constitution. They should be given an incentive by being told that after this constitutional process, a certain number of days after that process, we are leaving. They should be given that incentive. I understand the scheduling probably is a year away. I do not know exactly what the timetable is at that point. But if they have to delay, then they delay the occupation. If they move it faster, there will be some incentive there so that they will see the occupying troops leave that much sooner. It does not take rocket science to resolve this problem if there is going to be real honesty. The great fear of the Iraqi people is that they will get no justice. And if they fear they will get no justice, they will turn more and more to outsiders. Bin Laden and his insurgents will become stronger and stronger, and more and more Americans will lose their lives, and more and more dollars from American taxpayers will be pumped into this situation needlessly. I say that we should understand that. Oil was the problem and oil can be the final solution.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, the President has presented his budget to the Congress. We have begun a process which is the most moral process our government undertakes each year. The budget of the United States is a moral statement. The President begins that budget process by making his own moral statement. The process goes forward with the Congress deliberating; and when we come out at the end of the year with the appropriations based on this budget, we are making a statement to the Nation and to the world of what our moral values are, stating what are our moral values. This budget shows our moral values are really in serious trouble, because I think this is a budget of war against peace. You could call this a war-against-peace budget. It is not exaggerating to say it is kind of a barbarity-against-civilization budget. Because what we are doing is saving money. We are going to save money in all the areas which would carry forward our civilization and benefit peace and benefit a productive society; we are going to save that money in order to put it into the military. That is what this budget is all about. It is a very dishonest budget to begin with, because the largest items of expenditure for this coming year are not even put in the budget. We are going to be asked in a few weeks to vote on a budget which includes $80 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That is not included in this budget. We ought to be honest about that. We ought to be honest about the fact that Social Security proposals are being made which will require tremendous amounts of money to be drained from the budget also. So it is not an honest budget to begin with. It is not a moral budget, or it is a moral budget is that reflects bad morals. The morality that we must undertake here is understanding what the Congressional Black Caucus always has understood, which is that this is the most important item on the agenda of the Congress; and we must deal with items like education, like health care, housing, et cetera. We have disparities which exist and impact upon the black community, and those disparities really impact on the total working-family community, and the majority of Americans are impacted. So as we pursue the closing of the gap between those disparities, we are also pursuing that for the rest of America, as well as for the African American community. The chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus will elaborate on that more in a few minutes. I just want to say that this omission that we are dealing with here tonight is the beginning of the process. We are going to have debates, negotiation, and legislation. I hope that those of us who debate and discuss and negotiate will show greater moral fiber than has been displayed so far, and that at the end of this process in the fall, when we begin to vote on the appropriations bills, there will be a different moral manifesto of the Nation emerging, unlike the one in the statement made by this budget. The way a nation spends its money, as I said before, provides the whole world with indisputable evidence of what its real moral values are. Our true beliefs are reflected in the way we allocate our resources; and here I will just give one example. They have cut $4 billion worth of education programs. The President and the White House propose to cut $4 billion worth of education programs. At the same time, we have a program called the Missile Defense Systems program, and it is adding, it is increasing that budget. It will now be $8 billion. Twice as much as is being cut for education is going to be spent this coming year on the Missile Defense program, which does not work. And they say that they are cutting the education programs because they do not work. This defense program has been around for some time. It used to be called Star Wars. All kinds of different labels have been placed upon it, but we read occasionally about them testing it and rockets going off in the sky and misfiring; and every time that happens it is $75 million or $100 million. The failed test costs us millions of dollars, yet we go on, we continue. It does not work, it costs millions of dollars, but we do not eliminate it. Security, they say, is the number one issue, and I agree, security is the number one issue. The definition of security is what we have to discuss. Security is not throwing dollars at the military. Security is not throwing dollars at missile systems that do not work and missile systems which are almost irrelevant at this point. That is not security. Security means more than just guns, missiles, bombers. I do want to applaud the President for increasing slightly the Millennium Fund, which is supposed to help nations across the world improve their own governments and deliver better education and health care to their own people. Education, in particular, is a concern of the Millennium Fund. The Millennium Fund got started as a result of an analysis. The Millennium Fund understood what happened with Osama bin Laden and the gathering of forces in Afghanistan. They came out of the madrassas, Pakistan primarily. Large numbers came out. What is a madrassa? A madrassa is a name for a school, a religious school, and they were teaching there reading, writing, and the military, how to shoot, and how to hate. They recognized that there was an unlimited supply of such youth. They cannot get a decent meal at home; their parents are happy to have them go off to the madrassa and give them over to the madrassa for whatever they want them to do, including military training, which later leads to them being a part of al Qaeda. The analysts understood this, so they began to be concerned about fighting terror by improving the conditions of the people abroad, starting with the funding for education. Education at home, however, is going to be neglected. Education at home is as much a matter of national security as education anywhere in the world. Education is the least expensive way for us to guarantee our security. We can guarantee our security far cheaper with education being spread, beginning at home, than we can by throwing more money at the military and starving health care programs, housing programs, and education programs here at home in order to improve the military. Among the programs that are being eliminated is a program that relates to foreign languages. If ever it was clear that foreign languages are important, it is right now when our own ability to fight the terrorists has been shown to be inadequate because we cannot translate the language, we cannot understand enough. There are not enough people around who can translate Arabic, let alone the more difficult languages of Urdu and Pashtu, and the languages that have seldom been before studied in our schools. We should be appropriating billions of dollars in order to train more young people in languages. I can go on and on, and I intend later to come back and discuss in great detail some of these programs, especially in education, that are being eliminated and what their impact is on our society as a whole. We have a steady increase in the population of our prisons, a steady increase of African American males in our population of the prisons. There is a relationship between the tremendous number of cuts over the last 10 years in social programs and the steady increase of African American males in our prisons. They cost much more to maintain in our prisons, of course, than the cost is to provide a decent education, either in elementary and secondary education, or in college. But I will pause here and call upon the President of the Congressional Black Caucus to enunciate the Caucus's emphasis and position as we go into this process of deliberating on this budget to make this budget a more moral document, reflecting a more civilized approach to guarantee the security of the American people and people all over the world. I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt). (Mr. WATT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. Mr. Speaker, the following is a statement by the CBC chairman on the Bush budget and the Congressional Black Caucus' core agenda. CBC Chair Calls Bush Budget Proposal Extremely Disappointing Bush Budget Blueprint Offers No Solutions to End Disparities that Exist in Our Society Today, Congressman Mel Watt (D-NC), Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), issued the following statement in response to President George Bush's fiscal year 2006 budget proposal: ``On first review of President Bush's budget proposal, I find it extremely disappointing. Mr. Bush's proposal recommends severe cuts in education, food and nutrition programs, and literacy initiatives for youth and young adults. ``The proposed budget neglects suggestions offered by the Congressional Black Caucus for ending disparities that exist between African Americans and White Americans in every aspect of life. The CBC gave the President three distinct opportunities to respond favorably to our Agenda: (1) during a meeting with the President on January 26th when the CBC delivered our Agenda which outlined these disparities and offered ways to eliminate the gap; (2) during the State of the Union address; and (3) in his budget proposal. Unfortunately, the President missed all three opportunities. This budget appears to offer no real solutions for change and falls short of what the CBC hoped would be included in the document. ``In summary, Members of the CBC are extremely disappointed with the President's budget proposal and will work with our colleagues on the Hill for a budge that reflects the values and concerns of all Americans: education, health care, economic opportunity, justice for all, retirement security and foreign policy.''

Mr. OWENS. Would the gentleman mind explaining the fact that every penny of the deficit costs us additional money because we pay interest on what we borrow and that is another expenditure that is added to the budget?

Mr. OWENS. I want to congratulate the gentleman on his observation there, because I have thumbed through the budget documents, the introductions, and the administration is applauding itself for reducing the budget in half in 5 to 10 years.

Mr. OWENS. The deficit in half. Great applause is being showered upon them when we should not have a deficit to begin with.

Mr. OWENS. Do those figures apply to black males?

Mr. OWENS. I thank the gentleman for his excellent presentation. Mr. Speaker, how much time remains?

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters).

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her statement, and I might want to consider also, and all of us should consider, the fact that in this area of Community Development Block Grants, it is one of the areas where great promises are being made to faith-based organizations; and I wonder if the movement of this program from HUD into the Commerce Department is partially to facilitate a movement of grants into faith-based organizations, without scrutiny, without any peer review process and with the maximum amount of favoritism. It is something we should bear in mind. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs. Christensen).

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman is sort of an expert in this area. What does my colleague think of the fact that repeatedly the Republican message has begun to bang away at the fact they are going to provide more money for Community Health Centers? I have several good Community Health Centers in my district, but they are offered as a substitute for any of the real health care benefits financed by the Federal Government.

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, they are robbing Peter but not giving it all to Paul.

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her comments, and I would like to go back to my introduction where I said that the budget is a statement of the morality of America. What our moral position is is stated in the budget. The beautiful rhetoric of the inaugural address, the beautiful rhetoric of the State of the Union address, they must be followed up with concrete statements of how we spend our money. That is not the case. We spend our money quite differently from the high standard that was set in the President's inaugural address and in his State of the Union address. Mr. Speaker, I yield now to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Corrine Brown).

Mr. OWENS. Well, Mr. Speaker, I would tell the gentlewoman that it is more than 60 years old. And if I had a glass of wine here, I would drink a toast to it. Let us drink a toast to an aging lady in her 60s. That is really the prime these days. The most beautiful program that ever was developed, Social Security. It does not need an extreme makeover. It may need a few repairs here and there, but it does not need the kind of demolition that the President is planning for Social Security, the greatest program we have ever had. And we should all work and fight together to keep it.

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman.

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I want to point out that among the programs eliminated, and I will submit a list of programs proposed for elimination in the education area, but among those programs are the Arts in Education program; Community Technology Centers, designed to close the digital gap between the poorer communities and the middle- class communities; the Javitz Gifted and Talented Education program, a tiny program, but many people complain there is nothing for the gifted, and so we need that. Regional Education Laboratories, which have existed for a long time, are going to be phased out. Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities State Grants, a program popular all across the Nation, which is proposed for elimination. TRIO Talent Search; TRIO Upward Bound program. The Vocational Education State Grants. Drastic reductions are proposed in order to save money, as I said before. In order to save money to give more to the military, we are going to guarantee the security of the Nation by wiping out the programs that are the most beneficial for the development of our own population. The greatest resource that any nation can have is its own people, the people's development, the people's talent, the people's education. And we are turning our backs on that in this budget, which is a bad moral statement in comparison with what the President has said in his rhetoric in the inaugural address and in the State of the Union address. The budget is a concrete statement. It is evidence of just how moral we are, and this budget falls short in many ways. Mr. Speaker, I now yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson- Lee).

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I submit herewith the list of programs slated for elimination, which I referred to earlier: III. Programs Proposed for Elimination The 2006 request continues the practice of the Bush Administration--also consistent with previous administrations over the past 25 years--of proposing to eliminate or consolidate funding for programs that have achieved their original purpose, that duplicate other programs, that may be carried out with flexible State formula grant funds, or that involve activities that are better or more appropriately supported through State, local, or private resources. In addition. the government-wide Program Assessment Rating Tool, or PART, helps focus funding of Department of Education programs that generate positive results for students and that meet strong accountability standards. For 2006, PART findings were used to redirect funds from ineffective programs to more effective activities, as well as to identify reforms to help address programs weaknesses. The following table shows the programs proposed for elimination in the President's 2006 budget request. Termination of these 48 programs frees up almost $4.3 billion--based on 2005 levels--for reallocation to more effective, higher-priority activities. Following the table is a brief summary of each program and the rationale for its elimination. Program Terminations [2005 BA in millions] Alcohol Abuse Reduction...........................................$32.7 Arts in Education..................................................35.6 B.J. Stupa Olympic Scholarships.....................................1.0 Byrd Honors Scholarship............................................40.7 Civic Education....................................................29.4 Close Up Fellowships................................................1.5 Community Technology Centers........................................5.0 Comprehensive School Reform.......................................205.3 Demonstration Projects for Students with Disabilities...............6.9 Educational Technology State Grants...............................496.0 Elementary and Secondary School Counseling.........................34.7 Even Start........................................................225.1 Excellence in Economic Education....................................1.5 Exchanges with Historic Whaling and Trading Partners................8.6 Federal Perkins Loan Cancellations.................................66.1 Foreign Language Assistance........................................17.9 Foundations for Learning............................................1.0 Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs..306.5 Interest Subsidy Grants.............................................1.5 Javits Gifted and Talented Education...............................11.0 Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnerships.....................65.6 Literacy Programs for Prisoners.....................................5.0 Menal Health Integration in School..................................5.0 Migrant and Seasonal Farmworkers....................................2.3 National Writing Project...........................................20.3 Occupational and Employment Information.............................9.3 Parental Informational and Resources Centers.......................41.9 Projects with Industry.............................................21.6 Ready to Teach.....................................................14.3 Recreational Programs...............................................2.5 Regional Educational Laboratories..................................66.1 Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities State Grant............437.4 Schooll Dropout Prevention..........................................4.9 School Leadership..................................................14.9 Smaller Learning Communities.......................................94.5 Star Schools.......................................................20.8 State Grants for Incarcerated Youth Offenders......................21.8 Support Employment State Grants....................................37.4 Teacher Quality Enhancement........................................68.3 Tech-Prep Demonstration.............................................4.9 Tech-Prep Education State Grants..................................105.8 Thurgood Marshall Legal Educational Opportunity Program.............3.0 TRIO Talent Search................................................144.9 TRIO Upward Bound.................................................312.6 Underground Railroad Program........................................2.2 Vocational Education National Programs.............................11.8 Vocational Education State Grants...............................1,194.3 Women's Educational Equity..........................................3.0

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from New York for this Special Order, and I rise to make a fervent appeal. Social Security should be a nonnegotiable part of a democratic society in America. I must appeal and beg the White House and the Republican majority in the House and the Senate to end the torture of millions of Americans. Right now they are going through torture. Torture is a correct word. A cruel psychological torture is being executed every day when we launch these overt attacks, assaults on Social Security. People are fearful. I feel the pain and fear of the millions who are now trembling under this barrage of Republican propaganda which attacks Social Security, uses trick words and booby trap concepts that frighten people a great deal. It is not reform. It is the destruction of Social Security as we know it which is being attempted. Social Security must be made as permanent as the United States Constitution. Social Security represents a high expression of compassion. It is a massive and systematic application of collective compassion. It works. It is not a perfectly administrated program. Nothing is perfect. But it has made possible a helping hand in a systematic way to more people than any other program ever conceived by any government. Social Security is a Democratic Party creation. Fortunately, we heard our colleague previously talk about how Social Security evolved out of State programs. It is a Democratic Party creation because it was greatly resisted by the Republican Party from the very beginning. It is important to note this fact and have people understand in this generation at this particular time that Social Security was not created by magic. There was a certain kind of moral dedication and political determination that was necessary in order to create Social Security. Moral dedication. Morality in the truest sense of the word. Morality: Caring for the lives of people. Morality: Wanting to make that part of the preamble to the Declaration of Independence which talks about the pursuit of happiness, wanting to make it a reality for the poorest people. So it is probably the greatest act of morality of our government, the one that impacts on the most lives over history, over time, than any other. So when we speak of moral values, let us remember it was the Democrats who created Social Security, the Franklin Roosevelt administration. It was the Democrats who later created Medicare and Medicaid. The great disciple of Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson clearly understood that government is not on people's back when government takes steps to organize systems which allow people to pursue happiness, allows the elderly to be part of the process of pursuing happiness, allowing all people to have reasonable health care, no matter how poor they are. Medicaid and Medicare are under attack also as well as Social Security. America today must appreciate that maybe there were miracles involved, but they were not from heaven, I assure you. There were miracles that took place in this city, in Washington. There were miracles that took place on the floor of the House and the Senate. There were miracles that took place in the White House to make Social Security a reality. We do not want to lose this reality. We want it to continue to be an expression of our moral values at the very highest. I feel the fear of millions of people, but I also first feel the fear of individuals that I know. The senior citizens whose faces I look into, they are frantic. Because the way in which we have approached this problem is to first stampede people into the feeling it is doomed, it is about to go over the cliff, that any day now that they will cut off Social Security checks. We did not mean to make it quite that dramatic, but for a poor person, a senior who has no other income, no other income, and there are millions who have no other income except Social Security, for them to face a situation where they hear on the radio, they see on television the talking heads talking about the need to privatize Social Security, privatize to them means the government is not running it, and they do not trust private individuals. There are all sorts of scenarios running through the heads of people who are dependent upon Social Security. So I feel the fear directly. I feel the fear because I know people who cannot make it any other way without Social Security, and they think that any day now they are going to be without it. This stampede is a kind of terror. It is unnecessary terror. It is setting the stage politically to force us to act faster and with a kind of frantic fear that makes people, Members of Congress, do what they know is wrong. The stampede should stop. The stampede is made more fearful by the insulting language and the distorted arguments that are already being used, as we have heard my colleagues talk already. I heard my colleague on the Committee on Ways and Means, the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, I heard him on television. I could not believe my ears when I heard the discussion about women live longer and, therefore, women should probably have reduced benefits. That would be the fair thing to do. I just cannot comprehend in this day and age a statement like that could be made. Women should be penalized for living longer. Along with that statement, Mr. Speaker, came the statement that blacks, particularly black males, would be the beneficiary of a privatization program because they would have greater control over the money they put in. They could take it out earlier, because, after all, black males are dying earlier. The actuarial statistics show clearly that black males are swindled out of their Social Security payments at a greater rate than anybody else. They die earlier and so do not get their benefits. So, therefore, instead of trying to have a health care system and a set of working conditions in America which allow people to live longer in general, and certainly black males to live longer, instead of creating a program for jobs so that the kind of economic tyranny that black males live under, where they cannot make it, they cannot live a healthy life because they do not have the income, instead of addressing those problems, we are implying they should just live shorter lives and be grateful that we will give them their money back through a privatization system in Social Security. I just could not believe it. I cannot reconcile that with living in America and having a responsible official making that kind of statement. Mr. Speaker, I rise to make the case for the millions also who do hard, back-breaking work every day. They get up early every morning, and they are in motion all day. Most of us do not know what hard work is. We do not understand what it means to be in motion all day and what back-breaking work means. I understand a little bit because I came from the City of Memphis, Tennessee, which is located in the corner of Tennessee, just between two agricultural States, Mississippi and Arkansas. And the poor children in my neighborhood, we went to Mississippi or Arkansas in the summer to chop cotton. You made $3 a day sweating under the hot sun all day chopping cotton. That was before the invention of the machines. Or in the fall you went to pick cotton, which was much worse than chopping because you had to bend over all day, and you came home sore all over. So I had a taste of what it meant to do hard work. But I see men and women all the time who are lifting and moving about doing hard work greater than that all the time. So those are the people who need the retirement earlier, not later. Do not move it back from 65 to 67, and they are now talking about moving it to 70. I think my father was fortunate. He did hard work all the time. He worked in a furniture factory in the mill, the place where you have the raw boards and raw lumber that has to be ground down and refined, and he was moving all the time. He was pretty tired when he came home, and he is fortunate he lived to be 68. He lived to be 68. So he had 3 years where he did collect Social Security. A very happy man because he could retire and receive Social Security. That is what he looked forward to, retiring, stopping the process of getting up every morning and going to work in that mill with the sawdust and the other things. He died of a disease which is caused by an overexposure to sawdust. It was at the age of 68. So he at least got 3 years of his Social Security. All he would have had, all he would have had was that Social Security payment if he had not had children who could pay his bills, and later on one of my brothers built a house for him. But for 3 years he was able to benefit from what he paid in Social Security. And many of his colleagues, in fact, most of them, never lived to 65 and were able to realize that. So I rise to speak for all those millions out there who have seen Social Security as an outstretched hand from their government, which is deserved by working families, which is a compassionate act, and which is one of the most efficient programs that ever the government has invented. We want to maintain Social Security. We hope that the torture that is going on right now will end. We hope there will be a retreat from this effort to destroy Social Security, and I thank the gentlewoman for yielding to me.

Mr. OWENS. It was almost a proposal to die early. Please die early.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Madam Speaker, this 60th anniversary observance of the liberation of Auschwitz presents the people of all civilized nations with an opportunity to focus a searing light of exposure on one of the deadliest landmark events of human history. More than 1 million human beings died in this hellish extermination factory which was part of a system that murdered more than 6 million Jews. As often as possible, in every way conceivable, the leaders of the present must be forced to gaze with thorough and undivided attention upon the horror of the Holocaust. The observance of this 60th anniversary is an empty, useless ceremony if it does not arouse massive, worldwide anger, pity, and fear. The anger must be directed not only at Hitler and the SS; but also the anger should be focused on the millions who helped to maintain the poison fog of racism, anti-Semitism, and religious hatred. The pity levels must be raised high to envelop all of the more than 6 million individual souls whose opportunities to breathe and live, to develop their potential and to pursue happiness were so brutally snuffed out. The fear must be shared by us all as we contemplate our unforgivable impotence in the face of other epidemics of genocide that have been allowed since the landmark lesson of the Holocaust. Stalin and his gulags; Pol Pot and his killing fields; the Hutu intelligentsia and their exhortation to ``cut the tall trees'' with machete executions. All of this competition with Hitler has occurred within the last 60 years. We applaud the civilized governments of the world for drawing a line at Kosovo. But we are burdened with a great fear that more mass slaughters are coming because we still have not learned this most profound lesson of modern history. On the occasion of this 60th anniversary, we must remember that the lesson of history is that perpetrators of genocide must have us come down on them with an uncompromising, righteous wrath; and we must trumpet their punishment throughout the Earth. The message for future mass murderers with their convoluted rationale and twisted theories is that there will be swift and universally supported punishment. The message for the populations that support them is that there will be no acceptance of sentimental schemes for truth and reconciliation. For ignoring Auschwitz, there can be no pardons, no acceptance of sentimental schemes for truth and reconciliation. For permitting their leaders to violate the most important principles of human society, the citizens of any nation must be collectively judged and their nation must be forced to pay a special debt to civilization. Madam Speaker, this sixieth anniversary observance of the liberation of Auschwitz presents the people of all civilized nations with an opportunity to focus a searing light of exposure on one of the deadliest landmark events of human history. More than one million human beings died in this hellish extermination factory which was part of a system that murdered more than six million Jews. As often as possible, in every way conceivable, the leaders of the present must be forced to gaze with thorough and undivided attention upon the horror of the holocaust. Auschwitz and all of the similar death camps document the levels to which civilized men can descend. No savage and primitive tribe could ever have engaged in such monumental and systematic slaughter. That these crimes were committed by one of the most scientifically advanced, well educated, culturally sophisticated, thoroughly organized nations that the world has ever seen is a fact that magnifies the need to forever study this bloody man-made tsunami. The observance of this sixieth anniversary is an empty, useless ceremony if it does not arouse massive worldwide anger, pity and fear. The anger must be directed not only at Hitler and the SS; but also the anger should be focused on the millions who help to maintain the poison fog racism, anti-Semitism and religious hatred. The pity levels must be raised high to envelope all of the more than six million individual souls whose opportunities to breathe and live, to develop their potential and to pursue happiness were so brutally snuffed out. The fear must be shared by us all as we contemplate our unforgivable impotence in the face of other epidemics of genocide that have been allowed since the landmark lesson the holocaust. Stalin and his gulags; Pol Pot and his killing fields; the Hutu intelligentsia and their exhortation to ``cut the tall trees'' with machete executions; all of this competition with Hitler has occurred within the last sixty years. We applaud the civilized governments of the world for drawing a line at Kosovo. But we are burdened with a great fear that more mass slaughters are coming because we still have not learned this most profound lesson of modern history. On the occasion of this sixtieth anniversary let us remember that the trials of the major killers at Nuremberg also failed to take place, that Nazi scholars are still daring to deny the reality of the holocaust. We must remember that new statutes are being contemplated for Stalin. We must also note the fact the Pol Pot died of natural causes. We must show fear in the face of our present inability to advance the trials and convictions of many of the obvious architects of the genocide in Rwanda. The lesson of history is that we must come down on the perpetrators of genocide with an uncompromising righteous wrath and trumpet their punishment throughout the earth. The message for future mass murders with their convoluted rational and twisted theories is that there will be swift and universally supported punishment. The message for the populations that support genocide in the future must be that there is no acceptable excuse for your actions. For ignoring Auschwitz there can be no pardons, no acceptance of sentimental schemes for truth and reconciliation. For permitting their leaders to violate the most vital principles of human society the citizens must be collectively judged and their nation must be forced to pay a special debt to civilization.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, we have preached democracy in Afghanistan. We have preached democracy in Iraq. Now the time has come for us to accelerate the process of more fully practicing what we preach. I wholeheartedly endorse the democracy mission of America, but I am here today to beg the chosen decisionmakers here in Congress to take a giant step forward to bolster America's world crusade for democracy. Today it is appropriate that we address our remarks not only to the citizens of America but also to the people of Iraq. Our efforts to achieve free elections in Iraq will be totally shattered if we want to propose today that Nation be divided into 30 or 50 units with each unit granted the power to determine its own election procedures, to select its own equipment, and to appoint its own administrators without any uniform national standards. Our historic compromise granting certain powers to the State that was necessary for the birth of this Nation must no longer be used as an excuse for the abuse of the free and democratic election process here in America. The abuse in certain sections of the country, which once openly used violence and intimidation, were outlawed. All other abuses involving voter suppression and dirty tricks should immediately be made Federal crimes. Out of those who have fought in the past and those still on the battlefield for the cause of democracy, it is our duty to take the steps to escalate our momentum toward the attainment of a more perfect Nation. Mr. Speaker, we have preached democracy in Afghanistan. We have preached democracy in Iraq. Now the time has come for us to accelerate the process of more fully practicing what we preach. Our great nation is the premium democratic government of the world and we are all proud of that fact. A unifying position of both Democrats and Republicans is that we support democracy everywhere. We believe that where there is democracy the people are inevitably better off. I wholeheartedly endorse the democracy mission of America. But I am here today to beg the chosen decision makers here in the Congress to take a giant step forward to bolster America's world crusade for democracy. As we strive for a more perfect union let us unite to end hypocrisy and to construct a more perfect one person, one vote electoral process. Today it is appropriate that we address our remarks not only to the citizens of America but also to the people of Afghanistan and to the people of Iraq. We should begin by apologizing for this present electoral system, which undercuts the principle of one person, one vote. Our efforts to achieve free elections in Iraq would be totally shattered if we were to propose today that the nation be divided into 30 or 50 units with each unit granted the power to determine its own election procedures; to select its own equipment; and to appoint its own administrators without any uniform national standards. Our historic compromise granting certain powers to the States that was necessary for the birth of this nation must no longer be used as an excuse for the abuse of the free and democratic election process here in America. The abuse in certain sections of the country, which once openly used violence and intimidation, has been outlawed. All other abuses involving voter suppression and dirty tricks should immediately be made federal crimes. For too long our nation has accepted as legal and has tolerated blatant sabotage of free elections. Florida offered abundant evidence of such sabotage in the year 2000. Now, in 2004, Ohio has produced a multiple list of irregularities and we are demanding a more thorough investigation. In Ohio the failure of 25 to 30 voting machines to operate correctly with one precinct recording a negative 25 million votes; and the forced waiting periods of three hours in the rain in African American neighborhoods, and ten hours at a polling site for college students; these are only a few of the outrageous examples of voter disenfranchisement in Ohio. In honor of those who have fought in the past and those still on the battlefield for the cause of true democracy it is our duty to first investigate and then to legislate to overcome all of the poisoning obstacles which obstruct the consolidation of a more perfect national election process. This is a vitally necessary action which will escalate our momentum toward the obtainment of a more perfect nation. God bless America. And God bless democracy everywhere.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, Newsday recently published an important investigative series highlighting the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) abysmal track record during the first term of the Bush Administration. In this series of articles entitled ``Erasing the Rules,'' Newsday reporters outline OSHA's failure over the past 4 years to issue a single ``significant'' regulation or standard protecting worker health or safety. This failure is unprecedented in the history of the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act. Since the OSH Act was first enacted in 1970, every other Administration has issued regulations to protect worker safety in a manner deemed economically significant--either saving or costing society $100 million dollars, or more. Furthermore, as his first Congressional act President George W. Bush repealed the mandatory standard on ergonomics. He thereby abolished any effort to address the hundreds of thousands of repetitive motion injuries suffered by American workers every year. Mr. Speaker, this series exposes the steps taken by OSHA over the past 4 years to turn back the clock on worker safety and health and I urge my colleagues to read it. I am therefore submitting a portion of the Newsday ``Erasing the Rules'' series on OSHA for the Record and ask that it be printed. The remainder of the series will be examined on www.Newsday.com. [From Newsday, Oct. 21, 2004] Erasing the Rules (By Tom Brune) Many agencies headed by industry veterans who are watering down regulation Five minutes after an operator drained a chemical runoff pit at a paper mill in Pennington, Ala., an invisible deadly cloud of hydrogen sulfide seeped out of the sewer, killing two nearby workers and injuring eight others. The cloud resulted from an unplanned chemical reaction, created when the drained pool of spilled NaSH, a chemical used to pulp wood, unexpectedly mixed with sulfuric acid that had been added to the sewer to control acidity. And it added another tragedy to the scores of reactive chemical accidents at workplaces--resulting in toxic releases, fires or explosions--that have killed more than 100 workers and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damages since 1980, according to the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board. The problem is so grave that in 2002, the year of the paper mill deaths, the Chemical Safety Board recommended that federal regulators revise a key safety regulation on chemical process management to require companies to take steps to.prevent a broader range of unintended chemical reactions. But the Bush administration's director of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, a veteran chemical company safety executive named John Henshaw, has so far declined to do so. Instead, OSHA has formed a cooperative partnership that it calls an ``alliance'' with the chemical industry to highlight the issue and now urges companies to voluntarily follow a manual on dealing with reactive chemicals that OSHA has posted on its Web site. ``We think that's a better approach than going through a lengthy rule-making process,'' said Henshaw, who said he thinks it's unclear how a rule can be crafted. ``Over the long haul, we can do it more effectively this way.'' Henshaw's decision reflects the approach of the Bush administration, an approach it calls ``smarter regulation,'' which emphasizes fewer new rules, examination of existing ones and the coaxing of companies to voluntarily comply with safety standards. Appointments from industry And Henshaw represents an important facet of the Bush administration: he is one of the scores of corporate or industry officials, or their lobbyists and advocates, appointed to political jobs, high and low, across the executive branch. Nearly half--47 percent--of the Bush administration's 400 top-level Senate-confirmed appointees to cabinet departments came from corporations, law and lobbying firms, or business consulting, a Newsday analysis found. That gives business and industry a much greater influence than it had in the Clinton administration--just more than a third, or 34 percent, of President Bill Clinton's appointees came from corporate, law and lobbying, or business backgrounds. But the extent of those appointments by Bush represents more than just the expected tilt toward business by a Republican administration. The Bush administration has given key regulatory jobs to executives like Henshaw, representatives of the same companies that face regulation, Newsday found. At the Agriculture Department, which manages the national forest system, a former lobbyist for the timber industry is now an undersecretary and at the Food and Drug Administration a former tobacco and drug company lawyer is the general counsel. Those appointments raise the question of whether public authority ought to be dominated by private interests, said Harvard University ethics professor Kenneth Winston. Yet experts agree that the appointments violate no laws and breach no ethics guidelines, which are narrowly drawn to address specific personal gain at the expense of the public. Instead, the experts say, the appointments cast in sharp relief the priorities of a presidential administration, because personnel is policy. In rolling back a wide variety of new or proposed rules, Bush appointees are achieving what they view as an important goal of eliminating burdensome regulation and freeing companies to grow. At the same time, however, some of the changes undo, weaken or forestall requirements to protect the environment or improve safety and health in the market and workplace, sparking sharp criticism from consumer and liberal advocacy groups. ``What has been different about the Bush administration is that the people who are on the receiving end of regulation now have control of regulations,'' said Gary Bass, executive director of OMB Watch, which monitors regulation and the Office of Management and Budget. ``It's the proverbial slogan we have used,'' he said, ``You don't want to have a fox guarding the henhouse.'' reduced regulation goal More of Bush's business appointees tend to be from heavily regulated industries, such as manufacturing or energy, than Clinton's who tended to be from financial and high-tech firms, the appointee analysis found. That, experts say, makes Bush appointees more likely to seek reduced regulation. Critics charge the Bush administration is gutting or stalling needed government regulation, such as the revised standard on reactive chemicals, as a way of helping businesses that back Republicans more than Democrats. Others, particularly those in organized labor, complain that the Bush administration has virtually shut them out, giving a one-sided tilt to companies, corporations and businesses at the expense of working people. The Bush administration defends its appointees, calling them highly qualified individuals who make decisions based on the American people's best interests while abiding by strict legal and ethical guidelines. Chad Kolton, an OMB spokesman, said appointees with business backgrounds bring expertise to the job, but he acknowledged they also bring management views. ``That doesn't mean they are entirely against regulation,'' he said. The Bush administration seeks to ensure that the benefits of regulation outweigh the costs, he said. ``Our primary interest is making sure health and safety are protected,'' Kolton said. ``We are focused on results and look to achieve the results in the way that provides the most flexibility and economic growth.'' Blaming what it calls ``an explosion of new federal rules and paperwork'' over the past 20 years that has inhibited job growth, the administration says it has cut new rules by 75 percent and is targeting 100 existing rules for streamlining. an early signal The first congressional act signed by Bush as president was a repeal of a mandatory standard on ergonomics, which had sought to address hundreds of thousands of repetitive motion injuries a year. Organized labor and others hailed the regulation as an important safeguard for the more than half a million workers injured each year, creating $9 billion in benefits at a cost of $4.5 billion. Industry groups complained the regulation would cost business more than $100 billion for questionable results. A tougher OMB under Bush in its first year kicked back 22 new major rules to the agencies for reconsideration, effectively killing half of them, and agencies withdrew dozens of proposals in early stages of the rule-making process. The administration approved 58 anti-terrorism or security rules after the Sept. 11 attacks, but OMB reports a drop in other new economically significant ``social regulations''-- rules issued to provide benefits like cleaner air but with a significant cost. The Bush administration issued 18 new major social regulations in fiscal years 2002 and 2003 combined, according to OMB reports. The Clinton administration approved more than 20 social regulations a year from 1996 to 2000. Some new Bush rules have been controversial. This year, the Republican-controlled House and Senate voted to repeal a new Bush rule on overtime that the administration said would extend overtime benefits to an additional 1 million workers but that critics said would cut it for 6 million employees. Other new Bush regulations have been aimed at changing protections of the environment--allowing mountain-top mining, snowmobiles in national parks and greater emissions from power plants. And under Bush, OSHA has so far published no new regulations that the government classifies as ``economically significant,'' that is costing or saving society $100 million or more. That's a first for a presidential term in the OSHA's 24-year history. OSHA issued nine of those rules under Clinton and 10 under Bush's father, an OMB Watch study found. Similar to Reagan An expert on political appointments and the federal government said the Bush administration is more like the administration of Ronald Reagan, who as a candidate vowed to eliminate OSHA, than the administration of George H.W. Bush. ``Bush II has drawn more on Reagan than on Bush I,'' said Paul Light, a New York University public service professor and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. ``His father really represented a more moderate wing of the party. On the regulatory front, Bush II represents the Reagan revolution.'' Reagan and his top officials were confrontational in their approach to regulation, appointing people openly hostile to the mission of the regulatory agencies as regulators--they threatened to abolish OSHA, slashed budgets and cut enforcement. Bush and his top officials, however, are much less confrontational, Light said. But they may be even more effective. They have succeeded in penetrating rule-making and enforcement, from the top-line review at OMB to the field level, where even career workers get calls from the White House, Light said. ``This is a very well-oiled administrative machine, and it's very controlling,'' Light said, explaining that White House political director Karl Rove and others have unusual influence over the rest of government. ``Chiefs of staff of each of the secretaries have a weekly telephone conference with Karl Rove over what's happening in their departments.'' no hope of change Jim Gannon has very little hope that OSHA will do anything about reactive chemicals. In 1995, Gannon was burned on his arms, legs and face when the Napp Technologies Inc., plant exploded after the improper mixing of chemicals, killing five, injuring dozens and leaving a crater in downtown Lodi, N.J. Gannon has since moved to Florida, but said he still hasn't recovered. At age 44, he said he can't work because of his injuries and said that he's homeless. ``The whole thing was not supposed to explode,'' he said. ``So what do you do now? I don't expect nothing. Because obviously nobody's going to do nothing.'' After Lodi, six labor unions filed a petition with OSHA requesting an emergency revision of the 1992 Process Safety Management standard for reactive chemical management, seeking application of the regulation requiring a 14-element safety program that covers 131 distinct chemicals with toxic or reactive properties to a broader list of chemicals. Eric Frumin, health and safety director for the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, which represented 70 workers at the Napp plant, remains bitter about the company and the fact that workers still face dangers they shouldn't have to. ``These are not accidents anymore,'' he said. ``They are predictable. We have the means technically and organizationally to control the risk of unintended chemical reactions.'' Deadly unintentional chemical reactions can occur when a chemical reacts to heat or impact, a chemical or chemical mixture begins an out-of-control reaction, or two incompatible chemicals mix, resulting in a toxic cloud or explosive reaction. Companies can control these reactions by identifying their chemicals, evaluating potential hazards, and training managers and staff on how to handle chemicals to avoid inadvertent reactions. These steps are outlined in the existing safety regulation, but only for the most hazardous chemicals. Frumin and others say the federal regulation must be expanded to force companies to pay attention to the potential hazards of other chemicals, especially those companies that do the bare minimum on safety to maximize profit. The Chemical Manufacturers Association, a trade group that has changed its name to the American Chemistry Council, and the American Petroleum Institute opposed added regulation. The two groups said expansion of the current standard would greatly increase costs without substantial benefits. The council now is ``test driving'' a flow chart that explains steps for managers to follow while evaluating reactive chemicals, said council safety specialist Dorothy Kellogg. OSHA did not act immediately on the unions' petition. But it finally placed the standard revision on the Clinton administration's last regulatory agenda. In December 2001, under the new Bush administration, however, OSHA withdrew it, saying it had other priorities. Bush set those priorities by replacing Labor Secretary Alexis Hermann, a Democratic activist and advocate for women and minorities, with Elaine Chao, a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation and wife of Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Chao tapped Steven Law, executive director of the Republican National Senatorial Committee, as chief of staff, and he assembled Labor's management team. Law is now the department's deputy secretary. Under Chao, the number of discretionary lower-level political appointees like special advisers and confidential aides at Labor doubled to 90, personnel records show. No labor appointees The team recruited heavily from industry and conservative think tanks. None of the Bush political appointees at Labor come from organized labor. Three of Clinton's appointees came directly from unions. In her first regulatory report, Chao wrote she had set a new course: ``In general, [the Labor Department] will try to help employees and employers meet their needs in a cooperative fashion, with a minimum of rulemaking.'' At OSHA, a target of lobbyists seeking relief for businesses from regulation, the administration named Henshaw, an executive at the chemical company Astaris Inc., as director and steel-industry lobbyist and former Republican House aide Gary Visscher as his deputy. OSHA has moved forward on just one economically significant rule--lowering permissible exposure to hexavalent chromium, which can cause lung cancer--but only because a federal appeals court ordered it to meet a Jan. 18, 2006 deadline. OSHA officials said reduced rule-making has not affected attaining results, as the workplace fatality rate hit a low of 4 per 100,000 workers in 2002. Records, however, show the rate has been dropping steadily since 1994, and data released last month show the fatality rate steady but number of deaths slightly up in 2003. Henshaw declined to speak on the record. Visscher defended OSHA's work. ``It is true that the regulatory agenda looked like it had fewer items,'' said Visscher. ``That does not mean the agency was working on fewer items.'' He said many of the proposals pared from the agenda were low priority and not likely to go anywhere. The agenda now reflects more realistically rules that will be completed, he said. Among those proposals was the revision of the regulation compelling companies to follow the reactive chemical Process Safety Management standard. The Chemical Safety Board has set out to raise its priority level. Evaluating the rules Created by Congress in 1990 following Union Carbide's accidental toxic chemical release that killed thousands in Bhopal, India, the independent board is charged with evaluating OSHA and EPA rules and investigating chemical accidents. After two years of research on reactive chemicals not covered by OSHA's standard, the board found no consistent set of data, but discovered 167 accidents that took 108 lives at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. It found that OSHA's rule had gaps, and in September 2002 the board voted to recommend that OSHA revise the standard to fill the gaps and to set up a database to track incidents. OSHA did not respond right away, but accidents continued, including seven that resulted in board investigations. On Feb. 7, 2003, for example, a violent chemical reaction inside a vent collection system set off an explosion and fire at a plating chemicals manufacturing facility in Cranston, R.I., critically injuring one and sending 18 others to the hospital. On Sept. 21, 2003, a worker was injured at a high-tech biochemical products plant south of Dayton, Ohio, when a nitric oxide leak led to an explosion of a 300-foot tall distillation column, blowing out windows of the main office. On April 12, 2004, a 4,000-gallon vat overheated and burst a safety valve at a Dalton, Ga., plant, releasing a toxic cloud that sent 180 people to the hospital and killed all animals in a 4-square-mile area. More than a year after the board's recommendation, in November 2003, Henshaw wrote the board saying he declined to follow its advice because disagreement among experts about which chemicals to include or how to regulate them required OSHA to seek more information from stakeholders, which include chemical companies. In the meantime, OSHA said it would increase outreach to employers and pursue voluntary measures. OSHA `unacceptable' The Chemical Safety Board, led by its Bush-appointed chair Carolyn Merritt, also a chemical company safety executive, in a unanimous vote in February 2004 called OSHA's response ``unacceptable.'' Merritt said she personally was ``disappointed.'' She noted the board is not part of the Bush administration. While welcoming OSHA's increased attention to the issue, Merritt said a rule is needed to require companies that do the minimum to meet safety rules. Board staff point out that the state of New Jersey, which has had other disastrous chemical incidents since the Lodi explosion, last year issued its own regulation to broaden the list of chemicals that must be included in safety planning. In mid-March, the board began tracking reactive chemical accidents at plants and has logged about two dozen incidents, including a reaction involving ammonium nitrate in August at an aircraft plant in Ferris, Tex., that killed a worker. Not long after the Chemical Safety Board voted to classify OSHA's rejection of its recommendation as ``unacceptable,'' one of its members retired and the Bush administration moved quickly to fill it. The White House tapped OSHA's deputy director, Visscher. Visscher is the former vice president of the American Iron and Steel Institute, who for years worked as a Republican staffer who sought to make OSHA more business-friendly. Democrats blocked confirmation of all of Bush's new executive appointments this summer, but Bush gave Visscher one of his few recess appointments, allowing Visscher to serve until December 2005. Visscher said the White House asked him to take the new position and he agreed. The AFL-CIO objected, complaining he lacked the legally required credentials of a background in chemistry or regulation of chemical hazards that the other members have. The AFL-CIO said it also was ``deeply concerned that Mr. Visscher's appointment would politicize the Chemical Safety Board's investigations and recommendations.'' Visscher said he has ample experience with workplace safety, and said, ``I'm not here to politicize the board.'' Press aides for Visscher said he had won the support of Ron Hayes, the outspoken founder of a support group for families of workers killed on the job and former member of a federal worker safety board. Hayes confirmed he had written a letter of support for Visscher. ``Gary's a pretty good guy,'' Hayes said. But Hayes added the Bush administration had placed Visscher on the Chemical Safety Board for a reason. ``What they need is eyes and ears there,'' Hayes said. ``What Bush would like to do is rein them in.'' staffing from the right Drawing from corporations, inside-the-beltway law and lobbying firms, and think tanks, President George W. Bush has assembled the most cohesive and conservative administration in decades, according to presidential experts and a Newsday analysis of political appointments. While President Ronald Reagan was more traditionally conservative, Bush has succeeded in making more consistently conservative, and business friendly, appointments from top to bottom, according to presidential experts. ``The Bush people have vetted every candidate for every agency, down to the least important appointee to the least important agency,'' said presidential appointment expert Paul Light, a public service professor at New York University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. ``They ask the hard questions,'' Light said. ``If a candidate does not believe in their agenda, he is not going to be appointed.'' Michael Franc, vice president of government affairs at the conservative Heritage Foundation, agreed. ``When you go agency by agency, up and down the food chain, you have an enormous amount of consistency,'' he said. Bush tapped nearly half, 47 percent, of his top 400 Senate- confirmed political appointees to cabinet agencies from corporations, business consulting firms, or law and lobbying firms, a Newsday analysis found. That contrasts with President Bill Clinton, who turned to people with business backgrounds to fill just a third, 34 percent, of his 405 Senate-confirmed political appointees to cabinet agencies during his first three years in office. But there is even a difference among the type of business people each of the presidents brought into their administrations, the analysis found, a difference that experts say had an effect on the Clinton and Bush policies, particularly on regulatory policy. ``The Clinton administration had a preference for Silicon Valley types, and investment bankers,'' said Light. Those firms faced little government oversight and so did not push Clinton to ease regulation. Bush appointed more executives from the traditional hard industries--manufacturers, defense contractors, oil and gas utilities, Light said. ``They do represent a set of industries that are heavily regulated,'' he said, and they would be more interested in reducing regulation.