Frank Pallone

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. I know that the gentleman is going to do that. The gentleman talked about and I talked about the discharge petitions on the gentleman's bill with regard to the price of prescription drugs, as well as the Stark-Waxman bill that would provide a prescription drug benefit under Medicare. We are certainly going to pursue that full force when we come back in January. I do not mean to be the pessimist here. Obviously, we would like to be bipartisan. But I just read the other day, and I think it was in Congress Daily, that when we come back in January, the Speaker, the Republican Speaker, is talking about another tax cut; that that is going to be at the top of the agenda. I just cannot help thinking that we are going to see maybe a watered down version, but another version of what we witnessed this summer, which is this trillion dollar, and the Republicans try to forget about this now, they do not talk about it anymore, but one of the reasons that it has taken so long and we have been so delayed with this budget is because they spent most of the first 6 months through the summer trying to pass this trillion dollar tax cut. The effect of that tax cut would have been exactly the opposite of what my colleague, the gentleman from Maine, just talked about. In other words, there would not have been any money to shore up social security, no money to help with Medicare, and we need to look at those programs on a long-term basis because we know they are going to start to run out of money in a few years. We want to move ahead in a positive way to actually improve Medicare by providing a prescription drug benefit, but if this surplus was used the way the Republicans had initially wanted to by having all the money go for a tax cut that was primarily for the wealthy and for corporate interests, we would not have had anything. We would not have been able to even discuss trying to preserve social security and Medicare. I am just so afraid, having looked at what the Speaker mentioned the other day in Congress Daily, which is a publication that is circulated around Congress, for the people that do not know what it is, that they are just going to come back here in January and start to talk about another huge tax cut again, instead of addressing Medicare and social security and the other long-term needs that my colleague, the gentleman from Maine, has talked about.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, on Monday, November 15, 1999, Saint Peter's University Hospital and the Muscular Dystrophy Association of Central New Jersey will honor Palma E. Formica, M.D., of Old Bridge, NJ, as a Woman of the Century. Dr. Formica is chairwoman of family practice at Saint Peter's University Hospital in New Brunswick, NJ, and is a professor of family medicine at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. She began her family practice in Old Bridge in 1959. Denied admission by medical schools in the United States because they believed she would ``just get married and have kids,'' Pam Formica got her M.D. from the Universita Di Roma, Faculta di Medicina e Chirugia in Rome, Italy. Actually, Mr. Speaker, Dr. Formica did get married and have kids. She also was a pioneer for women in medicine. She was the first female president of the Medical Society of New Jersey, and held the same distinction for the Middlesex County Medical Society. She is a Past President and current Member of the Board of Trustees of the American Medical Association (AMA). She serves on numerous other boards and commissions, and has won awards too numerous to mention here. The Medical Society of New Jersey has established an award in her name for women who actively lead the way for women's equality in the medical field. Mr. Speaker, it is a great honor for me to join in paying tribute to Dr. Palma Formica, a great physician, a great New Jerseyan, and a fighter for equal opportunities for women in education, in medicine, in community affairs and in all fields of endeavor. She is indeed a Woman of the Century.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, over the last two years I have been growing increasingly concerned about the difficulty the federal government has had in combating outbreaks of food borne illnesses in this country. Food borne illnesses are on the rise and, according to a recently released report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are occurring with a far greater frequency--more than double the rate--than was previously thought. In an effort to address this troubling trend, I have introduced two pieces of legislation this Congress that would improve the safety of the Nation's food supply. The first, the Consumer Food Safety Act, would establish a comprehensive food safety inspection and education program across the nation. The second, the National Uniform Food Safety Labeling Act, would help consumers make more informed choices about the food they eat through warning labels placed on food packaging. One particular aspect of the second bill I wanted to mention tonight concerns the placement of warning labels on egg cartons. I wanted to mention this for two reasons. The first is that the Secretary of Health and Human Services is expected soon to make a final recommendation on a proposal put forth in July to require warning labels on raw shell egg cartons. I strongly support that language and recently sent a letter to the Secretary urging her to finalize the language proposed in July, which I think will go a long way in protecting consumers against food borne illnesses caused by eggs. The second reason I wanted to mention this particular provision is one of the House's most distinguished former Members, Congressman Peter Rodino from my home State of New Jersey, has written an op-ed on this matter. Congressman Rodino's op-ed succinctly describes the problem, and the reasons why the Secretary's July language on raw shell egg safety should be finalized. I commend Congressman Rodino for recognizing the importance of this issue. He is right on the mark in his suggestion that the Federal Government should be looking at food safety as a priority issue. To that end, I submit his op-ed for the record and urge all of my colleagues to follow the suggestions of one of the most respected public figures to ever have served the people of New Jersey and the Nation. Over the past few years, I've followed with great interest news and television stories about food poisoning. And, this summer, I was disturbed to learn that the incidence of food borne illness is on the rise, and that according to the Centers for Disease Control, 76 million Americans became ill and 5,000 die annually from food poisoning. While E. coli and mad cow disease are significant, severe illness caused by salmonella bacteria are pandemic, and eggs stubbornly remain the number one source of food poisoning caused by salmonella. Salmonella contaminated shell eggs is an excellent example of government recognizing a major health problem on one hand, and having a solution on the other, yet sitting on its hands. The Department of Health and Human Service (HHS) projects that the number of cases of illness due to food poisoning from eggs will continue to rise significantly from an estimated 660,000 cases each year. Recently at a public hearing in Washington, both the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) agreed upon a goal of reducing salmonella egg related illness by 50% by the year 2005. I commend Secretary Donna Shalala for her efforts to combat food borne illnesses by proposing stronger warning labels on egg cartons to warn consumers about the risk of illnesses caused by salmonella. I've also learned, the very same FDA created a standard to pasteurize a raw egg in its shell, and the USDA designed a process to inspect raw egg pasteurization, even certifying it with a special seal of approval. Experts point out this is a 99.999% solution to the problem. While I commend the FDA for approving this egg pasteurization technology and the USDA for creating a mechanism for the protection against salmonella, until full- scale, raw egg pasteurization equipment is available to egg producers, there are other common sense steps to protect against food borne illnesses. One step is in a bill introduced by my friend, New Jersey Congressman Frank Pallone together with a number of other cosponsors earlier this year. The bill, known as the National Uniform Food Safety Labeling Act, requires warning labels on raw or soft cooked eggs, unpasteurized juice, and fish. These foods could be harmful to as much as 30% of the population consisting of children, the elderly, pregnant women and persons with weakened immune systems such as AIDS patients. Senator Durbin (D-IL), recognizing the gravity of the problem of food borne illnesses, introduced his bill, The Safe Food Act, to address this problem. It would replace the current fragmented federal food safety system with a single, independent agency to oversee all federal food safety activities. With all the risks facing us, eating eggs should not be one of them. The CDC calls salmonella food poisoning from raw or soft cooked eggs ``epidemic,'' the USDA says that salmonella costs the U.S. economy up to $2.3 billion annually. A story related by Congressman Pallone before the House of Representatives concerning Lynn Nowak, his personal friend and constituent, describes how Lynn became ill from food poisoning while pregnant. This resulted in severe health complications for her unborn daughter, Julia. Although modern antibiotics cured Lynn, her daughter was left scarred. Until such time as pasteurization is required, I urge that the Congress take the simple step of supporting the egg carton warning label language proposed by Secretary Shalala which states, ``Eggs may contain harmful bacteria known to cause serious illness, especially in children, the elderly and persons with weakened immune systems. For your protection, keep eggs refrigerated, cook eggs until yolks are firm, and cook foods containing eggs thoroughly.'' Hopefully this warning label could help reduce the possibility of one more death or illness like Lynn's from ever occurring again. It is unconscionable to sit still and not support this right to consumer awareness. There many stories to tell, but Lynn and Julia's compelled me to speak out on this critical issue. The human and economic costs of food poisoning are simply too great to stand by and do nothing. Not every tragedy can be prevented, but those that can be should be stopped. Food safety should be looked upon by our government as a priority issue. Peter W. Rodino, Jr.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from New York (Mr. Engel) for bringing this legislation and this whole issue really to my attention. I think it was several months ago, maybe even a year ago, when the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel) mentioned to me that he was involved with the gentleman from New York (Mr. Lazio) in introducing this bill. I want to say that I was frankly shocked by some of the information that has come forward in terms of Italian Americans being taken into custody, being interned, being ordered to move to designated areas. I say that because as an Italian American and representing a district that has a very large number of Italian Americans, most of my knowledge about the history of World War II and the Italian American participation was of so many soldiers of Italian American dissent going abroad, fighting in the war, including my father and a lot of my relatives, and I only had the memory, the positive memory, if you will, of their contribution to the war effort. To be told that there were many Italian Americans that suffered these various terrible things that happened to them was very disconcerting. So, Mr. Speaker, when I saw this bill and I saw the effort to have a thorough investigation which this bill would require, I think it is about time; I think it is time that this take place. I think it is very important to Italian Americans that this information come forward. We have an obligation to our community and certainly the country has an obligation to all of those who served during the war to make sure that this information is brought forward so that we can get to the bottom of it. I just want to commend the two gentlemen from New York for their efforts on this behalf and I urge support for the bill.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to spend some time this evening talking about the unfinished agenda for this Congress, because it is very likely that if not this week, then certainly very soon this Congress and this House of Representatives will be in recess. I am hoping that we will be able to complete the budget and the various appropriations bills that remain out there that have not been finalized here in the House of Representatives. But my point that I am trying to make tonight is this Republican leadership, because the Republicans are in the majority in the House of Representatives and they do lead the House of Representatives as well as the Senate, and essentially what we see is that the Republicans are determined to do nothing. Mr. Speaker, they have not been able to pass the appropriations bills. They have not been able to essentially pass a budget, even though the fiscal year began October 1. And, if anything, when we try to pass measures that are important to the American people such as Medicare prescription drug benefits or HMO reform Patients' Bill of Rights or campaign finance reform or gun safety laws that would make a difference for the American people and that the public is crying out for in most cases, what we see is that the Republicans get dragged along reluctantly to do perhaps something about these issues, but ultimately do not do anything about it or manage somehow to make it so that none of this legislation, none of this positive agenda pushed by the Democrats ever becomes law. Mr. Speaker, I just want to give some examples, if I can, about the problems that we are facing with this Republican leadership and with this unfinished agenda. What I find is that the Republican leadership basically seems to be dominated by the far right, the ultraconservatives within the Republican Party. They constantly talk about the need for tax cuts that primarily benefit the wealthy and the larger corporations. They constantly talk about the need to get rid of government, couched somehow in that there are too many government restrictions and so the best thing is to get rid of all the restrictions and ultimately get rid of the government. They get dragged into somehow passing sometimes, after a long period of effort on the part of the Democrats, into passing legislation like the Patients' Bill of Rights for HMO reform. But then they manage when it goes to conference between the House and the Senate to muck it up so nothing ever gets to the President's desk. Essentially what we have is a ``do nothing Congress.'' And it is also the ``wrong thing Congress'' because the Republicans have the wrong agenda. They do not want to adopt the Democrats' agenda and adopt legislation that helps the American people. They want to adopt the wrong agenda. Mr. Speaker, I suppose the biggest example of that wrong agenda is the tax cut. Over the summer the Republican leadership proposed and eventually passed narrowly a trillion dollar tax cut for special interests that benefited their wealthy corporate contributors, but not 1 cent to extend the life of Social Security or to modernize Medicare with a prescription drug plan. Instead of allowing debate on a plan that would allow seniors to buy prescription drugs at an affordable cost, Republicans joined with the pharmaceutical industry to belittle the need for such a plan under Medicare in the first place. The Republicans fought tooth and nail to derail a bipartisan Patients' Bill of Rights that would have taken medical decision-making away from insurance company bureaucrats and returned it back to doctors and patients where it belongs. They have sat on, as I mentioned, common sense gun control to please the gun lobby. More than 6 months after the Columbine, Colorado incident, Republicans in Congress have still blocked any progress on keeping guns out of the hands of children and criminals by shutting the gun show loophole. Mr. Speaker, what we are seeing here is this Republican Congress is all about inaction, indifference and inertia. Democrats really have said over and over again we are not going to go home, we are not going into recess here until we get a budget agreement that addresses some of the outstanding priorities for American families. I know some of the previous speakers here on the other side of the aisle tonight have belittled the 100,000 teachers program and said it is not necessary, adding 100,000 teachers to bring down classroom size. Well, they may belittle it, but we are not going home until we pass it and we have the extra teachers to give to the communities to reduce class size. Some have even belittled the Cops on the Beat program saying it gives money to the towns to hire extra policemen, 50- to 100,000 extra policemen, but they only get it a few years and after that they do not have the money any more. Well, again the idea of adding police and giving some Federal dollars back to the municipalities so they can hire extra police or extra teachers, there is no reason why those programs cannot continue if the Republican leadership was willing to continue to fund them for the municipalities, help the towns reduce their property tax rate, provide more cops and more teachers. And of course we also have the other initiatives, the Democratic initiative to provide funding for school modernization, to provide more money for open space so that communities, counties, States can purchase more property for open space. Mr. Speaker, I am going to go into some of these issues tonight in the time that I have. I am not going to use all of the time, but I am going to go into some of the details about how the Republican agenda is this ultraconservative, right wing agenda, mainly tax cuts for the rich, and how they have not really dealt with the average problems or the concerns of the American people. Let me talk a little bit about this Republican tax cut, because what I find is that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, they want to sort of forget that they put together this trillion dollar tax cut primarily for the wealthy. They talked about it a lot over the summer, but I guess they realized it did not work and the American public did not want it, so they do not talk about it much anymore. Just a little bit about it. It was primarily, overwhelmingly I should say, skewed towards the wealthy and corporations. It meant $46,000 extra per year for the wealthiest taxpayers but only $160 per year for the average middle-class family. And there were $21 billion in special interest tax breaks for big business. The other thing, of course, is that what they do when they enact this trillion dollar tax cut, which the President wisely vetoed, is that that does not leave any money in the surplus that can be used to pay down the national debt. The President said that he wanted to use the surplus that was generated by the Balanced Budget Act to pay down the national debt, to shore up Social Security and Medicare. Well, so much of that surplus, the whole thing was basically taken up by the Republican tax cut for the wealthy that the effort to reduce the national debt, if that ever were passed and was not vetoed by the President, would simply go out the window. It also siphoned money from the President's Medicare and Social Security program. The President proposed in his State of the Union address that whatever surplus there was generated by the Balanced Budget Act over the next 5 or 10 years primarily would be used to shore up Social Security, because we know that in maybe 20 or 30 years there will not be enough money to pay for the people who are then seniors who reach the age of 65. He also wanted to use about 15 percent of that surplus for Medicare in part to provide a new prescription drug program. I will just mention this by way of background, because I know the Republicans do not like to remember that tax cut. But if that tax cut had ever passed and had gone primarily to the wealthy and the special interest corporations, we would not be able to pay down the national debt which we are doing to some extent now, we would not be able to provide money for the Social Security system in the future, and we would not be able to pay for a prescription drug plan. Now, I want to talk a little bit about two of the issues that I consider very important here, which are not part of the Republican leadership agenda, which are part of the Democratic agenda and which the Republicans continue to try to muck up so they do not become law. One is managed care reform and the other is the prescription drug benefit under Medicare for seniors. Interestingly enough, last week we saw an interesting development with regard to the managed care reform. I think my colleagues and most of the American people know that the Democrats along with some Republicans because there was definitely bipartisan support on this HMO reform, on a bipartisan basis, but not with the support of the Republican leadership but a minority of the Republicans, we put together a managed care reform bill, the Patients' Bill of Rights, that passed the House of Representatives overwhelmingly about a month ago. Well, the problem is once a bill passes here, we have to go to conference with the Senate and try to work out the differences between the two Houses. We call that a conference, the people who are appointed are called conferees. The Republican leadership never appointed any conferees for about a month because they did not want to move forward on the conference because they did not want a managed care reform bill to be passed by both Houses and go to the President for a signature. But, finally, because the Democrats kept pressuring about the appointment of the conferees, they finally did decide last week that they would appoint the conferees. But they managed, once again, to screw this thing up so that the conference either will never take place or will never be effective in putting together a bill that would go to the President and that would signal real managed care reform. If my colleagues do not want to take my word for it, let me point out that last Thursday's New York Times had a great article, a congressional memo sort of a feature column by David Rosenbaum, and I will quote a few salient passages. The title of the article is ``Not Quite Business as Usual in House on Managed Care.'' This is how he describes it in his article: And I quote: ``Here is how the textbooks say a bill becomes law: The Senate passes the bill. Then the House of Representatives passes its own version. Then a conference committee is formed where senior senators defend their bill and senior representatives defend their bill, with both sides striking compromises to resolve their differences.'' That is what I was describing before about how we go about the conference. ``But in the real world,'' he goes on to say, ``in the real world of power politics, conventional procedures are sometimes flouted. That is what happened in the House today on legislation expanding the rights of patients in managed care plans. It threatens to undo the Chamber's action on the bill. Last month, by a lopsided vote of 275 to 151, the House passed a bill that would give patients a wide range of new rights in dealing with their health insurance companies. In July, the Senate had passed a bill covering barely a quarter as many patients and giving them a much more limited set of rights.'' ``The House bill was strongly supported by President Clinton, and almost all Democrats and 68 Republicans voted for it. But Republican Leaders in the House opposed the measure, making its passage probably the most striking rebuff to the leadership since the party won control of the Congress in 1994.'' So the House leadership did not like what we call the Norwood-Dingell bill, named for the two chief sponsors, one Republican, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood), and one Democrat, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell). The House leadership did not like the bill. They stalled, they stalled. Finally the bill passes overwhelmingly. So what do they do? Going back to The New York Times. ``Today, these leaders,'' Republican Leaders, ``used their authority to make sure the Republican conferees named to negotiate with the Senate were on their side and not on the side that won the vote, a tactic that could effectively stifle any action regulating managed care plans in this Congress.'' They are going to kill the bill. ``The chief Republican sponsor of the measure, Representative Charlie Norwood of Georgia, was denied a seat on the conference committee. So was another leading Republican supporter, Representative Greg Ganske of Iowa. Of the 12 Republican conferees, 10 voted against the managed-care bill.'' So what they did through a procedural gimmick is the Republican leadership made sure that if the conference is ever held, which it may not be, that whatever comes out will be controlled by the people who voted against the very bill that passed overwhelmingly in the House of Representatives. ``The rules of the House state:'' and I am going back to the New York Times article, that ``In appointing Members to conference committees, the Speaker shall appoint no less than a majority of Members who generally support the House position as determined by the Speaker. Technically, Mr. Hastert followed that rule. The managed-care regulations were attached to a separate bill, which Republicans call access legislation, that will increase coverage for the uninsured.'' Now, what they are basically doing here is a gimmick. They put the managed care reform bill in another bill. They are saying that most Republicans voted for that, so that is okay. They do not have to have conferees that supported the managed care reform. Mr. Speaker, again, I only use this as an example. I could use campaign finance reform. I could use prescription drug benefits. I could use gun safety laws. The list goes on. Basically whatever positive agenda there is for the American people, the Republican leadership is determined that they are going to kill it. Now, let me just mention another issue that I consider very important and that I think we are starting to see more and more information that tells us about the problems that seniors have trying to purchase and have enough money or insurance to provide for prescription drugs. Well, we are just seeing more and more information coming out every day about how difficult this problem is for seniors, because Medicare does not cover prescription drugs in most cases. Interestingly enough, a report came out last week by Families USA called ``Hard to Swallow Rising Drug Prices for American Seniors.'' I would just like to provide some of the information that was in the introduction or the summary of this report that came out last week because it shows dramatically how seniors increasingly cannot afford the cost of prescription drugs and are going without. We all know that prescription drugs are really the best preventative measure that one can take, particularly as a senior, to avoid hospitalization, to avoid having to go to a nursing home, to avoid being institutionalized. They are a preventative. If seniors cannot afford them, they are going to end up in a hospital, they are going to end up in a nursing home, they are not going to be able to take the preventative action that comes from having access to prescription drugs. Well, the Families USA report, if I can just quote, Mr. Speaker, some of the salient points. This is in the introduction, which I thought was particularly significant. It says that, ``For older Americans, the affordability of prescription drugs has long been a pressing concern. Outpatient prescription drug coverage is one of the last major benefits still excluded from Medicare, and the elderly are the last major insured consumer group without access to prescription drugs as a standard benefit. It is not included in Medicare. ``Although many Medicare beneficiaries have access to supplemental prescription drug coverage, too often that coverage is very expensive and very limited in scope. What is more, such coverage is on the decline. As a result, older Americans who are by far the greatest consumers of prescription drugs pay a larger share of drug costs out of their own pockets than do those who are under 65. ``Four years ago, Families USA found that the prices of prescription drugs commonly used by older Americans were rising faster than the rate of inflation. To determine if this trend of steadily increasing prices for prescription drugs has improved, remained the same, or worsened, Families USA gathered information on the prices of prescription drugs most heavily used by older Americans over the past 5 years. ``Our analysis shows that, in each of the past 5 years, the prices of the 50 prescription drugs most used by older Americans have increased considerably faster than inflation. While senior citizens generally live on fixed incomes that are adjusted to keep up with the rate of inflation, the cost of the prescription drugs they purchase most frequently has risen at approximately two times the rate of inflation over the past 5 years and more than four times the inflation over the last 2 years.'' Now, just again to show my colleagues how bad the situation is becoming for seniors, just a little more information that comes from the discussion in this Families USA report, it says that ``because Medicare does not cover outpatient prescription drugs, many beneficiaries look elsewhere for drug coverage. About 28 percent of the Medicare beneficiaries receive some drug coverage through employer- sponsored retiree plans, about 11 percent from Medicaid, about 8 percent from individuals purchasing Medigap insurance, about 7 percent from Medicare HMOs, and about 3 percent from public sources such as the VA or State pharmaceutical programs for the low-income elderly,'' something that we have in New Jersey. But 35 percent of Medicare beneficiaries, 14 million people, have absolutely no coverage for prescription drugs. Interestingly enough, even for those 65 percent who do have access to some drug coverage, what the Families USA report shows is that much of that inadequate with high co-payments, low caps on overall drug coverage, and restrictions on the drugs that can be prescribed. For example, only three of the 10 standardized Medigap policies sold offer prescription drug coverage, two of these policies require a $250 annual deductible, charge a 50 percent co-payment for each drug, and have a maximum annual benefit of $1,250. The third, which has a much higher premium, has the same high deductible and co-payment and has a $3,000 cap. So what we are finding is that the sources of prescription drug coverage for seniors are basically drying up. Next year the value of drug benefits and Medicare HMOs will decline. On average co-payments for brand-name drugs will increase by 21 percent, and co-payments for generic drugs will increase by 8 percent. I do not want to continue going through this, but I think this Families USA report shows dramatically how so many seniors do not have any access to prescription drug coverage and they are simply paying everything out-of-pocket, which they cannot afford; or for those who have some sort of coverage, the prices, the cost, the co-payments, the deductibles, and even the ability to obtain coverage at all, all those factors, everything is declining. We have to do something about it. Well, the President has proposed doing something about it, and the Democrats have proposed doing something about it. This is part of our positive agenda which we cannot get passed in the Republican Congress with this Republican leadership. The President a long time ago, much earlier this year, came up with the idea of a Medicare prescription drug benefit. He wanted to establish a new voluntary Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit that is as affordable and available to all beneficiaries. Now, I am not saying that the President's proposal is necessarily the one we should adopt, but the Republican leadership does not want to adopt anything. They say the problem does not exist or make some other excuse. But I will just give my colleagues a little information about the President's proposal because I think it is a good one. He says that there would be no deductible, and Medicare would pay for half of the beneficiary's drug cost from the first prescription filled each year up to $5,000 in spending. He would ensure beneficiaries a price discount similar to that offered by many employer-sponsored plans for each prescription purchased even after the $5,000 limit is reached. I want to stress how important that is to be able to do bulk purchases and keep the prices down, because price discrimination is a huge problem right now for seniors if they do not have access to some kind of plan where the purchases are made in bulk. The plan that the President proposed will cost about $24 per month beginning in 2002 and $44 per month when fully phased in by 2008. Beneficiaries with incomes below 135 percent of poverty would not pay premiums or cost sharing. I do not want to, again, go into all the details, but I just did want to say that, to date, once again, the Republican leadership has failed to show even the slightest understanding of the two broad underpinnings of this prescription drug issue; and that is the price discrimination that seniors face in purchasing prescription drugs and the need to establish a comprehensive Medicare drug benefit in order to help seniors combat this price discrimination. There have been some dramatic examples. The Government operations, the House Committee on Government Reform did a lot of analysis of price discrimination and basically showed that, if one goes to Mexico and Canada, generally the same exact drugs that were available in those countries are available for about half the cost of what they are sold for here in the United States. Again, I do not want to go into all the details on this, Mr. Speaker, but I just would point out that the problem with price discrimination exists because seniors without coverage have no negotiating power. They do not have the power to obtain pharmaceuticals at lower prices through bulk purchases like the drug industry's most favorite customers. We have to address that. This Republican leadership has failed to address it. I do not intend to use all the time allotted to me this evening, but I just wanted to spend a few more minutes talking about what is really happening here. Not only is this Republican leadership not addressing the real issues that need to be addressed like managed care reform, like Medicare prescription drugs; but they cannot even perform the basic functions of the House in terms of getting the budget passed. They continue to break their promises that they make in trying to accomplish that goal. We are now on the fourth CR, the fourth continuing resolution. As of October 1, the new fiscal year began. The new budget, the 13 appropriations bills were supposed to be adopted by October 1. They were not. Every week or so, we pass a new continuing resolution to keep the Government going and not close down for another week or so. Now we are on our fourth that extends, I believe, to November 10, sometime this week, in time for Veterans' Day when we probably will recess. The fact that we are in such disarray, and we have not been able to adopt the budget is bad enough; but there are two things about what has been going on that I think need to be highlighted that maybe in some respects are even worse. The two promises that basically the Speaker made and the Republican leadership made earlier in this year about the budget, both of which have been broken, one is that the appropriations bill would stay within the Balanced Budget Act and the caps that were set forth pursuant to the Balanced Budget Act so that we would not exceed the level of spending that was basically put forth and outlined over the next 5 or 10 years on an annual basis. There were caps on the level of spending that were put forth for each fiscal year. Well, the Republican appropriation bills have already busted the outlays caps for fiscal year 2000 by billions of dollars. I have actually an article in the Wall Street Journal that talks about this. I think I will just put it up here for a minute, Mr. Speaker. This is from Friday, October 29, Wall Street Journal. I think people generally understand that the Wall Street Journal tends to be Republican and tends to be conservative. This is an article there that says that, ``The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the GOP exceeds spending targets by over $31 billion. Congressional Budget Office estimates show that Republicans are more than $31 billion over their initial spending targets for this year, risking the Government having to borrow again from Social Security. ``Prior appropriations bills have exceeded Mr. Clinton's requests from funding everything from veterans' medical care and the Pentagon to the Environmental Protection Agency. Even with the 1 percent across- the-board cut that the Republicans touted here a couple weeks ago, the Labor Education Health bill, which is expected to be passed by the Senate on Monday, includes major spending increases over the last year. ``The GOP continues to work to what amounts to two sets of book, this is the gimmicks, one based on the CBO and the other on spending estimates by the Office of Management Budget. When the OMB's numbers are favorable, House and Senate budget committees simply direct CBO to adjust the estimates accordingly.'' Well, it goes on. The point I am trying to make, Mr. Speaker, is that there is absolutely no question that based on the CBO estimates that the Republicans spending bills have busted the fiscal year 2000 outlays, the caps, by $30.7 billion. They use all kinds of gimmicks to try to justify that as emergencies or whatever. Now, the second promise that the Republicans made was that they were not going to dip into the Social Security Trust Fund. On October 28, the Congressional Budget Office certified that the GOP leadership had broken that program. They sent a letter to Congress certifying that, on the basis of CBO estimates of the 13 completed GOP appropriation bills, the GOP bills spend $17 billion of the Social Security surplus, even after their 1 percent across-the-board cut is taken into consideration. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to go into this a little bit, and then I will complete my presentation this evening. There was an article, I guess it was in the New York Times last week, that talked about how these spending limits that were set forth with much fanfare as part of the Balanced Budget Act a couple years ago have just basically been ignored. Many of us at the time when the Balanced Budget Act was passed thought this was going to be really significant in terms of trying to keep the budget focused, not go into debt, create a surplus that could be used to shore up Social Security and Medicare, to pay for prescription drugs, whatever. But what we see is that the caps are effectively dead. If one looks at this article in the New York Times from last week, it says that ``In effect, Washington has now substituted a new standard of fiscal responsibility, the loser goal of not spending surplus Social Security money. Only through budget gamesmanship can either party claim to be meeting even that new standard this year.'' Well, just to give my colleagues an idea of some of the thing that they have done to get away the caps, the article says that, ``Under the law, Congress and the administration must remain within the caps, or the White House must enact the across-the-board cuts to bring spending back into line.'' Last year, the Republican leadership exploited a loophole intended to deal with wars or natural disasters. They designated $20 billion in outlays as emergency spending that is not technically subject to the limits. They did the same thing this year. Appropriations committees have almost arbitrarily placed $17.5 billion in discretionary spending, including spare parts for the Pentagon, financing for the 2000 census under the emergency umbrella. They have also used a tactic that compares spending estimates, this is what was in the Wall Street Journal as well, where they look at the CBO numbers versus the OMB numbers, and they use whatever numbers they think are appropriate to try to say that they are not sending money. Whatever. The point I am trying to make, Mr. Speaker, is that we are here on this fourth continuing resolution. It is over a month since the budget was supposed to be fashioned. All we keep hearing from the other side is that, oh, we are going to stay here because we do not want to dip into Social Security. The reality is they have already dipped into Social Security about $17 billion. The last thing I wanted to mention tonight, and I go back to the Social Security issue again because I know some of my colleagues on the Democratic side have been attacked by Republican commercials, accusing them of dipping into Social Security when, in fact, it is the Republican leadership that has dipped into Social Security with their appropriations and their spending bills to the tune of $17 billion. And there was a good article, again an editorial in The New York Times last week, that talked about the focus on this Social Security surplus and dipping into it. The New York Times pointed out, again, that the Republicans have already dipped into the Social Security surplus so that that whole issue is really moot. But what they say is the most important aspect and the best example of inaction here is how we are not dealing with the long-term solvency of Social Security. There again, I go back to what the President said in his State of the Union message earlier this year. He said, look, we can take the majority of the surplus that is being generated from the Balanced Budget Act over the next 10 years and we can use that to shore up Social Security so the trust fund remains viable, and 20 or 30 years from now, when all the baby boomers become senior citizens, or even sooner, there will be money there for Social Security; and we can use a significant portion of the surplus also for Medicare so we can have a prescription drug benefit. All I would like to conclude with tonight, Mr. Speaker, is to say, please, to my colleagues on the other side, to the Republican leadership that runs this House of Representatives, before we leave here, let us adopt a budget, but let us also make sure that we address some of these both short-term and long-term issues that need to be addressed. All the Democrats are saying is that we are crying out for bipartisan action on Social Security to make sure that we address the solvency long-term on Medicare, to make sure we provide a prescription drug benefit, address campaign finance reform, address the gun safety issue, address the concerns with regard to HMOs and pass the Patients' Bill of Rights. Let us get active on an agenda. Let us not just sit back and say that this House of Representatives and this Congress should run away from everything and the government should basically dismantle itself and not try to take some action in a positive way that would benefit the American people. I do not want to come here every day and see us fool around with appropriations bills and not pass a budget, and at the same time not address these major concerns that should be addressed, and that is what we are seeing here every day amongst the Republican leadership; inaction on the budget, gimmicks on the budget, no action on the major issues that are important to the American people. And worst of all, last week the Speaker again started to talk about a major tax cut, as if the only thing that this Republican leadership could do is to talk about another tax cut that is going to benefit primarily the wealthy and provide corporations with some tax breaks. It is almost as if the only thing that the Speaker and the Republican leadership can think about at any given time is coming up with more tax cuts. That is not what needs to be done. We need to address the issues that the public is crying out for, and I hope that we do, otherwise we will be continuing to speak out on the Democratic side of the aisle every night to demand action on these important issues that the American people want to see attended to.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. I want to thank the gentleman from New York for the statements that he made. Essentially the gentleman is pointing out what we have been saying, which is that here we are, I guess it is over a month since October 1, which was when the new fiscal year was supposed to begin, and we are just basically staying here while we watch the Republicans try in some fashion to put together a budget. But it is virtually impossible for them to do so, because essentially their priorities are off base. Unfortunately, while we wait here, they do not move on this agenda, which we think is important, the Patients' Bill of Rights, trying to come up with a Medicare drug benefit, the education initiatives that the gentleman mentioned. I just wanted to point out very briefly, because I would like to introduce another one of my colleagues, this is from a summary that was put together today that when Speaker Hastert started the year he made three promises in regards to the budget. One, he said that the Republican Congress would pass the budget on time, stay within the spending caps, and do it all without spending Social Security. They have failed on each one of these counts.

Mr. PALLONE. Exactly, strike three. We are now four weeks past the budget deadline, which was October 1. It is now November 3rd. Even the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich), the chairman of the Committee on the Budget, said this morning, and this is from The Los Angeles times, that the Republicans had not stayed within the budget caps, and both the Congressional Budget Office and the OMB have reached the same conclusion, that Republicans are spending as much as $17 billion into the Social Security surplus. None of these promises have been kept, and we are still here. I yield to my colleague from my neighboring district in New Jersey (Mr. Holt).

Mr. PALLONE. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, my colleagues are joining me tonight because we really want to make the point before this Congress adjourns for the recess over the next couple of weeks that it really has been a very unproductive session because of the Republican leadership's lack of an agenda, or perhaps because they have the wrong agenda. Many of us know that at some point over the next week or perhaps 2 weeks when the appropriations bills are finally completed that the Congress will adjourn, probably until sometime in January. But this has been a terribly unproductive session. The Democrats want Congress to get to work on the real priorities for middle-class families, priorities the Republican leadership has once again ignored in favor of the needs of special interests. Democrats want to get the job done this year. We do not want to wait until the next year, the next session of Congress, and have another year of unfinished business, because that is simply unacceptable. Democrats still believe that we can get action on an agenda that matters. I wanted to talk briefly if I could, to mention some of the major priorities that the Democrats have put forward in this Congress that the Republicans have either refused to act on or have sent off to conference between the Senate and the House where they have essentially been buried because the conference has never met or in some cases the conferees have not even been appointed. What we have done to sort of highlight the number of important issues, if you will, that are part of the Democratic agenda that have not been addressed by the Republican leadership is to put some of those major issues, if you will, on tombstones to sort of highlight the fact that they are resting in peace rather than being accomplished in this session of the Congress. I just want to point to a few of them and then I would like to yield to some of my colleagues to talk a little more about some of these issues. The first one and the most important for me is the Patients' Bill of Rights. That was killed by the GOP, in this year, 1999. I think you may know that today, the Republicans finally appointed conferees on the Patients' Bill of Rights, but there has been no indication that the conference is actually going to meet and we have had this one basically hanging around for several years, where the Republicans fooled around, tried to load down the Patients' Bill of Rights with whatever kind of poison pills, if you will, imaginable to make sure that it never passed, and then when it finally did pass over their protests a few weeks ago, they are still stalling by either not appointing the conferees or having the conference actually not meet. The Patients' Bill of Rights is in my opinion the most important legislative priority, the one that my constituents talk about the most, because they are worried that if they are in an HMO or a managed care organization, that oftentimes they cannot get quality care or they cannot get the kind of care they want because they are denied an operation, they are denied a particular procedure, they are denied a length of stay in the hospital, because basically the insurance company decides that they should not get it. The other priority, and this one is just as important, the other priority that the Republicans have buried, again resting in peace, is the Medicare drug benefit. The President in his State of the Union address earlier in this year basically pointed out that the cost of prescription drugs for seniors is skyrocketing, many of them cannot afford it, many of them do not have prescription drug coverage as part of certainly Medicare, even if they do have it in some cases if they are in an HMO or part of their MediGap insurance, and so far the Republicans have refused to even address this one at all. Democrats keep talking about it as an important priority for America's seniors. It is not being addressed by the Republican Congress. Another one, I hate to even mention this in the context of a tombstone because we know in fact that many Americans, including young Americans, have actually been killed because of the neglect to deal with gun safety issues. Mr. Speaker, several months ago we tried here on the floor of the House of Representatives to pass gun safety legislation. We were able to get a few things passed, but essentially because of the Republican inaction, the major priorities are still not addressed, and certainly nothing has been done in conference to address the gun safety issue. Every day that goes by, we hear about more Americans being killed, more Americans being maimed, and yet the gun safety issue remains unaddressed, killed by the GOP in 1999. It is resting in peace as well. And then also, a major issue which again has been hanging around here for several years, the Democrats have demanded campaign finance reform. We know that our constituents want it, the editorial writers talk about campaign finance reform because we know that what is happening now is that so much soft money, corporate money, if you will, not individual money, is being used either to finance campaigns through the political parties or through independent expenditures, that the reality is that the campaign finance system has fallen apart, and there is no accountability, no disclosure anymore of the soft money that is being used. Well, we passed the Shays-Meehan bill finally a couple of months ago but again there has been no conference, there has been no action between the House and the Senate by the Republican majority. There are a few more issues, and I am not going to go into all of them, but I did want to mention a few more if I could. Very important, the President a couple of years ago talked about the need to have Federal dollars go back to school districts to hire 100,000 new teachers in the elementary grades in order to try to reduce class size, because we know that if you reduce class size, it has a real beneficial impact on students', in the younger years in particular, ability to learn. We know that in this Congress again the Republicans are willing to provide some money for education but not to give back to the town specifically to hire more teachers. Again, I hear from my own constituents how important that is. Not addressed by this Republican Congress. That one rests in peace as well. And finally, the Republicans have made a lot of noise about how they want to give tax breaks, but the tax breaks are all for wealthy individuals. They passed a trillion-dollar, almost a trillion-dollar tax break, primarily for wealthy people, for the corporations, for special interests, but we as Democrats are saying, look, we need tax relief but we would like it to be targeted tax relief, that helps the average working person, that is actually used, if you will, to allow people to send their kids to college, to help with their education, higher education expenses, to provide, if you will, for day care in some cases through tax credits or tax deductions. But, no, the Republicans insist on the trillion-dollar tax break plan primarily for the wealthy and the special interests. They will not provide the targeted tax relief that will help working families and the average American. That again is resting in peace, killed by the GOP leadership, the GOP Congress in this year, 1999. Mr. Speaker, I am not trying to poke fun at this issue, I think these issues are very important, they are part of the Democratic agenda, they would be, I think, a part of the Republican agenda if only they would understand that this is what the American people want. But the Republican leadership refuses to address the concerns of the American people and instead they just want to pull their own priorities, their own agenda, which is primarily a major tax break, if you will, for wealthy Americans and for the large corporate interests. I would like to yield now, if I could, to some of my colleagues to talk a little more about this do-nothing Congress and this Congress that with the Republicans in charge essentially has the wrong agenda. I yield now to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, that is a very good point. The other thing the gentleman mentioned, I just wanted to briefly say, is about the prices of prescription drugs and the need for a Medicare prescription drug benefit. I just wanted to mention that today Families U.S.A. came out with a report that really documents very well the problem of high drug prices and the fact that so many senior citizens, they say 35 percent of Medicare beneficiaries, 14 million people, have absolutely no coverage for prescription drugs. The 65 percent that do have some coverage, it is limited. Increasingly, because of deductibles, co-payments, caps on the amount that is provided under the prescription drug coverage, they see a decline in their ability to obtain prescription drugs and increase costs out-of-pocket. So this is, again, the issue of a Medicare prescription drug benefit is not pie in the sky. This is responding, as the Democrats have, to real needs, to concerns that people express to us every day; and, yet, the Republicans refuse to acknowledge it and refuse to act on it. So I want to thank the gentleman again. I think we have run out of time, but I do want to say that we are going to continue to be here over the next week or two, before this House adjourns for the recess, to point out that the Republican leadership has the wrong agenda. They are not addressing the real priority of the American people. We are going to keep pressing that those priorities be addressed.

Mr. PALLONE. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Olver). There were two points that he raised that I just wanted to mention briefly, because I think we only have a few minutes left. But he brought out the fact that the Republicans have not even looked at the long-term solvency of Social Security and Medicare, in other words, this debate that we have discussed tonight and we have had about whether or not the Republican appropriation bills and their budget actually spend the Social Security surplus. We know that it has about $17 billion that has come from this Social Security surplus in order to pay for their budget. But that is really a minor issue compared to the fact that, over the long-term, we need to address the financing of Social Security and Medicare for future generations. President Clinton has actually put forth proposals in both of those areas, primarily by saying that whatever surplus is generated through general revenues over the next 10 years, a good amount of that be used to shore up Social Security and Medicare for long-term purposes. The Republicans have not even looked at that. That is an agenda they have not even touched. The bottom line is it is going to come home to roost at some point.

Mr. PALLONE. I agree, and I appreciate the gentleman bringing it to our attention. Let me now yield, if I can, to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Olver) who has joined us.

Mr. PALLONE. We can only do what we are doing now, which is to speak out and tell our colleagues and tell the American people what is really going on here. What is really going on here, again, is the wrong agenda. The only agenda that I see that the Republican leadership has is tax cuts for wealthy Americans and for corporations and special interests. Every proposal that the gentleman and our other colleagues here tonight have put forward as part of the Democratic agenda, and I hesitate to even call it a Democratic agenda, because as the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) said, it is really the American people's agenda. It should be a bipartisan agenda, and we even have some colleagues on the Republican side who have supported some of these initiatives, like the Patients' Bill of Rights. But the Republican leadership, because they are so dependent, if you will, on special interests, refuse to let any of these bills come up; or if they come up, they basically try to load them up with all kinds of poison pills or kill them in conference, use all kind of procedural techniques to kill them. I appreciate the fact that the gentleman did bring up the social security again, because I know, when I am back in my district in New Jersey, I know they have those radio ads on basically accusing the gentleman of using the social security surplus, which is a total lie. In fact, what they have done is what they accuse the gentleman of, which is, they have spent $17 billion into the social security surplus already. That comes from the Congressional Budget Office and the OMB. How could it be more clear? I have never in my entire life seen a political party or leadership actually put on ad accusing their opponents of doing what it is documented they are doing themselves.

Mr. PALLONE. It really is insulting, I agree with the gentleman. I appreciate that he brought that out. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my colleague, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak).

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak), particularly when he points out the gimmicks that are being used by the Republican leadership because that is what it is all about. They have the wrong agenda and they want to do whatever they can to block the right agenda, which is the legislation we put forth. I was talking to some of my colleagues, even some of my Republican colleagues at lunch today, and I found out, and I do not know that it is true in New Jersey but there apparently are a number of State legislatures where they have rules that the conferees have to be the people who supported and voted for the bill, and it is not even allowed under the rules of certain legislatures in certain States to appoint conferees who did not support the bill. It makes sense, if one thinks about it. By saying that they are going to appoint conferees that actually did not support the bill, they are basically sending the signal that this conference is not going to allow the provisions of the bill to be upheld, and that is the signal that they are sending

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, there are two obvious reasons why this motion to instruct the conferees to support the Norwood-Dingell bill should be supported. The first is that the Norwood-Dingell bill provides meaningful patient protections, whereas the Republican leadership bill in the other body is a sham proposal designed to protect the insurance industry. The second is that the vote in the House on the Norwood-Dingell bill was one of overwhelming support and fairness demands that that vote be reflected in the conference. When it comes to the substance of the bills, my colleague from New Jersey pointed out that the partisan bill passed by the GOP in the other body excludes more than 100 million people from its provisions. It applies only to people in self-funded plans. These types of plans are typically offered only by large employers and cover only 48 million Americans. The Norwood-Dingell bill, on the other hand, applies to all 161 million privately insured Americans. The differences between the bills though run a lot deeper than this gross disparity in the coverage. The protections in the Norwood-Dingell bill are vastly superior to those limited protections proposed by the GOP leadership in the other body. Just as some examples, the GOP leadership bill in the Senate provides no guarantees that if you have to go to the nearest emergency room in a situation where you have an emergency, that is going to be covered or you will not have to foot the bill yourself. In the Norwood-Dingell bill, if you go to the nearest emergency room, you are going to be covered. The GOP leadership bill does not guarantee direct access to OB-GYN for women. The Norwood-Dingell bill does. The leadership bill does not guarantee access to specialists out of the network, but the Norwood- Dingell bill does. The GOP leadership bill allows HMOs to continue to define what type of care is medically necessary. The Norwood-Dingell bill allows doctors and patients to make that determination, not the insurance company bureaucrats. Finally, the GOP leadership bill does not provide for an independent external appeals process. The Norwood-Dingell bill does. In addition to that, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) mentioned that the GOP leadership bill does not allow you to sue your HMO because it leaves the ERISA exemption from liability in place. The Norwood-Dingell bill sides with the patients and lifts this preemption, giving individuals the right to sue their HMOs when they are denied needed care and their health suffers as a result. Support this motion to instruct the conferees.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to take this time to talk about some important developments in the relationship between the United States and India. In the past few weeks, the headlines from South Asia have been dominated by the news from India's neighbor Pakistan, where a military coup has deposed the nation's civilian prime minister. This was obviously an important and very disturbing development, one which has been condemned by me and many of my colleagues here in Congress. Unfortunately, there is often a tendency to lump India and Pakistan together, to see all developments in South Asia as a function of the conflicts between India and Pakistan. In fact, Mr. Speaker, what we now see in South Asia are two nations moving in very different directions. While Pakistan is mired in military coups and economic collapse, India sticks to the path of democracy and economic reform. We must consider India, and take it seriously on its own terms, as the world's largest democracy, the second most populous nation, an important regional player in Asia in its own right, a huge and growing market for American trade and investment, a potential partner on security issues and the fight against terrorism, and as a country with the great potential for cooperation in such areas as environmental protection, energy efficiency, and infrastructure development. Mr. Speaker, this week we have seen some indications that U.S. policy is beginning to accommodate some of the important distinctions between these two countries. Last year, after India and Pakistan conducted nuclear tests, a wide range of economic sanctions were imposed on both countries. About a year ago, Congress and the President acted to waive these sanctions for 1 year. This week, under the renewed waiver authority, President Clinton has waived the economic sanctions on India, but kept most of the sanctions against Pakistan in response to the coup. Under the President's determination, Pakistan would be ineligible for loans from the Export-Import Bank and unable to participate in the International Military Education and Training, IMET, program. It also means that the U.S.-backed Overseas Private Investment Corporation, OPIC, and the Trade Development Agency would not be able to operate in Pakistan. A White House National Security Council spokesman stated that the different treatment of the two countries reflects the reality that things have changed for the worst in Pakistan, and that there can be no business as usual in Pakistan until an elected government is restored. I hope that our government will stick with that policy. More important, Mr. Speaker, I would urge the administration not to use the prospect of reopening military assistance to Pakistan as an inducement to the military coup leaders. This is particularly timely in light of recent reports of serious border attacks against India by Pakistani troops in Kashmir. Secretary of State Albright has called on the Pakistani side to withdraw from the line of control in Kashmir. Given the evidence that the hard-liners now in charge of Pakistan were in large part responsible for launching the aggression against India last spring, maintaining the ban on military assistance to Pakistan makes very good sense. Following the recent nationwide elections in India, a new governing coalition led by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee of the BJP has been sworn in. While Mr. Vajpayee and his party were in power prior to last month's voting, the recent elections have given him a stronger majority, allowing for greater political stability. The new government has wasted no time in demonstrating its commitment to move forward on a bold economic agenda. The government will review the existing foreign direct investment regime to bring in greater transparency, cut delays in project implementation, and create a policy to insure an investment inflow of at least 10 billion U.S. dollars. In the energy and power sector, the central government will work closely with the State governments on privatization and regulatory overhauls. The government will work to dismantle the administrative price regime. Improvement and expansion of transportation and telecom infrastructure is another major priority. In the energy sector in particular, the potential for U.S.-India cooperation is great. During his trip to India, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson and Indian External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh signed a joint declaration on energy cooperation, which calls for cooperation in conventional energy projects, renewable energy, and clean coal technology. Secretary Richardson has also reported progress with his India counterparts in discussions on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, I hope that we will see continued progress in these and other areas, and that the upcoming planned visit to South Asia by President Clinton will further advance the process of establishing a U.S.-India relationship based on shared goals, mutual respect, and appreciation for each other's vital interests.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, it is with profound sadness that I rise today to indicate to my colleagues and the American people the tragic events that have taken place in the Republic of Armenia. News reports indicate that Prime Minister Vazgen Sarkisian has been assassinated in an attack by four gunmen who stormed into Parliament during a session earlier today. Other lawmakers and government officials were killed in the attack in the Parliament chamber, including the Speaker of Parliament Karen Demirchian, according to news reports. The death of the Prime Minister and the Speaker of the Parliament have now been confirmed by the office of Armenia's president. The gunmen are currently holding some 100 hostages, including members of Parliament. However, the government is in full control of the situation outside Parliament in the Armenian capital of Yerevan and throughout the country. There is no state of emergency. There are no indications that this was part of any organized coup, but merely the action of a few gunmen whose motives are not yet clear. The Prime Minister and members of the government were gathered in Parliament for a presentation of the budget. So, clearly, the gunmen chose an occasion when they could attack many of the top leaders at one time. The gunmen have reportedly released the women hostages. Armenia's President Robert Kocharian was not at the Parliament complex at the time of the shooting. He is there now personally directing the security forces and trying to negotiate for the release of the remaining hostages. I want to stress, Mr. Speaker, that democracy in Armenia is strong. The commitment on the part of Armenia's elected leaders and the vast majority of Armenia people to democracy, to the orderly transfer of power, to peace and stability in Armenia and within the region, all remain as strong as ever. Clearly, Armenia must be in a state of shock right now. The same is true for me, Mr. Speaker, and for all the friends of Armenia in this Congress on both sides of the aisle and for all the American friends of Armenia, including more than one million Americans of Armenian descent. But Armenia will continue to move forward with the political and economical reforms it began when it won its independence more than 8 years ago. Mr. Speaker, there is a special poignancy for me and many of my colleagues in learning of the death of Prime Minister Sarkisian. The Prime Minister was our guest in this very Capitol building just a few weeks ago, 4 weeks ago to be exact. More than 30 Members of Congress and many of our staff had the opportunity to hear the Prime Minister give a very strong speech in which he stressed his commitment to continuing with economic reforms while working for a settlement of the Nagorno Karabagh conflict and greater integration between Armenia and her neighbors. Vazgen Sarkisian had only been Prime Minister since May of this year following nationwide elections for the National Assembly, the Parliament. His party was the Unity Federation. Prior to becoming Prime Minister, he served as Defense Minister from 1995 to 1999. And like many political figures in Armenia, his real involvement in politics began in 1988, as the Soviet Union was collapsing. That year he joined the National Liberation Movement for Independence of Armenia and Constitutional Self-Determination of Nagorno Karabagh. Also, like many of the political leaders of today's Armenia, Prime Minister Sarkisian was quite young. He was only 40 years old and had an extremely bright future ahead of him as leader of his country. Mr. Sarkisian was committed to the goal of reform, rebuilding the nation after decades of Soviet domination. He supported integration of Armenia's economy with the region and the world. He sought to promote a society that protects private property with a stable currency and a balanced budget, while providing social protections to its citizens. During his visit to Washington, the Prime Minister met with Vice President Gore, attended World Bank and IMF meetings, and met with officials of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, as well as other Members of Congress. Mr. Speaker, Speaker Demirchian had been the leader of Armenia during Soviet times. In the post-Soviet Armenia, he has emerged as a champion of reform. I have had the opportunity to meet Mr. Demirchian during a congressional delegation to Armenia that I participated in this summer with four of my colleagues. We were all struck by the fact that the new leadership, with President Kocharian, Prime Minister Sarkisian, and Speaker Demirchian represented an extremely strong leadership team poised to lead Armenia into a new millennium and into an economic area of prosperity and peace. While I am sure President Kocharian will continue at that legacy, he has lost two valuable partners. Armenia and the world have lost two fine leaders. But even on this saddest of days, and it really is a very sad day, I am confident that Armenia will continue its progress in establishing a strong, prosperous, and free society.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to know that my Republican colleagues who spoke before me this evening basically showed, if you will, their hypocrisy on the Social Security issue. The bottom line is we all know that Republicans have always disliked Social Security, and now they are trying to have the American people believe they are suddenly the steadfast defenders of the Social Security program by essentially distorting their record on the issue of Social Security. Let there be no question about it: The Republicans have already spent at least $13 billion of the Social Security surplus. They are trying to give you the impression that somehow that is not the case, that they are going to balance the budget without using the Social Security surplus. The reality is they have already spent at least $13 billion of it with the appropriations bills that have already passed the House of Representatives. Tom Delay, the Republican Whip, said at one time, this was October 1st in the Washington Times, ``I will not vote for any bill that spends any of the Social Security surplus.'' But his own Congressional Budget Office has repeatedly said, and we have said it over and over again, we need to say it as Democrats because of what the Republicans are trying to do to distort the record, Tom Delay's own Congressional Budget Office has repeatedly said that Republicans have already spent $13 billion of the Social Security surplus on the Republican spending bills, on the appropriations bills. According to the CBO, their own Congressional Budget Office, Republicans are on their way to spending $24 billion of the Social Security surplus with the bills that they keep cranking out and sending to the President. I think the ultimate irony of it all is when the President vetoes these bills and basically sends them back, which means the money is not spent, they criticize the President and say he wants to spend the Social Security surplus. Well, how can he do that if he vetoes the bill? The bills that they send to him are the spending bills. When he takes his pen and crosses it out and says I will not spend that money and he sends it back, the money is not spent. So it is the President in vetoing these bills and saying look, I want to look at this entire budget. You show me how you are going to put together these 13 appropriation bills and what that is going to add up to in the end, because he is concerned that he does not want to spend any of the Social Security surplus, and in fact it is the Republicans by passing these spending bills and sending them to him that are in fact doing just that. Let me go beyond the immediate question of the issue of spending Social Security surplus, because I do not think there is any doubt that the Republican leadership has already done that. But they have always opposed the concept of Social Security. The members of this Republican leadership have repeatedly been on record as saying that they are opposed to or wanted to phase out or somehow suggest they do not like Social Security as a concept, as a system. The fact is that Dick Armey, Tom DeLay and the rest of the Republican leadership have a long track record, from either indifference to outright hostility, toward Social Security. Republicans wanted to eliminate guaranteed benefits for Social Security through various privatization schemes. We have not heard about that, but many, many in the Republican leadership have talked about the need to privatize Social Security, which, in my opinion, is the same thing as not having the system as a guaranteed government system. They have no plan to extend the life of the Social Security trust fund. They basically want to let it wither on the vine. We all know that if something is not done soon, at some point into the next 10 or 20 years the Social Security trust fund is going to start to run out of money. And where is their plan? Where is the Republican plan to extend the life of that program? The only person who has put forward a plan, or I should say the only prominent person who has put forward a plan to try to shore up Social Security over the long term, is the President of the United States, Bill Clinton, who they basically distort what he says every night here. Once again, over the weekend he put forward and said that he wanted his long-term plan to shore up Social Security to be part of this budget agreement that he wants to work on with the Republicans, with the Congress, over the next few weeks. They just ignore that. They ignore the fact that Social Security needs to be fixed on a long term basis. You know, the amazing thing is the President's plan, if it were adopted, would basically extend the life of the Social Security trust fund by 15 years. The Republicans do not extend the life of that fund a single day. The other thing that I wanted to point out is very conveniently my colleagues on the other side forgot what they did for the last 6 months when they put together this $1 trillion tax cut bill that primarily benefited the wealthy Americans and the corporations and would have just obliterated any effort to try to provide the surplus for Social Security. In fact, the Republican tax plan, which the President wisely vetoed, would have sucked the surplus dry, leaving nothing for strengthening the Social Security trust fund or extending the life of the Medicare Trust Fund or modernizing Medicare with prescription drug coverage. When I go out and talk to my seniors, they are worried about the long-term impact, whether or not Social Security is going to be there. They are worried about whether Medicare is going to be there. They want to make sure that Medicare includes the prescription drug fund. If this Republican tax plan, passed by the Republicans in both houses with few if any Democratic votes, had not been vetoed by President Clinton, there would not be anything to discuss here, because any effort to modernize Medicare, provide for prescription drugs, to make sure that we could shore up and save Social Security over the next 30 years, all that would have been out the window. They spent 6 months on that, and finally the President vetoed it. But they have forgotten. We do not hear about that anymore, because obviously it did not work and they are not getting any mileage out of it, so they do not talk about it anymore. Republicans voted for $1 trillion for tax cuts for the wealthy and the corporate special interests. Not one penny of that for Social Security. Let me just talk a little bit, because over the weekend the president reiterated once again the need to look at Social Security over the long term, to shore it up for the future. He is the one that is out there talking about this. Basically what the President is saying is that any surplus that is generated, I am not talking about the Social Security Trust Fund and the surplus that is in there, but I am talking about the general revenue, the money that comes from one's income taxes and other fees that one pays the Federal Government, the general revenue surplus, which, because of the Balanced Budget Act, is going to continue to grow over the next 10 years, he is saying that that surplus, if any, because we are not sure if there is going to be any, but if there is some, he wants to take that general revenue money, that income tax money, and he wants to apply that or a good percentage of that to Social Security so that we have enough money over the long-term. Because my colleagues have to understand that, under the current system, if we continue the way we do, there will not be enough money for Social Security in another 20 or 30 years. Well, the President basically said in his weekly radio address over the weekend that he would send Congress legislation next week based on a proposal he first floated earlier this year, this is almost a year ago in the State of the Union address, to shore up Social Security with projected Federal budget surpluses. I quote, ``The American people deserve more than confusion, double- talk, and delay on this issue'', Mr. Clinton said. ``It is time to have a clear straightforward bill on the table; and next week, I plan to present one, legislation that ensures that all Social Security payroll tax will go to savings and debt reduction for Social Security.'' Now, what could be more clear. Here is the Democratic President who, in a long series of Democratic Presidents going back now to Franklin Roosevelt, is saying it is very important for us to look at Social Security over the long-term. My Republican colleagues do not even deal with the issue at all. It is not on the radar screen. The White House said over the weekend that its plan would extend Social Security solvency from 2034 when, under current projections, it would be able to pay only 75 percent of promised benefits, to the year 2050, beyond the life-span of most of the 76 million Americans born in the 18 years after World War II. So what the President is saying is that, at some point, I guess it is about 30 years from now, we will not have enough money in this trust fund to pay but 75 percent of the Social Security benefits. So we have to do something. He is putting forth the plan that says what we can do to extend the trust fund to at least the year 2050. That may seem like a long time away, but for young people who are born now or who are in their twenties, that is when they will be reaching retirement age. Here, again, is a quote from Gene Sperling, who is the director of the White House's National Economic Council. He says, ``What we have tried to do is present what we feel is the most solid bipartisan, hopefully noncontroversial proposal to lock away the Social Security surplus for debt reduction and use those interest savings to extend the solvency of Social Security.'' Now, let me explain that a little more. What the President's proposal basically does is to pay down the debt so that the money is available for Social Security. The President has been talking for some time about the need to reduce the national debt and basically saying that, if we save money, and we do not spend money, we will be able to apply that to the national debt. The Clinton plan, again I am reading from the New York Times, this is Sunday, October 24, ``Mr. Clinton's plan is based on the idea that, by using the Social Security surplus to pay down the national debt, the government's interest bill will decline substantially. By the White House estimate, the government's interest expense will be $107 billion lower in 2011 than it would be if the Social Security surplus were not used starting this year to reduce the debt. ``Mr. Clinton's proposal would take the money saved, because of the lower amount of debt starting in 2011, and earmark it to shore up Social Security. From the years 2011 through 2015, the total savings and interest dedicated to Social Security would be $544 billion,'' Mr. Sperling said. ``And savings would continue accruing beyond 2015 at around $189 billion a year. The savings would at first go to further reductions in the national debt. ``After the debt was paid off, around 2015, under the White House's scenario, this savings would continue to be transferred to the Social Security in the form of a government IOU that would later be redeemed to pay benefits.'' The point of the matter is the beauty part of the President's proposal is that we are actually paying down the national debt, something that the Republicans claim they care about, but I do not see any action on it here. I do not see any efforts here to talk about the national debt. That is what the President is proposing to do. That is what his Social Security proposal would do, deal with this problem on a long-term basis. Instead, the Republicans, what do they do, they do not talk about the long-term needs of the Social Security program. They just keep spending and spending so that now the appropriations bills actually dip into the trust fund and use the Social Security Trust Fund again to finance regular operating funds for the next fiscal year. Now, I want to talk a little bit about this tax cut again that the Republican leadership and my colleagues on the other side sort of conveniently ignored in the last few days, in the last few weeks as we are talking about this budget. President Clinton vetoed this trillion dollar tax cut, which primarily benefited the wealthy corporations, for one simple reason; and that is, it wastes the surplus on special interest tax cuts instead of investing in the future of all Americans. What the President is trying to say is that, if we give back this huge tax cut primarily to the wealthy and to the corporations, what are we doing for the future of the country? Nothing. On the other hand, if we take his Social Security proposal and basically pay down the national debt, we are investing in the future. That is the point. What do we want to do? Do we want to give a quick giveaway to a few people, a few corporations, a few special interests, or do we want to invest money in the future so the money is there for Social Security in the future and so that, basically, the economy prospers. The Republican tax plan basically meant $46,000 per year for the wealthiest taxpayers, but only $160 per year for the average middle class people. Republicans lavish nearly $21 billion on special interest tax breaks for big business. Let us not forget how much of that was just tax breaks for big corporations. The Republican tax plan eats the surplus hold, preventing us from paying down a significant chunk of the $5.6 trillion national debt. Debt reduction, of course, is the best way to ensure that we continue our record economic expansion by keeping interest rates low. This was the President's economic plan, something that the GOP has basically rejected. The Republican plan also siphoned money away from other critical areas, especially for strengthening Medicare and for providing prescription drug plans to help seniors pay for the costs of life- saving medication. Let me talk about that briefly again, because then we do not hear anything about the long-term plans that the Republicans have for Medicare, unless they want that to also wither on the vine like Social Security. Again, this week, I think it was Monday, the President at the White House had a press conference, talked about the need to push for a prescription drug benefit in the context of Medicare. His long-term proposal which was going to shore up Social Security also provided for revamping Medicare to provide for a prescription drug plan. This is very important to senior citizens. When I talked to the seniors in my district and even the people who are younger who know that eventually they are going to be senior citizens, they worry about how they are going to pay for prescription drugs. Most seniors do not have a prescription drug plan, or, if they do have a plan, they have huge co-payments. It does not pay for a lot of their expenses. We find a lot of seniors that just go without prescription drugs or take half of a prescription when it is prescribed by the doctor. What the President has basically said is that he wants to establish a new Part D benefit, very similar to Medicare Part B, where one pays a certain amount per month, and one gets half of all the costs of all of one's prescription drugs paid for. There may be a lot of different ways to pay for prescription drugs and provide a benefit under Medicare for it, but at least he is trying. He is talking about this. He has folded this into his long-term economic plan that includes shoring up Social Security. I do not hear anybody on the other side talking about it. I do not hear anybody on the other side suggesting that somehow they are going to deal with this problem on a long-term basis. So, again, it is the Democratic President, it is the Democratic Party that are talking about these issues that will in the long term benefit the average senior citizen. All we see on the other side is a Republican effort to spend money and take it out of Social Security. There is no question that there is a GOP strategy here that is a subterfuge and that is an effort to try to mask what is really going on. In an enlightened moment back in August, this is on Friday, August 6, in the New York Times, the Republican Whip, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), who is basically running the show around here from what I can see, basically exposed what his real strategy was with spending the Social Security surplus. Basically what it is is to force the President to his knees, that is actually a quote, and spend the Social Security surplus. That is what the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) is all about. He admitted publicly that he is misleading the public with his spend- and-deceive budget strategy. That is what we are hearing is this deceitful strategy that is being played up here on the House floor day after day the last few days, the last week. What the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) basically confessed was that the Republican promise to join the Democrats in saving the budget surplus for Social Security was a blatant lie. He recounted in detail the Republican strategy. If I could, I will just go through this from the New York Times. `` `The plan', Mr. DeLay said, `was for Republicans to drain the surplus out of next year's budget and force the President to pay for my additional spending requests out of the Social Security surplus,' which both parties have pledged to protect. ```We are going to spend it and then some. From the get-go, the strategy has always been we are going to spend what is left', admitted Republican Whip Tom DeLay. `` `The Republican strategy', Mr. DeLay said, `will also force the President to sign the Republican parties spending bills for next year.' '' He has not agreed to do so. He has been vetoing them. But they want him to sign because they want to spend the money and spend the Social Security surplus. Again, I go back to the New York Times from August 6: ``He'', the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) ``said that even if the spending swallowed up the budget surplus, the Republicans had a plan to use various budgetary mechanisms that would allow them to say they had stuck to the strict spending caps they imposed in 1997, the Balanced Budget Act. We will negotiate with the President after he vetoes the bills on his `knees', Mr. DeLay said.'' Well, I am going to go into some of those gimmicks that the Republicans are using, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) is using to try to mask what they are really doing here by spending the Social Security surplus. But before I get into that, I wanted to give my colleagues some quotes from these Republican leaders where they talked about their long-term plans to get rid of Social Security. This is in 1984 when the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey), the Majority Leader, in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, October 21, 1984, said that ``Social Security was a bad retirement and a rotten trick on the American people.'' He continues, ``I think we are going to have to bite the bullet on Social Security and phase it out over a period of time.'' That was the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey), the Majority Leader, in 1984. This is from CNN's Crossfire on September 27 of 1994, Michael Kinsley asked the gentleman from Texas, (Mr. Armey) the question: ``Are you going to take the pledge? Are you going to promise not to cut people's Social Security to meet these promises?'' The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey) said, ``No, I am not going to make such a promise.'' Lastly, this was in the same year, September 28 of 1994, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey) said on a C-SPAN call show, ``I would never have created Social Security.'' So do not believe these guys when they say that they are trying to make sure they do not spend the Social Security surplus. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) have a long history of not being in favor of Social Security. That is what we are seeing. That is what ultimately will manifest itself here, because they do not have a long-term plan to deal with it other than to get rid of it. I talked a little bit before about these creative gimmicks that are being used by the Republican leadership to try to mask that they are really spending the Social Security surplus. I do not want to spend a lot of time on them, but I do want to talk a little bit about them this evening if I could. It is difficult when I talk to my constituents about these creative accounting gimmicks, because it sounds like a lot of bureaucracy and is very hard to explain the technicalities of what they are trying to do. But there are many ways creatively in this Congress that one can really mask what one is doing with the budget and how one is spending money and where it is coming from. We would have to probably spend hours to explain all the details about how they do it. But there was a very good article, if I could mention it this evening, Madam Speaker, on Saturday, October 16 in the Washington Post by Eric Pianan and George Hager where they talked about Congress making greater use of creative accounting. I think they kind of distilled some of these gimmicks and put them in some common-sense terms. So I just wanted to take a few minutes if I could to highlight some of those gimmicks in this article by these two gentlemen that was in the Washington Post again on Saturday, October 16. They say the Nation's defense contractors will have to wait an extra week to get paid this year. Routine maintenance of Pentagon facilities will be considered emergency spending. To keep from cutting education and health programs, lawmakers plan to borrow $15 billion from next year's budget. So one of the ways that we can mask what we are doing with the budget is by declaring items emergency spending. We can say, oh, it is emergency spending so it does not count. That may sound crazy to my constituents and to the American public, but it is a fact. And what the Republicans have done is to declare a lot of things emergencies that really are not. The best example probably, as has been mentioned several times on the floor of the House of Representatives, is when they decided to declare the funding for the census that occurs every 10 years as an emergency. Well, how can something that is required by the Constitution, the Constitution says every 10 years we have to do a census, how can that be an emergency when we know 10 years in advance that we have to do it? Well, that is an example. I will go back to this article from the Washington Post. It says, ``As a Republican controlled Congress struggles to complete work on the budget, it is relying to an unprecedented degree on creative accounting to boost spending beyond what its rules allow. All told, congressional budgeteers have manufactured an additional $46 billion to spend this year on defense, farms, education and other programs. The situation underscores the immense difficulty of writing budget discipline into law and how easy it is for Congress and the President to circumvent what are supposed to be ironclad limits designed to keep spending in check. Under the 1997 balanced budget agreement, the Federal Government was supposed to spend only $592 billion in the 13 bills funding government's daily operations this year. But Congress is on target to spend roughly $640 billion.'' So the problem that the Republican leadership faces is that under the Balanced Budget Act, which we all adopted a couple of years ago, the spending for this year is supposed to be only $592 billion. In reality, they are spending about $640 billion, if we look at their budget. Well, we can see the discrepancies there and why it is necessary to come up with these accounting gimmicks. Again, I am reading from this Washington Post article. ``Independent budget experts on the right and the left say Congress is masking the true size of its spending binge and could create serious budget problems when the obligations for the delayed spending come due. The actions also call into question whether the government will realize soaring surplus projections, which depend heavily on Congress ratcheting down on spending.'' So if we delay the spending and essentially go into next year's budget, ultimately this will come home to roost and we will have a bigger problem next year. What of course we do is, we do not have the surplus and we will not be able to generate the surplus that supposedly is going to be generated by this Balanced Budget Act we passed 2 years ago if we keep spending into it. That is exactly what they are doing, spending into the Social Security surplus to pay for these ongoing programs that they claim are not really being spent as part of the surplus. In reality, that is what they are doing. Going back to The Washington Post article again. ``To the extent this approach is effective, it creates a bigger hole that has to be filled the following year, said The Brookings Institution's Robert Reischauer, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office.'' And it is very shortsighted, is what he says. Obviously, it is shortsighted to keep delaying spending into next year. Just an idea of how they go about these sort of advanced appropriations. In recent years, and this is back to The Washington Post, for instance, ``Congress and the administration has balanced out their numbers by borrowing funds from future appropriations. Last year, Congress agreed to $11.6 billion of such advanced appropriations. This year congressional Republicans plan to borrow twice that amount, including funds for education, job training programs, and rental housing subsidies. That will make it even more difficult to keep spending down when they consider the same programs a year from now. ``With the approval of an $8.7 billion farm bill out this week,'' which was the week of October 16, ``Congress has declared a total of $22 billion in spending emergencies that also do not count against the budget limitations. Other such emergencies include spending for the 2000 census, fuel assistance for the poor, and maintenance of Pentagon barracks and facilities.'' Again, these are these declared emergencies which basically make it so that we do not have to count it but the money is really spent. Finally, the article concludes that, ``Even with this more aggressive use of budget tactics, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that lawmakers would still tap the Social Security surplus by anywhere from $13 billion to $20 billion. Republicans may have to resort to an across-the-board spending cut of 1 to 2 percent to keep from doing that.'' Now, let me get into that, if I could a little bit, Madam Speaker, because that is basically what we were hearing from the other side of the aisle tonight. They know they have spent this $13 to $20 billion of the Social Security surplus. They will not admit it, but it is a fact. It is in the Congressional Budget Office analysis. Everyone knows it. So now they are talking about this 1 percent. I think it was 1.4 percent, but now they are talking 1 percent, so I guess they revised it, that they are trying to say they are going to implement as a way of getting around spending the Social Security surplus. Well, this is really just an admission of the fact that they have been caught red-handed dipping into the Social Security surplus. They are looking scrambling around to make up the difference with gimmicks and these across-the-board spending cuts. This plan to require a 1 percent automatic budget cut, if the Office of Management and Budget certifies that spending would dip into Social Security, is really an admission by the chairman of the House Committee on the Budget, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich), that Republicans have stuck their hands deep into the Social Security cookie jar. It is basically asking the Administration to save House Republicans from themselves. One of the other things that they did, which I thought was particularly interesting, was this idea to raid the tax refunds of the working poor. Every day we get a different gimmick. It is either emergencies, delayed spending, 1 percent across-the-board, and the one a couple of weeks ago was this idea of taking the earned income tax from the working poor and using that. Actually, their proposal would have delayed $7 billion worth of earned income tax payments to the working poor in order to fill the gaps in the budget. I do not know what they were thinking with that. Maybe that somehow the working poor, because they figured they do not have time to vote or do not have time to read the newspaper or something, that they were not going to notice that they did not receive their tax refund up front. I do not even know if they have dropped that. That may still be out there as another way or another gimmick of trying to somehow hoodwink the American people as to what they are really up to. Let me just say, though, because I have heard this 1 percent plan mentioned several times this evening by my Republican colleagues who spoke before me, that even that does not add up. They are pretending a 1 percent across-the-board cut will do the trick and erase their $12 or $13 billion spending where they have dipped into the Social Security surplus. But even with that, they are still nearly $4 billion in the hole based on their own phony accounting. In reality, I say they are way on their way of dipping into even more and more of the Social Security surplus. As we see what develops over the next few days or the next few weeks here, I am sure we will all find that, in fact, they are spending even more, and they are going to go way beyond that $12 or $13 billion that has already been spent from the Social Security surplus and even spend more before they finally wrap up this budget process. Madam Speaker, I do not intend to spend a lot more time this evening, but I feel it is my obligation and that of my colleagues on the Democratic side to come here every night and basically present the truth and expose this GOP hypocrisy on Social Security. I have never seen an effort by my Republican colleagues to basically come to the floor every night and somehow think that if they are going to keep saying this over and over again, that the President is dipping into Social Security or the Democrats want to dip into Social Security, that somehow it is going to be believed. They are even running these ads, very expensive ads, I should say, in a lot of the districts of my Democratic colleagues, accusing my Democratic colleagues of dipping into Social Security. I think the theory is if they tell the lie often enough that people will believe it; or if they spend enough money getting the message out, even though it is not true, people will believe it. I hope the people do not believe it. And certainly we will continue on this side of the aisle to expose the truth about what is really going on here and how much money is already being spent by the Republicans with their spending bills. The ultimate irony is that they keep coming and talking about how the President wants to keep spending money. Well, the President does not appropriate the funds. They are in the majority. The Republicans are in the majority in both the House of Representatives and in the Senate. They are in the majority. They send him the bills. If he vetoes the bills, the money is not spent. That is the constitutional process. So for the life of me I do not understand how any of them can suggest that by the President vetoing a bill that somehow he is spending the Social Security surplus, when all he is saying is that the money cannot be spent. If he vetoes the bill, the money is not spent. The only way the money is spent is if they appropriate the money and he signs the bill. So the whole process, the whole way they go about describing the process, is basically not true. And I think it is incumbent upon myself and others to come here every night and to explain what is really going on here in this Republican effort and their inability to adopt a budget that does anything but spend the Social Security surplus.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to discuss some of the recent developments in the relationship between the United States and the Republic of Armenia in the economic sphere. Mr. Speaker, the people of Armenia and their elected leaders recognize the importance of making the transition from direct aid from the United States and other donor countries to greater self-sufficiency and economic integration with their neighbors. Of course, for the latter to occur, the neighboring countries, including Turkey and Azerbaijan, have to move away from their policy of hostility, nonrecognition and blockades of Armenia. Indeed, Mr. Speaker, U.S. policy should be geared towards encouraging Turkey and Azerbaijan to enter into regional cooperative agreements with Armenia. The U.S. can also help Armenia achieve greater economic success by promoting greater bilateral trade and investments between our two countries. Mr. Speaker, I was recently joined by four of my colleagues with whom I took part in the congressional delegation to Armenia last August in seeking support for a Commerce Department trade mission to Armenia. We are currently circulating a letter amongst our colleagues in the House urging Commerce Secretary William Daley to undertake the trade mission. During our bipartisan congressional delegation to Armenia which also included stops in Nagorno Karabagh and Azerbaijan, we had the opportunity to meet with American investors who are seeking to expand U.S.-Armenia trade and investment ties. We also saw firsthand the efforts that Armenia is making to privatize its economy. The effort to promote investment and privatization in Armenia received a major boost earlier this month when the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, OPIC, approved an $18 million investment projection in Yerevan, Armenia's capital. The OPIC loan was made to investors from Massachusetts, California and Florida, who won a competitive bid for privatization of the Armenia hotel complex in Yerevan. The twin goals are both to promote positive local development effects in Armenia and to create U.S. exports and jobs. In announcing the agreement which coincided with Armenia's Prime Minister Vazgen Sargsian's successful visit to Washington. OPIC President and CEO George Munoz noted that Armenia has established a market-oriented economy with liberal trade legislation. Mr. Speaker, projects like this which benefit both the U.S. and the host country are what OPIC was designed for. Mr. Speaker, I also want to emphasize my strong support for the extension of Normal Trade Relations, NTR, between the United States and Armenia. Since NTR was first extended to Armenia effective April 7, 1992, it has continued in effect under annual presidential waivers based on the determination that the country is in compliance with the Jackson-Vanik law. Jackson-Vanik was adopted in 1974 as a means of getting the Soviet Union to comply with freedom of immigration criteria. Although Armenia is obviously an independent State now because it was formally under Soviet domination, it came under Jackson- Vanik and Jackson-Vanik still applies. In 1997, the President determined that Armenia was in full compliance with Jackson-Vanik, removing the need for future waivers, although the trade status remains subject to the terms of the Jackson-Vanik amendment which must be certified by the President. This extension of NTR can also be subject to congressional approval. Mr. Speaker, the administration has advised the Committee on Ways and Means that Armenia is among those countries, along with Georgia and Moldova, that may accede to the World Trade Organization in the future. To enhance trade and investment between Armenia and the United States, the extension of unconditional Normal Trade Relations between the two countries may require legislation stating that Jackson-Vanik should no longer apply to these countries. Mr. Speaker, American investors representing a wide range of industries and services have begun establishing a relationship with counterparts in Armenia. Armenia has adopted or is in the process of developing laws to facilitate international investment and foreign ownership, as well as the legal and financial institutions to foster these types of relationships. The Armenian government has unveiled plans to further promote investment via the creation of the Armenian development agency, ADA. The main mission of the ADA is to provide one-stop shopping services for potential investors. Mr. Speaker, Armenia has another unique advantage: A large Diaspora community in the United States, over one million strong, eager to participate in the national rebirth of Armenia, is seeking opportunities to promote Armenia's economic development. As the U.S. seeks to establish partnerships with emerging nations in strategically located regions, nations that share our values of political and economic freedom, Armenia stands out as an important country with which to develop close ties in the political, diplomatic and cultural areas and, as I have said tonight, also in the economic sphere.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, when I was here earlier and the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston) made a statement, and again the gentleman is a friend of mine, but he made a statement about how the President of the United States was the one who wanted to spend the Social Security surplus. I grimace when I hear it because, from the very beginning of this year, President Clinton said very emphatically that whatever general revenue surplus is generated over the next 5 or 10 years as a result of the Balanced Budget Act, and we are not talking about the Social Security surplus now, we are talking about the general revenue surplus that is basically generated because of the Balanced Budget Act that he spearheaded and that is going to be available in the next 5 or 10 years, he said he wanted to take that general revenue surplus and use it to shore up Social Security long-term. So we have the Republican leadership like Armey who wants to abolish Social Security. We have the President of the United States, President Clinton, who says that whatever general revenue surplus is generated over the next 5 or 10 years, he wants to take that money and put it into Social Security to guarantee the long-term viability of Social Security for future generations. Okay. The President was not just talking about not spending the Social Security surplus. He was going way beyond that in saying that the surplus that generated through general revenue was going to be used to shore up Social Security for the future. Also, if my colleagues notice, his budget had all the offsets, what additional spending was there was going to be offset with cuts. Also, he had even proposed the tobacco tax increase to pay for some of the additional spending. He was very clear that we were not going to spend the Social Security surplus. The general revenue surplus was going to be used to add to the Social Security surplus, and just the opposite of what the Republicans are saying.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that my Republican colleagues preceded me this evening because as much as I respect them dearly, and they are actually two very good gentlemen who I respect quite a bit, I have to disagree very much on what they said about the President's intentions, particularly with regard to Social Security. The bottom line is from day one, during his State of the Union address earlier this year, the President made it quite clear that whatever budget surplus existed and appeared over the next 5 or 10 years, that he was determined that that budget surplus, general revenue surplus, be used to shore up Social Security. President Clinton has repeatedly said that whatever surplus is generated primarily has to be used for Social Security and, if not, for Medicare. What the gentlemen are confusing is they are suggesting that somehow the Social Security surplus is being spent by the President when, in reality, they are the ones that are doing it. The Republican leadership, the appropriations bills, the so-called budget that the Republicans have put forth over the last few months has repeatedly dipped in to the Social Security surplus. The interesting part of it is when they started to talk about emergencies and the need to spend money on some of the natural disasters that we have had, whether it be floods or some of the other natural disasters that have occurred, the bottom line is that they have appropriated the money for those natural disasters and essentially taken it out of the Social Security surplus. One can argue whether it is good or bad to do that, but the bottom line is it has been done. The Republican leadership and the appropriations bills that have passed here, the so-called budget bills, have repeatedly used various gimmicks; but essentially what they are doing is spending Social Security money. I think it is particularly ironic because during most of the summer what we heard from the Republican leadership is how we needed a huge tax cut bill, trillions of dollars that was going to be spent on a tax cut that was primarily going to benefit the wealthy in America, wealthy Americans; and the reason that the President vetoed that tax cut bill was because it was essentially taking money that was to be used for Social Security, because he wanted to make sure that whatever surplus there was was used for Social Security rather than a huge tax cut primarily for wealthy Americans. That is why the American people responded overwhelmingly and said they did not want the tax cut because they did not want us to dip into Social Security to pay for the tax cut. So I just think it is particularly ironic that now that some of the Republicans have suggested that they are going to sit down with the President and try to work out an agreement on the budget that they are suggesting that that means that there will be no more spending from the Social Security surplus. Well, they have already spent it. They have already spent it on emergencies. They have already spent it on a number of items, and they can hardly suggest in any way that they are not going to continue to spend it because that is exactly what their intention is. I just wanted to say, if I could, and I have to say it over and over again, that what the Republican leaders are doing is carrying out a budgetary charade. They continue to publicly promise not to spend the Social Security surplus; but no one, not even their own budget analyst, still believes them. The only question left to ask them is how much they are spending of the Social Security surplus. They clearly are spending the money, but how much? Well, let me just give an example of this hypocrisy. We have the Speaker of the House who is quoted as saying recently that we are not going to take money out of Social Security. We have the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the Whip, who says, according to the New York Times, the bottom line is we are not going to spend a dime of the Social Security Trust Fund. But the Republicans' own Congressional Budget Office says Republican promises are bogus. According to their hand-picked budget chief, Republican spenders have already run more than $16 billion of the Social Security surplus. Even conservative commentators like George Will have said they have no other strategy other than dipping into $14 billion in Social Security surplus, and the Washington Times, this is from October 1, said Congress has already erased the projected $14 billion in non-Social Security budget surplus. What they are really doing is they are using gimmicks, gimmicks to pretend that they are not actually spending the Social Security surplus. They are delaying tax cuts for working families. They are pretending the fiscal year has 13 months. That was one of the cutest things, a 13-month year, and they are calling constitutional requirements like the Census emergency spending. I just wanted to point to a chart here, if I could, Mr. Speaker. I am glad that the previous speakers included my two Republican friends that were talking about emergency spending. Already emergency spending in the budget bills that the Republicans have passed for the next fiscal year 2000 exceeds the amount of spending in the previous year by 17 percent, or $24.9 billion. We can see that some of that emergency has been for FEMA, that is, for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, for disaster aid, fuel assistance, defense O&M, the census, which I mentioned, and agricultural emergencies. Now, I am not going to suggest that some of these expenditures are not important. My friend, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones), previously talked about the need to spend money for people who were the victims of natural disasters, but the bottom line is that this spending has already occurred and has come out of Social Security. They cannot deny it. It is a fact. The other chart, if I could, Mr. Speaker, talks about the other types of budget gimmicks that are being made here. In other words, they do not want to admit that they are taking money from the Social Security surplus, so what they do is they come up with these budget gimmicks. I already mentioned the emergency. But we have delayed outlays; we have advanced appropriations where they basically say they are going to advance money that is going to be spent in the future and other types of scoring gimmicks here that basically create all of these gimmicks; and they are denying and playing this game that somehow they are not spending the money from Social Security, but in reality that is exactly what they are doing. I wanted, if I could, Mr. Speaker, to particularly make reference, if I could, to what this strategy is all about, because it was back in August, I think, in the New York Times, Friday August 6, that the majority whip, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), basically explained, if I could for a minute, how he was going about this charade. Basically, what he said is that the plan, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) said, was for Republicans to drain the surplus out of next year's budget and force President Clinton to pay for any additional spending requests out of the Social Security surplus, which both parties have pledged to protect. He said, we are going to spend it and then some. From the get-go, the strategy has always been we are going to spend what is left, he admitted. The Republican strategy, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) said, will also force the President to sign the Republican Party spending bills for the next year. He, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), said that even if the spending swallowed up the budget surplus, the Republicans had a plan to use various budgetary mechanisms that would allow them to say they had stuck to the strict spending caps they imposed in 1997. We will negotiate with the President, after he vetoes the bills, on his knees. Mr. Speaker, let me just briefly summarize again what this charade is all about based on the statement I just read from the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Delay). Basically what the Republicans are going to do is they are going to bring up appropriations bills one by one. There are 13 all together. Each of those individually or collectively, if we look at it all, will spend a significant amount of money from Social Security. They already have. But what they are going to do is they are going to keep sending these to the President. They do not want him to look at the overall strategy of what this all adds up to. What the President said today, which I think was most significant when these negotiations started for the first time with the Republican leadership, and he was willing to sit down with them, he said, ``Do not keep sending me these individual bills, like the Foreign Ops, because I am going to veto them.'' I think it is the ultimate in hypocrisy that my colleagues who preceded me tonight talk about the President vetoing as if that indicates he wants to spend money. I mean, it is just the opposite. The reality is he is going to veto these bills because he wants to see what the whole budget plan is. He knows that, if it continues at the spending levels that they have already appropriated with these bills that have passed, then it is going to significantly dip into Social Security; and he is saying, ``That is not acceptable. I will continue to veto bills until you lay it all on the table and show me what your budget is. And then, at that point, we can negotiate and figure out what is really going on here.'' What has been going on so far over the last few months is a continued effort to spend more, to use budgetary gimmicks, and to dip into Social Security Trust Fund. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, they want to privatize.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).