Frank Pallone

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. If the gentleman will yield, and I have to confess that I am going to have to leave after this remark, but one of the myths that I constantly hear from the Republican leadership is this notion that somehow individual contributions, large individual contributions, are not exerting influence on Congress or on politicians the way, for example, that political action committees would, and to me it is sort of ironic because I do not really put a tag on any particular kind of contribution. I really think that what we need to do is to create a diversity of contributions and limit the overall amount of money that is spent which is essentially what your bill would do, Mr. Farr. But this myth that somehow if someone gives a thousand dollars individually, that is clean, or under this Republican proposal that they give $2,500, that that is clean, but a PAC is not clean or some other method is not clean. And I always think to myself, if there is a large corporation and the individuals in that corporation contribute to the political action committee and then a check was written for $5,000 to a Congressman from that PAC so to speak, how was that any different from the five individuals or ten individuals each; you know, the chairman of the corporation, the president of the corporation, the various vice presidents of the corporation, each writing an individual check for a thousand dollars, or in this case, you know, as they proposed it would be $2,500. The ability of people to influence is no different whether they are running an individual check or they are contributing to a political action committee. I think that the answer is to simply limit the overall amount that can be spent and the amount that can be contributed, if you will, from these individual sources so that if you say, for example, that a PAC can give $5,000, but you require that a lot of that be small donations, OK, maybe that is some sort of reform, or if you say that, as you propose, that you can only have so many individual large contributions or so many PAC contributions, that is reform. But they keep, the Republican leadership, keeps putting out this notion I call a myth that individual contributions are somehow OK and that they are not going to influence people, and therefore it is OK to increase them and perhaps to almost unlimited amounts, and it is simply not true. There is no difference between the president of the corporation writing me a check and having him contribute to a PAC that writes me a check. I do not see it, and I know for a fact that a lot of times when individuals contribute to your campaign, and particularly if it is a large donation, a lot of times they expect, you know, to have access or to be treated or, you know, to have your ear just as much or if not more than some of the other special interests that contribute through a political action committee.

Mr. PALLONE. If the gentleman would yield, I think in many ways the most significant thing that both of you mentioned was--and specifically, Mr. Farr mentioned--that none of the Republican bills, and maybe I should not say none, but certainly none that I have seen, actually have a cap on campaign spending, and that is what is really so important. Whatever means I think the Republican leadership can find to try to spend as much money as possible is what their real goal is here, and that is why they are bringing forth this bill or tried unsuccessfully so far to bring forth this bill that allows so much more money to come from large contributors. I just had this quote, which I looked at before but I just have to read again, where Speaker Ginrgich calls for more money in politics, not less, and it is from last year where he said one of the greatest myths of modern politics is that campaigns are too expensive, the political process in fact is underfunded. It is not overfunded. I would emphasize far more money in the political system. Now that says it all. I mean he just wants more money to be available and more money to be spent, and the whole idea, the cap on campaign expenditures, is anathema to him and, I believe, to the Republic leadership, and that is why you are not going to see a cap. Regardless of the mix that is achieved to reach that cap, you are not going to see that cap in something that they support because they just do not think they want to spend more money.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I just wanted to day to the gentleman from California that I appreciate both your efforts, initiatives, as well as the gentleman from Massachusetts, in trying to come up with real campaign reform. As the gentleman from Massachusetts says, we have actually had the opportunity when the Democrats were in the majority, and I have been here, I guess this is my eighth year, we have had the opportunity in those prior Congresses when the Democrats were in the majority to vote on real campaign finance reform. I am not as optimistic as the gentleman from Massachusetts is, though, that the Republican freshmen who were voted in overwhelmingly in 1994 are necessarily going to be voted out because they do not campaign finance reform. I think that what they are counting on, at least what the Speaker and the Republican leadership are counting on is just being able to raise so much money, massive amounts of money from both special interests as well as wealthy individuals to just basically have those Republicans who are now incumbent be able to outspend their Democratic rivals, 2, 3, 4, 5 to 1. The sky is the limit. I think that this effort in the so-called Republican reform bill, which has now been postponed maybe indefinitely, was to accomplish just that, to make it possible for more money to come from wealthy people. We heard some of the speakers earlier say that instead of a campaign limit of $25,000 per election, you could actually spend, an individual, up to over $3 million under this Republican proposal. The reason I believe very strongly why it did not, is not coming to the floor tomorrow is because they could not get the votes. Once people started to realize, both on the Republican side as well as on the Democratic side, that this was going to be possible and that what this really was is to bring more cash from wealthy people into the races, a lot of people balked. We had, I do not know, I guess about 10 Republicans who initially sent out a letter to their colleagues pointing that out and saying that the bill should not be approved. I would be very surprised if we see it again. I think that they have been embarrassed, essentially because of your work, Mr. Meehan's work, pointing out the flaws with this legislation. I just wanted to say very quickly that a lot of times I think that maybe people do not understand practically what all this means. If I could just give a brief example, some of which reflects upon my own races that I have run for Congress. I think what we are seeing more and more, and Mr. Farr, you mentioned it, is that you either have to be very wealthy and just spend your own money, unlimited funds to run for Congress, which increasingly more and more people do, or you have to be this person who maybe is not personally that wealthy but is in a position where you can tap very large contributors. Without mentioning names, I ran against someone in one of my races who had a chain of stores, and he basically was able to get thousand- dollar contributions from each of the vendors or people who dealt with this business so that when I looked at his FEC report, it was just the maximum thousand-dollar contributions from quite a few individuals. So what you are leaving out basically is the person who has their own means, their own resources, or who is not in a business or in a position where they can tap those very wealthy individuals for those thousand-dollar contributions. If you change the law, as the Republican leadership has proposed, so that now instead of $1,000 that individual can get $2,500 or some of the other things are in this bill, you are just making the situation more and more that you either have to be spending your own money or you are just tapping these very wealthy individuals. And I think it is unAmerican. I really do. I think a person should be able to run for Congress regardless of their financial means. I think most people think that, but increasingly it is not the case. The ideal situation that I would like to see, and I have actually voted on it, I am not saying that everyone agrees with me, is to lessen the impact of any particular type of source of funding. In other words, you have a maximum cap, if you will, on total campaign expenditures. You say that only a certain amount can be raised with large individual donors, only a certain amount with political action committees and a certain amount with small individual donors. So you have sort of a diversity and combination of money coming in so there is not a dependence on any one source. Then you have an overall cap. I would go so far as to say that should be matched with public financing, although I know everyone does not necessarily agree with that. But this effort by the Republican leadership to tip the scale more and more toward very wealthy people contributing is definitely going to wreak havoc on the system and make it impossible for people of average means to run for Congress.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. I really think what happens, Mr. Speaker, is that the Republican leadership takes advantage of the fact that the campaign finance system is a complicated structure and that most people really do not understand how it applies to individual races. We understand it because we are in it, but a lot of people do not. So they just try to basically throw out to the public these myths. I am very glad to see that this latest effort on their part to try to basically raise the individual limits and get so much more money into campaigns have been exposed. As I think I mentioned before, or maybe I did not, we have all the public interest groups opposing this bill: Common Cause, Public Citizen, the League of Women Voters. There was an editorial in the New York Times today, as well as in a lot of my local papers, criticizing the proposal. We even have some of the Republicans who put out a letter opposing it. We are sort of fortunate, in a way, that this has been exposed for what it truly is, a way to try to put a lot more cash into the campaigns. But I think a lot of times it is a complicated subject, and it is very difficult sometimes to make people understand how it works in practical terms. That is why I think it is so important to do what the two of you are doing tonight, by trying to expose it for what it really is.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I am outraged that tomorrow the Republican leadership is going to bring up a campaign finance bill that will essentially allow a massive infusion of money from wealthy individuals and special interests to finance our congressional campaigns. Speaker Gingrich has said over and over again that there should be more money in politics, not less. He is quoted as saying that one of the greatest myths of modern politics is that ``Campaigns are too expensive. The political process in fact is underfunded. It is not overfunded. I would emphasize far more money in the political process.'' That is where we are. Under the guise of campaign finance reform, we are going to get a bill that allows the wealthy and the special interests to contribute even more. The public interest groups unanimously have come out opposed to this campaign finance bill tomorrow. The New York Times today says it is obscene, essentially, in their editorial. Even my fellow Republicans, rational in some cases, have come forward with a Dear Colleague letter they sent to their other Republican colleagues saying this is a travesty, and that this campaign finance bill should not pass. I hope we listen to that on both sides of the aisle.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to spend my 5 minutes tonight talking about the so-called welfare reform legislation that we will be voting on tomorrow, and that debate was started on tonight. I intend to be very critical of the Republican leadership proposal which has been brought up on the floor and to praise, if you will, the bipartisan alternative that has been put forth by the gentleman from Delaware, Congressman Castle, who is a Republican, and also the gentleman from Tennessee, Congressman Tanner, who is a Democrat. When I talk about welfare reform, and I discuss it with my constituents in my district in New Jersey, what I hear is that most of my constituents feel that in the process of welfare reform children should not suffer, children should not be harmed in any way. What my constituents say they want is they want to get people off welfare to work and to have a future for themselves and a certain pride in the fact that they are working for their families. They do not necessarily think that welfare reform should be money driven; in other words, that we should use welfare reform as a way to save money. They seem to be more concerned about the need to change the social fabric, to eliminate the so-called welfare mentality. My point tonight is that the Republican leadership bill, which we are going to be voting on tomorrow, I think falls short in terms of what my constituents want. In fact, it is tough on kids. It makes kids suffer. It does substantial harm to children, and it is very weak on work. It does not really do very much to get people to work or make it possible for them to work. The Castle-Tanner bipartisan substitute, I think, is just the opposite. It achieves the goals of trying to get people off welfare and working, and, at the same time, making sure that kids are protected, that they are not suffering in terms of food nutrition programs, housing, or the other things that would keep them healthy and prepare for their future. Now, let me just give an example. The Republican leadership bill would probably push more than 1 million children into poverty, just the opposite of what most of my constituents would expect it would do. When it comes to the work program, which I say is rather weak, the Congressional Budget Office says that no State would be able to meet the work requirements in the Republican proposal given the resources or the lack of resources that the bill devotes and gives to States so that they can train people and get them into productive jobs. The worst example, though, is with regard to the Food Stamp Program. I do not think that any American would think that the purpose of welfare reform would be to cut back on the amount of money that the average welfare recipient has available to pay for food, particularly for their children. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities did a study, which was issued today, and it says that the Nation's poorest households, those with incomes below half of the poverty line, would lose an average of $650 a year in food stamp benefits under the welfare legislation now before Congress, the Republican leadership proposal. The study also found that working poor households, and these are people that are working, that receive food stamps, because we know many people get food stamps who are not on welfare; in other words, they are not on Aid to Families with Dependent Children, they are actually working, but what the study found is that working poor households that receive food stamps to help supplement their low wages along with the elderly poor and poor families with children would lose several hundred dollars a year in food cash assistance as well. The welfare bills coming this week to the House and Senate floors contain $28 billion in food stamp reductions over the next 6 years, with many of those reductions being achieved by across-the-board cuts that affect all groups of the poor. What the report basically says is that a large share of the welfare bill's food stamp savings would come from across-the-board food stamp benefit cuts with only 2 percent of the food stamp savings in the bill coming from provisions to reduce administrative cost, curb fraud or end benefits for people failing to comply with work requirements. I think that is what most Americans think, that with reform we would say that if you do not work then you lose your benefits or that we would try to get at the welfare fraud or curb the cost of the bureaucracy administering the program. That is what is happening here. What was supposed to be a historic effort to balance the budget has deteriorated into legislation that does relatively little to reduce the long-term deficit, but would substantially increase the depth of poverty and likely cause substantial numbers of poor children and elderly people to fail to secure adequate food and nutrition. Now, the Castle-Tanner substitute, which I will be supporting tomorrow, basically ensures that States would be able to meet the work requirements in the bill by providing $3 billion in additional mandatory funds that States can access in order to meet the cost of moving welfare recipients to work. It costs money to get the States to train people to get them to work. That is why we need the Castle-Tanner substitute. We need a program that is going to get people to work and not hurt the children.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to granting permanent most-favored-nation status to Romanio. H.R. 3161 would allow Romania to reap the benefits of MFN while its regime continues to ignore its dire human rights situation. Romania's large Hungarian minority needs to be recognized when debating MFN trade status. As a congressman representing a sizable Hungarian constituency, and as a member of the Human Rights Caucus, I know the importance of ensuring that national minorities have the right to speak and do commerce in their native language. This is a fundamental human right that cannot be ignored. However, if we vote in favor of H.R. 3161, we would strip the Hungarians living within Romanian borders of their right to education in their native tongue. Although Romania and Hungary are both former Warsaw Pact nations, their differences in politics are overwhelming. While Romania represses its freedom of speech and does not guarantee free and fair elections, Hungary was the leader among Central European nations in establishing a democratic system, even before the fall of the Berlin Wall. In the last 7 years, Hungary has steadily transformed itself into an independent, democratic, market-oriented society, integrated into Europe and the international trading network. Hungary, in particular among its neighbors, has shown an impressive degree of stability. Even during the cold war, Hungary worked hard against tough odds to establish itself as a society independent of Soviet domination in certain key political and economic spheres, and was granted most-favored-nation status by the United States in 1978. If we are to grant Romania permanent MFN trading status, we must first insist that it follows the democratic paths of its European neighbors such as Hungary. The United States must grant preferential trading agreements only to those nations willing to uphold basic human and political rights. Before granting most-favored-nation trading status to Romania, we must ensure that its government: improves its freedom of the press, freedom of speech and public assembly, a faster rate of privatization and restoration of private property, protects its human rights, and guarantees free and fair elections. We need to wait for the results of the upcoming national elections before we should even consider granting permanent MFN status to Romania. If we vote in favor of H.R. 3161 today, we would only help propel neo-Communist President Ion Iliescu to victory and a continuation of policies that have been contrary to American values. Let us, instead, use MFN as a form of leverage to move Romania in the direction of true democracy.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to take my 5 minutes to talk about this Republican so-called Campaign Finance Reform Act proposal. When I looked at it today and looked at some of the details, I have to say that I was actually shocked that in the context of a so-called reform week, which I guess now on the part of the Republican leadership is limited to this so-called Campaign Finance Reform Act, that they have proposed that the Republican leadership has come up with a bill that, in my opinion, is nothing short of obscene in terms of what it would do to the political system. My constituents, I have to be honest, do not complain a great deal to me about campaigns and financing campaigns, but those that do write to me, those that do talk to me about the issue, the number 1 concern on their mind is the obscene amount of money that is spent on congressional races, on Senate races. We do not even get to the level of the Presidential campaign, but particularly on the Federal races for Congress, for Senate and for the House of Representatives. Any campaign finance reform should try to make an effort to reduce the overall amount of money that is spent on a campaign and not allow the campaign and the financing of it to be increasingly dependent upon large checks by wealthy individuals, and that is what the Republican leadership is now proposing. I have often said, and I have actually voted in the past for campaign finance reform that tries to contain a public financing component. Some people may be familiar with our State of New Jersey, with my State of New Jersey, where the gubernatorial race is sort of a good example, in my opinion, of what a good financing structure would be for a campaign. There are caps on spending, there are requirements that in order to capture public funds that you have to raise a certain amount of money from individuals, but you can also raise a certain amount from PAC's, you can have some large contributions from individuals, you can have small contributions from individuals. An ideal campaign finance reform would cap the overall amount that could be spent on a race at a rational amount and then require that the candidate raise some money from small contributors, some money from PAC's, perhaps, and some money from wealthy contributors before they get some public financing component. Mr. Speaker, that is the only way that you can have a system, in my opinion, where anyone can run for office, for Congress, regardless of their background. If you make the system dependent more and more on large individual contributions, it will basically mean that people of modest means cannot run, and I will just give you an example. When I first ran for Congress, my opponent was someone who had a chain of businesses, and basically what he did was to get a large amount of $1,000 individual contributions from people that were involved in his business. If you are not someone who owns a major business, a major corporation, a major business enterprise, you do not have that ability. But that is what the Republican leadership would entrench in this financed system for campaigns for the House of Representatives, and it is nothing short of obscene. Now, I want to say that there were some Republicans, some of my colleagues on the Republican side, that actually had laid bare the system and said that they do not like what their leadership, what Speaker Gingrich and the others in the Republican leadership, have proposed and what we are going to be voting on this week. A ``Dear Colleague'' letter went out from some of these moderate Republicans, or reform Republicans I should say, including Marge Roukema from my home State, and just to give you an idea, I will not read the entire letter, but I would like to read from some parts of it, and it is sent to other Republicans. ``Dear Republican Colleagues,'' it says, ``We are concerned that the bill that the House is planning to take up next week, H.R. 3760, is more fundamentally flawed than our current system, worse than the current system.'' The fact is the bill will not give you political cover as we head into Reform Week. The average American will be left even further behind in the Washington money chase as they are frozen out of the political process.'' The bill actually increases the amounts that wealthy individuals can contribute in Federal elections. Consider the facts. Maximum amount individuals can give to a candidate goes from $1,000 to $2,500 per election. Now instead of $1,000 the individual can give $2,500: Cumulative amount individuals can give to candidates and PAC's goes from $25,000 to $72,500 per year. Maximum amounts individuals can give to any one political party committee goes from $20,000 to $58,000 per year. In fact, under the proposal, a wealthy individual will be able to give over $300,000 in hard money contributions to affect Federal elections in their own State and another $2.8 million in hard money to other state political party committees, bringing the total up to $3.1 million in a single year. Over $3 million an individual can now give to these races. We need true reform, and this is not the way to go. This just encourages campaigns to be financed by the wealthy.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I am here today to talk for 5 minutes about 2 issues that I think are really crucial to the American people and that have a real chance of passing in this House and in the Senate and be signed into law by the President, if only the Republican leadership would allow the legislation to be voted on in, to be brought to the floor and voted on in a fashion that most Members agree on, whether they happen to be Republican or Democrat. One is the minimum wage increase and the other is health care reform legislation that was originally sponsored in the Senate by Senator Kassebaum and Senator Kennedy, again on a bipartisan basis. The minimum wage hike is long overdue. I know that my colleague from California on the other side said, well, why did not the Democrats do it 2 years ago or why did not such-and-such do it whenever. I am not really concerned about the past. The reality is that we know there are an overwhelming majority in the House and in the Senate, both Democrats and Republicans, that would vote for this very simple minimum wage hike if they were given an opportunity to do so. And once again, this week in the other body, in fact, there was a vote, and efforts by the Republican leadership over there to try to put in what I would call poison-pill amendments that would have delayed implementation of the minimum wage hike or would have excluded small businesses so that half the people who now benefit from the minimum wage would not have gotten the increase. Those amendments were defeated overwhelmingly, again, on a bipartisan basis. The only thing that is holding up this bill right now is because the Republican leadership in the other body has decided that they will not appoint conferees and links the appointment of conferees to conferees being appointed on the health care reform bill, the other bill I mentioned today. Well, some of you may, my colleagues certainly know but I am not sure that the public knows what we mean when we talk about appointing conferees. This is when there is basically a meeting or negotiation between the two Houses on different bills. If you do not appoint the conferees and you do not bring the bill to the floor, the bill does not pass. That is what we face now. A concerted effort on the part of the Republican leadership in the other body to not let these two bills come to the floor and be passed. It is a shame. The American people, those who are on the minimum wage need a hike. They have not had one for a long time. Many people would benefit from the Kennedy-Kassebaum health insurance reform because it would provide portability, the ability to take your health insurance with you when you lose a job or when you transfer jobs. It would also allow for people to buy health insurance who now cannot because they have a preexisting medical condition. Now, it is time for this legislation to move and be passed and be sent to the President. We only have a short amount of time here. I do not know, there is maybe 25, 30, possibly fewer legislative days. If the Republican leadership continues to put a hold on these bills----

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I just wanted to, if I could, in the time that remains to me, point out that the minimum wage right now is $4.25 an hour, which adds up to about $8,800 a year. It is a disgrace that someone in America can work a 40-hour week for 52 weeks a year and only earn $8,800. How can we as a country that was founded on principles that we all have the same opportunity to improve our quality of life to pull ourselves up from bootstraps only to deny those dreams to our working poor. Every day that the Republican majority delays the vote to increase the minimum wage, another American dream is essentially shattered. The Republican leadership has talked about family values for many years, but I think its mere rhetoric when it comes to minimum wage. Minimum wage workers are forced to leave their families far beyond the 8-hour day just to provide a balanced meal for their children. If a minimum wage earner worked a 16-hour day, they would only earn $68 for that day. Under the Democratic proposal, which again is really a bipartisan proposal, they would take home over $82 a day for their efforts, an extra $14. That means that maybe they can go out and buy a meal for their children or a healthier meal. Right now many who live on the minimum wage do not have health insurance. They do not have the ability, basically, to provide for their family. My point is that if we increase the minimum wage, we make it possible for a lot of these people to not be so dependent upon government subsidies. Again, there is going to be a bill coming to the floor next week on welfare reform. I think most of us on a bipartisan basis would like to see some kind of welfare reform. How can you have welfare reform if you do not have an increase in the minimum wage? You have to provide an incentive for people to get off of welfare, for people to not need government assistance. If they do not make a fair-share wage that will not be possible. I want to point out that in my own State, on a State level we passed a minimum wage increase a few years ago somewhat similar to the one proposed on the Federal level. The result was that more jobs were created. There was a study done by two Princeton University economists recently for New Jersey and basically what it pointed out was the minimum wage workers take that extra money and they go out and buy things, whether it is food or whatever it is that they need as basic necessities of life. That creates more jobs. It actually helps the economy. I know some have suggested that raising the minimum wage is going to lose jobs, but that is not the case. It actually increases economic activity. I urge that this bill move in both Houses and go to the President.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, in the spending bill that is coming to the floor this morning, the Republicans are once again proposing harmful education cuts, and, fortunately, the President has once again promised to veto any bill the Republicans send him that does not include reasonable levels of education funding. Mr. Speaker, I believe that education should be placed at the top of our Nation's budget priorities. We should be heading in a direction completely opposite from where the Republicans are going, especially at a time when enrollment in our Nation's schools is rapidly expanding. A failure to increase funding for education is a failure to invest in our children's future. I urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle: Give up this quest to gut our education system. The Republicans tried it last year, they are trying it again this year, and it should not be done. Education needs to be a priority when we deal with this budget.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, when I spoke on the floor I was encouraged by the fact that the Senate was finally taking up the minimum wage hike; and I was hopeful that a crippling amendment that would have delayed implementation for 6 months and exempted many small businesses so that half the people on minimum wage would not benefit from the hike would not pass. Fortunately, that amendment did not pass; and so now I am hoping that somehow we are going to get this minimum wage to the President's desk. But what we have found out today is that the Republican leadership in the Senate as well as in the House continues to want delay. They do not want the minimum wage to pass. They are saying they are not going to appoint conferees, and they will only appoint conferees to work out the differences on the minimum wage bill if the health care reform bill also moves. What we are seeing again is an effort by the Republican leadership to stop the minimum wage hike just like they are trying to stop health insurance reform. They are going to let this drag on between now and November so that this Congress once again will be the Congress of inaction. Nothing happens here. It is not happening because the Republican leadership does not want it to happen.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I just wanted to make reference to my colleague, who I greatly respect, who just spoke from the other side of the aisle to point out that we continue to see many Republicans, and most importantly I would say the Republican leadership here in the House, and to some extent also in the Senate, that continue to oppose raising the minimum wage. Although I respect what my colleague from Nebraska has said, I think it is very wrong to suggest that somehow raising the minimum wage is not going to help the average American wage earner who lives on it. The bottom line is that we have seen over and over again, and most importantly in my home State of New Jersey, where the minimum wage was raised a few years ago to the level that we are now or somewhat close to the level that we are now proposing in Congress, and the result was that minimum wage workers actually had their wages increased, were able to go out and buy more goods, and more services had to be provided to them. Jobs in the State of New Jersey actually increased so that there were more economic opportunities, more work opportunities for jobs created in our State because of the increase in the minimum wage. So this notion that somehow raising the minimum wage is going to decrease jobs and put people on the street and not help those who are now dependent on the minimum wage, I think is just a false issue. Clearly, the statistics show that that is a false issue. I think this is important today because on the other side of the Capitol, in the Senate, they will be taking up the minimum wage. I am hopeful that crippling amendments that are being proposed again by various Republicans, that would create huge loopholes in the increase in the minimum wage for certain workers, that these crippling amendments do not pass, because over the last 6 months and over the last year the American people have basically been petitioning Congress and stating over and over again they they want an increase in the minimum wage. That is the only reason that this is being brought to the floor of the Senate today, not because of the Republican leadership, who consistently opposed it here in the House and in the Senate, but because the American people have spoken out and said they want an increase. They want a livable wage for people who are working at a minimum wage level. It would be a shame if crippling amendments, mostly coming from big business, were to pass. That would exempt a lot of workers in various categories from this minimum wage increase. I hope that that does not happen. Madam Speaker, I have been outraged from the very beginning at the constant effort by the Republican leadership here in the House to deny millions of working Americans the opportunity to earn a livable wage. We have had a debate in the House, and now the same debate is happening in the Senate, with two constant themes. First is that Republicans will do everything they can to fight for big business special interests and try to water down a minimum wage increase. It is the Democrats who continue to fight for the hard- working Americans who need an increase in the minimum wage to provide for their families. Madam Speaker, the Republican leadership has used many different schemes and ploys to fight an increase in the minimum wage. First was the majority leader in the House who proposed doing away with the minimum wage altogether. Then in March of this year Republicans in the House used a parliamentary procedure to stop a vote calling for a modest increase in the minimum wage. But gradually, Americans all over the country began to put pressure on the Republican leadership here in the House to at least have a vote on the issue, to let the vote occur. The Republican leadership, however, continued to persist as long as they could in preventing a vote. But finally the so-called moderate wing of the Republican party, many of whom were from my home State or from the Northeast, broke with their leadership and expressed support for the Democratic proposal on the minimum wage. So we finally did have a vote, but if you listen to some of the dialog on the other side, if you listen to some of the ideology--as I said, some of it was expressed by my colleague from Nebraska today--you hear this constant theme that somehow this is not good for the average American. According to the majority whip in the House, no one is actually raising a family on the $4.25 an hour that is currently the minimum wage law. The majority whip used the addition of food stamps and the earned income tax credit to show that a single parent with two children could earn much more than the $8,800 a year that is provided for in the minimum wage. But the bottom line is that even with food stamps, even with the earned income tax credit, which many in the House Republican leadership oppose, it is very, very difficult if not impossible for someone today to live and raise a family on the minimum wage. That is why we need to have a vote on this issue, and that is why we need to have it passed in the Senate today, sent back to the House, and signed into law by the President, who supports the increase.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time. Mr. SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Greenwood] that the House suspend the rules and pass the bill, H.R. 249, as amended.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this legislation. H.R. 248 authorizes funds to develop and create and operate a spectrum of critically important programs to prevent and treat traumatic brain injury and to educate the public, health care providers, and the patients about the nature of these injuries and the most appropriate ways to deal with them. Traumatic brain injury is the primary cause of death and disability among young people in the United States. By anyone's definition, these injuries have reached epidemic proportions, affecting nearly 2 million Americans each year, with severe and devastating consequences. Five hundred thousand are injured so severely that they must be hospitalized; 90,000 suffer irreversible loss of function; 50,000 people, many in the prime of their lives, die as a result of an injury or blow to the head from a fall, a violent crime, or a motor vehicle or sports accident. The cost to care for people with brain injuries is astronomical, over $98 billion a year. But this is not an epidemic that we have read about in novels or seen in movies. It is a silent epidemic, quietly claiming its young victims without the sort of public alarm that would accompany any infectious disease outbreak of this magnitude. People living with the consequences of severe brain injury require health care, rehabilitative care and social services that differ substantially from services needed by individuals with other kinds of disabilities. Ensuring that such specialized services are available requires that health care providers and others recognize and understand these injuries as unique, learn how to take appropriate action to minimize the damage from head injury, and take aggressive approaches to preventing such injuries. My colleague, and the prime sponsor of this bill, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Greenwood], basically went through how this bill authorizes an excellent approach toward accomplishing the goals that he mentioned that we are trying to achieve here. The bill authorizes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention carry out programs to identify strategies for preventing traumatic brain injury. In addition, the NIH [National Institutes of Health] is authorized to award grant funds for various purposes relating to traumatic brain injury. The bill also authorizes the Health Resources and Services Administration to award grants to States. And, finally, H.R. 248 requires that the Secretary determine the incidence and prevalence of traumatic brain injury and develop a uniform reporting system; analyze common therapies and conduct a consensus conference that brings together all interested parties to discuss treatment, management, and rehabilitation. Mr. Speaker, this bill goes a long way toward shedding critical light on the darkness of the silent epidemic of traumatic brain injury. The House has passed similar legislation in the past, only to see it encumbered by unrelated provisions and bogged down in complicated processes. Today, we have another chance to do the right thing. Mr. Speaker, I know that the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Greenwood] has been out there trying to urge that we move this bill as a freestanding measure and get it to the President as quickly as possible, and I know that he joins with me and many others in hoping that this time the legislative journey will have its final destination on the President's desk. The millions of people whose lives are touched each day by devastating tragedies that result from traumatic brain injuries need to know that we care about them and we will try to help them. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to address the House about the fact that increasingly and persistently we see efforts on the part of the Republican leadership, in the past in 1995, again this year, and I suspect, unfortunately, to continue through the rest of 1996, efforts to cut Medicare and Medicaid. I also want to remind my colleagues on the Republican side, and particularly the GOP leadership, about the need to pass health insurance reform. My colleagues on the Democratic side are aware of the fact that we have within our Caucus a Democratic health care task force. Part of our effort has been to try to preserve Medicare and Medicaid and to oppose the drastic cuts in Medicare and Medicaid that would negatively impact America's seniors if the Republican proposals were to go forth in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. Similarly, our Democratic health care task force has been supportive of legislation that was originally introduced by Senator Kassebaum, who is a Republican, and Senator Kennedy, who is a Democrat, and here in the House by one of my colleagues on the Republican side, the gentlewoman from New Jersey, Mrs. Roukema, that would try to reform the health care system to provide coverage, insurance coverage, for those people who lose their jobs or have to change jobs, and also those Americans who suffer from preexisting medical conditions, who are unable to get health insurance now because of restrictions in the private health insurance market. I just wanted to say very briefly, before I went into a few details about why it is necessary to keep up this battle against cuts in Medicare and Medicaid, to say very briefly that on the issue of Medicare, the Republican plans have basically been to eliminate provider choice to seniors, to allow doctors to overcharge seniors, to force seniors to pay more out of pocket and to get less under Medicare, and basically to cut Medicare and Medicare programs for seniors in order to use the money for tax breaks primarily for wealthy Americans. On the issue of Medicaid, most of the Republican plans have been to eliminate benefit guarantees to seniors for the disabled children and also many other American families, and to allow States to cut an additional $178 billion on top of the congressional Republican cut of $72 billion. I wanted to start out this evening, though, by talking about the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill and the effort to provide health insurance reform this year that has basically been spearheaded here in the House of Representatives not only by Democrats, but also some Republicans who feel that modest health insurance reform is the way to go in this Congress, before we adjourn. The President, President Clinton, pledged his support for the bipartisan Kennedy-Kassebaum bill in his State of the Union address earlier this year, and congressional Democrats have tried to work with moderate Republicans to get the bill on its way to the President's desk. The Senate passed the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill 100 to 0, unanimously. But what is holding up this bipartisan health insurance reform bill is the Republican leadership's insistence here in the House on adding medical savings accounts, a special perk for the healthy and wealthy, that lets them opt out of traditional health plans and drives up costs for everyone else who remains in traditional health plans. The Senate voted not to include the medical savings account perk in their version of the bill, but House Republicans and right-wing Senate Republicans still demand that it be included in the final version sent to the President. I am asked over and over again, why is that the Speaker, Speaker Gingrich, and his Republican colleagues in the leadership, are so determined to include MSA's or medical savings accounts in an otherwise bipartisan bill. The reason, I believe, is because of the $1.2 million in political contributions to the GOP over the past year, I should say over the past 5 years, that have come from J. Patrick Rooney and other executives of the of the Golden Rule Insurance Co. which will reap massive profits if the Republican medical savings accounts plan becomes law. A few weeks ago the Consumers Union, which is a group that puts out reports from time to time on health care issues, issued a report, actually on June 26 of this year, that is entitled ``Medical Savings Accounts: A Growing Threat to Consumers' Health Care Security.'' I am not going to get into all the details of this Consumers Union report here this afternoon, but I just wanted to touch on the executive summary which begins the report and explains why MSA's or medical savings accounts are harmful to most consumers. It says in the executive summary of this Consumers Union report that the medical savings accounts would basically not only be a roadblock to congressional enactment of modest health insurance reform that addresses the issue of portability when people change jobs or when they have a preexisting medical condition, but basically would devastate consumers in the health care system. So here we have a situation where we are moving or we are trying to move, those of us who support this Kennedy-Kassebaum bill, in a way that would include more people who now do not have health insurance. We know that many Americans have no health insurance, and we are trying to get more of them coverage. So we are saying if you lose a job or you transfer a job or you have a preexisting medical condition, we want you to be able to get health insurance. But MSA's or the inclusion of MSA's in this bill would do just the opposite. It would drive up the costs of health insurance and make it more difficult for more Americans to get insured because of the increased costs that health insurance would have. A key conclusion of this Consumers Union report says, and there are three; one, that the proposed MSA's will mean severe financial hardships for families that use MSA's because they are devoid of essential consumer protections. Families with average income would have to pay 9 percent to 23 percent of annual income for health care before MSA coverage kicks in. Now, understand that when you talk about MSA's, it is a high deductible policy. It basically says when you have a catastrophic problem, that your health care needs would be taken care of. But if you have anything less than that, your ordinary daily medical needs, then you have to pay out of pocket. The Consumers Union report says, second, that millions of consumers will find that the health insurance that they want the most, the traditional low- deductible comprehensive coverage, is no longer available to them, and third, that MSA's are likely to increase the already large number of uninsured and underinsured Americans, making it even harder for Congress to make health care affordable and accessible. I wanted to cite 10 ways that the Consumers Union mentions why MSA's harm consumers. They list them as follows. First, MSA's expose individuals to paying the first $5,000 for health care each year before insurance coverage kicks in. This is the high deductible. For families it is $7,500. Second, MSA's allow insurance companies to charge consumers 30 percent on all covered expenses after the deductible is met. So even after you go beyond the deductible you are talking about a 30 percent out-of-pocket cost. Third, MSA's allow insurance companies to include low lifetime limits in their policies, leaving families unprotected against the cost of catastrophic illness. Fourth, MSA's do not provide a cap on out-of-pocket costs. Fifth, MSA's would lead to drastic premium increases for traditional comprehensive policies, ultimately promoting the elimination of these policies in some markets. What you are doing here, if you are healthy or you are wealthy, you buy this high deductible MSA, but because the healthy and wealthy people are now taken out of the insurance pool, the costs for those who are left in the insurance pool goes up, premiums go up, and a lot of people simply cannot afford traditional health insurance anymore. The sixth point that Consumer Union makes is that MSA's leave benefit design up to insurance companies, allowing policies that exclude preventive care and conditions such as pregnancy. Seventh, MSA's do not require insurance companies to accept all individuals who apply for coverage or to charge them a fair price. Eighth, MSA's do not require employers to contribute to the high deductible insurance policy or the employee's MSA. In other words, contributions from your employer are voluntary. Ninth, MSA's do not require employers who offer them to also offer employees a choice of a traditional low deductible comprehensive health insurance plan, your traditional health insurance plan; and, lastly, tenth, MSA's do not require employers to continue to spend the same amount on health care coverage that they do today. Essentially the conclusion in brief that the Consumer Union report makes is that Congress should keep MSA's out of health insurance reform legislation. I could not have said it better. If we are going to see comprehensive health insurance reform passed this year in the House, in the Senate, and be signed by the President that addresses the issues of portability and makes it possible for people with preexisting conditions to get health insurance that they need, MSA's cannot be included. I have to hope that between the House and the Senate over the next few weeks or the next few months before we adjourn that an effort is made on a bipartisan basis to simply move the original Kennedy- Kassebaum bill without MSA's. Otherwise there will be no health insurance reform passed in Congress and signed into law this year, which I think would be a tragedy for so many millions of Americans who need health insurance and cannot get it now because of the restrictions that exist under existing law. I wanted to spend a little time on the Medicare issue and also a little bit on the Medicaid issue, because Medicare and Medicaid are so important not only to senior citizens, not only to low-income people but also hospitals because so many of our hospitals and our health care institutions are heavily Medicare and Medicaid dependent and if we make the kind of drastic cuts in Medicare and Medicaid that the Republican leadership has been proposing for the last 18 months, our hospitals and our health care institutions in general will suffer, many of them will actually close, because they will not have sufficient funds to continue to operate. Medicare right now provides quality health care benefits for over 32 million senior citizens. But again the Republican leadership wants to transform Medicare into a program of substandard care. The Republican leadership says that Medicare is in crisis. We hear that time and time again on the floor of this House. They say that that is because it is running a deficit. But I would argue that minor adjustments, not a major overhaul, could insure Medicare solvency. When Democrats were in the majority we made sure that Medicare was being adequately funded. In 1982 the Medicare trustees predicted that the Medicare trust fund would run out of money by 1986, but obviously that did not happen. Democrats protected Medicare and maintained a level of quality care for senior citizens into the 1990's. Now that the Republicans are in the majority, they are scaring senior citizens by saying that Medicare is again going to go bankrupt in the early part of the next decade and using words like ``reform'' to disguise their efforts to destroy the Medicare Program. If you listen to Speaker Newt Gingrich, I would maintain that his real motives lie in a speech he gave during last year's Medicare debate where the Speaker said he wanted to see Medicare wither on the vine. That is a sign, I would say, of the misguided Republican leadership that Medicare would be led to wither on the vine. So many of those who are now in the leadership, Speaker Gingrich, Mr. Dole, now the Republican Presidential candidate in particular, did not support Medicare when it was first voted on the floor here of the House of Representatives 30 some odd years ago. I think it is a sign of the misguided Republican leadership that Medicare has run its first ever deficit in its 31 years as a health care program for senior citizens now when the Republicans are in control of Congress. The Republican budget that was passed just a few weeks ago, or perhaps a month ago now, calls for over $168 billion in cuts, reductions or whatever you want to call them, in the Medicare Program. I do not want to get into this debate on whether it is a real cut or a cut in the growth of the program, but in any case it is a $168 billion cut. Basically the Republican leadership is proposing to take money out of the Medicare Program in order to pay for tax breaks for wealthy Americans. Although the amount of money being taken from Medicare is significant, I do not want to downplay that, the devil is really in the details because the Republican leadership is proposing a major overhaul of Medicare to make it less efficient and more costly for seniors. As much as we decry as Democrats the cuts in Medicare, more significant is what the Republicans are trying to do to restructure the Medicare Program. Basically their proposal calls for co-opting senior citizens into managed care. I do not have a problem with managed care per se, but I do not believe in Speaker Gingrich's attempts to force seniors into managed care and somehow say that that is giving senior citizens more choices. The only choice that the Republican leadership is giving to seniors under their Medicare plan is the choice to receive substandard health care. Where Medicare historically offered patients their own choice of doctors, protected against high out-of-pocket costs and offered a guaranteed level of coverage, the Republican leadership proposal would essentially take that all away. In addition, and this goes back to what I was saying before, the Republicans are proposing to incorporate the medical savings accounts, what we discussed before in the context of health care reform, they want to incorporate the MSA's also into the Medicare overhaul. Last year the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office stated that these tax breaks, the MSA tax breaks, would actually cost Medicare several billion dollars. Again an effort to restructure Medicare and, I would maintain, overhaul it in a way that has a very negative impact on America's senior citizens. I would urge really that senior citizens again take notice of what is happening here and what is being proposed by the Republicans and call on Congress to protect Medicare from any further raids by Speaker Gingrich and the Republican leadership. Lastly this afternoon I want to talk a little bit about Medicaid. Medicaid many people think of as the program for poor people. But it also pays about 50 percent of all nursing home care for senior citizens. The Republican budget makes extreme cuts, $72 billion over 6 years, to the Medicaid program and allows States to cut an additional $178 billion for a grand total of $250 billion in Medicaid cuts. These Medicaid cuts are over and above the Medicare cuts I discussed before. Without Medicaid, many middle-class adult children of nursing home parents will have to pay for their parents' expensive care while trying to send their own children through college. So keep in mind, and I say that to those Americans who would have parents or grandparents that are in nursing homes, if you have to end up paying for a lot of their care, that means less money out of your pocket that you might not have available to pay for your own children, your own children's education or other programs. Recently the Commerce Committee voted on the Medicaid Repeal Act, the Republican Medicaid proposal. I am a member of the Committee on Commerce and I fought very hard against this bill when it came to our committee. The Republican Medicaid Repeal Act will eliminate all current guarantees of health care coverage and eliminate current guarantees of nursing home benefits to the elderly. I offered an amendment during the markup in the Committee on Commerce that would return these guarantees in this terrible legislation, but it was rejected by every Republican on the committee. Other Democrats offered similar amendments to continue health care coverage for the disabled, for children, for pregnant women. Again, all of these were defeated by the Republican members of the committee. On top of all this, the GOP Medical Repeal Act will sharply reduce payments to hospitals for care. I said before, I do not think a lot of people realize how dependent many of America's hospitals and health care institutions are on Medicare and Medicaid. In New Jersey, my State, a lot of hospitals have the majority of their income from those two Federal and State programs. What I am concerned about is with these steep cuts that are being proposed in both programs, a lot of hospitals in New Jersey and throughout the country will simply have to close their doors. I think at a time when Congress should be seeking ways to decrease the number of uninsured and underinsured, the Republican leadership's answers will make these problems worse. What we are talking about here is an effort to try to provide quality health care for seniors and for all Americans. The bottom line is that more and more Americans today, and you can make a comparison with last year, 2 years ago, 5 years, 10 years ago, every year more and more Americans and the percentage of Americans are uninsured and have no health insurance. If we make these drastic changes in Medicare and Medicaid, if we do not do what is necessary to reform health care insurance along the lines of what Senators Kassebaum and Kennedy have proposed, then we are going to see more and more Americans be uninsured and not have health care. The consequences to our society are severe not only today but certainly tomorrow. The irony really, too, of the Republican budget which was passed in this House not too long ago is that in addition to making these cuts in Medicare and Medicaid, it also increases the deficit. In the past Democrats were able to decrease the deficit and still preserve Medicare and Medicaid. I think that this is just a strong indication of the misplaced priorities and values of the Republican leadership, if they find it necessary to cut Medicare and Medicaid and in the same context are actually increasing the deficit. I remain committed to fighting these Republican efforts that would raise the deficit while slashing Medicare and Medicaid, and I know that myself and many of my Democratic colleagues will continue to speak out over the next few weeks and the next few months until this session ends to remind American seniors that we cannot make these drastic changes in the Medicare and the Medicaid program and that we need to pass health insurance reform now and certainly before the end of this session of Congress.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to make reference today that the other body is going to be voting today on this much overdue increase in the minimum wage. I just wanted to point out some of the lessons we learned in the House while debating this issue. No. 1 is that the American people want a raise in the minimum wage for everyone and they want it now. We learned that lesson every time the Republicans proposed amendments in the House to defeat the bill. Now the Senate is trying to resurrect some of the same amendments defeated in the House. One amendment offered by the Senate Small Business Committee chairman will delay implementation of the wage hike by 6 months. His amendment will also exempt small business from the increase, denying 6,000,000 American workers a living wage. This is a cruel hoax to play on those who need an increase in the minimum wage the most. Mr. Speaker, the President will veto this bill if it comes to his desk with these poison pill amendments. I urge the Republicans in the Senate to learn from the House. The American people want an increase in the minimum wage, and it will save us a lot of time and money if they simply vote for an increase in the minimum wage and leave out all the destructive amendments.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, each year tens of thousands of preventable health complications arise from inappropriate prescription drug use, costing billions annually. Yesterday, I introduced the Safe Medications for the Elderly Act or SMEA, a bill that seeks to correct this problem of inappropriate prescription drug use. Over the course of the last year, I have worked on a solution to this problem. In an effort to curb the number of seniors being hospitalized or seriously injured--sometimes leading to death--SMEA shifts the emphasis of pharmaceutical care from pharmacists who need to dispense drugs as rapidly as possible to pharmacists who will sit down with an elderly individual and provide adequate consultations with specific medications. As health care enters the 21st century, it is time to empower pharmacists and encourage them to play a greater role in health care delivery. Some pharmacists are currently spending the time necessary to improve patient compliance, but many are not. Senior citizens have special needs that require additional attention when it comes to taking prescription drugs. Pharmacists can be an important component of the health care puzzle making a significant difference in seniors lives. SMEA provides senior citizens with Medicare coverage for carefully targeted pharmaceutical care services including: vaccine administration, consultation with physicians, and consultation with patients to improve prescription drug compliance. Pharmacists only receive compensation if they achieve results. Numerous studies have confirmed the problems and high costs associated with inappropriate drug use, especially among senior citizens who are particularly vulnerable due to their higher rate of prescription drug usage for multiple health problems. Last year, the General Accounting Office [GAO] report that hospitalizations due to inappropriate prescription drug use cost about $20 billion according to FDA estimates. The report added that inappropriate use of prescription drugs is a ``potential health problem that is particularly acute for the elderly.'' Another study cited in the Archives of Internal Medicine in October 1995, stated that: Prescription-drug related problems--often caused by patients not taking their drugs properly--cost an estimated $76.6 billion in medical bills and cause 119,000 deaths a year. A recent Wall Street Journal article (April 12, 1996, by Frank Bass) reported that a program under the H-E-B Grocery Co. and Nueces County's Memorial Medical Center in south Texas found that ``pharmacist counseling can both benefit chronically ill patients and reduce health- care costs.'' The Wall Street Journal cited an H-E-B spokesman saying that ``among the people in the program, emergency-room trips have declined 23 percent, hospital admissions 33 percent, and physicians visits 41 percent.'' These are just a few of the studies and stories that exist to illustrate the problems that the elderly encounter with prescription drug misuse and positive benefits of proper pharmacist counseling. Under the vaccine administration provision, pharmacists would be compensated for administering certain vaccines to elderly individuals This would only apply to States where pharmacists are authorized to provide such services. Typically, States with large rural populations certify pharmacists for vaccine administration, because in many instances, a pharmacist is the most accessible health care provider in a rural community. SMEA would provide one more opportunity for seniors to receive preventive medicine--a simple vaccine--that can save lives and Medicare dollars. Vaccines have a proven record as a cost savings to the health care system. The second section of SMEA involves physician consultations. A pharmacist would only be reimbursed when consulting a physician about a senior citizen's prescription drug regimen which resulted in the physician taking action on the pharmacist's advice. In other words, if a pharmacist advises a physician that a particular drug that was prescribed would harm the senior and the physician agreed and wrote a new prescription, then the pharmacist would be reimbursed. Many times physicians are unaware of other drugs being prescribed to patients for other conditions or being human, make mistakes. Under this provision, a pharmacist would receive reimbursement only in instances that will benefit the health of the patient, but at the discretion of a physician. This provision is narrowly focused to provide the biggest bang for the buck in preventing elderly Medicare beneficiaries from becoming unnecessarily hospitalized or severely injured. This legislation encourages pharmacists to spend more time reviewing the patient's prescription drug regimen, instead of racing to dispense prescription drugs quicker. Under current pharmacy care, even pharmacists can overlook possible drug prescribing mistakes. SMEA provides more opportunity for adequate review. The final section of SMEA concerns consultations with a patient. A pharmacist would only be reimbursed when consulting a senior citizen which results in improved compliance with regard to specific drugs for six specific high-risk diseases or when a senior is on a drug regimen that requires four or more drugs. Here, senior citizens will receive counseling from pharmacists for treatments that necessitate extra concern with compliance. Again, this legislation is carefully constructed to maximize Medicare savings, minimize hospital visits, and improve health care delivery for the elderly. Pharmacists would be required to do more than just tell a patient to take two tablets a day with meals. SMEA would require pharmacists to do much more to improve patient compliance. Patient consultation sessions would involve increased pharmacist interaction with seniors about drug side effects, proper intake, and better drug regimen management with multiple prescriptions. These are just a few of the additional responsibilities that SMEA would require. The end result is America's seniors living longer and remaining healthier without undue hospitalization and excessive costs. The elderly win. Medicare wins. And smart health care prevails.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to follow up on this resolution that will be proposed later which basically asks that an outside counsel be appointed for certain purposes. I think the notion that we police ourselves in the House of Representatives to some extent makes sense but, when the time comes, when a certain committee is not doing its job and not basically taking on the responsibility to make sure that certain Members here are properly investigated for alleged wrongdoings, particularly when it comes to tax-exempt organizations, the political process needs to be kept in a proper fashion. If tax-exempt organizations or other organizations are being used to promote a particular candidacy or a particular political party, the time comes when the particular committee here, in this case the ethics committee, must do its job. If it cannot do its job, then we need have to have an outside counsel appointed. I think that the LA Times article has clearly pointed out that there have been a number of allegations here with regard to the Speaker, and the time has come for this House to move to appoint a special counsel to look into the Speaker's wrongdoing.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I rise to congratulate Margaret Angela Baker of South Amboy, NJ, a valued and cherished member of our community, on her 100th birthday. Margaret Baker was born in South Amboy on July 11, 1896. Her father passed away when she was 3 years old and her mother, Catherine Ketzner, remarried when she was 9, to the owner and operator of a saloon, named Jacob Baker. Margaret Baker left school after the ninth grade and began working in a factory piecing together clothing. She then worked in a playing card factory and then went on to work in a factory that manufactured military uniforms, where she worked her way up to full- time inspector, while doing part-time clerical work. Margaret met Mr. John Joseph Dooling on a bus when she was in her 20's. John and Margaret were married March 23, 1924, in Saint Mary's Roman Catholic Church in South Amboy. The couple had a daughter, Rita Catherine Dooling who was born on September 8, 1929, in South Amboy Hospital. John passed away in 1959 at the age of 70. Margaret has three grandchildren: Jamie C. Smith, Karen H. Brent and Amy S. Moore. In addition, she has five great grandchildren: Emily, Christopher, Meghan, Tyler, and Kaitlin, ranging from age 5 years to 2 months. Mr. Speaker, as she reaches the century mark Mrs. Baker can look back on a 20th century that has seen America and the world transformed in ways that could scarcely have been imagined in her childhood. For example, during her lifetime, Mrs. Baker witnessed many inventions and technological breakthroughs, including automobiles, electricity, and telephones. Mr. Speaker, I am indeed honored to join in congratulating Margaret Angela Baker on this remarkable milestone.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Chairman, again, as I said before, if the money is really in this bill, then why should it be subject to a point of order. All we are saying is that if it is really there, if the money is really there, it should be used now for cleanups and not later for some polluter slush fund which basically gives money back in rebates to polluters. As I said on page 60 of the committee report, it says that the committee is appropriating $2.2 billion for Superfund in fiscal year 1997. In addition, it claims that they are appropriating almost 861 million more than the President included in his budget. Our amendment simply strikes that contingency and would truly fund the Superfund Program at the 2.2 billion and have the money spent this year. If the amendment is subject to a point of order, then the money really is not there after all and the Republicans are appropriating about 55 million less than the President requested. So I just wanted to make it clear that by bringing this point of order and having it sustained, they are admitting that the $2.2 billion figure is basically a sham. They are admitting that they funded the program at $55 million less than the President requested and that they have turned this appropriation process into something that we may never see. The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Oxley] and some of the others said last week that Republicans are willing to put their money where their mouths are on Superfund reform. If this point of order is sustained and the money is not real, then I think the bottom line means that the Republicans really do not intend to provide additional money for the Superfund Program and what they are really up to is trying to provide this fund, this slush fund that ultimately will be used for rebates to polluters when the Superfund reform that they advocate is passed into law or comes up on the floor.

Mr. PALLONE. Just very quickly, Mr. Chairman, again responding to the gentleman from New York. If we need a budget waiver, if we need the authorization for the Superfund Program or the reauthorization, and we need another appropriation, we have to go through that anyway in future Congresses. So there is nothing here. This is a totally unreal situation where they are suggesting that we will do this in the future if we can get it authorized, if we can get an appropriation and if we can get a budget waiver. It seems to me that in the next Congress, or whenever this comes up again, we would have to do all those things anyway to proceed. So, there is nothing here. As my friend from Pennsylvania said, this is nothing really but a publicity effort or advertising effort to make it look like the Republican leadership is actually doing something. The reality is they are doing nothing on the Superfund Program, and, if anything, it may cause mischief and suggest that somehow, if this money does become available in the future, it might be used for some kind of rebate program, and that is my concern. But I do not see that we are really doing anything here at all. This is just advertising promotion to make the Republicans feel that they, as my colleagues know, look good or appear that they are trying to do something when they are not.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Chairman, I would like to speak in favor of the amendment.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, on Saturday, June 29, 1996, the Sandy Hook Unit of the Gateway National Recreation Area and the Sandy Hook Foundation will hold a celebration of Fort Hancock's first 100 years. It will be a great honor for me to join with New Jersey Governor Whitman, other elected leaders, military officials, veterans and community leaders in paying tribute to this beautiful and exceptional facility located in northeastern Monmouth County, NJ. Saturday's festivities will include historic military re-enactments, modern military equipment and personnel, children's activities, open houses and music, culminating in a fireworks display. Mr. Speaker, Fort Hancock is located on the northern tip of Sandy Hook, a six-and-a-half mile long peninsula between Sandy Hook Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. The history of Fort Hancock as an important military site goes back to the Revolutionary War. The original fort was built during the War of 1812. In 1895, army engineers at Sandy Hook had just finished building the first two concrete gun batteries ever constructed to defend an American harbor, protecting the vital shipping lanes of the New York-New Jersey Harbor. The next step was construction of housing for the several hundred soldiers needed to man the new emplacements. Pursuant to a general order issued by the Secretary of War, the fortifications at Sandy Hook were named in honor of Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock, who fought valiantly for the Union in the Civil War and was wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg--General Hancock also ran unsuccessfully for President against James Garfield, another great American whose name came to be associated with the Jersey Shore. It was in the summer of 1896 that the plans and layout for the Fort Hancock facilities were developed, with construction work being completed in 1899. The results were remarkable, a collection of graceful structures of great architectural distinction, including Officers' Row, the Oak Club Inn, the Officers Club, a theater, an auditorium, a PX Club and gymnasium, as well as barracks for enlisted personnel. The military and civilian population averaged between 500 and 800 during this period. Children of personnel living on post attended the Fort Hancock Public School. Many of these structures are still impressive to this day, although in some need of renovation. Indeed, visitors to Sandy Hook, after exploring the ocean- and bay-side beaches, sand dunes and other environments on the peninsula are often amazed to find what seems to be a ghost town on this isolated location, but in full view of the New York skyline. Fort Hancock played a major role in both of the World Wars, providing temporary quarters for troops departing for war in Europe, as well as serving as a reception center for returning personnel. In 1939, the King and Queen of England passed through while on a national good will tour, and later that year President Franklin Delano Roosevelt visited the fort. While World War II proved to be perhaps the busiest time in the fort's history, the changes in military tactics and technology had made the fort's harbor defense role largely obsolete. However, during the early decades of the cold war, Fort Hancock was still used as the site for anti-aircraft guns and later as a Nike air defense missile deployment site. The fort was deactivated in 1974. IN 1975, the National Park Service took over the entire Sandy Hook peninsula, and a number of the fort buildings have been used by education, scientific and environmental organizations. In 1982, the Department of the Interior designated all of Sandy Hook as a National Historic Landmark. Mr. Speaker, it is a great honor for me to pay tribute to Fort Hancock, which has played such a proud and important role in the Jersey Shore and in the defense of our Nation and continues to be a popular destination for thousands upon thousands of visitors each year.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, July 9th, a reception will be held at the Zimmerli Art Museum in New Brunswick, NJ, in honor of two of Middlesex County's most esteemed citizens, Herbert and Mildred Tanzman of Highland Park, NJ. Beginning with the time he served his country in World War II, Herbert Tanzman has maintained a distinguished legacy of community service. For his service in WWII's Naval Aviation unit, Mr. Tanzman was awarded the Navy Air Medal by the President. A veteran of the Battle of Iwo Jima, he has served as commander of the Veterans Alliance, commander of Jewish War Veterans Post No. 133, New Brunswick, member of the National Executive Committee of the JWV, national representative and national foreign affairs chair of JWV of the USA, and executive board member of the Navy League. Currently, Mr. Tanzman serves as JWV national foreign affairs chairman. Mr. Tanzman has demonstrated his leadership through every facet of his life. He has enjoyed a distinguished career as director for the real estate firm of Jacobson, Goldfarb and Tanzman Associates. He rose to the ranks of leadership in his profession as president of the New Jersey Real Estate Commission. He also demonstrated his commitment to his community as a councilman and mayor of Highland Park. He served on the State of New jersey County and Municipal Government Study Commission, and the board of directors of the New Jersey State League of Municipalities. In his tireless efforts to further the cause of human rights and intergroup relations, Mr. Tanzman served as the national liaison officer to the Catholic War Veterans, national civil rights chairman and national legislative chairman and national chairman of American Indian Affairs. He as helped to build the civic life of his community and his country as a member of the executive committee and board of directors of United Community Services, trustee of the Middlesex- Somerset Chapter of the Multiple Sclerosis Association, board member of Job Corps, member of the board of directors of YMHA, chairman of the Building Fund Campaign, and member of the board of directors of the Central New Jersey Home for the Aged. Mr. Tanzman's hard work has been driven by the quintessential Jewish goal of rebuilding and improving the world around him. He currently serves as national vice chairman and national campaign cabinet member of Israel Bonds, and has served as general chairman of the Raritan Valley UJA Federation, as an executive board member of the Greater Monmouth Jewish Federation, a chair of Monmouth County's UJA, and regional chairman for Israel Bonds. For Mildred S. Tanzman, Tikun Olam--rebuilding the world--has been the guideline by which she has lived her life. Her devotion to the Highland Park Conservative Temple has been a commitment for over 50 years. It includes active sisterhood and service on the Sisterhood Board. Mrs. Tanzman has been a life member of Hadassah and has served on the Hadassah Board. She has also served on the National Council of Jewish Women, Deborah Hospital, Roosevelt Hospital, Brandeis University, the Central New Jersey Jewish Home for the Aged, the Jewish War Veterans Post No. 133 Auxiliary, and as president of the Lions Club Auxiliary of Highland Park. She has been involved for a long time with the Borough of Highland Park Juvenile Court Commissions. Several years ago, Mr. Tanzman met the internationally known Nazi hunter Beate Klarsfeld, and the two women became friends and colleagues in the effort to be vigilant against Nazi and neo-Nazi groups still operating throughout the world. She has also been involved with an organization known as ``Chamah,'' originally begun as an underground movement in the pre-Glasnost Soviet Union, which now works to start schools for Jewish children in Russia, as well as helping to provide Passover Seders for families in Russia, and assistance for Russian immigrants beginning new lives here in the United States. Mr. Speaker, Mildred and Herbert Tanzman have dedicated much of their lives to serving others. Their dedication to their family, their community, the United States, the Jewish people and the State of Israel has been exemplary, an inspiration to us all. It is an honor for me to pay tribute to these two outstanding leaders and to wish them continued happiness and success.