John Peterson

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young) for the time, and I want to commend him and the committee for their oversight. We do not do enough of that here. I think the American public would be a lot more comfortable with their Federal Government if we did more oversight. I am a little taken aback though by some of the comments that I have heard in this debate that this might go too far, this is too tough. Let us just look for a moment at what the GAO report says. It says, controls over expenditures, revenues, and grants were inadequate. Millions of dollars in program funds could not be tracked, millions. Basic principles and procedures for managing travel funds were not followed. Basic internal control standards or Office of Management and Budget guidance for maintaining complete and active grants files were not followed. Regional offices used administrative funds inconsistently and for purposes that were not justified. Charges for service-wide overhead may be very inaccurate. Routine audits to determine whether administrative funds were being used for authorized purposes were not conducted, and the process for resolving audit findings involving States' use of program funds was very questionable. This is no way for programs to be administered. I am sure this is not the only one, but I want to commend the committee for tracking it down and changing it. Sportsmen and women who fund this program with their tax dollars expect more from their government. It is our job to ensure that their tax dollars are not squandered, and they go to wildlife and sports fish restoration projects. This bill will make sure that the taxes paid by our sportsmen and women are used efficiently and according to the law, and that the majority of the funds go to the States to fund the appropriate programs. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank this committee for a job well done.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from New Mexico, and I congratulate her on her efforts tonight to talk about this issue. I have been listening to both the gentlewoman and the gentleman from Missouri discuss this issue and my first thought is, how could anybody be against this. Why would anybody oppose this? The gentlewoman has talked about all of the new changes, expanding the limits, the usability, and tying it into the State prepaid programs that are already out there. All of that makes sense. But I think we ought to talk a little bit about why the President and the Vice President are opposed to this legislation and why they have vetoed this legislation twice. It just seems incredible to me that anyone could be opposed to this legislation. The interesting part, I find, is that when it comes down to the parents and the families who have accumulated this money to prepare for their children's future, someone in government wants to tell them what they can purchase and what they cannot purchase. It just seems so incredible. I am a product of public education; my children and grandchildren are going to public education, I think as the vast majority of Americans do. But it seems so farsighted to think that if parents would choose on how to spend the money they have saved, their families have put together, would be some threat to public education. But we know, because twice the President and the Vice President have vetoed this legislation because of that fear. I would use the example of maybe a young lady or a young gentleman that is in high school preparing to go to a certain college, and they find out they need to strengthen their English and so they want to take honors English, and maybe nobody in their family is really good in English so they go down the street and hire a tutor so that they can get into the college, get into the program they want. I am constantly talking to parents who are dismayed because their kids have good grades, but some weakness that prevented them from getting the courses at the competitive university that they wanted to go to, and why they could not use a little bit of their savings account to hire a tutor down the street who might not have been in the public school system, might have been a university professor down the street who would be glad to assist. It just seems incredible to me that anyone would fear people saving their money to be able to use it for how they want to educate their child in some small way, other than the public system. Mr. Speaker, I know that when we debate this bill in a day or two, that will be the big issue, that this bill will be destructive to public education. Nothing could be further from the truth, because as parents plan and families save, sacred to education is family involvement. And if we have families involved, putting a little away for their grandchildren, their nieces and nephews, or an employer who is very futuristic and says I would like to help with your children's education, I mean these are all the sorts of things, helping Americans to be self-sufficient. Middle-class America can only get loans. If you have a decent income, you only get loans; you do not get grants, and college education is becoming more and more expensive. Young people and families are indebted for years. I have staff people who have been out of school for a long time and still have big education loans, paying on them monthly, because they made the effort to get a good education, grants were not available, they had to borrow all of the money, did not come from a family with cash, did not have the money in the bank. This will enable a lot more Americans to participate in the higher education system. It also will help them in the elementary years if they need some extra help, or if they need to go to a special school to strengthen art or strengthen music so that they can get into the famous program at some university that they want to get into. It will help them. To take away the options of parents like the President and Vice President want to do, in my view, is the basic argument. This whole thought concept is getting people to save for their future and the future of their children. I just find it incredible that anyone would think that we should then control how parents spend that money. Yes, they should spend it for educational efforts, but whether they would hire a private tutor or whether they would go to a private school for a short period of time or in the summertime take some summer classes and not be able to use money out of their educational savings accounts if they did not have the cash available just seems incredible to me. I will never understand the fear of giving Americans a choice once they have had the foresight to save for their children's education.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, if the gentlewoman would yield, if my math is still good, 75 percent of $12 billion would be those who oppose this legislation for the reasons we have talked about, their fear, are saying no to $9 billion that would flow into the public educational system from private families, not government money, but private money would say no to that because they could not be guaranteed every dime of it. Mr. Speaker, I had a father yesterday just really upset because his son was unable to attend a Pennsylvania college that he and all of his family had graduated from. He had very high grades, but he was weak in art and music. And if he would have known that, he would have had him tutored, but he had taken all the art and music that was available to him. But for some reason, he, being unaware of that, was unable to enter the program at the school of his choice. His grades were just under 4.0, so it was not the total, it was the lack of some special needs. Here is a situation where they could have used some of the money they had put away for their children's future to prepare him so that he could enter the field. I do not think that is uncommon. I hear a lot of parents talking about how their children are doing wonderfully, but there is something missing in their local school program to allow them to be prepared for some very competitive national programs where they may only take 30 a year from across the country, and to enter that select rank, they have to have all of the credentials that that university requires. In those situations, they talk about again taxing the rich. The middle class, many of them are so dedicated about preparing their children for their future and really sacrificing. I have had friends who really were poor for a decade, and yet they had a good income because they had two and three children in college at the same time. By the time they wrote those tuition checks year after year after year, they were driving a much older car than they used to, they were going without any new furniture, they were taking smaller and shorter vacations, but their priorities were to educate their youngsters. They can call them rich because they have a good income, but by the time they pay three college tuitions, they are poor when it comes to spending dollars for other things. So I guess I still go back to the turning away of $9 billion of investment in public education because $3 billion might go to private education. That seems to me to be very shortsighted and just not having one's eyes on the ball and not looking at this in the big picture. Because we all know that public education, probably in our lifetime, will continue to provide the education for most of our youngsters.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, if the gentlewoman will yield, she mentioned the IDEA funding, special education funding. I think Congress has really stepped up to the plate there. When this legislation was passed, special education is a mandate that every child receives the same kind of education, the same quality of education. Some people with serious problems are a lot more expensive to educate than those who do not have those difficulties. Yet, just back in 1996, if I look at this correctly, we were only paying 3.5 percent of special education costs. If my memory is correct, the legislation that was passed by this Congress before that some years said we would pay 40 percent of the costs of special education. We were at 3.5, and I think we are up to, looking at that chart it is a little hard to tell, it is over 6. So we have almost doubled the Federal commitment. These are dollars that follow the student and go to all of our schools. That is not true of all Federal money. Much of the Federal education dollar is not spread equally across this country. Some large urban districts do pretty well. There are a few suburban districts which do pretty well. I have lots of districts that get 1 percent of their funding. Yet, we say we are funding 6.8 percent of education. So the biggest frustration I have had with Federal programs is the complexity. To reach them, you have to have consultants or you have to have specialists on your staff. My rural school districts often do not have an assistant superintendent, let alone a grantsman. They do not have educational consultants nearby, because it is rural. So many of my districts have no idea how to apply to the hundreds of Federal programs that are available, and do not have the expertise to do that. I will find an occasional anomaly where you will have a school superintendent who worked in a suburban district who was very good at getting Federal money and he brought that expertise to the school with him, but that is the rarity. That is not common. With the IDEA, when we fund that instead of another Federal program such as construction of schools, which would have only gone to a few schools in this country, the average school never would have seen it, which would have complicated the process, which would have made building of schools more costly, we need to free up those Federal education dollars and get them into the classroom, and get away from all the bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo that is there. But back to the issue that we were talking about, the education savings accounts, again, it is our chance to give people a chance to prepare for their children's education and have some money set aside that can grow tax-free. They have paid the tax on it first, but it can grow tax-free. Then they can choose to use it when they feel it is necessary and they cannot afford it out of their general income. Under the President's and the Vice President's plans, we might have someone who is a senior. The parents do not have the money for a special needed program so their daughter or son could go to a certain school of their choice, and they would miss that opportunity, because it would be somehow wrong for them to choose to pay for that program that would prepare them for their college education. Again, as I said when I had listened to the earlier discussion, as the gentlewoman began this evening, how anybody could really oppose this bill, how anybody could be fearful that this is going to crush public education or harm public education when it has the potential of contributing $9 billion to public education is just not being honest. I think when we have this debate on Thursday, I hope that people will be honest, because if they are honest they will not be making those kinds of statements. Allowing parents to save their money and let it grow and then spend it on their child for educational purposes that they think is appropriate is exactly how America should function. To oppose this legislation, I think they are saying, parents, you do not know how to spend your money that you have saved for your children, and just because we did not charge you taxes on the increase in value, you cannot spend it where you think it ought to be spent. That is taking control from our families and putting it in Washington bureaucracy, in a Washington educational establishment that in my view is afraid of something that they should not be afraid of at all.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, it is certainly a good day for rural America. I want to congratulate the gentlewoman from Missouri (Mrs. Emerson) and the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Clayton) for reviving the Rural Caucus. I do not know what happened that it died. It should never have. For someone who represents a very rural district, it is certainly a delight that we have it back. Why do we need a Rural Caucus? Well, first, I come from a very rural district, the most rural district east of the Mississippi, from northern tier Pennsylvania. A lot of people do not think of Pennsylvania as being rural. They think of Philadelphia and Lancaster and Pittsburgh. But much of Pennsylvania is rural. It is the most rural population in the country. One-third of Pennsylvanians live in towns of less than 2,500. That is rural. Now, the problem we have is that urban America, who really runs this country, dominates governments at State and national level, does not understand the needs of rural America. I call rural America the heartland of this country where we have some of our finest, hardest working people with the best work ethic. There is nothing more than we can point to today than the farm crisis. As I look out on the beautiful farmlands that are in Pennsylvania and other neighboring States, and as we see the farmers leave and the barns fall down and the underbrush grows up on what was beautiful farm fields, we are gradually losing much of our heritage in this country. The farm crisis, if not addressed, will again put more and more rural people out of work and send them to the cities to push more urban sprawl. It is vital that this Congress meets the needs to preserve farms in this country because of the vital role that we play. My message to the White House is stop the food embargoes. Allow American farmers to sell their products at a fair price around the world. By lifting the embargoes, it would be $12 billion to $15 billion added to the farm budgets, and our farmers would get a much better price for their products because their markets would be expanded. Another issue that is facing rural America is rural health care. I chaired health issues in Pennsylvania for a decade. I understand them. Rural health care is paid an unfair payment in comparison to urban suburban America. Why should a procedure in rural America be paid maybe half as much as a procedure in suburban urban America. There is no real reason for that except that is the rules that have been promulgated by HCFA that administers Medicare and Medicaid. If rural America's health payments are not equalized or made fair, we will lose rural health care, and there will be no winners because those people will have to travel long distance to suburban areas. HCFA will pay the high price for the same health care that could have been administered in the hometown communities. Rural transportation, rural airports, rural rail lines, we cannot afford to lose another mile of rail line in rural America. We cannot afford to have another community lose its ability to have rail service because it will make sure that certain jobs and certain opportunities are not available to them. Local air service is vital to the future of rural America, and it is under threat in this country because of government policies. Another issue that has just been recently brought into the national news is the explosion of substance abuse in this country and in particular in rural America. Rural America was always thought to be free of drug use. It was an urban problem. Mr. Speaker, the recent studies show that there is more abuse among young people in rural America than any other part. One of the reasons is we do not have adequate enforcement in rural America. The strike force, the drug strike force, the special groups that have been put together to work in urban America and suburban America, they do not like to work out in rural America. Because we do not have adequate enforcement, drug usage is on the rise, and we are losing young people by the thousands because drugs, not only harm young people, they often kill them. Drugs are dangerous. Drugs are not healthy. Drugs are not safe. We must somehow stop the drug culture in all of America and specifically rural America. A question I ask: Is rural America prepared for e-commerce? Do we have adequate ability to the Web, to the Internet? Are our telephone systems up to date? Do we have digital switching? Do we have an adequate amount of fiber optics? Because if we do not, it will be no different than if we do not have highways and we do not have rail and we do not have air service. E-commerce is where the future is. One of the issues is equity in education. Rural school districts have historically been underfunded in comparison to urban and suburban districts. Suburban America has a strong tax base and can afford a good educational system. Urban America has some of the similar problems of rural. We have always subsidized them. But we have not subsidized rural education in the same manner that we have subsidized urban education. So rural education has had to take a back seat. Not all of the opportunities that are needed for our young people are there. One of the issues facing this country and rural America is, do we have adequate access to technical education. My answer is no. The jobs that are out there today, many of them are high-tech jobs, many of them are mid-tech jobs. But we need an education that is a blend of academic and technology. America is not prepared in my view, and rural America very much so, not prepared for the jobs of tomorrow, not prepared for the jobs of today. We are not adequately training the workforce. What is going to happen if we do not prepare this technical workforce, we are going to export another level of manufacturing that we should not lose and we do not need to lose if we do not prepare the workforce for the manufacturing companies. The manufacturing companies that are still processing and manufacturing in America today are very high-tech. There is a computer and a robot hooked together all the way down the line. It is a very high-tech manufacturing, and it takes a worker far more than was needed in the past when one just needed a willing worker. One needs a person today that is trained.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Herger) for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, just to follow up on this, the one point I want to mention again and make specifically clear, the President has agreed to double the standard deduction, but he is not going to double it for 10 years. It is going to take 10 years so one is going to get a little bit more next year and a little bit more the next year. Even though that is only one piece of the overall fix to this, he is going to string it out for 10 years. Why would he do that? Because it is going to have very little impact in this year's budget, and this is the last budget he is concerned about. He wants to spend that money. He does not want to give it back to the married couples of America. If one listened to the President the other night, it was issue after issue that he spent $20 billion, $30 billion, $10 billion. If I had had an adding machine, I am not so sure I would not have run out of paper because every time he switched gears it was another spending proposal and many people wondered what the figure would really be. Now, when he came to some issues, I was pleased to hear him talk about defense for the first time and defending this country, making it safe, but he did not give any numbers. He just said we need to make this country safe and we need to strengthen defense, but on many of his issues he gave large numbers of increases. I think a lot of that is about election year politics, too. Why are people opposed to cutting taxes? They want to spend the money. It has been my view watching Congress for many years that Congress was elected on what they were willing to give the American public, and the American public bought that because they did not stop to think that every new benefit they received that they had to pay for it. So the Federal Tax Code, as complex as it is, gives us annual tax increases without legislative authority because as our incomes grow, as we sell and buy and do business, we pay taxes. So it was interesting for over a decade of the eighties and into the nineties, our government growth was three times the rate of inflation. When we stop and think about that, that is three times faster than the growth of our economy. Now, if the Federal Government continued to grow at that rate it would soon consume everything, because we cannot have one part of our economy growing at three times the rate of inflation without it just taking over. We have been able to slow that down, and we have been able to stop deficit spending now for 2 years. It is time that we look for some fairnesses in the Tax Code and this is one of the fairness issues, just being fair. I am sure if we would put the $182 billion on the table over 10 years, or let us talk about a 1-year figure, $18.5 billion is what it will cost each and every year for the next 10 years, that figure, if we were willing to replace that with another tax I am sure the President and the Vice President would both be right down here saying let us do it because they would still have the money to spend, because that is how they hope to get elected in November by offering the American public some more goodies. What people need to learn is that when they send money to Washington they do not get it all back. Recently in education, I have noticed that from my State less than half of the education dollars ever get back into the classrooms at our schools. So is it wise to send money to Washington and get 40 some cents on the dollar back at our school districts? We fund this huge bureaucracy over at the Education Department. The State bureaucracies are basically funded with Federal dollars, and we fund regional bureaucracies in every region of the State called intermediate units. In different States they are called different things. In some that is what they are called. All by Federal dollars, but only less than half of the money gets back. This shell game has been going on in Washington here for a long time, and I do not think the President has learned that the American public basically do not want more government. They do not want to pay more taxes, and if we do not cut taxes they will be paying more taxes because of the complexity of our Tax Code. Let us just share what some people say about this. Marriage taxes can impose a nearly 50 percent marginal tax rate on second earners, most of whom are wives and mothers. This is a State-sponsored discrimination against women, the unintended consequence of which is to discourage women from entering the labor force. If Congress is sincere in improving the lives of American women and their families, it will eliminate the tax loopholes that choke their paychecks, Independent Women's Forum, Barbara Ledeen, Executive. From Center for Enterprise and Opportunity, since women still make up the preponderance of secondary earners in married households, these quirks and kinks of the system hit working women hardest. They force married women into a competitive disadvantage since their tax considerations necessarily affect their professional choices. We welcome the marriage tax elimination introduced today by representatives so and so. This bill can be a first step in recognizing in law that the family is the first church and the first school, the first government, the first hospital, the first economy, the first and most vital mediating institution in our culture. In order to encourage stable two-parent, marriage-bound households we can no longer support a Tax Code that penalizes them. That is the Catholic Alliance. Current law forces many married Americans to pay a higher tax bill than if they remained single and had the same combined income so what we really do is tax the two incomes as if it was one, when it is really two Americans earning an income. Such a double standard is wholly at odds with the American ideal that taxes should not be a primary consideration in any individual's economic or social choices. That is from the National Taxpayers Union. Government, by taxing married couples at higher rates than singles, has far too long been a part of the problem. At a time when family break-ups, and think about this, are so common, in most family break- ups that I know there are financial considerations. They are having difficulties meeting their budget. Congress should pass legislation to encourage marriage and ease the burden of families trying to form and stay together. This legislation places government on the side of families, from the Christian Coalition. The list goes on of all the organizations that support this. Most of them are organizations that are on the side of the taxpayer and on the side of families. If we do not get back to supporting families in this country, this country's future will be bleak. All of the problems that we deal with, from Columbine on down, are the deterioration of the American family. We have overtaxed the American family and penalized the holy marriage, and that needs to stop in this country. We need to support families. We need to support marriage. I know that if all Americans understood this issue, it would not be 80 percent of them supporting, it would be 100 percent.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I find it disappointing. As we try to bring this budget to conclusion, as we try to finalize the negotiations, we have major people that are a part of this process that are AWOL. They are absent. How does the Speaker of the House who has to negotiate with the President stay up late at night every night so he can call the President in Turkey? Is that the way to negotiate? In Pennsylvania where I come from, if the governor or if his cabinet left town during those final negotiations, the press would have been all over them. Why is it possible for the President, the minority leader, who was away yesterday who is the one who is opposing any kind of trimming of waste or fraud, he is the one who is holding out, but he is not available to negotiate yesterday? That is why this process has run on. The President is just finishing his second trip abroad since October 1, and this is when we have been trying to finalize the budget. I believe, Mr. Speaker, it is important for those who are a part of this negotiating process to stay in town, get the work of the American people done, so we can pass the budget that does not rob Social Security.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Schaffer) for yielding. Mr. Speaker, it is interesting, because most budget battles are about dollars, but the education debate going on in Washington now is not about more money. There is no argument about how much money we should spend but where the control lies. I think this is a pretty significant discussion that the American people needs to take seriously. And the question I ask, should the Federal Government dictate priorities for our local school districts? I think the vast majority of Americans would vote no to that. The vast majority of Americans would not want the Federal Government dictating local educational policies. Now, it is interesting, last year in some debate I remember the numbers, I think we take credit for supplying between 6.8 to 7 percent of the local dollars for basic education. But many said we provide 70 percent of their bureaucratic nightmares. In other words, to get your hands on the Federal money, you have to have a lot of expertise. And it is interesting, when you look at the numbers of school districts who get very little Federal money and those who get a lot, that is the answer. So small, rural school districts, which I represent, I have school districts who get less than one-half of one percent of their money from the Federal Government. So no matter what we do here, it will not have a huge impact. And why do they not get that money? Well, in rural school districts you have a school superintendent and he is the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker. He does not have a finance officer. He does not have a curriculum director. He or she plays numerous roles because they do not have the dollars to have this bureaucracy within the school districts that can go after Federal dollars. Most school districts that are successful have specialized grantsmen who do nothing but look through the records and find out what programs may apply and how to apply for them. Urban suburban areas also have the luxury of educational consultants they can hire to help them get the Federal money. Now, when you have a bureaucratic system like that, it is rich get rich and the poorer get poorer because the poor do not have the money to invest in getting the Federal money. That is why in Pennsylvania, where I come from, there are schools who get less than one-half of one percent of their money from the Federal Government and there are schools that get 12 and 13 percent of their money from the Federal Government. Now, that is 25 times as much. Is that fair? No, that is not fair. But that is Federal bureaucracy, this federalized system. It is interesting because now the President is really hanging out out there and I heard his top people over the weekend talking about they were hanging out for a 100,000 teachers. In other words, if you will hire teachers, you can get in line for this money. But if you need computers, if you need more classrooms, if you need technology of some kind, if you need your school wired, if you need new books, we are not going to help you. Now, I think that that is the mistake. And I want to relate it back to several years ago the President wanted 100,000 cops, and the record on that program in place a number of years now has never put 100,000 cops on the streets of America. In fact, I recently had my staff working with two communities who are on hard times who got seduced by that program to hire more cops because they were free and they could use the police protection. But now they are finding out that is a temporary program and that is this teaching program, if I understand it right, it is a temporary program. So they are going to hire more teachers and in a couple years there will be no Federal money to pay for them, they will have to have the local resources. Now, should we be seducing schools and communities to hire more teachers and more cops if we are not going to be there year after year? Is that how we build a good educational system? I do not think so. Because just a few years ago, we had more computers and more technology, more emphasis on science and math. And basic literacy has been an issue year after year, and we have several dozen literacy programs. Is it cost effective to have several dozen literacy programs that schools can apply for, or to have one literacy program? Now we have several dozen. We have had programs to promote parental involvement. We have had programs suggested that we should build schools from the Federal level. And, of course, the issue of accountability never really gets addressed very much. And I think that is the question parents ask, is how do we keep our educational system accountable? It is interesting as we have this debate and the unfairness of it, when we have 6.8 percent of the money is what we claim funds local education. I recently asked the Department of Education in Pennsylvania, I would like a printout of the money that each and every school district in Pennsylvania, and there are 530 some, gets to fund their schools, local money, State money and Federal money. They have that, and they gave me this printout. The part that surprised me was when they added up the column for Federal aid, it came to 3.1 percent. We said, there must be something wrong. So we sent it back to them. We said, you must have missed some Federal program, some major one. They came back to us and they said, no, we think all Federal money is included. So the question I ask is, if 6.8 percent is what we are supposed to be providing, and if only 3.1 percent in this State, Pennsylvania, is getting into the classroom, where did the rest of the money go? I do know one thing, that when I served in State government, the bureaucracy there was pretty well funded with Federal dollars. We have a bureaucracy here in town funded with Federal dollars. We have regional bureaucracies that are funded with Federal dollars. It is my opinion, and I am not saying 3.1 percent is totally accurate because I expected to have a couple of percent chewed up in bureaucracy. I did not expect over half. But as we continue to review this, I think it helps make the argument we make. Let us fund dollars that get to the classroom. Let us not say to schools, if you want our money, you have got to buy computers or you have got to hire teachers or you have to build more schools or you have to do certain things, because those things vary from State to State and community to community. We have 530 school districts in Pennsylvania. Multiply that by 50 States. There is a huge difference in what goes on in Alaska and what goes on in Florida and what goes on in Maine and what goes on in Missouri or Arizona, or Pennsylvania, or California. There are very different parts of this country. I think saying 100,000 teachers is about politics. That is a slogan. That is a campaign issue. That is not about helping education. Because if we really wanted to help education, we would cut through this bureaucratic maze and we would get dollars into the classroom that would be allowed to fix up the classroom, that would be allowed to hire more teachers if that is the goal, would be allowed to buy more computers and more technology, buy more books, do things that enhance the educational process, recruit the right kind of teachers for science and math which are in short supply, but allow the local districts to make those decisions of how they can best use those dollars. I say, Mr. President, when I have school districts that get less than 1 percent of their funding from the Federal Government, I am sure they are not going to be standing up clapping when you talk about 100,000 new teachers, because there is no way they can reach that. I just want to share, I was disappointed in the President's comments today. He said, ``Well, because it's not their money,'' and he is not the first politician that has said that. Lots of politicians have said that. It is like it is their money. But he went on to say, ``If they don't want the money, they don't have to take it. If they are offended by it, they can give it to the other States and other school districts.'' I am disappointed in that kind of rhetoric at this point in the process. I am disappointed in that kind of an attitude, because I think it is time that we think about the kids, we think about maximizing their potential education, and stop arguing about political slogans that will be used in brochures another 12 months and get down to saying, let us get the money to the schools. If we are only getting 60 percent of it there, let us say we try to get 70 this year. If we are only getting 50 percent there, let us say we try to get 65 and next year 85 and let us get the money driven out. Let us somehow work through this bureaucratic maze that is chewing up these bucks and have the money go out there in someway that poor districts, that rural districts who do not have grantsmen, who do not have a lot of staff can get their fair share of Federal resources. The Federal program, in my view, rewards the rich, those who have the staff, those who have their own bureaucracy and can meet the needs of a Federal bureaucracy and leaves the poor, impoverished school districts out to lunch.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Madam Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Madam Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Herger).

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time, and I rise to support this legislation. Madam Chairman, I think it is important, because for the first time in a long time, there is a realization that we own a lot of this country. We own a third of America, we, the national taxpayers. In my view, there has been a real insensitivity toward Federal policy and how it impacts rural America. And that is the problem that we are finally facing up to today. It is a matter of when we change the Federal land use policies and counties and States are predominantly opened by the Federal Government, it has a huge impact on the economic base and the quality of life in those communities. I am here to say that I think the Congresses in the past and administrations have been very insensitive to the impact on rural America. Why do we own a third of this country? For a number of reasons. So that we have land for recreation. So that we have land for wilderness areas. So that we have land for people to hunt and fish and recreate on. Also, it was purchased so that we would have the natural resources that we have that would be well managed and that would be available for the future. Now, somehow all that got mixed up by legislators and administrations and this whole policy kind of got thrown out of the window, that part of the reason that we own a third of this country is that we have resources for our future and the multi-use prospect was kind of thrown out, the baby with the bath water. I think that is the discussion that needs to be clear today and precise, that we are here today. Now, we are going to help fix schools. We are going to help fix local roads. But the loss of those industries that used natural resources are still gone, and that base out there is still very fragile. I urge Members of Congress, because so often I have ended up debating suburbanites who come from suburbia and urban areas who have little sensitivity towards rural America, that out in rural America we cut timber, we drill for oil, we dig for coal, we mine natural resources, and we farm and we manufacture. When they take over half of that away from us, and we have counties and States that are predominantly owned by Government, and the Government changes its policies quickly, we have huge impacts on the quality of rural life and the opportunities that are there. There is enough land for all. If we manage it well, if we used good sound science, our future can be strong. I wish we could get by this debate that cutting down a tree is some moral act. It is the one most renewable resource we have in America. Well- managed forests will produce logs forever. Our great grandchildren will be logging on the same forests that we log on if it is done right. It is a resource. So I am pleased today that there is finally a realization that Federal policies have had an impact on rural America and it has not been good.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Madam Chairman, I would just like to raise the issue that I think we have been asked today to trust the Federal Government to take care of these 800 communities just like we have had in the past. When we look at the history of Congress and previous administrations, we have about a billion acres in this country in public land owned by the Federal Government plus local governments more. But now that billion acres we have a payment in lieu of tax program. If one looks at it, can one say we should trust Congress to take care of communities who have huge mounts of their acreage owned by the Federal Government? This year, we will appropriate $125 million for a billion acres. That is 12 cents an acre. In Pennsylvania where we own a lot of land, the State I come from, we pay $1.20 for every acre that the State owns to help local schools, to help local roads. That does not break the State. Congress has paid 12 cents an acre, and they are saying trust us, Congress will take care of these school districts, these law enforcement agencies, and these local governments who have the bulk of the land in their communities. I want to tell my colleagues, when I look at that record, I am not going to trust Congress. I am not going to trust future administrations. Everything we can do to help rural America have a base of government, the great amount of ownership of this Congress, of this country, and our closed and calloused attitude towards it, our unwillingness to be sensitive to the needs out there as we change Federal policy is historic. So I say today let us defeat the amendment that is before us, and let us pass this bill. It is a major step. It does not fix the problem, but it is a major step of help to rural America. It shows rural America that we care about their educational building in small rural communities that are surrounded with public land. It shows we care a little bit. I urge a defeat of this amendment and passage of the bill. Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I would like to go back a little bit to an issue raised a little while ago that questioned the Republicans' commitment to the National Institutes of Health that was not answered, and I think it should be. In 1998, I think, the Republican Conference put an initiative of plussing up the National Institutes of Health that is appropriate for the research that needs to be done in this country, and to question our credibility on supporting NIH I think was uncalled for. Now, why are we here today debating a continuing resolution? Why? I think we heard the discussion. Because we are trying to get it right. We are trying to pass a budget for the first time without using the Social Security surplus, and that is not easy. It may take a little longer, but the American people are going to be very well served if we break this practice. Now, I think we heard today from the gentleman from Wisconsin the difference. If we look at the record and read it, if I heard the gentleman correctly, he said, ``You know, we could do this rather easily,'' and I am trying to be accurate in what I heard, ``we could do this rather easily because historically we were spending 100 percent, borrowing it, putting the notes in the drawer and spending it. If we would agree to spend 80 percent to pay down debt and use 20 percent to fund government programs, we could get this done real quick.'' Mr. Speaker, that is true. That was a very accurate statement. This would be over with. We would be home, Congress would be done, the President would have signed the bills. We are trying to get it right. It has been difficult to suddenly take $100-some billion out of this process and say we are going to do it without that. That is the argument that is going on, and if we read the Record of this morning's discussion on the continuing resolution, there is a very valid argument of why we are having a difficult time, because we have not agreed to take 20 percent, borrow it, spend it. We are trying to have 100 percent of the Social Security trust fund set aside and not spent for general government purposes, and that has made it difficult.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend from Pennsylvania, my neighbor who helps me guard the New York State border. It is interesting this morning when we started the day with our conference many Members said, ``Well, does this cut include our salaries?'' Well, the announcement was made this afternoon that decision was made, and I agree with it. Decided that across-the-board cut in discretionary spending will also apply to salaries for Members of Congress. Now I think that proves we are serious, we are serious that we are going to live within our means. He went on, the Majority Leader went on to say: ``Since January House Republicans have stated our commitment to stopping the 30-year raid on Social Security. No one said this would be easy. We've done the heavy lifting. This week we will complete our spending bills and prove that we can fund the government without dipping into the Social Security fund.'' ``The President said he shares our commitment to stopping the raid on Social Security, and he has vetoed four spending bills, and of course we're going to send him probably another one tomorrow. But we intend to work with him to get the job done, make our commitment real. As the sign of how serious we are we will ask more of ourselves than we are asking of any government employees. While we ask every government agency to root out waste from its budget. Members of Congress will not only root out an equal percentage of waste from Congress' budget, but will also cut their on pay.'' Now I think we are sending the President a message also: Mr. President, manage a little better. As my colleagues know, I have always been frustrated both at the State level with Governors and at this level of Washington with the President. We do not talk much in campaigns about how they are going to manage government. That is not as exciting. It is about what new programs we are going to fund and how these new initiatives are going to make the world better and safer and how everything, all the problems that we know of, will go away if there is one more government program, if the Federal government will build one more bureaucracy and funnel money out to our communities, it will solve all. Now, we know that does not work. There are thousands of federal programs that funnel money out. Now one of the differences I noticed, a whole lot more of it gets chewed up in bureaucracy in Washington than it does in most States and local governments because we never challenge our Presidents to manage government. As my colleagues know, we really should be rating the President on how well he has managed each and every bureaucracy. I have heard Presidents talk recently and in the past as if some agency was something they were concerned about. That agency just must do better, but whoever is President, Mr. President, that is your agency, that is your management that is needed. It is your direction that is needed to say, ``Stop the waste, stop the fraud, stop the abuse of taxpayers' money.'' We all know that one of our disagreements currently is foreign aid. Now, as my colleagues know, foreign aid is always a controversy. We have Americans who do not think we should have any foreign aid, we should keep all our resources. But we always come to a compromise. But I think the President who wants 4 billion more in foreign aid is not supported by the majority of taxpayers. I have not had a clamoring to increase the foreign aid budget since I have been here. In fact, I have a lot of opposition to much that we do in the foreign aid budget from my rural conservative district. But, Mr. President, do we really need 4 more billion in foreign aid? Can we not make do with what is there? Now the education department. I had the privilege last session of serving on the Committee on Education and the Workforce and found it an exciting challenge. But if you talk about a department that chews up a lot of money that never gets out to our school districts, look at the Department of Education. I mean I believe the figure is maybe 30 percent that is chewed up in bureaucracy. There is a state bureaucracy in every state government that is strictly paid for by the Federal government to manage the Federal programs, 50 of them. Then you have the Washington bureaucracy who we all know that I have found them to be one of the lease sensitive departments about what Congress thinks, and when they are insensitive to Congress, I think they are insensitive to the American taxpayers because that is who sent us here, a department that could very easily find more than 1.4 percent in savings in my view. EPA, 15 or 16,000 employees in a centralized bureaucracy in Washington. Could they squeeze 1\1/2\, 1.4 percent? No problem. Now we would have a few less bureaucrats, but we still have all the programs that they run, should have little or no impact out in the districts. And also I guess the administration. Maybe we are asking. Recently there was a foreign trip, and 1700 people went on that trip. Now I am sure it is necessary to take guests on trips, but could 1,200 have got the job done? Could 1500 have got the job done and saved a few taxpayer dollars? I think so. So all we are saying is to this part of government that is important to us, that is vital to us, pull in the belt a little bit, cut a few of the excesses, cut a little of the waste like the American taxpayers historically do. They trim their budgets all the time, that is how they balance them. Local governments do. States who are allowed to build deficits have to pay as you go. But here in Washington we have gotten so used to not really worrying about how much money we spend because we just raise taxes enough to pay whatever the bill was when the end of the year comes. Well, Madam Speaker, that day is over. The day of using Social Security is over, it is done, and it is time for Congress, this administration to sit down and have a good healthy discussion about our spending priorities and balance this budget, conclude it in the next few days with not one penny of Social Security. It is doable, it is workable, and it is just time to bite the bullet. At this time I again welcome my friend from Texas (Mr. Sessions).

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. We thank the gentleman from Texas. Tonight we have heard about tugboats that cost $875,000 apiece that were lost; a surface-to-air missile launcher that cost $1 million that was lost; 5 aircraft engines, including two that cost $4 million that were lost; a floating crane worth $500,000 that was lost. We heard about Medicare spending $20 billion annually, or paying $20 billion annually for fraudulent payments, or what they believe to be fraudulent payments. You know, it is kind of hard to think that you could not save a penny when you look at all those examples. We have one here of a nice courthouse in Brooklyn, New York, that cost $152 million. The New York Attorney General's office has arrested 16 individuals suspected of kickback and bribery schemes in the construction of this courthouse, that is from the Citizens Against Government Waste, and $4.3 million used to tear down 19 naval radio towers. Again, that is another one pointed out by Citizens Against Government Waste. It seems pretty incredible to think that you just cannot save a penny, a little more than a penny, out of every dollar. Now, my experience in state government, this was sort of a routine thing. We often passed budgets that cut general government 2 to 3 percent, and what that was is we said department managers, you have to cut the fat out of your general government line item. You cannot go out there and cut the hand that serves the people, because the same 2 percent, to save 2 percent or 3 percent, you do not need to do that. If state governments can cut 2 to 3 percent of savings out of general government, Mr. President, you can too. Instead of talking about new programs, let us talk about managing the ones you have. I vividly remember the gentleman who served us so well as Attorney General, Richard Thornburg, who was Governor of Pennsylvania and who was a real good fiscal manager. I served the whole time he was Governor of Pennsylvania in the state legislature. He was a tough fiscal manager. Every department was asked to become more efficient. Every bureau was asked to reorganize and provide their services, do away with unneeded paperwork and become more efficient. The state historically had, I am going on memory here, but think I am accurate, about 103,000 employees historically. When he left office after 8 years of governing I believe they had 88,000 or 89,000 employees. I had a district office in my district, and I want to tell you, the service improved, because not only did we have less employees, paperwork and waste and redundant things were done away with, departments were asked and forced to manage themselves, bureaus were asked to provide the services more cost effectively, and they did. Government can become more efficient if it has leadership to take it there. Now, I think we have just begun maybe a new cycle. I think this is something we ought to be looking at with some routine. Mr. President, this year trim another percentage out of general government. That is not where people are served; that is where bureaucrats are served. In my view, this is a very appropriate way to look for savings that could, as happened in Pennsylvania, improve the quality of government, improve the services, because they are managed better. Mr. President, it is time to manage each and every department a little bit better. It is time to look for waste and incompetency and root it out. It is time to reorganize the structure of government so it can be more efficient and better serve the needs of the people. Let us save a penny out of every dollar by finding the waste, the fraud and the abuse, and make sure that we never again balance the budget by using Social Security; that we look to live within our needs; that we save a penny or two pennies, whatever it takes, whenever it is, and pay down the debt. It is time for the American taxpayers to be assured that their Federal Government is going to live within its means, it is never going to look to the Social Security trust fund again to be used for general government purposes, and we are going to concentrate on making the programs we have work better, or do away with them. We have had a hard time doing that. But the President should be leading us. His administrators know as well as anyone that there are programs that have lost their usefulness, and it seems ironic that Congress and the President in the past have had a hard time, because times change, priorities change, needs change, and the needs of 1984 may not have a whole lot to do with it. But the programs that were started in 1984 are still running. It is time to squeeze that penny until we have our fingerprint in it, that we save that penny and a little bit more out of every dollar of the taxpayers' money, and that we, once and for all, balance the budget, make Social Security safe and just make government more efficient.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. It is a pleasure to welcome my colleague, my neighbor in the northern tier of Pennsylvania. We collectively guard against New York coming down. We cover the northern tier of Pennsylvania. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Sherwood) of the 10th District has been a great new Member of Congress. He brings strong community leadership credentials with him, a strong businessman, good sense. I have found him a person who is not afraid to speak up. He is very effective. It is just great to have the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Sherwood) here with us tonight.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. I thank the gentleman from California. Recently the General Accounting Office talked about Medicare. It is administered by HCFA, one of the largest agencies in this country and a very important one. But the GAO report estimates that $20 billion is paid out annually for inappropriate claims. If they could just cut that by 10 percent, they could save $2 billion. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions).

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. I thank the gentleman from South Dakota for his comments. Madam Speaker, now we go to the West Coast to hear the West Coast message. Out there it is a little early in the evening but we are glad the gentleman from California (Mr. Herger) representative from the Second District of California, a member of the powerful Committee on Ways and Means and the Committee on the Budget, is here to share with us his thoughts on balancing the budget.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for his comments. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from South Dakota (Mr. Thune).

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I and a group of colleagues come here tonight to discuss the approaching conclusion of the budget process. A lot of people do not get too excited about budgets, but that is really what it is all about. Whether it is our family, our business, or the government, the budget is the working document of how we are going to spend our money, how we are going to use our resources, and what our priorities are. I find it pretty exciting this year, as we come down to this budget conclusion, that we really have the mechanism in place to balance the budget and not use any Social Security. That is going to be historic, because for decades the Social Security fund has been used routinely to fund general government. Now, this process has been going on for a while. It started back in February when the President came and addressed us and he gave us his State of the Union message and presented us with his budget proposal. That proposal is a lot different than I think what we are going to end up with, I hope, because he had $42 billion of new spending. He had $19 billion of tax increases. Not tax cuts, increases. And those were soundly rejected here a short time ago by this body, and should have been. The budget framework was created by the Committee on the Budget, and this process started right after the President's message. And, actually, they held hearings and worked on it for many weeks. On March 25, both the House and Senate Committees on the Budget presented their budgets to this House, and the House and Senate both approved a budget proposal on March 25. Now, there were differences between the House and the Senate, which there always is, but they brought their programs together and, on April 15, we passed a conference report that was sent to the President that was our budget outline for this year. The Committee on Appropriations then started their work. And as a member of the Committee on Appropriations, I can tell my colleagues that hearings are held. I do not think a lot of people realize the work that goes into it, to outline where the cuts should be, where the increases should be, what the changes are, what are the changes in priorities. There are 13 working subcommittees in the Committee on Appropriations that work on each of their part of this process. So we are close to completing that process today without spending Social Security. Unfortunately, most Congresses have not completed this process of sending 13 bills to the President for him to veto or sign. They usually do four, five, or six, and then when it gets tough and short on time, they go to the proposal of having an omnibus bill. This is where the majority leader and minority leader of the Senate, and the Speaker and the minority leader of the House would go up to the White House and sit down with the President and negotiate this omnibus spending plan. Now, I guess the problem that I have had with that since have I been here is that that throws away all the work that the appropriators did, that throws away all the information that came in the hearing process. Four or five people write our spending plan. And, of course, using Social Security to balance the budget, it was easy to do. But it has been tougher this year because the Social Security lockbox that we passed earlier took a hundred-some billion dollars away from this process. So it is, again, why I am excited about this year's process that we are not allowing the President and four or five leaders of Congress to just sit down and decide how we are going to spend the people's money. This year, I believe, and this week we will complete our work of having all 13 bills in front of the President. He has had 12, he signed 8, and he has vetoed four, if my information is correct. And, hopefully, tomorrow or Thursday he will get that 13th bill up to him. Now, that is pretty good. We have had two signed for every one he has vetoed. So the President has agreed with Congress on two-thirds of what work we have sent him. And from what I read, the differences are not real big. I think they are not insurmountable. So I think we are chugging down that rail to again having this budget process completed without spending Social Security. Bill by bill, we will negotiate and finalize this process. Now, to make this work there has not been a lot of cash sticking around, there has not been a lot of money to spend. In fact, we have had to say, how can we look for 1.4 percent savings? Now, my colleagues, is there any House budget, is there any business budget, or is there any government budget that cannot find 1.4 percent that is in fraud, abuse, or just plain waste or just plain lack of management? I believe there is the ability to save 1.4 percent without cutting programs that affect people out in the hinterland. Because we all know here in Washington, and I am a product of State government and local government and business, I want to tell my colleagues, I have been surprised at the growth and the size of the Federal bureaucracy. There are a lot of good people there, and I am not here to bad-mouth them. But there are huge bureaucracies. There are huge costs. The Federal Government spends a whole lot more money in managing Government percentage-wise than State and local governments do, in my opinion. Because, historically, Congress has never had any limits on what they spend. So I think it is exciting when the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich), the chairman of the Committee on the Budget, came up with a concept of a 1.4 percent savings for each department to look within themselves, within their own operating budgets, and look for ways to save 1.4. I think that is pretty doable. I think the American public would find that pretty doable in their own household budgets, in their own community budgets, in their State budgets. There just has to be waste, fraud, and abuse of 1.4 percent in every budget. I am pleased to be joined tonight, and I will call on one of them now, from people from Texas and California and South Dakota and my colleague from Pennsylvania. So we are from all over the country agreeing on what we must accomplish in this budget conclusion process. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions) who is from the Fifth District of Texas. He is in the Results Caucus, and he is also a member of the powerful Committee on Rules. So I thank him for joining us.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. It is a pleasure to be a part of this committee. It has been my first year in the appropriations process, and I have found it most interesting. I found today most interesting. As I said earlier during the debate on the rule, this bill received overwhelming support from this body, and it should have. A lot of hard work went into it. I have listened here during the discussion when the minority Member spoke of the many improvements in the conference report. That was the term he used. He did not define them, but he listed many improvements. So some things are better. But it has been interesting to listen to the discussion, and I think the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Gibbons) explained the mining issue well. I have been dealing with bureaucracies for 25 years at State and now at the Federal Government level, and these are debates going on between bureaucracies and people they regulate. I have been involved forever in trying to bring fairness, because I find government lawyers are not always fair and government bureaucrats are not always fair and they should not be legislating, and they are legislating. What we are trying to do is work out to make sure the appropriate people study these issues and come up with the answers. So let us go through them. I think the gentleman from Nevada adequately explained the hard rock mining regulation. It provides a one-year moratorium. Now, I am not a mining expert, but I was told when we had the debate on the floor and told by many people who know a lot more about mining than I do that that provision would prevent many of our mines from operating that are good mines. They could not work on that limitation of land with their waste. Impossible regulation to live with. Well, we should deal with that. We should make sure that this lawyer is being fair with the mining industry. It is a vital part of our future. The oil valuation. There is nobody here who wants oil companies to get government oil cheaper than the market price. I do not know of anybody. I do not think there are members of the government who want to take oil out of the public land for less than the value. I do not. I do not know of other members that do. But if there is a disagreement in how to come to that price, I think we have a right to look at and have a GAO study done that will resolve that issue. Why should we not do that? We should be fair. The grazing issue. Another issue where people have been grazing on this land for years. The BLM is way behind in the backlog, not appropriately dealing with this issue. Are we going to punish those who graze? I do not think we should. We have given the BLM extra money, we have taken a 6 month moratorium waiting, and then they can go ahead and if the people are not appropriately using the land, they can stop their permits. These are not environmental riders that are going to devastate the public land of America. That is just not a fair statement. These are disagreements that have been brought to the table and have been given a very limited time to resolve them. That is good government. And those who want to demagogue and punch oil companies and punch grazers and farmers and shut down mining, that is their tool. Mr. Speaker, I think we should be fair. We in Congress should set the rules on mining, not some lawyer in a department. And if we do not agree with the valuation of the price, then we should legislate what is how we sell oil. We should resolve those issues and not let bureaucrats arbitrarily do what they feel is appropriate when it is not. This is a good bill. It is thoughtful; it has been a well-worked out compromise; it is the best we are going to get; and I think we should support it and the President should sign it.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I have found this discussion interesting. When we look back at the House vote of 377 to 47, and then hear the debate that we have heard in the last few minutes here on the rule, we would think this was a totally different bill. I sat on the conference committee, and I can tell my colleagues that I want to give it high marks. When I want somebody to negotiate for me with the Senate or anybody, I am going to send the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula), because I think he did one real fine job. He stood tough and fought for the House position again and again and again, and won. Now, sure, there is compromise. The President has some things that were added that he wanted changed so he might sign the bill. And the Senate had to have some victories. That is the process. Is it perfect? No. Do we ever pass a perfect bill? No. But this is a good bill, very, very similar to the bill that drew 377 votes. I think there is something good here. I have heard five different reasons, none related, as to why this bill is bad all of a sudden, but no evidence. This bill has $1.4 billion for national park operations, a $77 million increase; $1.2 billion for Bureau of Land Management, a $50 million increase; national wildlife refuge, a $30 million increase. The issues that are important to our environment, the agencies that are important to our environment have been thoughtfully funded. Some new initiatives: the Recreational Fee Demonstration program that allows our public lands to keep the fees and help with the backlog of maintenance. Everglades restoration, a new initiative. This bill, in my view, has been a very thoughtful, tough bill because we had constraints. I personally think there is a move here to just stop the process. Because when we listen to the evidence that we have heard today, it does not make much sense. It is not very clear and convincing. Because this is basically the same bill we passed, and 377 House Members supported it, rightfully so, and only 47 voted against. I urge my colleagues to support this bill. It is one that our committee fought hard for, our chairman worked hard for in the conference committee, and it is one that deserves our support so we can send it to the President.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, good HMOs manage care. Bad HMOs manage costs. Good managed care has physicians making those decisions not bean counters. Bad managed care has bureaucratic bean counters making health care decisions to cut costs, and that is the problem we should have fixed first. The good guys and gals who are out of this debate are our employers. Where are they in this proposal? Were they at the table? No. The manufacturers, the contractors, the restaurateurs, the retailers, NFIB, the Chamber, people who make this country work, employers who pay the bill. I also find it is interesting, are Medicare recipients covered by this? No. Medicaid? No. Veterans? No. Federal employees? No. We pay for their health care and are responsible. They are not covered. We are building a Federal bureaucracy like HCFA for our employers to deal with, the good guys. Our employers are frightened by this proposal, and they should be. They were left out in the cold. They were not adequately protected. This proposal takes a meat axe to an issue that a sharp surgical knife could have fixed. We should have made sure managed care used physicians to manage care, not accountants and bureaucrats to manage costs. Our employers who pay the bill should have had their concerns resolved. That did not happen. The Dingell-Norwood bill will increase the number of uninsured, and what recourse do those who have no insurance have? Nothing is given to them.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Holden), a member of the Committee on Agriculture and the Subcommittee on Livestock and Horticulture, and a leader on this issue.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, I rise to support the Doolittle substitute. Thirteen States do not have limits, and I do not think you can name them because they do not stand out as States loaded with public corruption. Thirteen States do not limit campaign financing. We should be here debating increasing disclosure, immediate reporting and enforcement. I have heard speaker after speaker talking about laws not being enforced. What about more laws without enforcement? Yet folks in this city have worked themselves into a state of hysteria over what they call campaign finance reform. This in spite of the fact that survey after survey show that most Americans rate campaign finance reform near the bottom of their concerns, if they rate it at all. Then why the hysteria? The liberals' idea of reform rests primarily on restricting the free flow of moneys and ideas to the public through any channels except those they control and they regulate. The refreshing motto of Fox Cable News network is ``We report and you decide.'' That is how elections ought to be. We report who helped us and you decide. By contrast, the motto of liberals and their media allies embodied in the Shays-Meehan bill seems to be, ``We report, we decide, and everyone else be quiet.'' It is a bedrock principle of American political heritage that money is speech. When the supporters of Shays-Meehan want to restrict and regulate the amount of money in campaigns, they want to restrict and regulate the amount of speech. They decide, not the voters. Even the American Civil Liberties Union has stated that the Shays-Meehan bill is patently unconstitutional and makes it harder for ethnic and racial minorities, women and non-mainstream voices to be heard prior to an election. It will be an incumbent protection bill. I will give my colleagues an example from Pennsylvania when you do not have money to get the message out. In 1998, Governor Ridge was running for reelection, the senior Senator from Pennsylvania was running for reelection, and they both had strong bipartisan support. They both had three, four or five Democrat opponents in the primary but none of them could raise any money because of the strength of the incumbents. So when it came to the primary election in my district, Clarion and Elk County, because the message did not get out because the candidates did not have any money, 19 percent of the Democrats voted. In McKean County, 9 percent. In Jefferson County, 6 percent. Why? They did not know the candidates, they did not know about them, they did not know who to vote for, so they stayed home. If you want people to come out and vote, they have to understand what the candidates stand for and that is about free speech. Mr. Chairman, I support the Doolittle reforms because they are in the American tradition. They truly ``do little'' when it comes to restricting first amendment rights. They remove the restrictions of most campaign giving and spending, and thus remove the restrictions to free speech. At the same time, they require immediate and full reporting of all contributions. Immediate and full reporting of all contributions. Shays-Meehan does not do that. The message that money buys then can reach more voters and the voters can judge for themselves the message and who is supporting it. Like Fox News, the Doolittle approach says to voters, ``We report, you decide.'' If the liberal media is so concerned about how much campaigns cost today, then why do they not turn themselves into electronic Wal-Marts and charge the lowest prices for campaign ads? No, the highest. They are like an airline carrier charging hostage-level prices for tickets and complaining that people are spending too much money on transportation. To add a little more perspective, during the Super Bowl the networks charge more for a single 30-second commercial than I have spent in two congressional elections, $1.6 million. Is anybody crying about that? Liberals cry that too much money buys elections and corrupts the process. People need to understand the candidates and what they stand for. Thirty million Americans listen to network news regularly. One hundred million Americans elect our Presidents. In 1996, 76 million Americans voted for Congress. Only 30 million of those people watch the news regularly. Somehow, the message of our candidates has to get out to the people. It takes money. It takes a message. The people will buy when money is behind a message, because if the other were the case, we would have elected Huffington for the Senate because he certainly had the money, we would have elected Forbes and Perot for President because they had the money. It is the message that has to be driven by the money. Certainly Eugene McCarthy would not have had a shot to run against Lyndon Johnson if Stuart Motts had not come to his aid because Lyndon Johnson had shut down his ability to raise money. Yes, Mr. Chairman, when it comes to really eliminating corruption and creating a fairer, freer and more constitutional environment in American political life, I support Doolittle. We need to simplify the process, not turn it over to another government bureaucracy.

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania

Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. I yield to the gentleman from Vermont.