David Price

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this bill and to the reckless way the House is proceeding. Mr. Speaker, this bill fails to give either high-growth or economically disadvantaged areas the help they need to stretch their school bond dollars and to undertake desperately needed school construction. This bill provides needed increases in Medicare reimbursement, but it directs those reimbursements disproportionately to HMOs with no guarantees that they will pass along the savings or that they will stay in our communities. In the meantime, our hospitals are shortchanged, particularly teaching hospitals and hospitals serving large numbers of indigent patients. Funding for rural health care, home health care and hospice care also falls short. The Republican leadership could not even find a way to shorten or eliminate the waiting period for Medicare eligibility for victims of Lou Gehrig's disease, despite the fact that 282 Members of this House have cosponsored a bill to do so. Mr. Speaker, there are good things in this bill: a tax credit for adoptive parents, a minimum wage increase, an increase in IRA contribution limits, an accelerated deduction for small business health insuance costs. But to bury these beneficial initiatives in a measure that in so many respects falls short is reckless and irresponsible. Mr. Speaker, with a week-and-a-half between today and the election, we have no time for reckless games. The responsible way to proceed on issues of this gravity--taxes, health care, school construction, small business--is for the Republican leaders of this Congress to negotiate in good faith with the minority and the president to reach a compromise that meets our country's needs. This should have been done weeks ago. Our best course now is to defeat this bill and to bring a new bill, adequate to the challenges before us, to the floor promptly.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, a recent article in the Washington Post reminds us of the urgent attention stroke deserves as the third leading cause of death in this country. Stroke affects the most delicate and vital organ of the body, the brain. The National Stroke Association uses the term ``brain attack'' to characterize this medical condition and describe the urgent need for prompt medical attention. A stroke occurs when blood flow to the brain is interrupted either by a clogged artery or a blood vessel rupture. Stroke touches the lives of four out of every five American families. It touched the Congress this year with the tragic death of our friend and colleague, Senator Paul Coverdell. Each year 750,000 Americans will suffer a stroke and 160,000 of them will die. African Americans and Latinos are at an even greater risk of stroke. Stroke is also a leading cause of adult disability, leaving a majority of survivors with disabilities ranging from moderate to severe. The statistics are staggering, but fortunately, many strokes can be prevented. There are important resources available for stroke prevention, treatment and rehabilitation. The National Stroke Association has a wealth of information available on its web site at www.stroke.org, or by calling 1-800-STROKES. Clearly, stroke is an issue that deserves debate, discussion and our immediate attention as a major public health issue. I submit this article to my colleagues and look forward to discussing approaches we might take to reduce the terrible toll from stroke. [From The Washington Post, Sept. 24, 2000, Sunday, Final Edition] Stroke Therapy's New Push; Aggressive Doctors Go Deep Into the Brain (Susan Okie) Like a wisp of cloud that's really the edge of a hurricane, the first sign of what was about to happen to Garline Perry seemed a small thing. One morning last month, Perry complained to his wife that he couldn't keep his balance. When he tried to walk, she said, he kept ``listing to the right.'' Susana Perry took her husband, 57, to the emergency room at Inova Fair Oaks Hospital. Minutes after they arrived, the storm hit. ``He yelled, `I can't hear you! I can't see you!' . . . He fell to the floor and starting convulsing,'' recalled Susana Perry. A two-inch clot had blocked a major artery at the back of Perry's brain, producing a catastrophic stroke. Unable to move, talk, breathe or even blink, the Fairfax man was placed on a respirator and flown by helicopter to Inova Fairfax Hospital, where radiologist John J. ``Buddy'' Connors embarked on a rescue mission that few doctors would dare attempt. He snaked a long, fine tube through an artery to reach the plug of congealed blood inside Perry's brain and began to drip in a clot-busting drug, hoping to reopen the blocked vessel. Along with perhaps 300 other doctors in the United States, Connors works on the uncharted borders of stroke therapy, putting novel devices and powerful drugs deep into an organ where a mishap can mean death, coma or paralysis. Such maneuvers signal a newly activist approach to a disorder that doctors once met with resignation. Strokes, the third-leading cause of death in the United States, are now viewed as emergencies in which rapid and aggressive treatment may save lives and minimize disability. Although the treatment administered by specialists such as Connors has produced dramatic results for some patients, it remains largely untested except in small pilot studies. The situation underscores the challenge researchers face in developing a new treatment, especially a complex one that combines drugs, devices and technical skill. Often, such therapies are refined and tested one patient at a time, evolving and prolifering for years before anyone is certain how well they work. ``The fact that [a new treatment] seems logical and does what it should doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to benefit the patient,'' said John R. Marler, associate director for clinical trials at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Doctors such as Connors, faced daily with desperate cases, contend that they are advancing medical knowledge as best they can. ``We have to do this,'' Connors said. ``We know we can help patients. . . . There is no regulatory process for this kind of thing.'' Damage Control Some 600,000 Americans suffer strokes each year. The problem occurs when a blood vessel in the brain becomes blocked by a clot or hemorrhage, causing nerve cells supplied by the vessel to die. Until recently, there was no way to mitigate the damage, only physical therapy and the hope that the brain would partially recover in time. That changed in 1996, when the Food and Drug Administration approved the clot-dissolving drug tPA as the first effective treatment. But only about 2 percent of U.S. stroke victims receive tPA. a major reason is time: The intravenous therapy only helps if it is started within three hours of the first symptoms, and few people with an incipient stroke make it to the emergency room and through the required battery of checkups and tests before that deadline has passed. The approach Connors uses appears to be effective if started within six hours after symptoms begin. Specialists in his field also believe it may produce better outcomes by delivering clot-dissolving drugs directly into an artery of the brain instead of through an arm vein, the only mode of administration approved by the FDA. When tPA is given intravenously, Connors said, ``they give you a massive amount . . . just so that a teeny bit of it might get to a small clot in your brain.'' It's like pouring Drano into a house's main water intake pipe, hoping that some will reach a blocked sink. In contrast, Connors said, he uses a different clot-dissolving drug at about one-fiftieth the usual intravenous dose and puts it as close as possible to the blockage. The effectiveness of intra-arterial treatment varies, depending on how soon it is started and on the size and location of the clot. Only two studies, funded by Abbott Laboratories, maker of a clot-dissolving drug called prourokinase, have evaluated such treatment by comparing it with a placebo. In the larger study, involving 180 patients, 40 percent of those who received the therapy recovered enough to live independently, compared with 25 percent of patients given a placebo. The degree of benefit was similar to that seen with intravenous tPA, but the rate of brain hemorrhages was higher--about 10 percent among recipients of intra- arterial prourokinase, compared with 6 percent among patients in the tPA study. Although the findings suggested that the treatment could be beneficial, the FDA asked the manufacturer to conduct another study to obtain more data about the therapy's safety and effectiveness. Abbott has not decided whether to do so. Genentech Inc., which makes tPA, also has not decided whether to study intra-arterial treatment, a spokesman said. Connors believes that companies do not want to fund additional trials because they doubt they will recoup research costs. ``Genentech, Abbott and other companies have done the math. . . . The doses that we use for [intra- arterial] therapy are so small that it would take 500 years for them to make that money back at the rate that we are using the drugs now,'' he said. Tareta Lewis, an Abbott spokeswoman, said cost is not the only consideration. ``There are many things that go into making the decision,'' she said. Lacking such studies, Connors and other specialists say they don't know the exact benefits and risks of what they are doing. ``We get the patients who don't meet the three-hour time window'' for intravenous tPA, said Richard Latchaw, chief of neuroradiology at the University of Pittsburgh. ``Using a compassionate view, we will go ahead and give intra-arterial tPA in a dosage that we personally think is efficacious. Do we know exactly what that dosage should be? No.'' The therapy has never been directly compared with intravenous tPA. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke plans to fund a study at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center in which researchers will give 80 patients with major strokes a combination of intravenous and intra-arterial treatment. They intend to compare the outcomes to existing data on intravenous tPA. ``Itra-arterial therapy does more than put the drug next to the clot,'' said Marler. ``They're passing the catheter into the clot, trying to break [it] up. . . . There are definitely patients it will help, but does it balance out'' against the increased risk of bleeding? In the meantime, Connors said, ``hundreds of patients are being treated right now, all over the United States.'' He has organized a training course for doctors to be held in Washington next month and is setting up a registry to collect data on patient outcomes. ``This is a new field and we don't know everything we need to know,'' Connors said. ``You're playing statistics. The whole thing is statistics and odds.'' Difficult Decisions The odds in Perry's case looked to be long. His clot was in the basilar artery, dreaded location for a stroke because it nourishes areas of the brain that control life-support functions such as breathing. Without treatment, he But there was a third possibility. Perry might end up in a nightmarish state that neurologists call ``locked in''; awake and aware, but permanently unable to speak, move or communicate. If that were the outcome, Connors told Susana Perry that afternoon, ``if it was me, I wouldn't want to make it.'' He offered to stop treatment if she thought it best. When Connors posed that question, he and his team had already been working on Perry for an hour at Inova Fairfax Hospital. Perry lay on a table in an operating room equipped with X-ray machines that took magnified pictures of blood flowing through the vessels of his brain. While an anesthesiologist monitored Perry's vital functions, surgically gowned nurses and technicians rushed to fetch drugs and equipment. Connors and another doctor, Firas Al-Ali, had threaded a long, slippery tube called a catheter, thinner than a strand of angel hair pasta, through a larger tube in Perry's groin, guiding it along major arteries of his abdomen, chest and neck until the tip rested against the clot inside his skull. Through the catheter, they squirted dye to illuminate the blocked vessel on X-rays and dribbled in medicines that they hoped would tease apart the clump of protein and blood cells. Most clots that Connors attacks in this way are the size of a grain of rice. Perry's was the size of his little finger. Connors asked Susana Perry for permission to ``go for cleaning everything up'' to maximize her husband's chances of recovery--even though doing so would heighten the risk that the drugs might cause bleeding in his brain. ``His outlook was 99 percent death,'' Connors said. ``The options were so bad. It's one thing to have a stroke where you can't move your arm but you're mostly still you. It's another thing to have a stroke where you're paralyzed from the eyes down. . . . There's no right or wrong decision on this. It's something where you have to think, `What if this was me?' and get the family involved.'' Susana Perry told Connors to go for broke. ``I said, `I'm not ready to get rid of this guy,' '' she recalled. Connors treated Perry for eight more hours. At last, he removed the catheter and stitched up the small wound in Perry's groin. He estimated that he had dissolved about 95 percent of the clot. Now, it was a matter of waiting to see whether the treatment had worked. At 1 a.m. the next day, a nurse woke Susana Perry, who was asleep in a room near the intensive care unit. ``He's responding,'' the nurse said. ``He's nodding `yes' or `no' to simple questions.'' Perry was still on a respirator and his left side was paralyzed, but the pace of his recovery over the next few days astonished his doctors. Three days after his stroke, he signaled to his son that he wanted something. A nurse handed him a pad and pencil. He wrote, ``Beer.'' Two days later, doctors disconnected the respirator and Perry was able to breathe on his own. A week after the stroke, he had regained some movement in his left leg and was eating and cracking jokes about the hospital food. ``There's so much I'm learning from the beginning,'' he said, speaking slowly. ``You take so much for granted.'' ``His level of recovery is--what can I say?--miraculous,'' said David Grass, Perry's neurologist. ``This would have been fatal, absolutely no doubt. . . . He has a left-sided weakness that is improving. He has normal mental function. He has some mild difficulty seeing to his right, but that's improving. He's had no problems with speech. . . . He's going to need several months of rehabilitation, but I'm optimistic that he may eventually be able to return to work. ''

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I will be voting for H. Con. Res. 426 to express support for the resolution of Arab-Israeli differences by peaceful negotiation and to condemn the violence that has engulfed the region. In doing so, I am mindful of the special relationship our country has and must maintain with our ally, Israel, and of the heroic efforts of our President to bring about a cease-fire and to restart negotiations. I also commend Prime Minister Barak for the pathbreaking proposals he put forward during the negotiations at Camp David. It is now even clearer than it was then how unfortunate, indeed tragic, it is that the parties were not able to refine and build upon those proposals to achieve final agreement. The resolution before us, however, falls considerably short of the kind of expression that might best contribute to stopping the violence and resuming negotiations. I therefore support it with great ambivalence. Some have suggested that the tone and content of this resolution is justified by the one-sidedness of the anti-Israeli resolutions adopted at the United Nations. I disagree. This House should not be primarily reactive, nor should we see our main purpose as the affixing of blame. We should not second-guess the difficult decision the administration took, to abstain from using its veto in the Security Council in order to maintain its leverage in bringing the conflicting parties together. I am aware of the particular responsibility Chairman Arafat has to condemn and contain the violence and can only hope that he has the ability as well as the will to do so. But it is critically important that our government be absolutely clear and absolutely fair in demanding that both sides refrain from reckless provocation, end the cycle of violence, reject extremist elements who stoke the violence and block the path to accommodation, and earnestly attempt to restart the negotiations that alone can resolve this conflict. I regret, Mr. Speaker, that the resolution before us falls so far short. But in its last sentence it captures a sentiment which I believe all of us share, calling on ``all parties involved in the Middle East conflict to make all possible efforts to reinvigorate the peace process in order to prevent further senseless loss of life by all sides.'' May we as a body and as a government find ways to tirelessly advance this goal in the critical days and weeks ahead.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, let me chime in and also thank my colleague from the neighboring district in North Carolina. We have worked together cooperatively on so many things, and there is nothing more important than this. I thank the gentleman for calling this Special Order and for focusing all of our attention on the unfinished business in the days ahead.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. I thank my colleague for referring to this, because it clearly is part of this solution. As we build additional classrooms, as we get children into lower class sizes, especially in the early grades, we are going to need quality teachers to teach those children. As a matter of fact, we are confronting a teacher shortage in this country, and it is going to get a great deal worse before it gets better. The estimates are we will need to hire 2 million new teachers in the United States over the next 10 years; and in North Carolina, we are going to need to find 80,000 new teachers. Believe me, that is a great deal more than we are producing at the present time. That is a lot of manpower and woman power we are going to need to bring into the classroom. This 100,000 new teachers proposal of the Presidents is an important down payment on that, and, goodness knows, we should not go home before we do that. I cannot imagine we could do any less than bring on an additional installment of those 100,000 new teachers in the classroom. But, as my colleague said, we have a piece of legislation that I think is very promising for the long haul, and I would like to commend it to colleagues. These colleagues here tonight have very generously cosponsored this bill, it is H.R. 4143, the Teaching Fellows Act. This is legislation, just briefly, that would build on some successful State experiences in recruiting and training teachers. We have in North Carolina the North Carolina Fellows Program which takes high school seniors and gives them a scholarship to take them through the 4 years of training to be teachers. But it is so much more than just money, it is not just a scholarship. This cohort of students goes through college with an extracurricular program that solidifies their professional identity and trains them in what it means to be a professional, what it means to serve the community. The retention rate for these teachers, the people who stay with the program after they have done their obligation, is very, very high. This is a State-based program that has worked very, very well, and we would like to take this nationwide. We would like to build on it in North Carolina and see States across the country do this. There is a second feature to this, and this is something that I think is something new, although in North Carolina we are making a start with our North Carolina model teaching consortium. The idea here is to reach into our 2-year schools, reach into our community colleges and take paraprofessionals, people who may be training as teacher's assistants, and give them the wherewithal and the incentive to go on for that full 4 years, because I think that is an excellent source of teachers. These people are rooted in the community, they are already serving children, and, with an additional incentive and with some work at the institutional level to make sure there is a seamless transition from that 2-year to 4-year program, I think we will have a whole new resource there for our teaching force out of our community colleges. So those are the two main components, the Teaching Fellows Program for high school seniors and then the Teaching Fellows Partnership Program for students in community colleges. We have a number of cosponsors, a number of people who have indicated an interest in this. I just think the quality and quantity of our teaching force is probably going to be the dominant public education issue over the next decade, and I believe this legislation could help us prepare for it.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. I think we all have to push toward that end, and I hope we can have a good bipartisan effort on that. There is no reason before we go home that we should not have the next sizable installment of those 100,000 new teachers on the way into classrooms in those early grades across this country, and there is no reason that we should not have this school construction program in place so that local school authorities, who know firsthand what the needs are, can take advantage of this and get those facilities on line. There has been a lot of talk about whether this Congress is going to go down in history as a high achiever or a low achiever. Right now it is looking more on the low side. What could change that would be for us to catch on fire here in these remaining weeks and do a job for public education.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for calling this Special Order and for helping us focus our attention here in this critical closing period of the 106th Congress on our education needs. My colleague, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Etheridge), referred earlier to this study, which the minority staff of the Committee of Government Reform and Oversight has carried out, showing that 90-plus percent of our students in our part of North Carolina are in classrooms of larger than the recommended size. This is children grades K through three, when we know class size matters most. The gentleman and I took a tour a few days ago to unveil this report. We went to an elementary school in Cary, North Carolina, in my district, and then in Raleigh and then in Wake Forest; and as he has already said, we witnessed the situation there. I must say that the teachers and the students are making the best of the situation. They have made these trailers attractive, and they have made the best of it. But in some of these schools, the children are eating lunch at 10:15, 10:30 in the morning, and as late as 1 o'clock and 1:30 in the afternoon simply because the central facilities had not caught up with all the additional population of the school occupying these trailers. And the same is true of the bathrooms; the same is true of the athletic facilities. It is unjust in a country as wealthy and as prosperous as ours when we know, when we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that children's ability to learn and teacher's ability to teach is linked to a decent class size. I just think it is unconscionable that we are not addressing that situation. I think local and state authorities often are doing the best they can. On this tour with us, we had the county superintendent of schools, we had school board members, we had county commissioners. There is no question we are in this together, and nobody is blaming the other. It is a matter of working together at all levels of government and making the Federal Government and especially the Federal Tax Code a partner in what we need to achieve. It is that kind of partnership we are looking for. If we can get this legislation on the floor in these closing weeks, I believe we can do great things to bring 100,000 new teachers into the classrooms of America and to expand our schools and to modernize those schools.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield just for a moment. I want to underscore something the gentleman said just a moment ago about the way this legislation would work and the fact that decisions about when and if to build would remain under local control. We are not suggesting, and this is the genius, I think, of the Etheridge proposal and that of the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), the President has made similar proposals targeting low-income schools and high growth schools. The genuineness of that proposal I think is that it would leave the decision in local hands, it would leave the responsibility about issuing the bonds and raising the funds in local hands, but it would say that through the use of the Federal Tax Code, through giving tax credits to the holders of those bonds in lieu of interest, we are going to let those local authorities stretch those dollars a great deal further. That is a non-intrusive approach that leaves the decision where it should be, but makes the Federal Tax Code the friend of those who would invest in our children and invest in our school infrastructure.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend to my colleagues the following article that appeared in the July 16, 2000, Raleigh News & Observer. Mack Paul, Chief of Staff to North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Dennis Wicker, wrote it. Mr. Paul has been active in local planning and transportation issues over the years as a civic leader, focusing on enhancing the Research Triangle area's quality of life and economic growth. The regionalism issue Mr. Paul addresses is one that will continue to gain importance and deserves the thoughtful attention of the Congress and the nation. [From the News & Observer, July 16, 2000] Common Sense for the Triangle (By Mack Paul) Raleigh.--Spurred in part by intense media attention, the public dialogue on growth in the Triangle has progressed markedly over the last two years. Many now see that gridlock, Code Orange days and dwindling open space bear a direct relation to the low density, auto-dependent pattern of development known as sprawl. The ``Smart Growth'' principles adopted last year by the Triangle Smart Growth Coalition and Greater Triangle Regional Council embody this recognition. The next step remains much more problematic: what strategies do we pursue to achieve smarter growth? Public transportation, downtown revitalization, open space protection, affordable housing and traditional neighborhood development top the list of preferred policy prescriptions. Elected officials say that it is time to act. But we're not acting--at least not with haste. Municipalities still see little to gain within their local context from enacting Smart Growth policies. We're confronted with the classic game theory known as ``the tragedy of the common.'' In this scenario, herders must share a common meadow. But no herder can limit grazing by anyone else's flock. If a herder limits his own use of the common meadow, he alone loses. Yet unlimited grazing destroys the common resource on which the livelihood of all depends. Therefore, the herders are seemingly doomed to self-defeating opportunism. In the Triangle, the common meadow represents all those resources that comprise our economic health and quality of life, including our open space, air quality, infrastructure, schools, jobs and housing. As each municipality grapples with how best to utilize these resources in the face of a rapidly growing herd, it confronts the reality that no matter how wise its policies, it has no control over the other herders. In the tragedy of the common, mutual cooperation represents the only way for the herders to survive long-term. Similarly, mutual cooperation at the regional level--regionalism--offers the best way for the Triangle to ensure long-term prosperity. Regionalism offers a framework for maximizing our use of common resources in two ways. First, it encourages the coordination of resource systems that cross jurisdictions. For example, a regional transit system cannot succeed unless station-area planning in all of the affected municipalities supports it. Second and more important, regionalism helps to mitigate disparate impacts that arise from competition for economic growth. If one area captures most of the new jobs but offers little affordable housing, it increases traffic and sprawl in neighboring municipalities. If outlying rural areas attract all of the new development, they can contribute to the decline of a central city, worsen air quality and significantly reduce the amount of open space. As shown by the tragedy of the common, regionalism poses a real challenge because it requires a shift in thinking. Individuals must see that their personal interests are better served by cooperating with those with whom they compete for a precious resource. It builds over time. With each success comes trust and a desire for bolder action. Experience from other areas provides three important lessons about regionalism. First, regionalism cannot succeed without a strong civic life. Those regional efforts that have succeeded all enjoy active and ongoing participation by businesses and citizens through a variety of civic organizations. The Triangle Smart Growth Coalition, Greater Triangle Regional Council, Regional Transportation Alliance and Triangle Community Coalition offer examples of emerging regional civic groups. These types of organizations provide our best opportunity for building the strong relationships necessary for regional cooperation. Second, regionalism cannot succeed without a regional framework for decision-making. Areas that have been successful at pursuing Smart Growth strategies have some form of regional authority. The tragedy of the common demonstrates the difficulty in relying on the voluntary actions of one's neighbors. Regional models vary widely--from purely advisory as in Denver to more authoritative as in Atlanta and Minneapolis. Any framework we adopt should reflect and be an extension of the Triangle's civic life. Third, regionalism cannot succeed without some encouragement from the state. Areas that have adopted effective regional frameworks have benefited from state laws supporting such action. A new law permitting the Triangle's two Metropolitan Planning Organizations to combine would facilitate regional transportation planning. Next year, the Smart Growth Commission will consider making other recommendations, including financial incentives, to encourage regionalism. The Triangle's leadership should help shape and push for this legislation. Ultimately, the Triangle cannot fulfill its promise as a ``world class region'' without regionalism. We will remain a collection of dissonant localities simply exploiting the economic principle that specialized industries tend to cluster together. Once our quality of life wanes, those industries will cluster elsewhere. Regionalism can ensure that does not happen by showing us where self-interest is self-defeating and by offering a forum for mutual cooperation. It offers the best hope for seeing that our herd continues to prosper.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, any prescription drug benefit worthy of the name will provide a defined benefit as part of Medicare. It must be available to all seniors who wish to take advantage of it. The Republican plan does not measure up. It simply throws some taxpayers' money at some insurance companies in the hopes they will offer affordable coverage. It just will not work. The national president of Blue Cross/Blue Shield recently said, ``This idea provides false hope to America's seniors because it is neither workable nor affordable.'' The Republican plan also defies logic. To get $1,000 worth of prescription drug coverage a senior would have to pay $1,070. Who is going to do that? Who wants to pay more to get less? Certainly not my constituents. The 1.1 million Medicare beneficiaries in North Carolina deserve a real prescription drug benefit, and it is outrageous that through partisan maneuvering we were not even allowed to offer a substitute plan today. Why are the Republicans scared of a vote? They must know we have a better plan, a real plan, and one that will help seniors get the coverage they need.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. I am pleased, Mr. Chairman, to see that a number of Members have recognized that the VA medical research account is underfunded in this bill, and that they want to increase this funding through amendments that we are going to consider soon. The chairman and the ranking member have done a good job under tough constraints on this legislation, but this is one item that we really need to tend to here today. I am glad to see that we will have the opportunity to do so. I have been a strong proponent of VA medical research, and I offered an amendment during the full Committee on Appropriations markup that would have increased that account by $23 million. I want to take just a minute today to explain why I support increasing the VA medical research account and why it is so important for us to find a way of doing so. The original request from the VA to OMB was to fund the research account at $397 million. Outside supporters of the program believe the program should be funded at $386 million. These recommendations are both well above the current bill's level of $321 million. Most of us have heard about the Seattle foot, that remarkable artificial limb that has been depicted in television commercials by a double amputee playing pick-up basketball or by a woman running a 100- yard dash. It is not obvious that she has two artificial legs until the camera zooms in at the end of the commercial. The technology for this prosthesis was developed by VA researchers in Seattle. Research at VA hospitals is important because it is clinical research, mainly. The researcher, who is almost always affiliated with a neighboring teaching hospital, also treats patients, veterans. The VA research program is the only one dedicated solely to finding cures to ailments that affect our veteran population. It is not interchangeable with other research efforts. At the Durham, North Carolina, VA, which is affiliated with Duke University, there is a great range of research being done, from working to find a cure for AIDS to finding a shingles vaccine to important advances in brain imaging and telemedicine. This work, of course, assists veterans, but it also helps the population at large. The VA does a great job of leveraging its funds. Dr. Jack Feussner, the director of the VA medical research program, testified that for every dollar of increase that the program has received over the last 5 years, it has received $3 from other sources. Therefore, if we were to add $23 million here today, it could translate into $92 million more for research. What will these additional funds be used for? Eleven million dollars is needed just to maintain current services, to keep up with medical inflation. Another $12 million could be used for any number of research projects. The VA is starting a research oversight program vital to the integrity of the human-based research programs. It could be a model for other federally-assisted research. This program needs $1 million. To bring the program back to the high water mark of 1998 would take $43 million. Dr. Feussner has listed four areas that would benefit particularly from additional research dollars: Parkinson's Disease, end-stage renal failure, diabetes, and Post-Traumatic Shock Disorder. Additional research into the treatment and cure for hepatitis C would also be looked at carefully. We also need to increase the commitment to training the next generation of clinician and nonclinician investigators. To keep that program on track would take an additional $10 million. Now, Mr. Chairman, difficult decisions will need to be made on these upcoming amendments, and there are several of them. They all offer an offset of some sort. Most of the offsets I would not support if they stood alone. But the overall allocation for our VA-HUD subcommittee is just not sufficient, and these difficult trade-offs must be made. I am hopeful that, at the end of this process, an additional allocation will be available and that we will be able to fund VA medical research at close to $386 million and that any offsets that we adopt can largely be restored. However, it is very important to raise the appropriations level here today for medical research before this bill goes any farther in the appropriations process. I hope this is helpful, this overview of how these monies might be spent and why we need them. Additional funding for VA research will benefit our veterans and our country, and I hope Members will pay attention closely to the arguments on the amendments to follow.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, two men who have devoted their lives to finding safer, more efficacious treatments for one of the world's most deadly diseases are being honored tonight. Dr. Monroe E. Wall and Dr. Mansukh C. Wani of the Research Triangle Institute in North Carolina will receive the prestigious Charles F. Kettering Prize, an award given by the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation to the scientists who have made the most outstanding recent contribution to the diagnosis or treatment of cancer. Drs. Wall and Wani, who have collaborated for more than 38 years in their work, discovered two vital chemotherapeutic compounds, Taxol and Camptothecin, which serve as prototypes for a variety of new therapies that effectively treat cancer. The findings are rare discoveries. Taxol, which has been heralded as one of the most important anti-cancer compounds of the past thirty years, was one of only two compounds out of 100,000 which were approved for clinical use by the National Cancer Institute between 1960-1981. Because of the work by Drs. Wall and Wani, Taxol now serves as one of the most productive treatments for breast, ovarian, and lung cancer and even Kaposi's sarcoma, a cancer associated with AIDS. Drs. Wall and Wani have long been regarded as two of the premier members of their field. Dr. Wall, who earned his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. from Rutgers University, has been the recipient of two honorary doctorates and has been recognized for his work by the American Society of Pharmacognosy, the American Association of Cancer Research, and the American Chemical Society. Dr. Wani, a native of India, has also received awards on numerous occasions for his contributions, including being honored with the Bruce F. Cain Memorial Award from the American Association for Cancer Research, the City of Medicine Award, and the NC1 Award of Recognition. He earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of Bombay and Ph.D. in chemistry from Indiana University. Drs. Wall and Wani, aged 83 and 75 respectively, still work actively in the fight against cancer. According to Dr. Wani, they continue their work because ``there is always a need to find something better and less toxic.'' They truly embody the spirit of inventiveness that is required for finding the cure for cancer. North Carolinians take great pride in the contributions of these outstanding scientists and in their richly deserved recognition.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of permanent normal trade relations with China. The economic benefits are undeniable for our country and are particularly favorable for my region and my State. North Carolina has much to gain from opening and expanding markets in China, currently our 13th largest export market and the consumer of over $300 million in North Carolina goods and services annually. The commodities of goods involved range from pork and poultry and soybeans to furniture, communications equipment, software and computers--very broad economic benefits indeed. But this debate, Mr. Speaker, is not just about trade. I have not heard any proponent suggest that we should turn a blind eye to human rights and political problems in China in the name of commerce. Nor is this legislation a blessing of China's past and current behavior, no matter how often the opponents of the bill might repeat it. On the contrary, the point is to bring China within a framework that will provide powerful incentives and constraints to play by the rules, both in the realm of trade and beyond. As China moves further into the world economy, we need to be clear-eyed about our future with China. We must continue to press on human rights and religious freedom and the self-determination of Taiwan, the freedom of Tibet, nuclear proliferation, and espionage. Isolating China economically will do more harm than good in all of these areas. Martin Lee, the chairman of the Democratic Party of Hong Kong and a human rights leader has said: ``The participation of China in the WTO would not only have economic and political benefits but would serve to bolster those in China who understand that the country must embrace the rule of law.'' Trade is no panacea. But to refuse trade, to isolate China economically, would risk empowering the most rigid, hard-line anti- democratic elements of China, those who want to pull their country away from the democratic world. This is not a prospect America or the Chinese people can afford. I urge my colleagues to vote yes. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of opening opportunities for American workers, farmers, and businesses, and I stand with those committed to improving our national security, economic freedom in China, and the quality of life for the Chinese people. I rise in support of Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China. As my colleagues know, in November the United States and China signed a bilateral agreement to bring China into the World Trade Organization (WTO). The agreement would open Chinese markets to our goods and services and reduce Chinese tariffs and quotas on our products. What does the United States give up? Nothing. All we have to do is grant PNTR to benefit from this decidedly one-way deal. The economic benefits are undeniable for our country and are particularly favorable for my region and state. It is clear that North Carolina has much to gain from opening and expanding markets in China, currently our 13th largest export market and consumer of over $300 million in North Carolina goods and services. The Chinese will be compelled to open their markets to services like telecommunications, banking, software, computer, and environmental services. Tariffs will be eliminated on computers, telecommunications equipment, semiconductors, and furniture. North Carolina companies will benefit from major tariff reductions on optical fibers, chemicals, pulp and paper, wood products, agriculture equipment, medical equipment, and environmental technology equipment. In agriculture, our farmers will no longer have to compete with export subsidies on China's agriculture products and will benefit from tariff cuts on poultry, pork, tobacco, soybeans, and other commodities. For the first time, our companies will be able to sell and distribute products in China made by workers here in America, without being forced to relocate manufacturing to China, sell through the Chinese government or transfer valuable technology. Now that the European Union has signed an agreement with China, clearing the last remaining hurdle to China's accession to the WTO, a vote against PNTR could cost America jobs, as our competitors in Europe, Asia and elsewhere capture Chinese markets that we otherwise would have served. To benefit from the agreement that opens Chinese markets to American products and investment, this Congress must first grant permanent normal trading status--the same arrangement we have given all other countries in the WTO. Much has been said about what we lose if we give up an annual review of our trade status with China. I would just suggest that our annual vote has not been particularly effective. Even after Tiananmen Square, this body did not revoke ``most favored nation'' status. I do not suggest turning a blind eye to the human rights and political situation in China in the name of commerce, nor do I view this agreement as a blessing of China's past and current behavior. On the contrary, the point is to bring China within a framework that will provide powerful incentives and constraints to play by the rules, both in the realm of trade and beyond. As China moves further into the world economy, we need to be clear- eyed abut the future of our relationship and must continue to press on issues such as human rights, religious freedom, the self-determination of Taiwan, the freedom of Tibet, nuclear proliferation, and espionage. I believe isolating China economically would do more harm than good in these areas. Martin Lee, chairman of the Democratic Party of Hong Kong and a leader of the human rights movement, wrote: ``The participation of China in the WTO would not only have economic and political benefits, but would serve to bolster those in China who understand that the country must embrace the rule of law.'' To him, the agreement ``represents the best long-term hope for China to become a member of good standing in the international community. We fear that should ratification fail, any hope for political and legal reform process would also recede.'' A recent New York Times article (``Chinese See U.S. Bill as Vital to Future Reforms,'' May 21) noted that a ``broad array of educated Chinese--top government officials, publishers, bankers, artists, lawyers and pro-democracy advocates--have come together in extraordinary agreement on the issue, investing their hope for progress in China'' in this vote. ``Chinese government leaders and economists hope the normalization of trade with America will help close inefficient state enterprises. Authors and artists here are convinced it will reduce censorship. Lawyers suggest it will force China's mercurial judges to follow the law.'' Zhou Daichun, a commercial lawyer in Beijing said, ``What's important is not how this vote will affect this or that industry. What's important is that this is an opportunity to push for reform and reorganization in China and without that impetus, many reforms are impossible.'' Taiwan supports China's entry into the WTO. And the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet, has said, ``Joining the WTO, I think, is one way (for China) to change in the right direction . . . I have always stressed that China should not be isolated. China must be brought into the mainstream of the world community . . . Forces of democracy in China get more encouragement through that way.'' As we all know, Chinese actions demand our attention. Mr. Levin and Mr. Bereuter have crafted provisions included in this legislation that help us maintain our sharp focus on the issues of human rights, religious freedom, and economic fair play. Under the Levin-Bereuter provisions, the U.S. will create a Congressional-Executive Commission on China, modeled after the Helsinki Commission, to evaluate human rights in China. The Commission will submit an annual report of its findings to the President and Congress, including WTO-consistent recommendations for action. This bill puts into law China-specific anti-surge safeguards to guard American businesses and workers from inport surges from China. We strengthen monitoring and enforcement of China's commitment to WTO obligations with an annual review of China within the WTO. Mr. Speaker, only through a comprehensive system of relationships can the United States hope to influence the internal policies of the Chinese government. This vote is a significant opportunity for us to encourage positive change in China. We must pull China in the right direction, not turn our backs. Trade is no panacea. But to refuse trade, to isolate China economically, would risk empowering the most rigid, hard-line, anti-democratic elements of China, those who want to pull their country away from the democratic world. This is not a prospect America or the Chinese people can afford. In light of this strategy of engagement and our nation's interest, not only in selling to China, but also in bringing China into conformity with accepted rules of international conduct, I urge my colleagues to support PNTR.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I was proud to note yesterday the quick thinking and bold action of our colleague, the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Earl Pomeroy) when a threatening situation arose in the Committee on Agriculture, so I would like to this morning dedicate this Ode to Earl. With a fellow named Earl in the room You had better not act like a loon Break bottles and cry I'd much rather die Burly Earl, he'll subdue you real soon. In the hearing he caused quite a scene This lunatic, he vented his spleen Threatened cabinet and staff Earl had him down like a calf So the committee could then reconvene. So if agriculture's your place And danger you ever should face Just throw caution to the wind Burly Earl we will send Let Pomeroy return you to grace.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this bill. I do want to commend those who have worked on it in good faith. I know that their intention is good. But this is a flawed remedy. It is not a convincing remedy. It might well do more harm than good. I think we will all agree that the budget process is not working well. But it is a mistake to believe that endless procedural tinkering is the answer. The problem is not mainly a flawed process. The challenge to us as Members is to use the existing process responsibly, and yet in recent years that has just not been done. In 1998, for the first time, Congress failed to even adopt a budget resolution. And for the past 2 years, the leadership has allowed Congress to approve budget resolutions that could not possibly be implemented, and then has facilitated waiving as many rules as necessary in order to break or circumvent or ignore those budget resolutions. So if the budget process is broken, it is not so much that we need to tinker with the machinery as to use that machinery responsibly. We need to adopt realistic budget plans and then comply with the existing rules. The bill before us purports to address our problems by more tinkering with the machinery. But I think it looks for a fix in the wrong direction. One of the best examples of this is the misguided proposal for biennial budgeting, and I will be able to address that, as will other Members, when the amendment process begins. Let me focus for now on the base bill and the proposal to make the budget resolution a joint resolution. That would bring the President into the process and would require his signature on the budget resolution. I understand very well the attraction of this. I can remember times in the Reagan and Bush administrations when as Democrats we wished for a way to bring the President to the table earlier, to share responsibility for putting our fiscal house in order. But I believe the advantages of doing this are outweighed by the likely disadvantages. First of all, I think this would invite further delays in the budget and appropriations process, beyond those we already experience. It would halt the process in years when the President or the Congress could not agree. I know there is supposed to be a fail-safe mechanism whereby we would then revert to a concurrent resolution. But when that kicked in, the process would already be way behind. And then, finally, once the President and the budget committees found themselves negotiating over a real statute and not a planning document, they might very well succumb to the temptation to directly legislate, to load all kinds of controversies that properly belong in the reconciliation process or in authorization bills onto the budget resolution. So this bill would take power away from the committees of this body and move it toward the Committee on the Budget, and away from the Congress as a whole and move it toward the President. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, the budget conflicts and frustrations of the last 3 years have prompted various proposed procedural fixes for what is mainly a failure of political will and responsibility. In my view, the most misguided of these proposals is the amendment before us, instituting biennial budgeting and appropriating. This supposed remedy is not only unresponsive to the problem we face, but it actually would weaken Congress' power of the purse and its ability to hold the Executive Branch accountable. I would like to remind my colleagues that Congress already has the authority to adopt multiyear budget plans and multiyear authorizations. These have been important instruments in achieving advance planning and fiscal discipline. But to go beyond this to biennial budgeting and appropriating would greatly weaken Congress' hand in shaping national priorities and holding the Executive Branch accountable. In fact, annual appropriating is necessary as a complement to multiyear budget plans, to ensure flexibility, responsiveness, and coequal power with the executive. Under biennial budgeting, Congress would not be able to react as effectively to congressional oversight, GAO reports, Inspector General's reports, research studies, and other findings that bear on the effectiveness of Federal programs. Agencies would have to begin working in late spring on a 2-year budget, the second year of which would not commence for some 28 months. The President and OMB would make budget decisions 22 to 23 months before the beginning of the second year of a budget cycle. Biennial appropriations could limit the ability of the Federal Government to use fiscal policy to stabilize the economy during economic downturns. There would be pressure to frequently revise 2-year budgets through supplemental after supplemental appropriations bills. We know from experience that these supplemental appropriations are less deliberative and less systematic than regular appropriations bills, and they are certainly less subject to fiscal discipline and control. Now, some proponents argue that biennial budgeting would leave Congress more time to conduct oversight of the Executive Branch. That is an ironic claim, for the unique oversight provided through the appropriations process, when agency budgets and performance are gone over line by line, program by program, is one of the most important tools we have in holding the Executive Branch accountable. Off-year oversight under biennial appropriations would become less intense, less systematic, and most importantly, it would lose the teeth provided by the actual power of decision. Proponents have talked today about the support from the three most recent Presidents for biennial appropriations, Bill Clinton, George Bush, Ronald Reagan. Why should that surprise anyone? Of course Presidents support biennial budgeting. If that support indicates biennial budgeting is not a partisan issue, it surely makes our point for us that it is an institutional issue. Biennial budgeting would result in a major devolution of power from Congress to the Executive Branch. We would do our appropriating in the first 9 months of a Congress and become fiscal lame ducks thereafter, with executive agencies less subject to effective scrutiny and direction. That would be a loss, not only for individual Members and individual committees, but it would be a loss for this institution, for our constitutional system of checks and balances, and for the people we represent. We need to enhance Congress' power and performance in both budgeting and oversight. But moving to biennial budgeting and appropriating would take us in precisely the opposite direction. I urge my colleagues to defeat this amendment.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I want to suggest five reasons why our colleagues should vote against this Republican budget resolution. The first reason is that it contains indiscriminate and risky tax cuts that, under realistic assumptions about defense and nondefense spending, will take up more than the available non-Social Security surplus over the next 5 years. The tax cut in this budget resolution, $175 billion over 5 years, exceeds the total non-Social Security surplus forecast by the Congressional Budget Office under an assumption of discretionary spending frozen at inflation-adjusted levels. Reason number two, it proposes to significantly undercut nondefense discretionary programs that Americans depend on. Over 5 years, the Republican plan would cut nondefense programs by $122 billion below inflation adjusted levels. That would mean, for example, Pell grants for 316,000 fewer students. It would eliminate Head Start for more than 40,000 children. Reason number three, the Republican plan does nothing to extend the solvency of Medicare and Social Security. We ought to be using a portion of our surpluses to extend the solvency of these programs, which would have the important added benefit of locking in additional debt reduction. Reason number four, under the Republican budget resolution's unrealistic spending targets, we are once again headed toward an end- of-the-session train wreck and efforts to circumvent the budget process through new and improved gimmicks. Appropriations leaders in both parties have already given warning that they may not be able to produce passable appropriations bills this year under this budget resolution's spending limits. This is simply more evidence that it is not really the budget process that is out of whack around here. What is needed is a responsible use of that process and a realistic budget resolution. Finally, reason number five, a vote for this budget resolution would send a message to the American people that the cynicism they feel about Congress and their cynicism about the budget process are, alas, justified. We should be sending our constituents a positive message that in a time of budget surpluses we are going to invest in the future of this country, through affordable and targeted tax cuts, through continued debt reduction, and through adequately funding those programs on which older Americans and working Americans and the most vulnerable among us depend. Take the responsible course. I urge my colleagues, vote against this irresponsible budget resolution.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I stand in favor of this motion to instruct, which would tell the conferees to make a Medicare prescription drug benefit a higher priority than a tax cut that would override all other priorities. This motion to instruct conferees rejects the House's fiscally irresponsible $200 billion tax cut which our Republican friends describe as a down payment on the $483 billion plan outlined by Governor Bush, a tax cut that would eat up the entire nonSocial Security surplus and begin to eat into funds borrowed from Social Security. Mr. Speaker, we can afford a modest tax cut, but we cannot afford the kind of tax cut that would compromise the future of Social Security and Medicare. We need to address the future of Medicare. We need to address the deficiencies of Medicare. The most striking deficiency, the most important deficiency is its failure to cover prescription drugs. We need a prescription drug benefit now, not later. Prescription drugs now account for about one-sixth of all out-of-pocket health spending by the elderly. Almost 40 percent of those over age 85 do not have prescription drug coverage. Spending and utilization of prescription drugs is growing at twice the rate of other health spending. Between 1993 and 1998, spending for prescription drugs increased at an annual rate of 12 percent compared to about 5 percent for other kinds of health spending. So this motion to instruct conferees takes the lower tax cut number in the Senate resolution so that the tax cut does not use all of our budgetary resources. Then it instructs conferees to use the latest date possible for tax cuts, September 22, so Congress will have time and will have the resources to enact a Medicare prescription drug benefit before it acts on the tax cuts. Mr. Speaker, let us put first things first. Let us support this motion to instruct conferees.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 1776, a bipartisan bill reauthorizing and improving programs that build our communities and that make housing more accessible and affordable to our citizens. Mr. Chairman, I represent a district in North Carolina that, in most respects, is an economic success story, with a lively market in rental housing and in home building and sales. But we are in danger of pricing people upon whom our community depends out of that housing market. For example, to afford a two-bedroom apartment, a person making the minimum wage in my district would have to work 96 hours a week. Working a 40-hour week for that same two-bedroom apartment, that person would have to make $12.40 an hour. And even with homeownership at historically high levels, the American dream is still out of reach for far too many people. H.R. 1776 will help. It will make it easier for teachers and police officers and firefighters to buy homes in neighborhoods that need leaders as they rebuild. It will increase the ability of senior citizens to use reverse mortgages, a program I helped initiate a few years ago, to stay in their homes and to drawdown their equity for living expenses. It will expand Section 8 assistance to permit families with disabled persons to purchase a home. It will establish workable construction, safety, installation, and dispute resolution standards for manufactured housing. In these and many other respects, this bill will improve housing, will improve housing policy, and will improve the quality of life for thousands of Americans. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I would like to engage the gentleman in a colloquy here about this tax cut debate we have been having. I understand that one of our friends on the other side said there was no such thing as an irresponsible tax cut. That is a dangerous view. In fact, the tax cut proposed by George W. Bush, the Republican presidential candidate, seemed to fit that category very well, because our Republican friends refused to even allow us to vote on it in the Committee on the Budget. This chart indicates where we are with these various tax cut proposals. The Republican tax cut proposal that is included in this budget would use the entire non-Social Security surplus and take us into deficit, into borrowing from the Social Security surplus to the tune of $68 billion over the 10 year period. It would just barely avoid doing that over the first 5 years and be $68 billion in the red over 10 years. The Bush tax cut is even more irresponsible, $136 billion into the red in 5 years, and $376 billion over 10 years. So, it is not surprising, I suppose, that our Republican friends would not permit a vote on that.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, recent calls for biennial budgeting have claimed that the budget process around here is broken and needs fixing. Well, I would like to suggest that the problem is less one of process, and more one of a failure on the part of the majority to produce realistic budget resolutions. What we need is not endless tinkering with the budget process. What we need is to use the existing process responsibly. The Republican budget resolution before us today repeats patterns that are all too familiar to us from fiscal 1999 and fiscal 2000. It makes highly unrealistic domestic spending assumptions, like those that led to last year's budgetary train wreck. It relies on false assumptions about the level of cuts which can be absorbed by critical domestic accounts. The only way the Republican plan can make room for its exorbitant $200 billion in tax cuts over 5 years--and that goes up to $1 trillion over 10 years--is to drastically undercut domestic programs that are critical for working families and for the most vulnerable among us. In 2001 the Republican plan would cut non-defense domestic spending by $7 billion, compared to a freeze at the 2000 level. When you account for inflation, this represents $19.7 billion, or a 6.4 percent cut in purchasing power, from our current level of activity. By 2005, the Republican plan would cut non-defense domestic spending by $39.4 billion or 11.5 percent relative to the funding necessary to keep pace with inflation. Mr. Chairman, we need to remember that since 1962, non-defense appropriations have grown by 2.8 percent annually above the rate of inflation. From 1996 to 2000, the Republican Congress has increased non-defense spending at an average rate of 2.5 percent above inflation. So how can we realistically expect to suddenly reduce non-defense spending, not only below the level needed to maintain constant purchasing power, but below even the current year's nominal spending level? The answer is we cannot expect to do that, we should not, and we are not being honest with ourselves if we suggest that we can. I am not talking here merely about cuts to domestic programs in a generic sense. It is easy to talk about belt tightening, and we indeed do need to press the war against waste and fraud and abuse. But what is at stake here are large cuts to programs that serve as essential safety nets which help struggling families help themselves. We are talking about cutting 310,000 people out of the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program. We are talking about making Pell grants to 316,000 fewer students by 2005. We are talking about eliminating more than 40,000 children from Head Start. By contrast, Mr. Chairman, the Democratic resolution is realistic and it is responsible. Under the Democratic alternative, we would pass our appropriations bills on budget, on time. Unlike the Republican resolution, we would extend the solvency of both Social Security and Medicare, and we would mandate the addition of a prescription benefit to Medicare. We would buy back publicly-held debt, not only with the entire Social Security surplus, but, unlike the Republican plan, with $365 billion of the non-Social Security surplus. And we would create room for a reasonable and well-targeted tax cut. The Democratic plan is well-balanced, by reducing debt, protecting and strengthening Social Security and Medicare, providing targeted tax relief, and maintaining our investments in public education, research, transportation and affordable housing. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to adopt the Democratic alternative.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Again reclaiming my time, I would point out that, by contrast, our Democratic alternative makes room for as much or more for special education, that is, education for disabled and handicapped children. It lets us get going on school construction in low-income and high-growth areas with an innovative tax plan, and it lets us proceed to hire these 100,000 new teachers, skilled teachers to get class size down in the early grades.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Reclaiming my time, the gentlewoman is absolutely correct. If there were ever a successful program in getting children ready to learn it is Head Start. Why over the next 5 years we would want to actually cut that program escapes me. Then we look at the other end of the educational spectrum, Pell grants, these cuts would require that 316,000 fewer students receive Pell grants. Ms. HOOLEY or Oregon. If the gentleman will continue to yield, again this is one of those areas where we say that to succeed with the new technologies and the new kind of markets that we have, it is vitally important that we provide a higher education and some training, and yet again the Republican budget cuts 316,000 students out of the opportunity to go to college.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. I yield to the gentlewoman from Oregon.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and the gentleman is certainly correct that there is no greater area of contrast in these two budgets than in the area of education. This is a time when we need to be renewing our commitment to public education, our investments in public education so it becomes an engine of opportunity for all of our people. And what do our Republican friends do? Well, they freeze most education programs for a period of 5 years in this budget. They have a small increase for special education, which is mainly budget authority that cannot be spent. It is a kind of a hollow promise. And then the rest of the education budget is basically frozen.