David Price

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Chairman, this afternoon we talked about the Republican majority's budget resolution and some of the risks that it would pose. Their $200 billion tax cut in the first 5 years would take us into the red by 2004. Well, if you are worried about that risky venture, just look at this CATs budget. It proposes a $270 billion tax cut in the first 5 years. Still not as much, I must say, as George W. Bush's proposed tax cut, which our Republican friends refused to vote on, but still $270 billion in the first 5 years, enough to eat up the entire non-Social Security surplus and to require renewed borrowing from the Social Security surplus. So the proposed tax cut is reckless. It bets the store on doubtful projections, which I think are simply not risks that our country ought to take. Secondly, we talked this afternoon about the unrealistic assumptions about our domestic obligations and how the Republican budget assumes devastating and unrealistic declines in domestic investments, in education, in law enforcement, across the board. Well, if you are worried about that set of cuts, look at this CATs budget. It goes even deeper. In fact, $16.5 billion deeper in 2001 alone. I invite my colleagues to contrast the Democratic budget substitute, which is reasonable, which is balanced. It will provide a targeted, affordable tax cut. But it will also extend the solvency of both the Medicare and the Social Security trust funds. It will mandate the addition of a prescription drug benefit to Medicare. And it will use not only the entire Social Security surplus to buy down the publicly- held debt, but in fact will apply over $300 billion of the non-Social Security surplus to that same critical purpose. Support the Democratic substitute.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, the Democratic alternative does have responsible tax relief, targeted at the marriage penalty, targeted at the need to get school construction moving in this country, targeted at a number of important priorities. But it is balanced and responsible. That is the key point. It is balanced with the other priorities of shoring up Medicare and Social Security and paying down the national debt. It is that sort of balance that I think is missing in our Republican friends' resolution.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Seniors Freedom to Work Act. More than 800,000 senior citizens aged 65 to 69 in our country lose part or all of their Social Security benefits each year because of this so-called earnings test. Currently, the Social Security earnings penalty takes $1 in Social Security benefits from Americans 65 through 69 for every $3 they earn above the $17,000 per year limit. When Americans turn 65, they ought to be able to count on the Social Security benefits they have earned, and this bill would repeal the earnings test once and for all. Mr. Speaker, this is a bipartisan bill. But unfortunately, there has been a little partisan byplay here today; not from our side of the aisle, but from our friends on the Republican side. They are accusing us of reversing ourselves on this issue. They are referring to what in 1998 we aptly termed the Raid Social Security for an Election Eve Tax Cut Act. I would like to just read what I said at the time we debated that bill: ``The problem is not with the specific tax cuts, but with using the Social Security Trust Fund surplus to pay for them. These tax cuts are also contained in the Democratic substitute'', in fact, it included exactly identical earnings test provisions, ``but they are paid for in that substitute and they maintain the trust in the trust fund.'' So what we have before us right now, Mr. Speaker, is clean legislation that addresses the earnings test issue, unencumbered by controversial or extraneous provisions. Today, we have an opportunity for a bipartisan bill, a bipartisan result, and I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is exactly right. We can look back and say how much better it would have been, how much better off we all would be, had we had a realistic budget resolution 8 months ago, had we agreed not to engage in this budget gimmickry and this budget gamesmanship and had simply met our obligations. Other speakers have said tonight there was the potential there, and I hope there still is, for considerable bipartisan agreement. We, after all, in 1997 came together on a Balanced Budget Act, and both parties are largely agreed or at least profess agreement that we ought to be using the Social Security surplus to buy down debt and to ensure the future of Social Security. But what we have now at the end of this session is a confusing and convoluted process. The gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) has referred to this directed scoring. All in the world that means is the Congress tells people who are supposed to be neutral, fair scorekeepers, tells them how to cook the books. Surely that is not what this budget process had in mind, the architects of this process. Then all this emergency spending that is not really emergencies, and then this 1 percent across-the-board cut, which is out there I suppose for show, but, as the gentleman says, does not even come close to doing what the Republican majority has said that they intend to do. So I do not know quite how we are going to resolve this congressional session; but I do know that we need to come together, we need to be honest with one another and with the American people, and we need heretofore to abide by the rules of the budget process and never again go through this kind of deceptive and convoluted end-of-session budget game.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I was intrigued with the gentleman's suggestion about the various paths open to us to strengthen Social Security. I think it is worth mentioning that in 1983, when the Social Security Trust Fund was rescued and put on a path to solvency, we started deliberately running surpluses in Social Security, and we are enjoying those surpluses today. But we were running those surpluses for a purpose, so that the assets will be there when the baby-boomers retire and when the strains on the fund become much greater. Those surpluses are being invested by law in Treasury bonds at market rates of interest. But is it not true that when the time comes to make good on those obligations, we would have a terrible time doing that were we to be saddled with a publicly held national debt of the dimensions that we now are, $3.5 trillion, costing this country something like $230 billion annually in interest costs? So is it not prudent, is it not just common sense, to use our surpluses now to get that publicly held debt down, to get that interest cost off of our back? Ten years from now, 15 years from now, when the strains on the Social Security Trust Fund are much greater, then we will be in a much stronger position to make good on those obligations.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, let me first express gratitude to the administration and to the Congress for the actions already taken to relieve the suffering of the victims of Hurricane Floyd and to help rebuild North Carolina and other affected States. Our people are getting help, and I want to specifically thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh) and the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Mollohan) for their work to replenish FEMA's disaster account in the VA-HUD appropriations bill to make sure emergency aid will not be delayed. I want to thank the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Skeen), the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), and Secretary Glickman for their work to ensure that our farm families get a fair share of the limited disaster assistance in the agriculture appropriations bill. And we are deeply grateful for the dedication FEMA administrator James Lee Witt has demonstrated in service to our people. The problem is that the Agriculture Department's and FEMA's existing programs are not sufficient to the present need. Not everyone is being helped, and not everyone is getting the level of help that they need. This Congress has no business adjourning without finishing the job of addressing the immediate needs created by this disaster, and I want to do all I can to make sure the Federal Government does its part, as we have with other disasters in the past. We in Congress need to work in cooperation with the administration to help the victims of Hurricane Floyd get back on their feet, rebuild, and recover from their losses. In doing so, we can restore their faith in the future. The administration and Governor Jim Hunt have been working together to meet North Carolina's needs within existing programs to the maximum extent possible. In the process, they are reaching hard conclusions about what additional funding and authority will be necessary to meet the challenge in North Carolina and other States. I have strongly encouraged the President to expedite this process, for North Carolina and the other States, and to recommend to Congress the legislation necessary to respond. I am an optimist. I believe the administration and Congress will in fact cooperate and will in fact finish this job. I must say, though, that I have reservations that this resolution seems to create a new orthodoxy in the House that no supplemental or emergency appropriation is in order unless requested by the President. That simply is not so. In May, in fact, the House passed a supplemental appropriations bill that included $4.75 billion for the Department of Defense that the President did not request. We approved $332 million in agricultural funds that included livestock disaster assistance, housing repair, and flood operations, all items similar to what we are seeking for Floyd victims, and not one dime of that was asked for by the President. We included $1.3 billion in FEMA aid, including funds for the unmet need accounts, although the President requested no unmet needs program. The FEMA disaster relief item included $528 million more than the President had asked for. In total, the Congress approved more than $5 billion in excess of the administration's request. And by the same token, the Congress declined to appropriate many items that the President did recommend. My point, Mr. Speaker, is simple. Congress is not bound by the President's recommendations; neither is Congress prohibited from acting on a need prior to a presidential request. The House Committee on Appropriations did act in late September, at my request, to approve $508 million that the administration had not yet requested for Hurricane Floyd relief for farmers in the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill, and OMB subsequently endorsed that proposal. It is still unclear to me why the congressional leadership chose to strip those funds from that bill, which was cleared for the President this morning by the other body. So I hope this resolution is not intended to create a new requirement of a presidential request for disaster funding. This is a straitjacket the House has appropriately avoided in the past. It is one we should avoid with the Hurricane Floyd disaster and disasters in the future. Mr. Speaker, I choose to interpret this resolution as simply affirming that Congress and the President need to work together to respond to the suffering of the victims of Hurricane Floyd and to help rebuild the States that suffered Floyd's wrath. I hope that by passing this resolution we can get past any differences and move forward together to finish the job of assisting the victims of this terrible disaster.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this conference report. There are many grounds for objecting to the accounting gimmicks and the delayed payments in this bill, but the main objection hits very close to home: This bill has eliminated $508 million in emergency assistance for agricultural damage caused by Hurricane Floyd in North Carolina and other states. This assistance was approved unanimously by the Committee on Appropriations as a down payment on the crop and livestock losses that our farmers have suffered. It was accepted by our committee leadership very graciously. It is supported by the administration. Now it has been dropped. The bill contains lots of emergency spending for other purposes. Why, then, was the $508 million in flood relief stripped from the bill, while another $2 billion was added in emergency funding, including $400 million in refugee assistance? Assistance for refugees is admirable. I support it. But we have refugees from this storm, thousands of families who have lost their homes and possessions and may lose their farms. We have to help them get on their feet again. This bill is deceptive in its accounting and uncaring in its elimination of assistance to hurricane and flood victims. I urge my colleagues to vote no. Mr. Speaker I rise in opposition to this conference report. Despite laudable funding levels for many programs in the Labor/HHS/Education bill, it is fundamentally flawed in ways that require me to vote against it. This bill pushes $14 billion for ongoing programs into FY 2001, and delays $11 billion in obligations until the end of FY 2000 for the National Institutes of Health, the Head Start program, and other priorities. But cancer doesn't wait; diabetes and Parkinson's Disease don't wait. This is not just an accounting gimmick, although it certainly is that; it also will delay critical research on which thousands of desperately sick people are depending. The proposed 1 percent across-the-board cut in all discretionary accounts will also have real consequences for real people. According to the Office of Management and Budget, these cuts will deny childhood immunizations for up to 2,900 children, deny food and nutrition services to 71,000 women, infants, and children, and prevent 4,800 children and their families form receiving Head Start services. It is an irresponsible approach to reducing spending, since it does not distinguish between programs which might merit reductions and those which do not. The most egregious flaw for me is a personal one, since it primarily affects my home state. My colleagues know that North Carolina experienced its worst natural disaster in recorded history when Hurricanes Dennis, Floyd, and Irene pounded the eastern part of our state between late August and mid-October. Thousands of North Carolinians are still suffering from the aftermath of the floodwaters, which are only now receding below flood stage in many areas. Entire towns have been destroyed in some cases. Over 15,000 homes were damaged to the point of being unlivable, and the infrastructure in many areas was severely damaged. Eastern North Carolina is rural, and depends on a farm economy for sustenance. And unlike homeowners or small business owners, who are eligible for at least some direct assistance through FEMA or low- interest loans through the Small Business Administration, there is no authorized direct assistance program for losses suffered by farmers. The North Carolina delegation never had an opportunity to plead our case for emergency agriculture assistance through the Agriculture Appropriations conference, which would normally have been the proper place for such assistance. And while some of the $1.2 billion in agricultural assistance contained in that bill will benefit farmers in North Carolina and other affected states, substantial unmet needs still remain for our farmers. As a consequence, I offered an amendment to the Labor/HHS appropriations bill during Appropriations Committee consideration in late September to provide $508 million in emergency assistance for agricultural damages caused by Hurricanes Dennis and Floyd. Since damage estimates at that time were incomplete but clearly substantial, I argued that this funding should be provided as a down payment on the needs that farmers in North Carolina and other affected states would be shown to have. Chairmen Young and Porter graciously accepted the amendment, and it was approved unanimously by the committee on a voice vote. Likewise, the administration signaled its support for this funding. It seems highly unlikely that there will be a separate emergency supplemental bill this year to address the needs of states affected by the hurricanes and associated flooding. Our best and likely our only opportunity to provide timely assistance to the victims of this natural disaster is through pending FY 2000 appropriations bills--and Title X of the Labor-HHS bill, which contained this $508 million, was the obvious place to get the job done. The sensible thing would have been to use an updated estimate of emergency needs from North Carolina and the other states to refine the existing emergency provisions in the bill for agriculture and other areas of emergency need. The omission is made all the more conspicuous and indefensible by the other emergency spending the bill contains. Why was the $508 million in flood relief stripped from the bill while $2 billion in other emergency designations remains, including $1.1 billion for the standard Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program and $427 million for assistance to refugees? Both of these are important programs, but hardly appropriate for emergency funding. Assistance for refugees from other countries is admirable, and I support it--but we have refugees in North Carolina, too--thousands of families who have lost their homes and their possessions. We must help them get on their feet again. How can they interpret the elimination of this emergency assistance as anything but a sign that Congress holds their suffering in contempt and does not care about their real and immediate need? This bill is dishonest in its accounting and uncaring in its elimination of assistance to Hurricane victims. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I would like for the gentleman to tell us how much agricultural aid was in that VA-HUD bill? He is talking about FEMA aid. We are very grateful for that. Of course, we are grateful for that. But in the bill before us, we are talking about emergency aid to farmers who have no other way of getting direct payments for crop and livestock losses.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, my question is, how much of that would be available for direct aid to farmers for crop loss?

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, a tragic accident in Macedonia October 16 took the life of Dr. Charles Stanislaw, a North Carolina State University agriculture professor and cherished volunteer with the Volunteers in Overseas Cooperative Assistance, an international agriculture extension service organization. His passing has been met with an outpouring of love and admiration for his life's contributions. Charles Stanislaw, 65, grew up on a cattle farm in Pennsylvania, and managed a purebred beef cattle farm for three years before entering graduate school at Penn State University (M.S., 1962) and Oklahoma State University (Ph.D., 1966). Following graduate school, Dr. Stanislaw worked as a state Extension Swine Specialist with North Carolina State University. He developed and delivered educational programs in swine production for county agents in the areas of genetics and breeding, nutrition and feeding, building design, health management, and general production. He also managed the North Carolina Swine Demonstration Farm, supervised swine research units, and served in the National Swine Improvement Federation. Over 40 years of agriculture experience prepared him for his remarkable service in the Volunteers in Overseas Cooperative Assistance (VOCA). His work for VOCA in Macedonia and other countries reflected his commitment to service and to improving the lives of farmers around the world. The expertise and care he provided were extremely valuable to the people and places that needed them most. It was clear, as his wife Edythe has expressed, that Charles was doing something very important to him in a country he loved. An extremely popular volunteer, Charles was working on his tenth assignment for VOCA. His colleagues have described him as a teacher, diplomat, and beloved friend. Upon learning of Dr. Stanislaw's death, those he served in Macedonia came to the VOCA office to express their sympathy and grief. One Macedonian said that her entire farm was based on Charles's work, and in a way was a monument to him. Dr. Stanislaw had great interest in his Carpatho-Rusyn ancestry, helped establish a website for Porac, Slovakia, the birthplace of his parents, and was presented with the city's flag by the Mayor of Porac. In collaboration with Dr. Jan Babik of Kosice, Slovakia, he was writing a history of Porac. At home in North Carolina, Dr. Stanislaw was presented a Hall of Fame Award by the N.C. Pork Council ``in appreciation of outstanding contributions and leadership to the pork industry and the North Carolina Pork Council.'' Mr. Speaker, we mourn the passing of Dr. Charles Stanislaw with prayers for his wife, Edythe, two daughters, Christine Lynn and Leigh, their family and his many friends and admirers from Pennsylvania and North Carolina to Slovakia and Macedonia.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, there are a couple of strong hints that should make people suspicious as the majority brings this bill to the floor--hints that this bill is nothing more than a cynical effort to embarrass the President. First, we are being asked to consider the offsets from the President's budget but with no mention, no consideration, of the funding priorities for which the President proposed the offsets in the first place. Priorities like extending the solvency of Social Security and Medicare, providing the resources to hire new police officers and new teachers, and funding to allow States and localities to preserve land for conservation or recreation. The second hint that this bill is a farce and an attempt to distract us from the real issues is apparent when we consider what our Republican friends are not saying, in fact what they are studiously avoiding mentioning, namely, the spending offsets that they have themselves proposed. First, remember, they proposed taking away $3 billion dollars in TANF funds, funds dedicated to moving people off of welfare and on to work, but the Republican governors objected, so they backed off from that. Then they engineered the passage in the Appropriations Committee of an amendment to delay the payments of earned income tax credit benefits to the working poor. This was nothing less than a tax increase on the working poor, people who work hard every day and struggle to make ends meet. Governor George W. Bush objected to that, you will recall, so they now have pulled that proposal back. And now our Republican friends are talking about across-the-board spending cuts to appropriations bills. They need to find $23 billion in savings. That would require 6.6 percent across the board cuts in all programs, for example $18.2 billion in defense and $1.4 billion in veterans health care, and even more if we exempt those categories, so that cuts in Head Start, health research, education, environmental protection, and other critical programs would be even deeper. Instead of today's cynical effort to embarrass the President, the majority should be working with the minority to produce conference reports on the remaining appropriations bills which can gain bipartisan support and be signed into law by the President. We did it with the VA- HUD appropriations bill; there is no reason why we cannot do it with these remaining appropriations bills. We need to stop the political grandstanding, and we need to deal honestly and in good faith with the fiscal situation that our country faces.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time, and I commend her for her hard work to focus attention and action on disaster relief in the bill. I think everyone in this body is aware of the disaster that has befallen our farmers, our citizens in North Carolina and other States up and down the Eastern Seaboard with Hurricane Dennis and Hurricane Floyd. Our communities have been severely damaged, our infrastructure, our farms. Mr. Speaker, it is already estimated that the overall damages in North Carolina for this hurricane will exceed the 6 billion in damages we experienced with Hurricane Fran, which was our historical high point up to this year. Too many North Carolinians are still in shelters, and many have returned home or will return home to find out they have lost everything. Estimates from the United States Department of Agriculture and the North Carolina Department of Agriculture now are approaching 2 billion in agricultural losses alone for North Carolina alone, $2 billion. Now, consider the amount of disaster relief in this bill. When we look at that, Mr. Speaker, we realize how pitifully inadequate it is. It is $1.2 billion, and it is supposed to meet the needs of both drought and flood relief. The State Departments of Agriculture in the Southeastern and Eastern States, drought States, have estimated that the need for drought assistance alone is $2.5 billion. That is before anyone had ever heard of Hurricane Floyd. And unlike aid to homeowners and businesses, direct aid cannot go to farmers unless we appropriate it in this or a comparable bill. Farmers need immediate assistance, and we ought to give it to them, yet there was never any real opportunity for the conference to consider disaster assistance. Before the conference had sufficient opportunity to take up this issue, the bill was taken by the majority leadership from the hands of the conferees. So, Mr. Speaker, we are forced to ask, what are we going to do? How are we going to get this assistance to the people who so desperately need it? Yesterday I offered, and the Committee on Appropriations approved, an amendment to the Labor HHS appropriations bill to provide 508 million for direct assistance to farmers in all the states affected by Hurricane Floyd for crop and livestock losses. The Labor-HHS bill is not the normal vehicle for agriculture disaster assistance, but fortunately, Appropriations Committee leaders, Mr. Young and Mr. Porter, as well as Mr. Obey, accommodated us, and we got this done. That is not the way this process is supposed to work, but it was made necessary by the inadequacy of this agriculture appropriations bill. Farmers in North Carolina and the other states affected by natural disasters need our help now, and that need is greater than what is provided in this bill.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, it was a source of encouragement to our State for the President to come to North Carolina yesterday, as the gentleman has said, and to have Secretary Rodney Slater there from the Department of Transportation, to have our small business administrator, Ms. Alvarez, with us; to have, from the Department of Agriculture, the chief of the National Resources Service, Pearlie Reed. The President brought a message of hope and of solidarity, pointing out that we are all in this together. This is the kind of disaster that makes us realize we are all one community. As the gentleman said, the agricultural aspect of this is particularly devastating. The U.S. Department of Agriculture there on the scene in North Carolina has come up with some preliminary figures, now well over $1 billion in damage estimates. That includes everything from housing to community facilities to watershed protection efforts to emergency conservation programs and crop disaster assistance. It comes to $1.19 billion, the estimates from North Carolina at this moment. And of course the water has not even receded yet.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, there are heart-rending tales. We spoke with many, many people in Tarboro who have gone through things no one should ever have to endure in losing their homes, losing their possessions, and, in some cases, losing the lives of family members. But it is also at the same time inspiring to see the way people are working together and to see the spirit and the spunk. Also, I think we should pay tribute here, I think we all feel this, to the cooperative effort that governmental agencies are making. Our governor, Jim Hunt, has been tireless in his work. Our Secretary of Crime Control and Public Safety, Richard Moore, has been on the scene. State agencies, local law enforcement, the National Guard, and the Federal Government is holding up its end of the bargain. I must say the work of the Small Business Administration and FEMA. James Lee Witt was with us there yesterday, and he is working with us at this moment on how we can craft a disaster assistance package. So we are very grateful for what has already happened, but we are going to have to be in this for the long haul.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, people talk about 100-year flood. In some areas, this is a 500-year flood. There are areas flooded now that in no one's memory have ever been flooded before. It is unbelievable the extent of devastation, far beyond what could have reasonably been predicted.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, one aspect of this that is going to confront us in the weeks ahead is the environmental disaster that this represents. When we were in the helicopter flying down to Tarboro where the President spoke and where we met with community leaders and people who have been displaced by this disaster, we went to a shelter where people were talking about how difficult it was. They are, of course, happy to be alive; but it is tough in those shelters. The kids get restless. The situation is uncertain. People have no home to go back to in many cases. But going down there, looking from the air, the unholy stew of hog waste overflows and municipal systems being overflown and storage tanks, gasoline storage tanks being uprooted, spilling, it is an awful environmental disaster. The people cannot drink this water. People cannot, of course, have any drainage or any sewage systems. So it is a disaster that is going to be with us for a long time to come. The cleanup is going to take a long time. It is going to be very expensive. We are going to need our colleagues here to help us with disaster assistance. As this agricultural aid goes through, this very definitely needs to be a part of it.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me. Mr. Chairman, we have an opportunity today to take a serious step toward cleaning up elections financially and otherwise. The Shays- Meehan bill closes the soft money loophole that has made a mockery of the existing contribution limits. It holds advocacy groups accountable for the money they raise and spend in campaigns. It strengthens enforcement. And it includes a variant of my stand-by-your-ad bill to make candidates and committees more accountable for the ads they run. Stand-by-your-ad was first introduced by the gentleman from California (Mr. Horn) and myself 2 years ago. It is a good North Carolina idea originated by Lieutenant Governor Dennis Wicker, recently passed by our General Assembly and signed into law. It will make candidates think twice before running mud-slinging or distorted ads, for the sponsoring candidate will have to appear in that ad and take responsibility for it. Shays-Meehan is legislation we should have passed months ago, but I am pleased that this bill is finally on the House floor. Many of us wish the bill did more, but it is a compromise worthy of our support. I urge defeat of all substitutes and passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, today I am proud to be among the Members signing a discharge petition to bring school modernization tax credits to the House floor. I come from the Triangle district of North Carolina, where quality education is valued and where a trained work force is a necessity. Yet thousands of our students are going to school in hundreds of trailers. The school modernization bill of the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) would address this need. I am also cosponsoring with 90 other Members the School Construction Act introduced by the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Etheridge), especially targeted to high growth areas like the one I represent. Our approach is nonintrusive. We are providing tax credits to bondholders. We are not telling local authorities when or how to build. But we are saying to local communities, as they take on these obligations, that the Federal tax code will help them stretch their scarce dollars further. Let us get our kids out of trailers and into modern, well-equipped classrooms, where teachers can teach and students can learn. Let's get our priorities straight.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to the Burton amendment and ask permission to include the full text of my remarks in the Record. Mr. Chairman, I rise again this year to oppose the Burton amendment which would unfairly and unwisely cut foreign assistance to India. As this body has done repeatedly in the past, I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment. Adoption of this amendment would send the wrong message at the wrong time. We have recently witnessed the de-escalation of a dangerous confrontation between the world's two newest nuclear powers, India and Pakistan. Rather than praising India for the restraint it demonstrated during the recent situation in Jammu and Kashmir, the Burton amendment would rebuff India and, in targeting humanitarian aid, would punish the poorest and neediest people in a country where 500 million live below the poverty line. We are all aware of tensions in our relationship with India because of the nuclear tests fourteen months ago. Over the past year, however, we have made significant progress in intense bilateral talks between the United States and India. India has expressed readiness to cooperate in developing a multilateral agreement to halt production of fissile materials and to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. We need to be encouraging this sort of progress. The Burton amendment could stop it cold. India has made significant progress in liberalizing her economy and increasing trade and investment. The momentum created by these reforms would also be impeded by passage of the Burton amendment. United States businesses are India's number one overseas investor. Some 107 Fortune 500 countries are currently invested in India, and United States high tech firms see India as one of the world's most important developing markets. Mr. Chairman, the United States must work with India to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons, to address the security concerns of the region, and to safeguard the progress that has been made in protecting human rights. This amendment would not merely affect the level of assistance, which is already extremely limited, but far more significantly, would stigmatize India at precisely the moment we need most to build trust. I urge my colleagues to vote no on this amendment.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, ``Katy bar the door. Spend every cent before you put a penny in your pocket.'' This Republican tax bill is the height of fiscal irresponsibility and economic folly. I am proud to support the carefully crafted Democratic substitute, balanced among the goals of debt reduction, Social Security and Medicare solvency, and meeting our pressing defense and domestic obligations. It contains a prudent, affordable tax relief package targeted to the hard-pressed families and communities that need it most, and it gives us the flexibility to ride out the storm if these sunny projections do not pan out. It will let us sustain our economic health and keep our fiscal House in order. Now, why would anyone want to oppose an $800 billion tax cut? Well, let me give my colleagues a few reasons, and I will go until my time runs out and put the rest in the Record. Reason number one. It bets the store on the accuracy of 10-year surplus projections. It seems the party of ``rosy scenarios'' has learned nothing. Two. It contains not one dime for extending the solvency of Medicare. Three. It foregoes hundreds of billions of dollars in debt reduction and interest savings. Four. It almost certainly will lead to higher inflation and higher interest rates, thus canceling out the supposed benefits of lower taxes. Five. It leaves no room in the budget for the investment we must make in military pay and readiness, in health care for our veterans, in building highways and transit, in health and other critical research, and in improving public education. We are already struggling to meet these obligations and the Republican bill would leave us unable to even adjust present expenditures for inflation. Six. According to the Treasury Department, it concentrates two-thirds of its benefits on the wealthiest ten percent of our population. Citizens for Tax Justice estimates that the tax windfall to the wealthiest one percent would equal the benefits to the lower 90 percent. Seven. It locks in a tax cut that gives us limited flexibility if these projections are wrong. It could force us to divert the Social Security surplus. It would almost surely spell fiscal ruin in the second ten years when its cost would balloon to almost $3 trillion. Eight is actually multiple choice. Choice A is for those who believe the trigger, which cancels the across the board cut if the projections are wrong, is on the level. This will create year-to-year uncertainty in the tax code. Taxpayers won't know even what the tax rate is until the final budget figures are published by the Treasury. Choice B is for those who think the trigger is a fig leaf for Republican moderates to hide behind in order to fold their principles once again to the conservative wing of their party. Passing such an artifice, such a sham as a part of a tax bill is beneath this House. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote for the Rangel substitute.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the bipartisan Campbell-Maloney-Gilman amendment to restore funding to the United Nations Population Fund and in opposition to the Smith amendment. And in response to the most recent speaker on the other side, I think it is important to underscore once again the Campbell amendment provides no family planning money to China, it provides no family planning money for abortions. International family planning assistance is essential though in addressing two of the greatest challenges that face the developing world, providing better health care to women and reducing the rate of child mortality. That is what we ought to be focusing on here tonight. Over 585,000 women a year die from complications due to pregnancy and childbirth. UNFPA extends prenatal and postnatal care and counseling, increasing the chance for survival for Third World children and their mothers. By simply teaching women to space their children 2 years apart, the UNFPA helps increase the survival rate for these children by almost 30 percent. U.S. contributions to UNFPA also help prevent abortions, and we seem in some danger of losing sight of that tonight. I presume we all share that goal. Continuing to withhold U.S. funding for UNFPA will contribute to an estimated 500,000 unplanned pregnancies. That means abortions, perhaps 200,000 more abortions it has been estimated, as well as 1,200 maternal deaths, and 22,500 infant deaths. Studies show a clear link between the introduction of family planning services in Mexico, Columbia, Hungary, Russia, central Asian republics and a decline in the number of abortions. With this one vote, Mr. Chairman, we can help improve women's health, we can decrease child mortality, we can dramatically reduce the number of abortions worldwide. The United States cannot fail to meet these responsibilities. I urge a ``yes'' vote on the Gilman-Campbell-Maloney amendment.

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina

Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Chairman, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.