Ron Paul

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, later this month I will attend the 40th anniversary celebration of the Bay City Girls Softball Association. The Association has a distinguished history of providing recreational opportunities to girls in Bay City, Texas. Begun in 1959 with the fielding of the Delta Sparks by Lila Ray and Jerry Babik, currently the association serves youth ages 4 to 18. Among the honors received by the group are induction in 1975 of the Bay City VIPs led by Coach Ratliff into to the National Amateur Softball Association Hall of Fame, and the receipt of the National Association's ``Most Improved Award'' in 1944. With heroic community leaders like Jack Rice and Palmer Robbins and recent activists such as Mike Mariner, Judd Perry, J.B. Smith and Dennis Mueck the business of preparing and making available playing fields for the association has been a real community effort in Bay City. And, with a storied history including legendary players like Patty Branagan, Diane Herreth, Carol Ray, Jeannie Mathis, Linda Babik, Diana Slliva and Connie Brooks and renowned coach Lila Ray the ladies have certainly made the most of these opportunities. Mr. Speaker, I wish to commend and congratulate the Bay City Girls Softball Association and all the community activists who contribute to this association, on this the 40th Anniversary celebration of this important group.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay honor to the winners of the National High School Cheerleading Championship sponsored by the Universal Cheerleaders Association--the Victoria High School Varsity Cheerleaders from Victoria, Texas. Under the able leadership of Denise Neel and Terese Reese, the squad of teens took the title for 1999 following an impressive history of second place in 1998, and third place in 1997. Each year, the cheerleaders set their mark higher, worked harder, trained longer, and kept their eyes on their goal. Their training and perseverance paid off when they brought the national trophy home to their school. The cheerleaders competed against a field of 74 squads in the Medium Varsity Division to reach the national trials. There, they competed against the thirteen regional finalists, coming out on top. The VHS cheerleading team is the first Texas squad to ever win the National Championship. In addition to their cheerleading duties which include cheering at every sporting event held by their school and a rigorous practice schedule, each of these girls must maintain a grade of at least 80 in each class. They also participate in numerous community activities, such as the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life and the March of Dimes Walk America. Additionally, they worked with the elementary and middle schools during TAAS testing and Red Ribbon Week, and the Gulf Bend Mental Health-Mental Retardation during Friendship Fest. This group of students deserve the honor they have earned. I commend each one of them: Liz Lasater and Kendra Serold--Co-Head Cheerleaders Natalie Cole Leah Green Melissa Myers Laurie Beck Lindy Burns Amy Reimann Amber Clemmons Sara Dickson Courtney Horecka Haley Kolle Amanda Rodriquez Karla Sterne Melissa Keefe Chelsie Luhn Sara Carville I am proud to have these national champions in the 14th Congressional District of Texas, and trust all my colleagues join me in congratulating them on this impressive achievement.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, the President has stated that should a peace treaty be signed between Serbia and Kosovo he plans to send in at least 4,000 American soldiers as part of a NATO peacekeeping force. We, the Congress, have been informed through a public statement by the President that troops will be sent. We have not been asked to act in a constitutional fashion to grant the President permission to act. He is not coming to us to fully explain his intentions. The President is making a public statement as to his intentions and we are expected to acquiesce, to go along with the funding, and not even debate the issue, just as we are doing in Iraq. That is not a proper constitutional procedure and it should be condemned. Silence in the past, while accommodating our Presidents in all forms of foreign adventurism from Korea and Vietnam to Iraq and Bosnia, should not be the standard the Congress follows. The Constitution is clear: Our Presidents, from Washington to Roosevelt, all knew that initiating war was clearly the prerogative of the Congress, but our memories are flawed and our reading of the law is careless. The President should not be telling us what he plans to do, he should be giving us information and asking our advice. We are responsible for the safety of our troops, how taxpayers' dollars are spent, the security of our Nation, and especially the process whereby our Nation commits itself to war. Citing NATO agreements or U.N. resolutions as authority for moving troops into war zones should alert us all to the degree to which the rule of law has been undermined. The President has no war power, only the Congress has that. When one person can initiate war, by its definition, a republic no longer exists. The war power, taken from the Congress 50 years ago, must be restored. If not, the conclusion must be that the Constitution of the United States can and has been amended by presidential fiat or treaty, both excluding the House of Representatives from performing its duty to the American people in preventing casual and illegal wars. Some claim that the Kosovo involvement must be clarified as to where the money will come to finance it, the surplus or Social Security. This misses the point. We have and should exert the power of the purse, but a political argument over surpluses versus Social Security is hardly the issue. Others have said that support should be withheld until an exit strategy is clearly laid out. But the debate should not be over the exit strategy. It is the entry process that counts. The war powers process was set early on by our Presidents in dealing with the North African pirates in the early 19th century. Jefferson and Madison, on no less than 10 occasions, got Congress to pass legislation endorsing each military step taken. It has clearly been since World War II that our Presidents have assumed power not granted to them by the Constitution, and Congress has been negligent in doing little to stop this usurpation. In the case of Kosovo, no troops should be sent without the consent of Congress. Vague discussion about whether or not the money will come out of Social Security or the budget surplus or call for an exit strategy will not suffice. If the war power is taken from the President and returned to the Congress, we would then automatically know the funds would have to be appropriated and the exit strategy would be easy: when we win the war. Vague police actions authorized by the United Nations or NATO, and implemented by the President without congressional approval, invites disasters with perpetual foreign military entanglements. The concept of national sovereignty and the rule of law must be respected or there is no purpose for the Constitution.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the Education Improvement Tax Cut Act of 1999. This act, a companion to my Family Education Freedom Act, takes a further step toward returning control over education resources to private citizens by providing a $3,000 tax credit for donations to scholarship funds to enable low-income children to attend private schools. It also encourages private citizens to devote more of their resources to helping public schools, by providing a $3,000 tax credit for cash or in-kind donations to public schools to support academic or extra curricular programs. I need not remind my colleagues that education is one of, if not the top priority of the American people. After all, many members of Congress have proposed education reforms and a great deal of their time is spent debating these proposals. However, most of these proposals either expand federal control over education or engage in the pseudo- federalism of block grants. I propose we go in a different direction by embracing true federalism by returning control over the education dollar to the American people. One of the major problems with centralized control over education funding is that spending priorities set by Washington-based Representatives, staffers, and bureaucrats do not necessarily match the needs of individual communities. In fact, it would be a miracle if spending priorities determined by the wishes of certain politically powerful Representatives or the theories of Education Department functionaries match the priorities of every community in a country as large and diverse as America. Block grants do not solve this problem as they simply allow states and localities to choose the means to reach federally-determined ends. Returning control over the education dollar for tax credits for parents and for other concerned citizens returns control over the ends of education policy to local communities. People in one community may use this credit to purchase computers, while children in another community may, at last, have access to a quality music program because of community leaders who took advantage of the tax credit contained in this bill. Children in some communities may benefit most from the opportunity to attend private, parochial, or other religious schools. One of the most encouraging trends in education has been the establishment of private scholarship programs. These scholarship funds use voluntary contributions to open the doors of quality private schools to low- income children. By providing a tax credit for donations to these programs, Congress can widen the educational opportunities and increase the quality of education for all children. Furthermore, privately- funded scholarships raise none of the concerns of state entanglement raised by publicly-funded vouchers. There is no doubt that Americans will always spend generously on education, the question is, ``who should control the education dollar-- politicians and bureaucrats or the American people?'' Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in placing control of education back in the hands of citizens and local communities by sponsoring the Education Improvement Tax Cut Act of 1999.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the Teacher Tax Cut Act. This bill provides every teacher in America with a $1,000 tax credit, thus raising every teacher's take-home pay without increasing federal spending. Passage of this bill is a major first step toward treating those who have dedicated their lives to educating America's children with the respect they deserve. Compared to other professionals teachers are underappreciated and underpaid. This must change if America is to have the finest education system in the world! Quality education is impossible without quality teaching. If we want to ensure that the teaching profession attracts the very best people possible we must make sure that teachers receive the compensation they deserve. For too long now, we have seen partisan battles and displays of heightened rhetoric about who wants to provide the most assistance to education distract us from our important work of removing government-imposed barriers to educational excellence. Since America's teachers are underpaid because they are overtaxed, the best way to raise teacher take-home pay is to reduce their taxes. Simply by raising teacher's take-home pay via a $1,000 tax credit we can accomplish a number of important things. First, we show a true commitment to education. We also let America's teachers know that the American people and the Congress respect their work. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, by raising teacher take-home pay, the Teacher Tax Cut Act encourages high-quality professionals to enter, and remain in, the teaching profession. In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I once again ask my colleagues to put aside partisan bickering and unite around the idea of helping educators by supporting the Teacher Tax Cut Act.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce the Family Education Freedom Act of 1999, a bill to empower millions of working-and middle- class Americans to choose a non-public education for their children, as well as making it easier for parents to actively participate in improving public schools. The Family Education Freedom Act accomplishes its goals by allowing American parents a tax credit of up to $3,000 for the expenses incurred in sending their child to private, public, parochial, other religious school, or for home schooling their children. The Family Education Freedom Act returns the fundamental principal of a truly free economy to America's education system: what the great economist Ludwig von Mises called ``consumer sovereignty.'' Consumer sovereignty simply means consumers decide who succeeds or fails in the market. Businesses that best satisfy consumer demand will be the most successful. Consumer sovereignty is the means by which the free market maximizes human happiness. Currently, consumers are less than sovereign in the education ``market.'' Funding decisions are increasingly controlled by the federal government. Because ``he who pays the piper calls the tune,'' public, and even private schools, are paying greater attention to the dictates of federal ``educrats'' while ignoring the wishes of the parents to an ever-greater degree. As such, the lack of consumer sovereignty in education is destroying parental control of education and replacing it with state control. Loss of control is a key reason why so many of America's parents express dissatisfaction with the educational system. According to a recent study by The Polling Company, over 70% of all Americans support education tax credits! This is just one of numerous studies and public opinion polls showing that Americans want Congress to get the federal bureaucracy out of the schoolroom and give parents more control over their children's education. Today, Congress can fulfill the wishes of the American people for greater control over their children's education by simply allowing parents to keep more of their hard-earned money to spend on education rather than force them to send it to Washington to support education programs reflective only of the values and priorities of Congress and the federal bureaucracy. The $3,000 tax credit will make a better education affordable for millions of parents. Mr. Speaker, many parents who would choose to send their children to private, religious, or parochial schools are unable to afford the tuition, in large part because of the enormous tax burden imposed on the American family by Washington. The Family Education Freedom Act also benefits parents who choose to send their children to public schools. Although public schools are traditionally financed through local taxes, increasingly, parents who wish their children to receive a quality education may wish to use their credit to improve their schools by helping financing the purchase of educational tools such as computers or extracurricular activities such as music programs. Parents of public school students may also wish to use the credit to pay for special services for their children. Greater parental support and involvement is surely a better way to improve public schools than funneling more federal tax dollars, followed by greater federal control, into the public schools. Furthermore, a greater reliance on parental expenditures rather than government tax dollars will help make the public schools into true community schools that reflect the wishes of parents and the interests of the students. The Family Education Freedom Act will also aid those parents who choose to educate their children at home. Home schooling has become an increasingly popular, and successful method, of educating children. According to recent studies, home schooled children out-perform their public school peers by 30 to 37 percentile points across all subjects on nationally standardized achievement exams. Home schooling parents spend thousands of dollars annually, in addition to the wages forgone by the spouse who forgoes outside employment, in order to educate their children in the loving environment of the home. Ultimately, Mr. Speaker, this bill is about freedom. Parental control of child rearing, especially education, is one of the bulwarks of liberty. No nation can remain free when the state has greater influence over the knowledge and values transmitted to children than the family. By moving to restore the primacy of parents to education, the Family Education Freedom Act will not only improve America's education, it will restore a parent's right to choose how best to educate one's own child, a fundamental freedom that has been eroded by the increase in federal education expenditures and the corresponding decrease in the ability of parents to provide for their children's education out of their own pockets. I call on all my colleagues to join me in allowing parents to devote more of their resources to their children's education and less to feed the wasteful Washington bureaucracy by supporting the Family Education Freedom Act.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 514, and in support of the Wilson amendment. The passage of this legislation will, as does so much of the legislation we pass, move our nation yet another step close to a national police state by further expanding a federal crime and empowering more federal police--this time at the Federal Communications Commission. Despite recent and stern warnings by both former U.S. attorney general Edwin Meese III and current U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, the Congress seems compelled to ride the current wave of federally criminalizing every human misdeed in the name of saving the world from some evil rather than to uphold a Constitutional oath which prescribes a procedural structure by which the nation is protected from totalitarianism. Our federal government is, constitutionally, a government of limited powers. Article one, Section eight, enumerates the legislative areas for which the U.S. Congress is allowed to act or enact legislation. For every issue, the federal government lacks any authority or consent of the governed and only the state governments, their designees, or the people in their private market actions enjoy such rights to governance. The tenth amendment is brutally clear in stating ``The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.'' Our nation's history makes clear that the U.S. Constitution is a document intended to limit the power of central government. No serious reading of historical events surrounding the creation of the Constitution could reasonably portray it differently. Of course, there will be those who will hand their constitutional ``hats'' on the interstate commerce or general welfare clauses, both of which have been popular ``headgear'' since the plunge into New Deal Socialism. Perhaps, more dangerous is the loss of another Constitutional protection which comes with the passage of more and more federal criminal legislation. Constitutionally, there are only three federal crimes. These are treason against the United States, piracy on the high seas, and counterfeiting (and, as mentioned above, for a short period of history, the manufacture, sale, or transport of alcohol was concurrently a federal and state crime). ``Concurrent'' jurisdiction crimes, such as alcohol prohibition in the past and eavesdropping today, erode the right of citizens to be free of double jeopardy. The fifth amendment to the U.S. Constitution specifies that no ``person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb . . .'' In other words, no person shall be tried twice for the same offense. However, in United States v. Lanza, the high court in 1922 sustained a ruling that being tried by both the federal government and a state government for the same offense did not offend the doctrine of double jeopardy. One danger of unconstitutionally expanding the federal justice code is that it seriously increases the danger that one will be subject to being tried twice for the same crime. Despite the various pleas for federal correction of societal wrongs, a national police force is neither prudent nor constitutional. The argument which springs from the criticism of a federalized criminal code and a federal police force is that states may be less effective than a centralized federal government in dealing with those who leave one state jurisdiction for another. Fortunately, the Constitution provides for the procedural means for preserving the integrity of state sovereignty over those issues delegated to it via the tenth amendment. Article IV, Section 2, Clause 2 makes provision for the rendition of fugitives from one state to another. While not self-enacting, in 1783 Congress passed an act which did exactly this. There is, of course, a cost imposed upon states in working with one another rather than relying on a national, unified police force. At the same time, there is a greater cost to centralization of police power. It is important to be reminded of the benefits of federalism as well as the costs. There are sound reasons to maintain a system of smaller, independent jurisdictions--it is called competition and governments must, for the sake of the citizenry, be allowed to compete. We have obsessed so much over the notion of ``competition'' in this country we harangue someone like Bill Gates when, by offering superior products to every other similarly-situated entity, he becomes the dominant provider of certain computer products. Rather than allow someone who serves to provide values as made obvious by their voluntary exchanges in the free market, we lambaste efficiency and economies of scale in the private marketplace. Yet, at the same time, we further centralize government, the ultimate monopoly and one empowered by force rather than voluntary exchange. As government becomes more centralized, it becomes much more difficult to vote with one's feet to escape the relatively more oppressive governments. Governmental units must remain small with ample opportunity for citizen mobility both to efficient governments and away from those which tend to be oppressive. Centralization of criminal law makes such mobility less and less practical. For each of these reasons, among others, I must oppose the further and unconstitutional centralization of police power in the national government and, accordingly, H.R. 514.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, the threats of bombing did not bring a peace agreement to Kosovo. The President has no authority to wage war, and yet Congress says nothing. When will Congress assume its war power authority to rein in the President? An endless military occupation of Bosnia is ignored by Congress, and the spending rolls on, and yet there is no lasting peace. For 9 years, bombing Iraq and killing innocent Iraqi children with sanctions has done nothing to restore stability to Iraq, but it has served to instill an ever-growing hatred toward America. It is now clear that the threats of massive bombing of Serbia have not brought peace to Kosovo. Congress must assume its responsibility. It must be made clear that the President has no funds available to wage war without congressional approval. This is our prerogative. Therefore, the endless threats of bombing should cease. Congress should not remain timid. Merely telling the President to reconsider his actions will have little effect. We must be firm and deny the funds to wage war without our consent. We live in a republic, not a monarchy.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce the Davis-Bacon Repeal Act of 1999. The Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 forces contractors on all federally-funded contraction projects to pay the ``local prevailing wage,'' defined as ``the wage paid to the majority of the laborers or mechanics in the classification on similar projects in the area.'' In practice, this usually means the wages paid by unionized contractors. For more than sixty years, this congressionally-created monstrosity has penalized taxpayers and the most efficient companies while crushing the dreams of the most willing workers. Mr. Speaker, Congress must act now to repeal this 61-year-old relic of an era during which people actually believed Congress could legislate prosperity. Americans pay a huge price in lost jobs, lost opportunities and tax-boosting cost overruns on federal construction projects every day Congress allows Davis-Bacon to remain on the books. Davis-Bacon artificially inflates construction costs through a series of costly work rules and requirements. For instance, under Davis-Bacon, workers who perform a variety of tasks must be paid at the highest applicable skilled journeyman rate. Thus, a general laborer who hammers a nail must now be classified as a ``carpenter,'' and paid as much as three times the company's regular rate. As a result of this, unskilled workers can be employed only if the company can afford to pay the government-determined ``prevailing wages'' and training can be provided only through a highly regulated apprenticeship program. Some experts have estimated the costs of complying with the paperwork imposed on contractors by Davis-Bacon regulations at nearly $200 million a year. Of course, this doesn't measure the costs in lost job opportunities because firms could not afford to hire an inexperienced worker. Most small construction firms cannot afford to operate under Davis- Bacon's rigid job classifications or hire the staff of lawyers and accountants needed to fill out the extensive paperwork required to bid on a federal contract. Therefore, Davis-Bacon prevents small firms from bidding on federal construction projects, which, unfortunately, constitute 20 percent of all construction projects in the United States. Because most minority-owned construction firms are small companies, Davis-Bacon keeps minority-owned firms from competing for federal construction contracts. The resulting disparities in employment create a demand for affirmative action, another ill-suited and ill-advised big government program. The racist effects of Davis-Bacon are no mere coincidence. In fact, many original supporters of Davis-Bacon, such as Representative Clayton Allgood, bragged about supporting Davis-Bacon as a means of keeping ``cheap colored labor'' out of the construction industry. In addition to opening up new opportunities in the construction industry for smaller construction firms and their employees, repeal of Davis-Bacon would also return common sense and sound budgeting to federal contracting which is now rife with political favoritism and cronyism. An audit conducted earlier this year by the Labor Department's Office of the Inspector General found that inaccurate data were frequently used in Davis-Bacon wage determination. Although the Inspector General's report found no evidence of deliberate fraud, it did uncover material errors in five states' wage determinations, causing wages or fringe benefits for certain crafts to be overstated by as much as $1.08 per hour! The most compelling reason to repeal Davis-Bacon is to benefit to the American taxpayer. The Davis-Bacon Act drives up the cost of federal construction costs by as much as 50 percent. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office has reported that repealing Davis-Bacon would save the American taxpayer almost three billion dollars in four years! Mr. Speaker, it is time to finally end this patently unfair, wildly inefficient and grossly discriminatory system of bidding on federal construction contracts. Repealing the Davis-Bacon Act will save taxpayers billions of dollars on federal construction costs, return common sense and sound budgeting to federal contracting, and open up opportunities in the construction industry to those independent contractors, and their employees, who currently cannot bid on federal projects because they cannot afford the paperwork requirements imposed by this act. I, therefore, urge all my colleagues to join me in supporting the Davis-Bacon Repeal Act of 1999.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, we have troops in 144 countries of the world today. President Clinton has announced that he will now send troops to Kosovo. We are bombing in Iraq on a daily basis. We have been in Bosnia now for three years, although we were supposed to be there for six months. We should not go into Kosovo; we should not go there, absolutely, without congressional approval. I have introduced legislation that will prevent the President from sending troops to further expand our intervention around the world without congressional approval. This is very, very important. We are spending so much money on intervention in so many countries around the world at the same time our national defense is being diminished. Worst of all, the President is planning to put these thousands of troops under a British commander. It is time we took it upon ourselves to exert our authority to restrain the President in spreading troops around the world.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, since World War II, our presidents have been sending troops overseas without Congressional approval. Prior to World War II, it was traditional and constitutional that all presidents came to the Congress for authority to send troops. Recently, the President has announced that he will most likely be sending thousands of American troops under NATO command to Kosovo. I think this is wrong. I have introduced legislation today that says that the President cannot send these troops without Congressional approval, merely restating what the Constitution says and how we followed the rules up until World War II. Three years ago, the President sent troops into Bosnia and said they would be there for 6 months. They have been there now 3 years. We have spent over $20 billion. Nobody even asks hardly at all anymore when these troops will be coming home. We have been bombing and interfering with the security of Iraq for now over 8 years, and that continues, and we do not give Congressional approval of these acts. My legislation is simple. It just denies funding for sending troops into Kosovo without Congressional approval. This is not complicated. It is very precise and very clear and very important that we as a Congress restate our constitutional obligation to supervise the sending of troops around the world. It would be much better for us to spend this money that is being wasted in Bosnia and Iraq on our national defense. We spend less and less money every year on national defense but we spend more and more money on policing the world. I think that policy ought to change and it is the responsibility of the Congress, the body that has control of the purse strings, to do something about this. If the President is permitted to do this, he does it not because he has constitutional authority but because the Congress has reneged on their responsibility to supervise the spending. It is a bit ironic now that we are sending or planning to send troops to Kosovo. We have all read about and heard the horrible stories about the Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, and yet our troops going to Kosovo are going to be sent with the intention that Kosovo cannot be independent; that they will not be able to separate themselves from Serbia; that they cannot decide under what government they want to live. It is also interesting that one of the jobs of the troops in NATO, if they go into Kosovo, will be to disarm the Kosovo Liberation Army. That is hardly good sense. First, it is not good sense for us to give the permission or renege on our responsibility, but it does not make good sense to get involved in a war that has been going on for many years, but it certainly does not make good sense for us to go in for the sole purpose of supporting Milosevic. He is the one that has been bombing the Kosovars and here we are, we want to disarm the liberation forces and at the same time prevent Kosovo from becoming independent. The issue here is money, but there is also a bigger issue and that is the responsibility that we have to decide when troops should be sent. Once troops are sent into a foreign country, it is very difficult for us to bring our troops home. Troops in Kosovo will not serve the interests of the United States. They will not help our national security. It will drain funds that should be spent on national defense. At the same time it will jeopardize our national security by endangering our troops and raising the possibility of us becoming involved in a war spreading through the Balkans. This should not occur. So, Mr. Speaker, I am asking my fellow colleagues to join me in cosponsoring this legislation just to say that it is not the prerogative of the President to send troops around the world whenever he pleases. That is the prerogative of the Congress. I do know that it has not been stated this clearly in the last 40 years, but it is about time we did. And besides, one thing more, the President has admitted, at least it has been in print, that he is likely to place these troops under a foreign commander, under a British general. Mr. Speaker, we do not need this. We need to restrain the President's ability to send troops.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, I have great concern for the future of the American Republic. Many Americans argue that we are now enjoying the best of times. Others concern themselves with problems less visible but smouldering beneath the surface. Those who are content point out that the economy is booming, we are not at war, crime rates are down, and the majority of Americans feel safe and secure in their homes and community. Others point out that economic booms, when brought about artificially with credit creation, are destined to end with a bang. The absence of overt war does not negate the fact that tens of thousands of American troops are scattered around the world in the middle of ancient fights not likely to be settled by our meddling and may escalate at any time. Madam Speaker, the relinquishing of the power to wage war by Congress to the President, although ignored or endorsed by many, raises serious questions regarding the status of our Republic, and although many Americans are content with their routine activities, much evidence demonstrating that our personal privacy is routinely being threatened. Crime still remains a concern for many with questions raised as to whether or not violent crimes are accurately reported, and ironically there are many Americans who now fear that dreaded Federal bureaucrat and possible illegal seizure of their property by the government more than they do the thugs in the street. I remain concerned about the economy, our militarism and internationalism, and the systemic invasion of our privacy in every aspect of our lives by nameless bureaucrats. I am convinced that if these problems are not dealt with. The republic for for which we have all sworn an oath to protect will not survive. Madam Speaker, all Members should be concerned about the war powers now illegitimately assumed by the President, the financial bubble that will play havoc with the standard of living of most Americans when it bursts and the systemic undermining of our privacy even in this age of relative contentment. The Founders of this great Nation abhorred tyranny and loved liberty. The power of the king to wage war, tax and abuse the personal rights of the American colonists drove them to rebel, win a revolution and codify their convictions in a new Constitution. It was serious business, and every issue was thoroughly debated and explained most prominently in the Federalist Papers. Debate about trade among the States and with other countries, sound money and the constraints on presidential power occupied a major portion of their time. Initially the Articles of Confederation spoke clearly of just who would be responsible for waging war. It gave the constitutional Congress, quote, sole and exclusive right and power of determining on peace and war. In the debate at the Constitutional Convention it was clear that this position was maintained as the power of the British king was not to be, quote, a proper guide in defining executive war powers, close quote, for the newly formed republic. The result was a Constitution that gave Congress the power to declare war, issue letters of mark and reprisal, call up the militia, raise and train an Army and Navy and regulate foreign commerce, a tool often used in international conflict. The President was also required to share power with the Senate in ratifying treaties and appointing ambassadors. Let there be no doubt. The President, according to the Constitution, has no power to wage war. However it has been recognized throughout our history that certain circumstances might require the President to act in self-defense if Congress is not readily available to act if the United States is attacked. Recent flagrant abuse of the power to wage war by modern-day Presidents, including the most recent episodes in Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan, should prompt this Congress to revisit this entire issue of war powers. Certain abuses of power are obviously more injurious than others. The use of the FBI and the IRS to illegally monitor and intimidate citizens is a power that should be easy to condemn, and yet it continues to thrive. The illegal and immoral power to create money out of thin air for the purpose of financing a welfare-warfare state serving certain financial interests while causing the harmful business cycle is a process that most in Washington do not understand nor care about. These are ominous powers of great magnitude that were never meant to be permitted under the Constitution. But as bad as these abuses are, the power of a single person, the President, to wage war is the most egregious of all presidential powers, and Congress deserves the blame for allowing such power to gravitate into the hands of the President. The fact that nary a complaint was made in Congress for the recent aggressive military behavior of our President in Iraq for reasons that had nothing to do with national security should not be ignored. Instead, Congress unwisely and quickly rubber stamped this military operation. We should analyze this closely and decide whether or not we in the Congress should promote a war powers policy that conforms to the Constitution or continue to allow our Presidents ever greater leverage to wage war any time, any place and for any reason. This policy of allowing our Presidents unlimited authority to wage war has been in place since the end of World War II, although abuse to a lesser degree has occurred since the beginning of the 20th century. Specifically, since joining the United Nations congressional authority to determine when and if our troops will fight abroad has been seriously undermined. From Truman's sending of troops to Korea to Bush's Persian Gulf War, we have seen big wars fought, tens of thousands killed, hundreds of thousands wounded and hundreds of billions of dollars wasted. U.S. security, never at risk, has been needlessly jeopardized by the so-called peacekeeping missions and police exercises while constitutional law has been seriously and dangerously undermined. Madam Speaker, something must be done. The cost of this policy has been great in terms of life and dollars and our constitutional system of law. Nearly 100,000 deaths occurred in the Vietnam and Korean wars, and if we continue to allow our Presidents to casually pursue war for the flimsiest of reasons, we may well be looking at another major conflict somewhere in the world in which we have no business or need to be involved. The correction of this problem requires a concerted effort on the part of Congress to reclaim and reassert its responsibility under the Constitution with respect to war powers, and efforts were made to do exactly that after Vietnam in 1973 and more recently in 1995. Neither efforts were successful, and ironically the President emerged with more power, with each effort being undermined by supporters in the Congress of presidential authoritarianism and internationalism. Few objected to the Truman-ordered U.N. police actions in Korea in the 1950s, but they should have. This illegal and major war encouraged all subsequent Presidents to assume greater authority to wage war than was ever intended by the Constitution or assumed by all the Presidents prior to World War II. It is precisely because of the way we have entered in each military action since the 1940s without declaring war that their purposes have been vague and victory elusive, yet pain, suffering and long term negative consequences have resulted. The road on which this country embarked 50 years ago has led to the sacrifice of a lot of congressional prerogatives and citizen control over the excessive power that have fallen into the hands of Presidents quite willing to abuse this authority. No one person, if our society is to remain free, should be allowed to provoke war with aggressive military acts. Congress and the people are obligated to rein in this flagrant abuse of presidential power. Not only did we suffer greatly from the unwise and illegal Korean and Vietnam wars, Congress has allowed a continuous abuse of military power by our Presidents in an ever increasing frequency. We have seen troops needlessly die in Lebanon, Grenada, invaded for questionable reasons, Libya bombed with innocent civilians killed, persistent naval operations in the Persian Gulf, Panama invaded, Iraq bombed on numerous occasions, Somalia invaded, a secret and illegal war fought in Nicaragua, Haiti occupied, and troops stationed in Bosnia and now possibly soon in Kosovo. Even the Congressional permission to pursue the Persian Gulf War was an afterthought, since President Bush emphatically stated that it was unnecessary, as he received his authority from the United Nations. Without an actual declaration of war and support from the American people, victory is unachievable. This has been the case with the ongoing war against Iraq. Without a legitimate concern for our national security, the willingness to declare war and achieve victory is difficult. The war effort becomes narrowly political, serving special interests, and not fought for the defense of the United States against a serious military threat. If we can win a Cold War against the Soviets, we hardly need a hot war with a third world nation, unable to defend itself, Iraq. Great concern in the 1960's over the excessive presidential war powers was expressed by the American people, and, thus, the interests of the U.S. Congress after Vietnam in the early 1970's. The War Powers Resolution of 1973 resulted, but due to shrewd manipulation and political chicanery, the effort resulted in giving the President more authority, allowing him to wage war for 60 to 90 days without Congressional approval. Prior to the Korean War, when the Constitution and historic precedent had been followed, the President could not and for the most part did not engage in any military effort not directly defensive in nature without explicit Congressional approval. The result of the passage of the War Powers Resolution was exactly opposite to its authors' intentions. More power is granted to the president to send troops hither and yon, with the various Presidents sometimes reporting to the Congress and sometimes not. But Congress has unwisely and rarely objected, and has not in recent years demanded its proper role in decisions of war, nor hesitated to continue the funding that the various presidents have demanded. Approval of presidential-directed aggression, disguised as ``support for the troops,'' comes routinely, and if any member does not obediently endorse every action a President might take, for whatever reason, it is implied the member lacks patriotism and wisdom. It is amazing how we have drifted from the responsibility of the Founders, imagine, the Congress and the people would jealously protect. It is too often and foolishly argued that we must permit great flexibility for the President to retaliate when American troops are in danger. But this is only after the President has invaded and placed our troops in harm's way. By what stretch of the imagination can one say that these military actions can be considered defensive in nature? The best way we can promote support for our troops is employ them in a manner that is the least provocative. They must be given a mission confined to defending the United States, not policing the world or taking orders from the United Nations or serving the special commercial interests of U.S. corporations around the world. The 1995 effort to repeal the War Powers Resolution failed because it was not a clean repeal, but one still requiring consultation and reporting to the Congress. This led to enough confusion to prevent its passage. What is needed is a return to the Constitution as a strict guide as to who has the authority to exert the war powers and, as has been scrupulously followed in the 19th century by essentially all political parties and presidents. The effort to curtail presidential powers while requiring consultation and reporting to the Congress implies that that is all that is needed to avoid the strict rules laid out by the Constitution. It was admitted in the House debate by the House leadership that the repeal actually gave the President more power to use troops overseas and therefore urged passage of the measure. This accurate assessment prompted antiwar pro-peace Republicans and Democrats to narrowly reject the proposal. The message here is that clarification of the War Powers Resolution and a return to constitutional law are the only way presidential authority to wage war can be curtailed. If our presidents do not act accordingly, Congress must quickly and forcefully meet its responsibility by denying funds for foreign intervention and aggression initiated by the President. The basic problem here is that there are still too many Members of Congress who endorse a presidency armed with the authority of a tyrant to wage war. But if this assumption of power by the President with Congress' approval is not reversed, the republic cannot be maintained. Putting the power in the hands of a single person, the president, to wage war, is dangerous and costly, and it destroys the notion that the people through their Congressional representatives decide when military action should start and when war should take place. The sacrifice of this constitutional principle, guarded diligently for 175 years and now severely eroded in the past 50, must be restored if we hope to protect our liberties and avoid yet another unnecessary and, heaven-forbid, major world conflict, and merely changing the law will not be enough to guarantee that future presidents will not violate their trust. A moral commitment to the principle of limited presidential war powers in the spirit of the republic is required. Even with the clearest constitutional restriction on the President to wage undeclared wars, buffered by precise legislation, if the sentiment of the Congress, the courts and the people or the President is to ignore these restraints, they will. The best of all situations is when the spirit of the republic is one and the same, as the law itself, and honorable men are in positions of responsibility to carry out the law. Even though we cannot guarantee the future Congress' or our president's moral commitment to the principles of liberty by changing the law, we still must make every effort possible to make the law and the Constitution as morally sound as possible. Our responsibility here in the Congress is to protect liberty and do our best to ensure peace and trade with all who do not aggress against us. But peace is more easily achieved when we reject the notion that some Americans must subsidize foreign nations for a benefit that is intended to flow back to a select few Americans. Maintaining an empire or striving for a world government while allowing excessive war powers to accrue to an imperial president will surely lead to needless military conflicts, loss of life and liberty, and a complete undermining of our constitutional republic. On another issue, privacy, privacy is the essence of liberty. Without it, individual rights cannot exist. Privacy and property are interlocked and if both are protected, little would need to be said about other civil liberties. If one's home, church or business is one's castle, and the privacy of one's person, papers and effects are rigidly protected, all rights desired in a free society will be guaranteed. Diligently protecting the right to privacy and property guarantees religious, journalistic and political experience, as well as a free market economy and sound money. Once a careless attitude emerges with respect to privacy, all other rights are jeopardized. Today we find a systematic and pervasive attack on the privacy of all American citizens, which undermines the principle of private property ownership. Understanding why the attack on privacy is rapidly expanding and recognizing a need to reverse this trend is necessary if our republic is to survive. Lack of respect for the privacy and property of the American colonists by the British throne was a powerful motivation for the American revolution and resulted in the strongly worded and crystal clear Fourth Amendment. Emphatically, searches and seizures are prohibited except when warrants are issued upon probable cause supported by oath or affirmation, with details listed given as to place, person and things to be seized. This is a far cry from the routine seizure by the Federal Government and forfeiture of property which occurs today. Our papers are no longer considered personal and their confidentiality has been eliminated. Private property is searched by Federal agents without announcement, and huge fines are levied when Federal regulations appear to have been violated, and proof of innocence is demanded if one chooses to fight the abuse in court and avoid the heavy fines. Eighty thousand armed Federal bureaucrats and law enforcement officers now patrol our land and business establishments. Suspicious religious groups are monitored and sometimes destroyed without due process of law, with little or no evidence of wrongdoing. Local and state jurisdiction is rarely recognized once the feds move in. Today, it is routine for government to illegally seize property, requiring the victims to prove their innocence in order to retrieve their property, and many times this fails due to the expense and legal roadblocks placed in the victim's way. Although the voters in the 1990's have cried out for a change in direction and demanded a smaller, less intrusive government, the attack on privacy by the Congress, the administration and the courts has, nevertheless, accelerated. Plans have now been laid or implemented for a national I.D. card, a national medical data bank, a data bank on individual MDs, deadbeat dads, intrusive programs monitoring our every financial transaction, while the Social Security number has been established as the universal identifier. The Social Security number is now commonly used for just about everything, getting a birth certificate, buying a car, seeing an MD, getting a job, opening up a bank account, getting a driver's license, making many routine purchases, and, of course, a death certificate. Cradle-to-the-grave government surveillance is here and daily getting more pervasive. The attack on privacy is not a coincidence or an event that arises for no explainable reason. It results from a philosophy that justifies it and requires it. A government not dedicated to preserving liberty must by its very nature allow this precious right to erode. A political system designed as ours was to protect life and liberty and property would vigorously protect all citizens' rights to privacy, and this cannot occur unless the property and the fruits of one's labor, of every citizen, is protected from confiscation by thugs in the street as well as in our legislative bodies. The promoters of government instruction into our privacy characteristically use worn out cliches to defend what they do. The most common argument is that if you have nothing to hide, why worry about it? This is ludicrous. We have nothing to hide in our homes or our bedrooms, but that is no reason why big brother should be permitted to monitor us with a surveillance camera. The same can be argued about our churches, our businesses or any peaceful action we may pursue. Our personal activities are no one else's business. We may have nothing to hide, but, if we are not careful, we have plenty to lose, our right to be left alone. Others argue that to operate government programs efficiently and without fraud, close monitoring is best achieved with an universal identifier, the Social Security number. Efficiency and protection from fraud may well be enhanced with the use of a universal identifier, but this contradicts the whole notion of the proper role for government in a free society. Most of the Federal programs are unconstitutional to begin with, so eliminating waste and fraud and promoting efficiency for a program that requires a violation of someone else's rights should not be a high priority of the Congress. But the temptation is too great, even for those who question the wisdom of the government programs, and compromise of the Fourth Amendment becomes acceptable. I have never heard of a proposal to promote the national I.D. card or anything short of this for any reasons other than a good purpose. Essentially all those who vote to allow the continual erosion of our privacy and other constitutional rights never do it because they consciously support a tyrannical government; it is always done with good intentions. Believe me, most of the evil done by elected congresses and parliaments throughout all of history has been justified by good intentions. But that does not change anything. It just makes it harder to stop. Therefore, we cannot ignore the motivations behind those who promote the welfare state. Bad ideas, if implemented, whether promoted by men of bad intentions or good, will result in bad results. Well-intentioned people, men of goodwill, should, however, respond to a persuasive argument. Ignorance is the enemy of sound policy, every bit as much as political corruption. Various management problems in support for welfarism motivates those who argue for only a little sacrifice of freedom to achieve a greater good for society. Each effort to undermine our privacy is easily justified. The national I.D. card is needed, it is said, to detect illegal aliens, yet all Americans will need it to open up a bank account, get a job, fly on an airplane, see a doctor, go to school or drive a car. Financial privacy must be sacrificed, it is argued, in order to catch money launderers, drug dealers, mobsters and tax cheats. Privacy for privacy's sake, unfortunately for many, is a nonissue. The recent know-your-customer plan was designed by Richard Small, Assistant Director of the Division of Banking Supervision Regulation at the Federal Reserve. He is not happy with all of the complaints that he has received regarding this proposal. His program will require that every bank keep a detailed profile on every customer, as to how much is deposited, where it comes from, and when and how the money is spent. If there is any deviation from the profile on record, the bank is required to report this to a half dozen government agencies, which will require the customer to do a lot of explaining. This program will catch few drug dealers, but will surely infringe on the liberty of every law- abiding citizen. After thousands of complaints were registered at the Federal Reserve and the other agencies, Richard Small was quoted as saying that in essence, the complaints were coming from these strange people who are overly concerned about the Constitution and privacy. Legal justification for the program, Small explained, comes from a court case that states that our personal papers, when in the hands of a third party like a bank, do not qualify for protection under the Fourth Amendment. He is accurate in quoting the court case, but that does not make it right. Courts do not have the authority to repeal a fundamental right as important as that guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment. Under this reasoning, when applied to our medical records, all confidentiality between the doctor and the patient is destroyed. For this reason, the proposal for a national medical data bank to assure us there will be no waste or fraud, that doctors are practicing good medicine, that the exchange of medical records between the HMOs will be facilitated and statistical research is made easier, should be strenuously opposed. The more the government is involved in medicine or anything, the greater the odds that personal privacy will be abused. The IRS and the DEA, with powers illegally given them by the Congress and the courts, have prompted a flood of seizures and forfeitures in the last several decades without due process and frequently without search warrants or probable cause. Victims then are required to prove themselves innocent to recover the goods seized. This flagrant and systematic abuse of privacy may well turn out to be a blessing in disguise. Like the public schools, it may provide the incentive for Americans finally to do something about the system. The disaster state of the public school system has prompted millions of parents to provide private or home schooling for their children. The worse the government schools get, the more the people resort to a private option, even without tax relief from the politicians. This is only possible as long as some remnant of our freedom remains, and these options are permitted. We cannot become complacent. Hopefully, a similar reaction will occur in the area of privacy, but overcoming the intrusiveness of government into our privacy in nearly every aspect of our lives will be difficult. Home schooling is a relatively simple solution compared to avoiding the roving and snooping high of big brother. Solving the privacy problem requires an awakening by the American people with a strong message being sent to the U.S. Congress that we have had enough. Eventually, stopping this systematic intrusion into our privacy will require challenging the entire welfare state. Socialism and welfarism self-destruct after a prolonged period of time due to their natural inefficiencies and national bankruptcy. As the system ages, more and more efforts are made to delay its demise by borrowing, inflating and coercion. The degree of violation of our privacy is a measurement of the coercion thought necessary by the proponents of authoritarianism to continue the process. The privacy issue invites a serious discussion between those who seriously believe welfare redistribution helps the poor and does not violate anyone's rights, and others who promote policies that undermine privacy in an effort to reduce fraud and waste to make the programs work efficiently, even if they disagree with the programs themselves. This opportunity will actually increase as it becomes more evident that our country is poorer than most believe and sustaining the welfare state at current levels will prove impossible. An ever-increasing invasion of our privacy will force everyone eventually to reconsider the efficiency of the welfare state, if the welfare of the people is getting worse and their privacy invaded. Our job is to make a principled, moral, constitutional and practical case for respecting everyone's privacy, even if it is suspected some private activities, barring violence, do not conform to our own private moral standards. We could go a long way to guaranteeing privacy for all Americans if we, as Members of Congress, would take our oath of office more seriously and do exactly what the Constitution says. The Financial Bubble On a third item, the financial bubble, a huge financial bubble engulfs the world financial markets. This bubble has been developing for a long time but has gotten much larger the last couple of years. Understanding this issue is critical to the economic security of all Americans that we all strive to protect. Credit expansion is the root cause of all financial bubbles. Fiat monetary systems inevitably cause unsustainable economic expansion that results in a recession and/or depression. A correction always results, with the degree and duration being determined by government fiscal policy and central bank monetary policy. If wages and prices are not allowed to adjust and the correction is thwarted by invigorated monetary expansion, new and sustained economic growth will be delayed or prevented. Financial dislocation caused by central banks in the various countries will differ from one to another due to political perceptions, military considerations, and reserve currency status. The U.S.'s ability to inflate has been dramatically enhanced by other countries' willingness to absorb our inflated currency, our dollar being the reserve currency of the world. Foreign central banks now hold in reserve over $600 billion, an amount significantly greater than that even held by our own Federal Reserve System. Our economic and military power gives us additional license to inflate our currency, thus delaying the inevitable correction inherent in a paper money system. But this only allows for a larger bubble to develop, further jeopardizing our future economy. Because of the significance of the dollar to the world economy, our inflation and the dollar-generated bubble is much more dangerous than single currency inflation such as Mexico, Brazil, South Korea, Japan and others. The significance of these inflations, however, cannot be dismissed. The Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, when the Dow was at approximately 6,500, cautioned the Nation about irrational exuberance and for a day or two the markets were subdued. But while openly worrying about an unsustained stock market boom, he nevertheless accelerated the very credit expansion that threatened the market and created the irrational exuberance. From December 1996, at the time that Greenspan made this statement, to December 1998, the money supply soared. Over $1 trillion of new money, as measured by M-3, was created by the Federal Reserve. MZM, another monetary measurement, is currently expanding at a rate greater than 20 percent. This generous dose of credit has sparked even more irrational exuberance, which has taken the Dow to over 9,000 for a 30 percent increase in just two years. When the foreign registered corporation long term capital management was threatened in 1998, that is, the market demanding a logical correction to its own exuberance with its massive $1 trillion speculative investment in the derivatives market, Greenspan and company quickly came to its rescue with an even greater acceleration of credit expansion. The pain of market discipline is never acceptable when compared to the pleasure of postponing hard decisions and enjoying for a while longer the short-term benefits gained by keeping the financial bubble inflated. But the day is fast approaching when the markets and Congress will have to deal with the attack on the dollar, once it is realized that exporting our inflation is not without limits. A hint of what can happen when the world gets tired of holding too many of our dollars was experienced in the dollar crisis of 1979 and 1980, and we saw at that time interest rates over 21 percent. There is abundant evidence around warning us of the impending danger. According to Federal Reserve statistics, household debt reached 81 percent of personal income in the second quarter of 1998. For 20 years prior to 1985, household debt averaged around 50 percent of personal income. Between 1985 and 1998, due to generous Federal Reserve credit, competent American consumers increased this to 81 percent and now it is even higher. At the same time, our savings rate has dropped to zero percent. The conviction that stock prices will continue to provide extra cash and confidence in the economy has fueled wild consumer spending and personal debt expansion. The home refinance index between 1997 and 1999 increased 700 percent. Secondary mortgages are now offered up to 120 percent of a home's equity, with many of these funds finding their way into the stock market. Generous credit and quasi-government agencies make these mortgage markets robust, but a correction will come when it is realized that the builders and the lenders have gotten ahead of themselves. The willingness of foreign entities to take and hold our dollars has generated a huge current account deficit for the United States. It is expected a $200 billion annual deficit that we are running now will accelerate to over $300 billion in 1999, unless the financial bubble bursts. This trend has made us the greatest international debtor in the world, with a negative net international asset position of more than $1.7 trillion. A significantly weakened dollar will play havoc when this bill comes due and foreign debt holders demand payment. Contributing to the bubble and the dollar strength has been the fact that even though the dollar has problems, other currencies are even weaker and thus make the dollar look strong in comparison. Budgetary figures are frequently stated in a falsely optimistic manner. In 1969 when there was a surplus of approximately $3 billion, the national debt went down approximately the same amount. In 1998, however, with a so- called surplus of $70 billion, the national debt went up $113 billion, and instead of the surpluses which are not really surpluses running forever, the deficits will rise with a weaker economy and current congressional plans to increase welfare and warfare spending. Government propaganda promotes the false notion that inflation is no longer a problem. Nothing could be further from the truth. The dangerous financial bubble, a result of the Federal Reserve's deliberate policy of inflation and the Fed's argument that there is no inflation according to government-concocted CPI figures, is made to justify a continuous policy of monetary inflation because they are terrified of the consequence of deflation. The Federal Reserve may sincerely believe maintaining the status quo, preventing price inflation and delaying deflation is possible, but it really is not. The most astute money manager cannot balance inflation against deflation as long as there is continued credit expansion. The system inevitably collapses, as it finally did in Japan in the 1990s. Even the lack of the CPI inflation as reported by the Federal Reserve is suspect. A CPI of all consumer items measured by the private source shows approximately a 400 percent increase in prices since 1970. Most Americans realize their dollars are buying less each year and no chance exists for the purchasing power of the dollar to go up. Just because prices of TVs and computers may go down, the cost of medicine, food, stocks and entertainment, and of course, government, certainly can rise rapidly. One characteristic of an economy that suffers from a constantly debased currency is sluggish or diminished growth in real income. In spite of our so-called great economic recovery, two-thirds of U.S. workers for the past 25 years have had stagnant or falling wages. The demands for poverty relief from government agencies continue to increase. Last year alone, 678,000 jobs were lost due to downsizing. The new service sector jobs found by many of those laid off are rarely as good paying. In the last 1\1/2\ years, various countries have been hit hard with deflationary pressures. In spite of the IMF-led bailouts of nearly $200 billion, the danger of a worldwide depression remains. Many countries, even with the extra dollars sent to them courtesy of the American taxpayer, suffer devaluation and significant price inflation in their home currency. But this, although helpful to banks lending overseas, has clearly failed, has cost a lot of money, and prevents the true market correction of liquidation of debt that must eventually come. The longer the delay and the more dollars used, the greater the threat to the dollar in the future. There is good reason why we in the Congress should be concerned. A dollar crisis is an economic crisis that will threaten the standard of living of many Americans. Economic crises frequently lead to political crises, as is occurring in Indonesia. Congress is responsible for the value of the dollar. Yet, as we have done too often in other areas, we have passed this responsibility on to someone else; in this case, to the Federal Reserve. The Constitution is clear that the Congress has responsibility for guaranteeing the value of the currency, and no authority has ever been given to create a central bank. Creating money out of thin air is counterfeiting, even when done by a bank that the Congress tolerates. It is easy to see why Congress, with its own insatiable desire to spend money and perpetuate a welfare and military state, cooperates with such a system. A national debt of $5.6 trillion could not have developed without a willing Federal Reserve to monetize this debt and provide for artificially low interest rates. But when the dollar crisis hits and it is clearly evident that the short-term benefits were not worth it, we will be forced to consider monetary reform. Reconsidering the directives given us in the Constitution with regard to money would go a long way towards developing a sound monetary system that best protects our economy and guides us away from casually going to war. Monetary reform is something that we ought to be thinking about now. Mr. Speaker, let me summarize. We in the Congress, along with the President, will soon have to make a decision that will determine whether or not the American republic survives. Allowing our presidents to wage war without the consent of Congress, ignoring the obvious significance of fiat money to a healthy economy, and perpetuating pervasive government intrusion into the privacy of all Americans will surely end the American experiment with maximum liberty for all unless we reverse this trend. Too often the American people have chosen security over liberty. Allowing the President a little authority to deal with world problems under a U.N. banner has been easier than reversing the trend of the past 50 years. Accepting the financial bubble when on the short run, it helps everyone's portfolio, helps to finance government spending, is easy, even if it only delays the day of reckoning when the bills come due, as they already have in so many other countries in the world. Giving up a little privacy seems a small price to pay for the many who receive the generous benefits of big government, but when the prosperity comes to an end and the right to privacy has been squandered, it will be most difficult to restore the principles of a free society. Materialistic concerns and complacency toward the principles of liberty will undo much of what has been built in America over the past 200 years, unless there is a renewed belief that our God-given rights to life and liberty are worth working for. False economic security is no substitute for productive effort in a free society, where the citizens are self-reliant, generous, and nonviolent. Insisting on a limited government designed to protect life and property, as is found in a republic, must be our legislative goal.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I ask my fellow colleagues, how long will the war go on before Congress notices? We have been bombing and occupying Iraq since 1991, longer the occupation of Japan after World War II. Iraq has never committed aggression against the United States. The recent escalation of bombing in Iraq has caused civilian casualties to mount. The Clinton administration claims U.N. resolution 687, passed in 1991, gives him the legal authority to continue this war. We have perpetuated hostilities and sanctions for more than 8 years on a country that has never threatened our security, and the legal justification comes from not the U.S. Congress, as the Constitution demands, but from a clearly unconstitutional authority, the United Nations. In the past several months the airways have been filled with Members of Congress relating or restating their fidelity to their oath of office to uphold the Constitution. That is good, and I am sure it is done with the best of intentions. But when it comes to explaining our constitutional responsibility to make sure unconstitutional sexual harassment laws are thoroughly enforced, while disregarding most people's instincts towards protecting privacy, it seems to be overstating a point, compared to our apathy toward the usurping of congressional power to declare and wage war. That is something we ought to be concerned about. A major reason for the American Revolution was to abolish the King's power to wage war, tax, and invade personal privacy without representation and due process of law. For most of our history our presidents and our Congresses understood that war was a prerogative of the congressional authority alone. Even minimal military interventions by our early presidents were for the most part done only with constitutional approval. This all changed after World War II with our membership in the United Nations. As bad as it is to allow our presidents to usurp congressional authority to wage war, it is much worse for the President to share this sovereign right with an international organization that requires us to pay more than our fair share while we get a vote no greater than the rest. The constitution has been blatantly ignored by the President while Congress has acquiesced in endorsing the 8-year war against Iraq. The War Powers Resolution of 1973 has done nothing to keep our presidents from policing the world, spending billions of dollars, killing many innocent people, and jeopardizing the very troops that should be defending America. The continual ranting about stopping Hussein, who is totally defenseless against our attacks, from developing weapons of mass destruction ignores the fact that more than 30,000 very real nuclear warheads are floating around the old Soviet empire. Our foolish policy in Iraq invites terrorist attacks against U.S. territory and incites the Islamic fundamentalists against us. As a consequence, our efforts to develop long-term peaceful relations with Russia are now ending. This policy cannot enhance world peace. But instead of changing it, the President is about to expand it in another no-win centuries-old fight in Kosovo. It is time for Congress to declare its interest in the Constitution and take responsibility on issues that matter, like the war powers.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay honor to my long-time friend, Nolan Ryan, on the announcement of his election to the Baseball Hall of Fame. I've known Nolan for many years, and I knew him as a kind, generous man who seeks to do what is right and just. It seems there are so few heroes for kids today, especially in athletics, but I can sincerely commend Nolan Ryan as a true hero of our times, a role- model for our youth, and a man worthy of honor and respect. Nolan was born in Refugio, Texas, a historic town in my congressional district, but he was destined for the national stage. His successful career spanned 27 years, taking him from rural Texas to the dug-outs of the New York Mets, the California Angels, the Houston Astros and the Texas Rangers. He pitched a record seven no-hitter games, but his real fame comes from having pitched 5,714 strikeouts. Nolan told newspaper reporters yesterday that he never viewed himself as a ``hall of famer.'' For once, I have to disagree with my friend. He is Hall of Fame material not only for his prowess on the field, but for his strong character and unwavering dedication to his family, his friends, his beliefs, and his God. I trust all my colleagues join me in congratulating Nolan Ryan.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the Freedom and Privacy Restoration Act of 1999. This act forbids the federal government from establishing any national ID cards or establishing any identifiers for the purpose of investigating, monitoring, overseeing, or regulating private transactions between American citizens. This legislation also explicitly repeals those sections of the 1996 Immigration Act that established federal standards for state drivers' licenses and those sections of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 that require the Department of Health and Human Services to establish a uniform standard health identifier. The Freedom and Privacy Restoration Act halts the greatest threat to liberty today: the growth of the surveillance state. Unless Congress stops authorizing the federal bureaucracy to stamp and number the American people federal officials will soon have the power to arbitrarily prevent citizens from opening a bank account, getting a job, traveling, or even seeking medical treatment unless their ``papers are in order!'' In addition to forbidding the federal government from creating national identifiers, this legislation forbids the federal government from blackmailing states into adopting uniform standard identifiers by withholding federal funds. One of the most onerous practices of Congress is the use of federal funds illegitimately taken from the American people to bribe states into obeying federal dictates. Perhaps the most important part of the Freedom and Privacy Restoration Act is the section prohibiting the use of the Social Security number as an identifier. Although it has not received as much attention as some of the other abuses this legislation addresses, the abuse of the Social Security number may pose an even more immediate threat to American liberty. For all intents and purposes, the Social Security number is already a national identification number. Today, in the majority of states, no American can get a job, open a bank account, get a drivers' license, or even receive a birth certificate for one's child without presenting their Social Security number. So widespread has the use of the Social Security number become that a member of my staff had to produce a Social Security number in order to get a fishing license! Even members of Congress must produce a Social Security number in order to vote on legislation. One of the most disturbing abuses of the Social Security number is the congressionally-authorized rule forcing parents to get a Social Security number for their newborn children in order to claim them as dependents. Forcing parents to register their children with the state is more like something out of the nightmares of George Orwell than the dreams of a free republic which inspired this nation's founders. Since the creation of the Social Security number in 1935, there have been almost 40 congressionally-authorized uses of the Social Security number as an identification number for non-Social Security programs! Many of these uses, such as the requirement that employers report the Social Security number of new employees to the ``new hires data base,'' have been enacted in the past few years. In fact, just last year, 210 members of Congress voted to allow states to force citizens to produce a Social Security number before they could exercise their right to vote. Mr. Speaker, the section of this bill prohibiting the federal government from using identifiers to monitor private transactions is necessary to stop schemes such as the attempt to assign every American a ``unique health identifier'' for every American--an identifier which could be used to create a national database containing the medical history of all Americans. As an OB/GYN with more than 30 years in private practice, I know well the importance of preserving the sanctity of the physician-patient relationship. Oftentimes, effective treatment depends on a patient's ability to place absolute trust in his or her doctor. What will happen to that trust when patients know that any and all information given to their doctor will be placed in a government accessible data base? A more recent assault on privacy is a regulation proposed jointly by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Office of Thrift Supervision, and the Federal Reserve, known as ``Know Your Customer.'' If this regulation takes effect in April 2000, financial institutions will be required not only to identify their customers but also their source of funds for all transactions, establish a ``profile'' and determine if the transaction is ``normal and expected.'' If a transaction does not fit the profile, banks would have to report the transaction to government regulators as ``suspicious.'' The unfunded mandate on financial institutions will be passed on to customers who would have to pay higher ATM and other fees and higher interest rates on loans for the privilege of being spied on by government-inspired tellers. Many of my colleagues will claim that the federal government needs these powers to protect against fraud or some other criminal activities. However, monitoring the transactions of every American in order to catch those few who are involved in some sort of illegal activity turns one of the great bulwarks of our liberty, the presumption of innocence, on its head. The federal government has no right to treat all Americans as criminals by spying on their relationship with their doctors, employers, or bankers. In act, criminal law enforcement is reserved to the state and local governments by the Constitution's Tenth Amendment. Other members of Congress will claim that the federal government needs the power to monitor Americans in order to allow the government to operate more efficiently. I would remind my colleagues that in a constitutional republic the people are never asked to sacrifice their liberties to make the job of government officials a little bit easier. We are here to protect the freedom of the American people, not to make privacy invasion more efficient. Mr. Speaker, while I do not question the sincerity of those members who suggest that Congress can ensure citizens' rights are protected through legislation restricting access to personal information, the fact is the only solution is to forbid the federal government from using national identifiers. Legislative ``privacy protections'' are inadequate to protect the liberty of Americans for several reasons. First, federal laws have not stopped unscrupulous government officials from accessing personal information. Did laws stop the permanent violation of privacy by the IRS, or the FBI abuses by the Clinton and Nixon administrations? Secondly, the federal government has been creating property interests in private information for certain state-favored third parties. For example, a little-noticed provision in the Patient Protection Act established a property right for insurance companies to access personal health care information. Congress also authorized private individuals to receive personal information from government data bases in last year's copyright bill. The Clinton Administration has even endorsed allowing law enforcement officials' access to health care information, in complete disregard of the fifth amendment. Obviously, ``private protection'' laws have proven greatly inadequate to protect personal information when the government is the one providing or seeking the information! The primary reason why any action short of the repeal of laws authorizing privacy violation is insufficient is because the federal government lacks constitutional authority to force citizens to adopt a universal identifier for health care, employment, or any other reason. Any federal action that oversteps constitutional limitations violates liberty because it ratifies the principle that the federal government, not the Constitution, is the ultimate judge of its own jurisdiction over the people. The only effective protection of the rights of citizens is for Congress to follow Thomas Jefferson's advice and ``bind (the federal government) down with the chains of the Constitution.'' Mr. Speaker, those members who are unpersuaded by the moral and constitutional reasons for embracing the Freedom and Privacy Restoration Act should consider the overwhelming opposition of the American people toward national identifiers. My office has been inundated with calls from around the country protesting the movement toward a national ID card and encouraging my efforts to thwart this scheme. I have also received numerous complaints from Texans upset that they have to produce a Social Security number in order to receive a state drivers' license. Clearly, the American people want Congress to stop invading their privacy. Congress risks provoking a voter backlash if we fail to halt the growth of the surveillance state. In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I once again call on my colleagues to join me in putting an end to the federal government's unconstitutional use of national identifiers to monitor the actions of private citizens. National identifiers are incompatible with a limited, constitutional government. I therefore, hope my colleagues will join my efforts to protect the freedom of their constituents by supporting the Freedom and Privacy Restoration Act of 1999.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of all four articles of impeachment against the President. There is neither pleasure nor vindictiveness in this vote and I have found no one else taking this vote lightly. It seems though many of our colleagues are not pleased with the investigative process; some believing it to have been overly aggressive and petty, while others are convinced it has been unnecessarily limited and misdirected. It certainly raises the question of whether or not the special prosecutor rather than the Congress itself should be doing this delicate work of oversight. Strict adherence to the Constitution would reject the notion that Congress undermine the separations of power by delivering this oversight responsibility to the administration. The long delays and sharp criticisms of the special prosecutor could have been prevented if the Congress had not been dependent on the actions of an Attorney General's appointee. The charges against the President are serious and straight forward: lying, perjury, obstruction of justice, and abuse of power. The main argument made in his defense is that these charges surround the sexual escapades of the President and therefore should not be considered as serious as they otherwise would be. But there are many people in this country and some members of Congress who sincerely believe we have over concentrated on the Lewinsky event while ignoring many other charges that have been pushed aside and not fully scrutinized by the House. It must not be forgotten that a resolution to inquire into the possible impeachment of the President was introduced two months before the nation became aware of Monica Lewinsky. For nearly six years there has been a steady and growing concern about the legal actions of the President. These charges seem almost endless: possible bribery related to Webb Hubble, foreign government influence in the 1996 presidential election, military technology given to China, FBI files, travel office irregularities, and many others. Many Americans are not satisfied that Congress has fully investigated the events surrounding the deaths of Ron Brown and Vince Foster. The media and the administration has concentrated on the sexual nature of the investigation and this has done a lot to distract from everything else. The process has helped to make the President appear to be a victim of government prosecutorial overkill while ignoring the odious significance of the 1,000 FBI files placed for political reasons in the White House. If corruption becomes pervasive in any administration, yet no actual fingerprints of the president are found on indicting documents, there must come a time when the ``CEO'' becomes responsible for the actions of his subordinates. That is certainly true in business, the military, and in each congressional office. There is a major irony in this impeachment proceeding. A lot has been said the last two months by members of the Judiciary Committee on both side of the aisle regarding the Constitution and how it must be upheld. But if we are witnessing all of a sudden the serious move toward obeying constitutional restraints, I will anxiously look forward to the next session when 80 percent of our routine legislation will be voted down. But the real irony is that the charges coming out of the Paula Jones sexual harassment suit stem from an unconstitutional federal law that purports to promote good behavior in the work place. It's based entirely on ignoring the obligations of the states to deal with physical abuse and intimidation. This whole mess resulted from a legal system institutionalized by the very same people who are not the President's staunchest defenders. Without the federal sexual harassment code of conduct--which the President repeatedly flaunted--there would have been no case against the President since the many other serious charges have been brushed aside. I do not believe this hypocrisy will go unnoticed in the years to come. Hopefully it will lead to the day when the Congress reconsiders such legislation in light of the strict limitations placed on it by the Constitution and to which many members of Congress are now publicly declaring their loyalty. Much has been said about the support the President continues to receive from the American people in spite of his acknowledged misconduct. It does seem that the polls and the recent election indicate the public is not inclined to remove the President from office nor reward the Republicans for their efforts to investigate the Lewinsky affair. It is quite possible as many have suggested that the current status of the economy has a lot to do with this tolerance. The public's acceptance of the President's behavior may reflect the moral standards of our age, but I'm betting there's a lot more to it. It is true that some conservative voters, demanding the Republicans in Congress hold the President to a greater accountability, ``voted'' by staying home. They did not want to encourage the Republicans who were seen as being soft on Clinton for his personal behavior and for capitulating on the big government agenda of more spending, and more taxes. But hopefully there is a much more profound reason for the seemingly inconsistent position of a public who condemns the President while not having the stomach for punishing him through impeachment. If my suspicion is correct we can claim a major victory. Polling across Texas, as well as nationally, confirms that more than 80 percent of the people are fearful of the Federal Government's intrusion into our personal privacy. That's a healthy sign and indicates that the privacy issue could be the issue that will eventually draw attention to the evils of big government. The political contest, as it has always been throughout history, remains between the desire for security and the love for liberty. When economic security is provided by the government, privacy and liberty must be sacrificed. The longer a welfare state lasts the greater the conflict between government intrusiveness and our privacy. Government efficiency and need for its financing through a ruthless tax system prompts the perpetual barrage of government agents checking on everything we do. Fortunately, the resentment toward government for its meddling in all aspects of our lives is strong and becoming more galvanized, and that should give us hope that all is not lost. But this resentment must be channeled in the right direction. Belief that privacy and liberty can be protected while the welfare state is perpetuated through ever higher taxes is an unrealizable dream. The ``sympathy'', if that's what we want to call it, for the President reflects the instinctive nature of most Americans who resent the prying eyes of big government. It's easy to reason: ``If the President of the United States can be the subject of a `sting operation' and FBI ordered tape recordings, how can any of us be secure in our homes and papers?'' The ambivalence comes from fear that demanding privacy, even for the President, means that his actions are then condoned. And turning this into a perjury issue has been difficult. The President, his advisors, and the friendly media were all aware that the sexual privacy issue would distract from the serious charges and knew it was their best chance to avoid impeachment. But the President, this Administration and the Congress have all been hypocritical for demanding privacy for themselves yet are the arch enemies of our privacy. Although other Administrations have abused the FBI and the IRS, this Administration has systematically abused these powers like none other. Let's declare a victory in despite of the mess we're in. The President is not likely to be removed from office. We'll call it a form of ``jury nullification'' and hope someday this process will be used in our courts to nullify the unconstitutional tax, monetary, gun, anti- privacy, and seizure laws that are heaped upon us by Congress, the President, and perpetuated by a judicial system devoid of respect for individual liberty and the Constitution. Hopefully, the concept of the overly aggressive prosecutor will be condemned when it comes to overly aggressive activities of all the federal police agencies whether it's the IRS, the BATF or any other authoritarian agency of the federal government. A former U.S. Attorney, Robert Merkle, recently told the Pittsburgh Post Gazette that ``the philosophy of (the Attorney General's office) the last 10 to 15 years is whatever works is right,'' when it comes to enforcing federal laws which essentially all are unconstitutional. It's this attitude by the federal police agents that the American people must reject and not only when it applies to a particular President some want to shield. Even though we might claim a victory of sorts, the current impeachment process reveals a defeat for our political system and our society. Since lack of respect for the Constitution is pervasive throughout the Administration, the Congress and the Courts and reflects the political philosophy of the past 60 years, dealing with the President alone, won't reverse the course on which we find ourselves. There are days when I think we should consider ``impeaching'' not only the President, but the Congress and the Judiciary. But the desired changes will come only after the people's attitudes change as to what form of government they desire. When the people demand privacy, freedom and individual responsibility for everyone alike, our government will reflect these views. Hopefully we can see signs in these current events that more Americans are becoming serious about demanding their liberty and rejecting the illusions of government largesse as a panacea. It's sad but there is another example of a most egregious abuse of presidential power, committed by the President, that has gotten no attention by the special prosecutors or the Congress. That is the attempt by the President to distract from the Monica Lewinsky testimony to the Grand Jury by bombing with cruise missiles both Sudan and Afghanistan, and the now current war against Iraq. Two hundred million dollars were spent on an illegal act of war against innocent people. The pharmaceutical plant in Sudan was just that, a pharmaceutical plant, owned by a Muslim businessman who was standing up to the Islamic fundamentalists, the same people we pretend to oppose and use as scapegoats for all our Middle-Eastern policies. And now we have the controversial and unconstitutional waging of war in Iraq. And to add insult to injury both military operations ordered by Clinton were quickly praised by the Republican leaders as good and necessary policy. These acts alone should be enough for a serious consideration of impeachment, but it's never mentioned--mainly because leadership of both parties for decades have fully endorsed our jingoism and bellicosity directed toward other nations when they do not do our bidding. Yes, the President's tawdry affair and the acceptance of it to a large degree by the American people is not a good sign for us as a nation. But, let's hope that out of this we have a positive result by recognizing the public's rejection of the snooping actions of Big Brother. Let's hope there's a renewed interest in the Constitution and that Congress pays a lot more attention to it on a daily basis especially when it comes to waging war. The fact that President Clinton will most likely escape removal from office I find less offensive than the Congress's and the media's lack of interest in dealing with the serious charges of flagrant abuse of power, threatening political revenge, issuing unconstitutional Executive Orders, sacrificing U.S. sovereignty to world government, bribery, and illegal acts of war, along with the routine flaunting of the constitutional restraints that were placed there to keep our government small and limited in scope.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I would like to inquire, is either gentleman opposed to the resolution?

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, as a 5 yr Air Force veteran I rise in strong support of the troops: we all do. Everybody supports the troops. But this resolution is a lot more than supporting the troops. Even by the very nature of our debate today, most of the debate has been about the military action. I see this as nothing more than a rubber stamp on a war that has already been started, and it has not been started in the proper way. Mr. Speaker, it is clearly stated in the Constitution that only Congress has the authority to declare war. It is precisely because of the way we go to war these days that we are continuing to fight the Persian Gulf War. We did not win the Persian Gulf War because we did not declare war since there was no justification to because there was no national security interests involved. Saddam Hussein is not threatening our national security. This is a concocted scheme to pursue bombing for oil interests and other reasons, but it has nothing to do with national security. This resolution is an endorsement for war. We are rubber stamping this action. We should follow the rule of law. The rule of law says that resolutions, to begin war, should come to the House of Representatives and pass by the Senate. But we have been too careless and too casual for many, many decades, and this is the reason we do not win wars any more. We are in essentially perpetual war. We have granted too much authority to our President to wage war. Even under the most unusual of circumstances we permit him to wage war. This is wrong. We, as a House, must assume our responsibilities. I cannot support this resolution because it is a rubber stamp, it is an endorsement for an illegal war. We should argue the case for peace. We should argue the case for national sovereignty. We should not allow our President to use U.N. resolutions to wage war. First and foremost, the notion that the United States can dictate the political leadership of a foreign policy is immoral. What right have we to determine these things for any nation other than our own? The answer, clearly, is ``none,'' we have no such right. There is an idea known as sovereignty, and that idea is integral to nationhood. Among other things, sovereignty dictates that a people be responsible for their own leadership, without the interference of other nations. Is it any wonder that the same American leaders who would invade other sovereign nations spend so much time surrendering the sovereignty of the United States? I think not. Simply, their efforts are designed to undermine the entire notion of sovereignty. One evident outcome of the anti-sovereignty philosophy is our dependence on institutions such as the United Nations. It is an affront to our nation's sovereignty and our constitution that the President presently launches war on Iraq under the aegis of a UN resolution but without the Constitutionally required authorization by the United States Congress. As Americans we are rightly offended by the notion that the Chinese Government has influenced our domestic elections. However, we are not free from hypocrisy. For recently this Congress passed legislation appropriating money for the sole and express purpose of changing the government of a sovereign nation. Next, we ought to consider the morality of the means which must be employed to change the government of Iraq. Yesterday I sat on a panel with Harry Summers, a man of considerable military knowledge. Summers stated that it would take ground troops to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Moreover, he unequivocally stated that military history shows that no war has ever been won simply via air strikes. This statement is not only factually accurate, it is also a stark reminder of what the price of this policy will be. Namely, the price of successfully changing the government of Iraq is the blood of many thousands of innocent human beings. And, lest we fool ourselves, many of these people will be American troops, brave young men and women who patriotically agreed to defend the United States but have now been placed like pawns in a chess game, perhaps to remove the leader of Iraq, or perhaps to stave off the removal of the US President. At any rate, these brave young Americans ought not be sacrificed for either of these improper political purposes. Finally, even by the amoral measure of ``realpolitik'' the policy of Saddam's removal is unwarranted. The reason that the US has hesitated to actually complete successful enactment of its stated policy is because the result of such enactment is fraught with uncertainty. Iraq is a country made up of many different factions. And many of its neighbors are interested in increasing their influence and control over areas which are now within Iraqi territory. Hence, if Saddam ever were to be removed by force of US efforts, we would face a very real risk to regional stability. Stability being the key concern of those who practice ``realpolitik'' this points to the fact that by the measures established by the ``pragmatists'' the stated policy of Saddam's removal is wrongful. Let me be clear, while I reject the notion of divorcing politics from moral considerations, I do believe we should understand that our current policy is not only devoid of morals, but is also doomed to failure from any practical viewpoint.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to express my thoughts on the education debate that has consumed much of this Congress in recent days. For all the sound and fury generated by the argument over education, the truth is that the difference between the congressional leadership and the administration are not that significant; both wish to strengthen the unconstitutional system of centralized education. I trust I need not go into the flaws with President Clinton's command-and-control approach to education. However, this Congress has failed to present a true, constitutional alternative to President Clinton's proposals to further nationalize education. It is becoming increasingly clear that the experiment in centralized control of education has failed. Even data from the National Assessment of Education Progress [NAEP] shows that students in States where control over education is decentralized score approximately 10 percentage points higher on NAEP's tests in math and reading than students from States with highly-centralized education systems. Clearly, the drafters of the Constitution knew what they were doing when they forbade the Federal Government from meddling in education. American children deserve nothing less than the best educational opportunities, not warmed-over versions of the disastrous educational policies of the past. That is why I introduced H.R. 1816, the Family Education Freedom Act. This bill would give parents an inflation- adjusted $3,000 per annum tax credit, per child for educational expenses. The credit applies to those in public, private, parochial, or home schooling. This bill is the largest tax credit for education in the history of our great Republic and it returns the fundamental principal of a truly free economy to America's education system: what the great economist Ludwig von Mises called ``consumer sovereignty.'' Consumer sovereignty simply means consumers decide who succeeds or fails in the market. Businesses that best satisfy consumer demand will be the most successful. Consumer sovereignty is the means by which the free market maximizes human happiness. Currently, consumers are less than sovereign in the education ``market.'' Funding decisions are increasingly controlled by the Federal Government. Because ``he who pays the piper calls the tune,'' public, and even private schools, are paying greater attention to the dictates of Federal ``educrats'' while ignoring the wishes of the parents to an ever-greater degree. As such, the lack of consumer sovereignty in education is destroying parental control of education and replacing it with State control. Restoring parental control is the key to improving education. Of course I applaud all efforts which move in this direction. the Gingrich/Coverdell education tax cut, The Granger/Dunn bill, and, yes, President Clinton's college tax credits are good first steps in the direction I advocate. However, Congress must act boldly, we can ill afford to waste another year without a revolutionary change in our policy. I believe my bill sparks this revolution and I am disappointed that the leadership of this Congress chose to ignore this fundamental reform and instead focused on reauthorizing great society programs, creating new Federal education programs (such as those contained in the Reading Excellence Act and the four new Federal programs created by the Higher Education Act), and promoting the pseudo-federalism of block grants. One area where this Congress was successful in fighting for a constitutional education policy was in resisting President Clinton's drive for national testing. I do wish to express my support for the provisions banning the development of national testing and thank Mr. Goodling for his leadership in this struggle. However, I wish this provision did no come at the price of $1.1 billion in new Federal spending. In addition, I note that this Congress is taking several steps toward creating a national curriculum, particularly through the Reading Excellence Act, which dictates teaching methodologies to every classroom in the Nation and creates a Federal definition of reading, thus making compliance with Federal standards the goal of education. So, even when Congress resists one proposal to further nationalize education, it supports another form of nationalization. Some Members will claim they are resisting nationalization and even standing up for the 10th amendment by fighting to spend billions of taxpayer dollars on block grants. These Members say that the expenditure levels do not matter, it is the way the money that is spent which is important. Contrary to the view of these well-meaning but misguided members, the amount of taxpayer dollars spent on Federal education programs do matter. First of all, the Federal Government lacks constitutional authority to redistribute monies between States and taxpayers for the purpose of education, regardless of whether the monies are redistributed through Federal programs or through grants. There is no ``block grant exception'' to the principles of federalism embodied in the U.S. Constitution. Furthermore, the Federal Government's power to treat State governments as their administrative subordinates stems from an abuse of Congress' taxing-and-spending power. Submitting to Federal control is the only way State and local officials can recapture any part of the monies of the Federal Government has illegitimately taken from a State's citizens. Of course, this is also the only way State officials can tax citizens of other States to support their education programs. It is the rare official who can afford not to bow to Federal dictates in exchange for Federal funding! As long as the Federal Government controls education dollars, States and local schools will obey Federal mandates; the core problem is not that Federal monies are given with the inevitable strings attached, the real problem is the existence of Federal taxation and funding. Since Federal spending is the root of Federal control, by increasing Federal spending this Congress is laying the groundwork for future Congresses to fasten more and more mandates on the States. Because State and even local officials, not Federal bureaucrats, will be carrying out these mandates, this system could complete the transformation of the State governments into mere agents of the Federal Government. Congress has used block grants to avoid addressing philosophical and constitutional questions of the role of the Federal and State governments by means of adjustments in management in the name of devolution. Devolution is said to return to State's rights by decentralizing the management of Federal programs. This is a new 1990's definition of the original concept of federalism and is a poor substitute for the original, constitutional definition of federalism. While it is true that lower levels of intervention are not as bad as micro-management at the Federal level, Congress' constitutional and moral responsibility is not to make the Federal education bureaucracy ``less bad.'' Rather, we must act now to put parents back in charge of education and thus make American education once again the envy of the world. Hopefully the next Congress will be more reverent toward their duty to the U.S. Constitution and America's children. The price of Congress' failure to return to the Constitution in the area of education will be paid by the next generation of American children. In short, we cannot afford to continue on the policy road we have been going down. The cost of inaction to our future generations is simply too great.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I commend to my colleagues in Congress as well as citizens everywhere an article authored by Richard Sincere, Jr., President of Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty. Mr. Sincere aptly describes how the very essence of hate crimes undermines a pillar of a free and just society; that is, equal treatment under the law irrespective of which particular group or groups with whom an individual associates. Ours is a republic based upon the rights of the individual. [From the Houston Chronicle, Oct. 14, 1998] Gay Student's Murder Is No Reason To Make Bad Law (By Richard E. Sincere, Jr.) The wicked murder of Matthew Shepard by two thugs, assisted by two equally contemptible accomplices, has resurrected a debate about the need for hate-crime laws. Shepard, an openly gay University of Wyoming student who had been widely praised for his talents, ambitions and personality, last week was beaten senseless and left for dead, tied up like a scarecrow along a fence on a little-traveled country road. Miraculously, he was found by passers-by many hours after the attack, still struggling for life when he was rushed to a hospital in Fort Collins, CO, where he died Monday while on life support. Local law enforcement officials in Laramie, WY, where the crime took place, quickly arrested the alleged perpetrators-- two men who performed the assault and two women who helped them hide their deed--and it looks like they will be punished to the full extent the law allows if they are convicted. With Shepard's death, they face a possible death sentence. Laramie, a university community of 27,000 people, is feeling both shame and outrage, a sentiment shared by all right-minded people throughout the country, indeed around the world. News of this brutal assault has appeared everywhere in print and broadcast media. The crime against Shepard has renewed calls for passing hate-crime legislation, both in Wyoming and nationwide. Wyoming Gov. Jim Geringer and President Bill Clinton have said that this attack shows the need for such laws. This would be a mistake. It would be a mistake because hate-crime laws, however well intentioned, are feel-good laws whose primary result is thought control, violating our constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and of conscience. It would be a mistake because it suggests that crimes against some people are worse than crimes against others. And it would be a mistake because it uses a personal tragedy, deeply felt by Shepard's family and friends, to advance a political agenda. Hunter College Professor Wayne Dynes, editor of the Encyclopedia of Homosexuality, notes that hate-crime laws, if they are to be applied in a constitutional manner, must be content-neutral. He notes this example: ``Countless numbers of people, aware of the unspeakable atrocities under his leadership, hated Pol Pot. This hate was surely well warranted. If one of the Pol Pot haters had killed him, would this be a hate crime? Why not?'' Dynes adds: ``In seeking to exculpate the killer, we would get into the question of whether some hate is `justified' and some is not.'' He concludes that hate-crime prosecutions ``will be used to sanction certain belief systems--systems which the enforcer would like, in some Orwellian fashion, to make unthinkable. This is not a proper use of law.'' Under our system of justice, everyone is equal before the law. Those accused of crimes are entitled to certain constitutional protection, which we must cherish, and the victims of a crime--whether a Bill Gates or the poorest street-sweeper in a slum--are entitled to the same respect. (In the Middle Ages, the law required a greater punishment for killing a rich man or noble than it did for killing a peasant or a laborer. Our law recognizes no such distinctions.) So, too, with class- or group-based distinctions. Is it worse to kill a man because he is foreign-born than it is to kill him to steal his car? Is it worse to kill a woman because she is black than because she cut you off in traffic? Is it worse to beat up a fat sissy boy if the bullies think their victim is gay, or if they dislike him because he is fat? Crime is crime; assault is assault. All deserve punishment. Hateful thoughts may be disagreeable, but they are not crimes in themselves. The crimes that result from hateful thoughts--whether vandalism, assault or murder--are already punishable by existing statutes. In a speech at the University of Texas last year, libertarian activist Gene Cisewski said: ``We should be anti- violence, period. Any act of violence has to be punished swiftly and severely and it shouldn't matter who the victim is. The initiation of force is wrong and it doesn't matter why--the mere fact you had a motive is enough.'' Cisewski acknowledged the good intentions of those who propose hate-crime laws. He noted that ``the reason for the call for (such laws) comes from bad enforcement of the laws.'' Police and prosecutors have been willing to look the other way when victims came from unfavored groups. Luckily, in the Shepard case, the authorities seem unwavering in their prosecution. This is, unfortunately, not always the case. The answer, Cisewski suggested, and I agree, is that ``we hold every law enforcement official and every court official who administers justice to the standard that every American is guaranteed equal protection under the law.'' Hate-crime laws set up certain privileged categories of people, defined by the groups to which they belong, and offers them unequal protection under the law. This is wrong. It is sad to see a young man's personal misfortune used by various special-interest groups to advance such an agenda. We are all shocked and dismayed by the assault on Shepard. Such brutality cannot, should not be countenanced. Let us not multiply the crimes of his attackers by writing bad law in response.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, a world-wide financial crisis is now upon us. For 2 years, I have called attention to this predictable event hoping the Congress would deal with it in a serious manner. Although many countries are now suffering more than the United States, in time, I am sure our problems will become much greater A world-wide system of fiat money is the root of the crisis. The post-World War II Bretton Woods gold-exchange system was seriously flawed, and free market economists from the start predicted its demise. Twenty-seven years later, on August 15, 1971, it ended with a bang ushering in its turbulent and commodity-driven inflation of the 1970's. Now, after another 27 years, we are seeing the end of the post- Bretton Woods floating rate system with another bang as the financial asset inflation of the 1980's and 1990's collapses. A new system is now required. Just as the Bretton Woods system was never repaired due to its flaws, so too will it be impossible to rebuild the floating rate system of the past 27 years. The sooner we admit to its total failure, and start planning for sound money, the better. We must understand the serious flaw in the current system that is playing havoc with world markets. When license is given to central banks to inflate (debase) a currency, they eventually do so. Politicians love the central bank's role as lender of last resort and their power to monetize the steady stream of public debt generated by the largesse that guarantees the politician's reelection. The constitutional or credit restraint of a commodity standard of money offers stability and non-inflationary growth but does not accommodate the special interests that demand benefits bigger and faster than normal markets permit. The only problem is the financial havoc that results when the unsound system is forced into a major correction which are inherent to all fiat systems. That is what we are witnessing today. The world-wide fragile financial system is now collapsing and tragically the only cry is for more credit inflation because the cause of our dilemma is not understood. Attempts at credit stimulation with interest rates below 1 percent is doing nothing for Japan's economy and for good reasons. it is the wrong treatment for the wrong diagnosis. If the problem were merely that there were not enough money, then money creation alone could make us all millionaires and no one would have to work. But increasing the money supply does not increase wealth. Only work and savings do that. The deception comes because, for a while for the luck few, benefits are received when government inflate the currency and pass it out for political reasons. But in time--and that time is now--it comes to an end. Even the beneficiaries suffer the inevitable consequences of a philosophy that teaches wealth comes from money creation and that central banks are acceptable central economic planners--even in countries such as the United States where many pay lip service to free markets and free trade. The tragedy in the end is far more damaging to the innocent than any benefit that was supposed to be delivered to the people as a whole. There is no justifiable trade-off. The costs far exceed the benefits. In addition, the economic chaos leads too frequently to a loss of personal liberty. A program to prevent this from happening is necessary. First, the Federal Reserve should be denied the power to fix interest rates and buy government debt. It should not be central economic planner through manipulation of money and credit. Second, Congress should legalize the Constitutional principle that gold and silver be legal tender by prohibiting sales and capital gains taxes from being placed on all American legal tender coins. Third, we must abandon the tradition of bailing out bad debtors, foreign and domestic. No International Monetary Fund and related institution funding to prop up bankrupt countries, and no Federal Reserve-orchestrated bailouts such as Long Term Capital Management LP. Liquidation of bad debt and investments must be permitted. Fourth, policy elsewhere must conform to free markets and free trade. Taxes, as well as government spending, should be lowered. Regulations should be greatly reduced, and all voluntary economic transactions in hiring practices should be permitted. No control on wages and prices should be imposed. Following a policy of this sort could quickly restore growth and stability to any filing economy and soften the blow for all those about to experience the connections that have been put in place by previous years of mischief, mismanagement and monetary inflation. Short of a free market, sound money approach will guarantee a sustained attack on personal liberty as governments grow more authoritarian and militaristic.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I commend to my colleagues in Congress as well as citizens everywhere an article authored by Michael Kelly, National Journal editor. Mr. Kelly aptly describes how the notion of hate crimes undermines a pillar of a free and just society; that is, equal treatment under the law irrespective of which particular group or groups with whom an individual associates. Ours is a republic based upon the rights of the individual. Punishing `Hate Crimes' (By Michael Kelly) As one who wholeheartedly supports capital punishment, I have what seems to me a cleareyed vision of what justice demands in the murder of Matthew Shepard, the 21-year-old Wyoming college student who was, one night last week, robbed, pistol-whipped, tied to a fence and left to die. Bring in the monsters who did this, try 'em, verdict 'em and string 'em up, preferably before an applauding crowd of thousands. And justice does appear on the way to being served. Two young men--Russell A. Henderson and Aaron J. McKinney--have been arrested and charged with first-degree murder; their girlfriends have been charged as accessories. There does not seem to be a lot of doubt that Henderson and McKinney did commit the acts that caused Shepard's death, nor does it seem at all likely that they will escape punishment. But this, it is said, is not enough. Because Shepard was gay, and because his killers appear to have been motivated in part by an anti-gay animus (though police say robbery was the primary motive), justice is said to demand more. Specifically, it demands more bad law. ``Hate-crime'' laws mandate increased penalties for defendants found guilty of committing crimes inspired by certain categories of prejudice. In 21 states and the District of Columbia, the categories are: race, religion, color, national origin and sexual orientation. Nineteen additional states have hate-crime laws that do not cover sexual orientation. Ten states, including Wyoming, have not passed categorical hate-crime laws. There is also a federal law, which covers race, religion, color and national origin but not sex or sexual orientation. For Shepard's sake, the cry arises, Wyoming must pass a hate-crime law, and Congress must pass a new, more sweeping, Federal Hate Crimes Protection Act, which would add to the roster of crimes made federal offenses those inspired by bigotry based on sex, disability and sexual orientation. ``There is something we can do about this. Congress needs to pass our tough hate crimes legislation,'' President Clinton declared Monday, the day Shepard died of his injuries. At least he is consistent. No president has ever been more willing to assault liberty in the pursuit of political happiness than has this one. Clinton is always willing to embrace any new erosion of rights, as long as there is a group of voters or political contributors out there who wish it so. This is one area in which Clinton has been thoroughly bipartisan. In his five years in office, he has joined Republicans in Congress on quite a spree of liberty-bashing. He has signed laws that have stripped habeas corpus to its bones, vastly increased the number of crimes deemed federal offenses, established mindless mandatory sentencing and targeted certain classes of defendants--terrorists, drug pushers--for the special evisceration of rights. And playing to the other side of the political spectrum, Clinton has consistently and strongly supported the expansion of harassment and discrimination law, an expansion that has in recent years increasingly worked to criminalize behavior that government once regarded as private. Well, at least he supported such law until the case of Jones v. Clinton arose. Of all the violence that has been done in this great expansion of state authority over, and criminalization of, the private behavior and thoughts of citizens, none is more serious than that perpetuated by the hate-crime laws. Here, we are truly in the realm of thought crimes. Hate-crime laws require the state to treat one physical assault differently from the way it would treat another--solely because the state has decided that one motive for assaulting a person is more heinous than another. What Henderson and McKinney allegedly did was a terrible, evil thing. But would it have been less terrible if Shepard had not been gay? If Henderson and McKinney beat Shepard to death because they hated him personally, not as a member of a group, should the law treat them more lightly? Yes, say hate- crime laws. In 1996 the FBI recorded 1,281 ``crimes against persons'' for reasons of sexual-orientation bias. Two of these were murders and 222 were aggravated assaults. Four hundred and seventy-two of what the government termed hate crimes were not assaults but ``acts of intimidation.'' These latter would not be crimes except for the determination that expressions of certain prejudices and hatreds were in themselves criminal offenses. There is a long history of police and prosecutors slighting assaults against gays and lesbians. Justice demands that the cops and the courts treat the perpetrators of assaults against citizens who happen to be homosexual as harshly as they do the perpetrators of assaults against anyone else. But not more so.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to explain why I must oppose H.R. 4567 even though I support reforming the Interim Payment System (IPS) and I certainly support expanding the health care options available to American veterans. However, I cannot support this bill because this solution to home care is inadequate and it raises taxes on Americans instead of cutting wasteful, unconstitutional spending to offset the bill's increases in expenditures. I am pleased that Congress is at last taking action to address the problems created by the IPS. Unless the IPS is reformed, efficient home care agencies across the country may be forced to close. This would raise Medicare costs, as more seniors would be forced to enter nursing homes or forced to seek care from a limited number of home health care agencies. In fact, those agencies that survive the IPS will have been granted a virtual monopoly over the home care market. Only in Washington could punishing efficient businesses and creating a monopoly be sold as a cost-cutting measure! Congress does need to act to ensure that affordable home care remains available to the millions of senior citizens who rely on home care. However, the proposal before us today does not address the concerns of small providers in states such as Texas. Instead, it increases the reimbursement rate of home care agencies in other states. I am also concerned that the reimbursement formula in this bill continues to saddle younger home health agencies with lower rates of reimbursement than similarly situated agencies who have been in operation longer. Any IPS reform worthy of support should place all health care agencies on a level playing field for reimbursements. A member of my staff has been informed by a small home health care operator in my district that passage of this bill would allow them only to provide an additional eight visits per year. This will not keep home health patients with complex medical conditions out of nursing homes and hospitals. Congress should implement a real, budget-neutral home health care reform rather than waste our time and the taxpayers' money with the phony reform before us today. Mr. Speaker, I also support the language of the bill expanding the health care options available to veterans' benefits. Ensuring the nation's veterans have a quality health care system should be one of the governments' top priorities. In fact, I am currently working on a plan to improve veterans' health care by allowing them greater access to Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs). However, I cannot, in good conscience, support the proposals before us today because, for all their good intentions, it is fatally flawed in implementation for it attempts to offset its new spending with a tax increase. Now I know many of the bill's supporters will claim that this is not a tax increase just an adjustment in the qualifications for a tax benefit or tightening a tax loophole. However, the fact is that by raising the threshold before a taxpayer can rollover their traditional IRA into a Roth IRA the federal government is forcing some people to pay higher taxes than they otherwise would, thus they are raising taxes. It is morally wrong for Congress to raise taxes on one group of Americans in order to provide benefits for another group of Americans. Instead of raising taxes Congress should ``offset'' these programs by cutting spending in other areas. In particular, Congress should finance veterans health care by reducing expenditures wasted on global adventurism, such as the Bosnia mission. Congress should stop spending Americans blood and treasure to intervene in quarrels that do not concern the American people. Similarly, Congress should seek funds for an increased expenditure on home care by ending federal support for institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which benefit wealthy bankers and powerful interests but not the American people. At a time when the federal government continues to grow to historic heights and meddles in every facet of American life I cannot believe that Congress cannot find expenditure cuts to finance the programs in this bill! Mr. Speaker, I must also note that the only time this Congress seems concerned with offsets is when we are either cutting taxes or increasing benefits to groups like veterans or senior citizens. The problem is not a lack of funds but a refusal of this Congress to set proper priorities and put the needs of the American people first. In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I call upon this Congress to reject this bill and instead support an IPS reform that is fair to all home care providers and does not finance worthwhile changes in Medicare by raising taxes. Instead, Congress should offset the cost to these worthy programs by cutting programs that do not benefit the American people.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Global leaders are scurrying around to put together, as quickly as possible, a new plan to solve the international financial crisis. The world economies have been built on generous credit expansion with each country inflating their currencies at different rates. Additionally, each country has had different political, tax, and regulatory policies leading to various degrees of trust and stability. Economies that have ``enjoyed'' inflationary booms, by their very nature, must undergo a market correction. The market demands deflation of all excesses, while the politicians and special interests agitate for continued credit inflation. Under these circumstances, financial assets may deflate in price but monetary inflation continues and the currency is further depreciated thus putting serious pressure on the dollar; as in the case of the United States. Fluctuating fiat currencies, no matter how inefficient as compared to a world commodity monetary standard, function solely because exchange rates are allowed to fluctuate and currency movements across borders are freely permitted as capital seeks the most efficient market. This process provides an indication when host countries need to improve monetary and fiscal policy. A gold standard solves capital flow problems automatically and avoids all currency speculation. Gold prevents excesses from developing to any dangerous level. Decades ago, the gold standard was abandoned and now our global planners want to take another step to regulate all capital flows throughout the world thus removing the only good indicator left to warn of dangers ahead and the need for sound reform. The rapid transfer of capital around the world is the messenger and not the cause. Killing the messenger will only hide and increase distortions while prolonging the economic pain. The proposal of the Group of 22 to regulate capital flows through a new ``World Central Bank'' prevents any effort to restore efficient market mechanisms and prevents any serious discussion for using gold as the money of choice. All money managers in major countries decry currency controls by any individual country yet are now about to embark on a new world-wide approach to regulating all capital flows--a global economic plan to socialize all world credit. But, it won't work because the plan is deeply and inherently flawed. First, the plan demands additional appropriations to transfer wealth from the richer to the poorer nations through increased funding of the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, Development Bank, and direct foreign aid programs. Second, it calls for more credit expansion by the richer nations, more loan guarantees, and export-import bank credits and, indirectly, by providing credit to the Exchange Stabilization Fund and possibly to the Bank International Settlements. Third this plan calls for an international government agreement to strictly control capital flows and mandate debt forgiveness in contrast to allowing countries to default. Controlling swift movements of capital is impossible and any attempt only encourages world government through planning by a world fiat monetary system. Any temporary ``benefit'' can only be achieved through an authoritarian approach to managing the world economy, all done with the pretense of preserving financial stability at the expense of national sovereignty and personal liberty. Let there be no doubt, the current chaos is being used to promote a new world fiat monetary system while giving political powers to its managers. Instead, we should be talking about abandoning the paper money system we have lived with for 27 years. It has, after all, brought us the current world-wide financial mess. Free markets and stable money should be our goal, not further institutionalizing of world economic planning and fiat money at the sacrifice of personal liberty. Indeed, we need a serious discussion of the current crisis but so far no one should be encouraged by the direction in which the Group of 22 is going. Our responsibility here in the Congress is to protect the dollar, not to sit idly by as it's being deliberately devalued.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I would like to offer congratulations to several fine young men and women from my district who have distinguished themselves in the Fayette County 4-H. As my colleagues know, 4-H is one of the finest youth-oriented organizations in our nation, developing character in our future leaders. Fayette County 4-H will be recognizing with special awards the following young people on Saturday night, October 9, and I know my colleagues join me in congratulating them and wishing them the best for the future. Receiving the Gold Star award are Michelle Cernoch, Ashley Dittert, and Vickie Sanders. Receiving the Silver Star award are Bradley Klesel and Billie Jo Murphy. Receiving the ``I Dare You'' award are Heather Woelfel and Shayne Markwardt. Receiving the ``Outstanding Jr.'' award are Jenifer Klesel, Melanie Cernoch and Kelly Orsak. And receiving the ``Outstanding Sub Jr.'' award are Adam Mayer, Jodie Kristynick, and Brandon Otto.