Ron Paul

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, we are now experiencing a worldwide financial crisis. It may yet prove to be the worst in all of history. There have been a lot of wringing of hands as to the cause, but the source of the problem is not a mystery. It is a currency induced crisis. Although tax, spending, regulatory policies and special interest cronyism compounds the problems, all nations of the world operate with a fiat monetary system. We have been operating with one for 27 years. It has allowed the financial bubble to develop. Easy credit and artificially low interest rates starts a chain reaction that, by its very nature, guarantees a future correction. Depending on the particulars of fiscal and monetary policy and political perceptions, the boom part of the cycle lasts for unpredictable lengths of time. The later bad consequences of inflating a currency are certain, no matter how beneficial the earlier ones seem. The dollar has played a major roll in the worldwide financial bubble since the dollar is the reserve currency of the world. It is readily accepted and used to further inflate most other world currencies. Noted free market economists Ludwig Von Mises astutely observed in 1940: No political party and no government has ever tried to make a conscious deflationary effort. The unpopularity of deflation is evidenced by the fact that inflationists constantly talk of the evils of deflation in order to give their demands for inflation and credit expansion the appearance of justification. Since we hear no talk of sound money and we can be assured no government will deliberately deflate, we should remain vigilant against the politically popular policy of inflation, the deliberate debasement of the currency. Beneficiaries of easy credit demand the policy of currency inflation continue. Creating money and credit out of thin air gives the illusion of the perfect counterfeiter, appearing legal and helpful to many. The power to inflate a currency guarantees a lender of last resort for risky borrowing, domestic and international. It accommodates deficit spending, permitting spending on extravagant welfare programs and unwarranted international militarism, something for everyone. The welfare poor like it. The welfare rich like it. The foreign welfare recipients like it. It seems everyone likes it until the artificial nature of the financial bubble becomes apparent as it is now. Fiat money and its low interest rates cause mal-investment, over capacity, rising prices in one industry or another, excessive debt and over speculation worldwide. We have had all of this. The current system has generated a nearly $30 trillion derivatives market. This is a modern day phenomenon, having allowed a greater speculative binge than anything known in financial history. But the current prices signals an end of an era and it does not bode well for anyone. The near anarchy in Russia, the food riots in Indonesia, and the growing recession in Japan are signs of conditions spreading across the globe. Unfortunately, there is no sign that correct policy will soon be instituted, anyplace. Capitalism erroneously is being blamed. No mention is made that no country today is truly capitalist in following a sound monetary policy. A lot of lip service is given to free trade but, with only casual observation, one realizes that which is being promoted as free trade is internationalism and managed trade through organizations and programs such as NAFTA, the World Trade Organization, the IMF, the World Bank, foreign aid, subsidized exports, and a U.N. directed foreign policy. Economic sanctions by those professing free trade are commonplace and growing. Today's protectionists rely on these programs in an effort to outwit their competitors along with demanding currency devaluations in a futile effort to enhance exports. Markets inevitably devalue currencies that have been inflated by the monetary authorities. The degree depends on the amount of previous monetary inflation and political perceptions but, on the short run, countries frequently accelerate the devaluation in a competitive fashion in an effort to gain a competitive edge against their trading partners. This is why China, despite the denials, will likely accept the policy of official devaluation. But our concerns here in the Congress should be for the dollar. We should not be so arrogant as to dictate policies to others since we have no authority to do so, whether it be Japan, Indonesia, Mexico, or Russia. We should resist this no matter how tempting it might seem. And we certainly should not use dollars to prop up other currencies or economies whether it be Mexico or anyone else. Bailouts compound the problems and encourages others to mismanage their economies while expecting a bailout for themselves from Uncle Sam. But most importantly, it undermines the value of the dollar. Since returning to Congress in January of 1997, I have repeatedly warned that our monetary policy is seriously flawed and will eventually lead to a dollar crisis. This, in spite of the fact that the dollar has been riding high in American bonds, and up until recently our stock markets have been a haven for the ravaged world financial markets. Foreign Central Banks for years have been willing holders of our dollars, helping to finance our profligate ways, diminishing price inflation here at home, by buying up more dollars than our own central bank. But conditions are changing. In spite of many reasons for capital to flow into dollars assets in the last few years, foreign central banks have dumped $85 billion of their U.S. bond holdings. Considering our large negative trade balance, it is not a surprise to see this happening. And as this dumping of U.S. dollars accelerates, more pressure will be put on the dollar. What can we expect from our illustrious central planners, the Federal Reserve? Just as difficult as it is for an addict to gradually cut back on drugs, economic planners refuse to accept the cutting back of credit creation the markets have become addicted to. Long life may be dependent on sound medical advice and drug abstinence, but feeling good on the short run drives the addict. Likewise, an economy feels good by perpetuating for as long as possible the easy credit that brought us the good times in the first place while the long life of the currency, the economy, and the political system causes little concern. Because there is little interest for the long term in Russia and East Asia, chaos and political strife has prevailed. This we cannot afford in the United States. Today, essentially all politicians, economists, and investors are strongly urging the Fed to do what they do best, inflate the currency, arguing that a liquidity crisis must be avoided at all costs. All that is required, they say, are low interest rates. But this can only be achieved by creating new money even faster, and M3 is already growing at a 9 percent annualized rate. This is inflation and the source of the problem. It appears the Fed is ready to accommodate. Central planning, Soviet style, is a known failure. But we have not yet given up on our type of central planning through a powerful and secretive central bank that dictates interest rates and amounts of credit available to the system. Fine tuning and economic management has been left to the Fed. It is at its pinnacle of power under, ironically, a once gold standard, free market proponent, Alan Greenspan who leads it. Let there be no doubt about it. The good times came with the generous credit creation and low interest rates. And Greenspan will yield to the politicians' pressure to continue the process. Turning off the money spigot and allowing the markets to work will never be seriously considered. But eventually, the markets will rule. Credit creation may lower rates for a time, but when confidence is undermined, an inflation premium will emerge and rates will rise regardless. Lack of demand for loans in Indonesia and elsewhere in East Asia has not lowered rates. In a country with a collapsing currency, rates can and will rise especially if inflating the money supply is the tool of choice in an effort to stimulate the economy. Inflating the money supply presents a great danger to the future of the dollar and the economy and our political system. The worldwide financial bubble is like nothing ever witnessed before and it is collapsing. The Y2K problem will compound our problems, not to mention the instability of the U.S. presidency. It is time to consider the fundamentals underlying our financial and economic system. The welfare state is unsustainable as are our worldwide commitments to bail out everyone and to intervene in every fight, even those that have been ongoing for hundreds if not thousands of years. A limited government, designed to protect liberty and provide for a national defense is one that could be easily managed with minimal taxes, but it would also require that we follow the advice of the founders who explicitly admonished us not to ``emit bills of credit,'' that is paper money, and to use only silver and gold as legal tender. We need to lay plans for our future because we are rapidly approaching a time of crisis and chaos. We surely do not want to leave the solution to FEMA and presidential executive orders. Let me quote from a famous economist who was writing in 1966 about the Great Depression: The Fed succeeded, but it nearly destroyed the economies of the world in the process. The excess credit which the Fed pumped into the economy spilled over into the stock market, triggering a fantastic speculative boom. Belatedly, Federal Reserve officials attempted to sop up the excess reserves and finally succeeded in braking the boom. But it was too late; by 1929 the speculative imbalances had become so overwhelming that the attempt precipitated a sharp retrenching and a consequent demoralizing of business confidence. As a result, the American economy collapsed. Great Britain fared even worse, and rather than absorb the full consequences of her previous folly, she abandoned the gold standard completely in 1931, tearing asunder what remained of the fabric of confidence and inducing a worldwide series of bank failures. The world economies plunged into the Great Depression of the 1930s. With a logic reminiscent of a generation earlier, statists argued the gold standard was largely to blame for the credit debacle which led to the Great Depression. If the gold standard had not existed, they argued, Britain's abandonment of gold payments in 1931 would not have caused the failure of banks all over the world. The irony was that since 1913, we had not been on a gold standard, but on what may be termed a mixed gold standard; yet it is gold that took the blame. Further quoting from this economist from 1966: But the opposition to the gold standard in any form, from a growing number of welfare state advocates, was prompted by a much subtler insight: the realization that the gold standard is incompatible with chronic deficit spending, the hallmark of the welfare state. Stripped of its academic jargon, the welfare state is nothing more than a mechanism by which governments confiscate the wealth of the productive members of a society to support a wide variety of welfare schemes. A substantial part of the confiscation is effected by taxation. But the welfare statists were quick to recognize that if they wished to retain political power, the amount of taxation had to be limited and they had to resort to programs of massive deficit spending, i.e., they had to borrow money, by issuing government bonds, to finance welfare expenditures on a large scale. Under a gold standard, the amount of credit that an economy can support is determined by the economy's tangible assets, since every credit instrument is ultimately a claim on some tangible asset. But government bonds are not backed by tangible wealth, only by the government's promise to pay out of future tax revenues, and cannot be easily absorbed by the financial markets. A large volume of new government bonds can be sold to the public only at progressively higher interest rates. Thus, government deficit spending under a gold standard is severely limited. The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit. They have created paper reserves in the form of government bonds which, through a complex series of steps, the banks accept in place of tangible assets and treat them as if they were an actual deposit as the equivalent of what was formerly a deposit of gold. The holder of a government bond or of a bank deposit created by paper reserves believes that he has a valid claim on a real asset. But the fact is there are no more claims outstanding than real assets. In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case for gold. If everyone decided, for example, to convert all his bank assets to silver or copper or any other good, and thereafter declined to accept checks for payment for goods, bank deposits would lose their purchasing power and government-created bank credit would be worthless as a claim on goods. The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves. This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the hidden confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard. The economist who wrote this in 1966 was Alan Greenspan. He was right then. He is wrong now. Deliberate debasement of a currency cannot assure perpetual wealth, only hardship, the type of hardship we are now witnessing in East Asia and spreading around the world, moving now into Central and South America. And we here in the United States follow the same policy, and we are vulnerable no matter how beneficial and how it appears that we are doing today. Congress has an explicit constitutional responsibility in the area of money and finance, and we must assume this responsibility. Secretive plans by a central bank to manipulate money and credit with the pretense of helping us is unacceptable, and before the trust in the dollar is lost we should work diligently to restore soundness to our monetary system. Without trust, the current system cannot last, and there is every reason to believe that the disintegration of trust throughout the world can and will spread to this country. It is an obligation on our part, Members of Congress, to look into this matter, study it and at least be prepared for the problems that we will have to confront. We cannot continue with the system that we have. That is what the markets are telling us today. The worldwide financial crisis is not a figment of anybody's imagination, it is real, and we are reading about it every day and it threatens the life savings of every single American. The value of the currency is crucial to protecting the assets of all retirees. This issue, I believe, is one of the most serious issues that we as Members of Congress have the responsibility of looking into and confronting and doing something about it. But as long as we accept the notion that the central planner of this country, the Federal Reserve, remains totally secret, without true supervision by the Congress, we are derelict in our duty. It is up to us to do something. And as the crisis worsens, I believe it will become more apparent that our responsibility to look into this is quite evident.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, the Matagorda County 4-H will hold an awards program on the 20th of August and this is a very important event Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker I have, in the past, pointed out how important an organization 4-H truly is for those of us who were raised on farms and who represent agricultural communities. As I have said in the past Mr. Speaker, one of the primary missions that this organization undertakes is agricultural education. I believe that this mission is so critical that, earlier this year, I introduced a bill which would exempt the sale of livestock by those involved in educational activities such as FFA and 4-H from federal income taxation. By making young men and women who participate in these activities hire a group of tax accountants and attorney we are sending the wrong message. Young people who sell livestock at county fairs and the like should be rewarded for taking self initiative and allowed to keep the money they've earned to help pay for their education or to re-invest in other animals to raise. My bill would eliminate the current policy of forcing these youngsters to visit the tax man. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the following winners of the Gold Star, the highest award possible at the county level, for achievements in competition at state levels, leadership ability, community service and years of service. They are: Kim Evans, Courtney Wallis and Lindsey Kubecka. Again, I want to commend these young people for their achievements.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, the Brazoria County 4-H will hold an awards program on the 14th of August and this is a very important event Mr. Speaker. For those of us who were raised on farms and who represent agricultural communities it is well known how important an organization 4-H truly is. Head, Hand, Hearts and Health, these are the ``4-H's'' and they are truly indicative of what this organization is all about. One of the primary missions that this organization undertakes is agricultural education. Earlier this year I introduced a bill which would exempt the sale of livestock by those involved in educational activities such as FFA and 4-H from federal income taxation. By making young men and women who participate in these activities hire a group of tax accountants and attorneys we are sending the wrong message. Young people who sell livestock at county fairs and the like should be rewarded for taking self initiative and allowed to keep the money they've earned to help pay for their education or to re-invest in other animals to raise. My bill would eliminate the current policy of forcing these youngsters to visit the tax man. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the following winners of the Gold Star, the highest award possible at the county level, for achievements in competition at state levels, leadership ability, community service and years of service. They are: Deidrea Harris, Josh Weber, Amanda Tacquard, and Allison Sauer. Again, I want to commend these young people for their achievements.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Madam Speaker, today I rise in support of this bill. I do not support legislation casually here, and have thought this through. I voted against this bill the first time it went through, and I was one of a few. But it is a better bill now than it was before. I am a supporter of the free market, and I do not believe you can achieve equity by raising taxes and putting more regulations on those who do not have regulations and who do not have taxes. For this reason, I argued the case that instead of equity being achieved by taxing credit unions or making it more difficult for them to survive with more regulations, the best thing we should do now is talk about at least the smaller banks that compete with credit unions, to lower their taxes, get rid of their taxes and get rid of the regulation. Precisely because we dealt with the CRA function in the Senate is the reason that I can support this bill. CRA does great deal of harm to the very people who claim they want CRA to be in the bill. CRA attacks the small, marginal bank that is operating in communities that have poor people in them. But if you compel them to make loans that are not prudent and to make loans that are risky, you are doing precisely the opposite of what we should do for these companies. We should work to lower taxes, not only on the credit unions, and lower regulations. We must do the same thing for the banks. We must lower the taxes and get rid of these regulations in order for the banks to remain solvent and that we do not have to bail the banks out like we have in the past. But the regulations do not achieve this. This is a bill that I think really comes around to achieving and taking care of a problem and protecting everybody interested. But I am quite convinced that this is still not a fair bill, a fair approach, because we have not yet done enough for our community bankers. We must eventually apply these same principles of less regulations and less taxes to the small banker. Then we will provide a greater service to the people that are their customers, and we will certainly be allowing the poor people a greater chance to achieve a loan. Since I strongly support the expansion of the field of membership for credit unions and was the first one in this congress to introduce multiple common bonds for credit unions in the Financial Freedom Act, H.R. 1121, I am happy to speak in support of the passage of H.R. 1151 here today. Having argued forcefully against the imposition of new regulations imposed upon credit unions, I congratulate the senate for not increasing the regulatory burden on credit unions in an attempt to ``level the playing field'' with banks and other financial institutions. A better approach is to lead the congress toward lower taxes and less regulation--on credit unions, banks and other financial institutions. H.R. 1151, The Credit Union Membership Access Act, as amended by the senate, takes us one step in the right direction of less government regulation restricting individual choice. We must continue on the path of fewer regulations and lower taxes. These regulations add to the costs of operations of financial institutions. This cost is passed on to consumers in the form of higher interest rates and additional fees. These regulations impose a disproportionate burden on smallers institutions, stifles the possibility of new entrants into the financial sector, and contributes to a consolidation and fewer market participants of the industry. Consumers need additional choices, not congressionally-imposed limits on choices. The estimated, aggregate cost of bank regulation (noninterest expenses) on commercial banks was $125.9 billion in 1991, according to The Cost of Bank Regulation: A Review of the Evidence, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Staff Study 171 by Gregory Elliehausen, April 1998). It reports that studies estimate that this figure amounts to 12 percent to 13 percent of noninterest expenses. These estimates only include a fraction of the ``most burdensome'' regulations that govern the industry, it adds, ``The total cost of all regulation can only be larger . . . The basic conclusion is similar for all of the studies of economies of scale: Average compliance costs for regulations are substantially greater for banks at low levels of output than for banks at moderate or high levels of output,'' the Staff Study concludes. Smaller banks face the highest compliance cost in relation to total assets, equity capital and net income before taxes, reveals Regulatory Burden: The Cost to Community Banks, a study prepared for the Independent Bankers Association of America by Grant Thornton, January 1993. For each $1 million in asset, banks under $30 million in assets incur almost three times the compliance cost of banks between $30-65 million in assets. This regulation almost quadruples costs on smaller institutions to almost four times when compared to banks over $65 million in assets. These findings are consistent for both equity capital and net income measurements, according to the report. We need to work together now to reduce the regulatory burden on all financial institutions. The IBAA study identified the Community Reinvestment Act as the most burdensome regulation with the estimated cost of complying with CRA exceeding the next most burdensome regulation by approximately $448 million or 77%. Respondents to the IBAA study rated the CRA as the least beneficial and useful of the thirteen regulatory areas surveyed. We need to reduce the most costly, and least beneficial and useful regulation on the banks. Let's all work together now, credit unions, banks and other financial institutions, to reduce their regulatory burden. Credit unions have demonstrated that fewer regulations contribute to lower costs passed on to consumers and greater consumer choice. Let's extend that model for banks and other financial institutions.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, point of order. THE CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will state it.

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. It is always interesting that when we have an appropriate amendment that seems to catch the attention of the Members, that it is probably not the appropriate time to bring it up, and that we should hold hearings and do it some other day. We have been spending months, and I believe both sides of the aisle have been very sincere in their efforts to clarify and to improve our election process. I think this would be a tremendous benefit to the congressional candidates as well, because there would be more interest. People are not even listening to the debates. If they are not even willing to listen to the presidential debates, how can they get interested in Senate races and in House races? The rating of the debates in 1996 was the lowest in 36 years. The Vice-Presidential debate, we cannot even get people to listen to the Vice-Presidential debates. It had dropped off 50 percent from 1992. In 1992, there was more interest. It is because we happened to have a billionaire interested, and he was able to stimulate some people in some debates. All I am asking for is for us to endorse the notion, and we have the authority, the money comes from congressional appropriations. We have written these laws. These are election laws. We have this authority. We have the authority under the Constitution and we have the authority under our laws to do this. So I would strongly suggest if Members are fair-minded and think they would like more interest, or if they want to continue the way we are going now, we are going to have less and less people interested. People are really tired of it. The American people do not understand this debate, but they do understand they would like to have somebody speak up for them. Forty-two percent of the people have been essentially disenfranchised, and they are important. Hopefully they are important enough to go to the polls and let us know about it. But they have been disenfranchised because they have lost interest. They have been pushed around, either with ballot access rules and regulations, or not being allowed to appear. This does not mean those candidates more on the right would happen to be in the debate, or more on the left. It would open it up. This is fair-minded, it is proper, it is a good place to do it. It is a chance to vote on it, and I ask for support on this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is very simple. The major candidates receive a lot, a million dollars, to run their campaigns. Then they have national debates, and then they can purposely exclude other candidates. I am not talking about 10 or 20 or 30 very minor candidates, I am talking about candidates who spend weeks, months, years, hundreds of thousands of dollars, just to get on the ballot. Some will not even take the money, but some qualify to be on 40 and 50 ballots, and they are purposely excluded. This amendment does not dictate to those who hold debates, but it would require that those major party candidates who take the taxpayers' money, they take it with the agreement that anybody else who qualifies for taxpayers' funding, campaign funds, or gets on 40 ballots, would be allowed in the debate. I cannot think of anything that could boost the interest in the debates more. Fewer and fewer people are watching debates. There was the lowest turnout, the lowest listening audience to the debates in the last-go around. It was the lowest since we have had these debates on television. Forty-two percent of the people turned out and were interested in the debates prior to the election in 1992, and we had a major candidate, Ross Perot. Of course, the only reason he was able to achieve a significant amount of attention was because he happened to be a billionaire. That is not fair. In 1996, they did a poll right before the election to find out who was paying attention. We were getting ready to pick the President of the United States. It dropped to 24 percent. If we want people to be civic-minded, interested in what we are doing, feeling like they have something to say about their government, we ought to allow them in. We should not exclude this 42 percent that have been excluded. I think opening up the debates in this way would only be fair and proper. It would be the American way to do it. I strongly urge my colleagues to support this fair-minded amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The gentleman suggests we should leave this to the States. I quoted and cited the constitutional authority for this. It is explicit. We have the authority to do this. There are many, many unfair laws. Dealing with the President, for instance, the minor candidates, on average, to get on the ballot, are required to get 701,000 signatures. A major candidate gets less than 50,000. To get on an average Senate seat ballot, 196,000 signatures are required for the Senate, 15,000 for the major candidates. In the House, on the average for the minor candidate, it is more than 13,000, where it is 2,000 for a major candidate. There is something distinctly unfair about this. This is un-American. We have the authority to do it. This is the precise time to do it. We are dealing with campaign reform, and they are forcing these minor candidates to spend unbelievable amounts of money. They are being excluded. They are 42 percent of the people in this country. They are the majority, when we divide the electorate up. They deserve representation, too.

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. My amendment, once again, lowers and standardizes the required signatures to get Federal candidates on the ballot. There is a great deal of inequity among the States, and it works against the minor candidates and prevents many from even participating in the process. For this reason, many individuals have lost interest in politics. They are disinterested, and every year it seems that the turnout goes down. This year is no exception. Forty-two percent of the American people do not align themselves with a political party. Twenty-nine percent, approximately, align themselves with Republicans and Democrats. Yet, the rules and the laws are written by the major party for the sole purpose of making it very expensive and very difficult, and sometimes impossible, to get on the ballot. If we had more competition and more openness, we would get more people out to vote. It would not clutter the ballot, it would not have overcrowding, but it would allow discourse, and it would be beneficial to the process. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute.

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I believe this is a perfecting amendment, it is not in the nature of a substitute, and that has been cleared in the Committee on Rules.

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, both amendments that I have should be perfecting amendments, and if permissible, I ask unanimous consent that they both be accepted as such.

Mr. PAUL. I thank the Chair for the clarification. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, my amendment is very simple. It is an amendment that deals with equity and fairness, so I would expect essentially no opposition to this. It simply lowers and standardizes the signature requirements and the time required to get signatures to get a Federal candidate on the ballot. There are very many unfair rules and regulations by the States that make it virtually impossible for many candidates to get on the ballot. Mr. Chairman, I want to make 4 points about the amendment. First, it is constitutional to do this. Article I, section 4, explicitly authorizes the U.S. Congress to, ``At any time by law make or alter such regulations regarding the manner of holding elections.'' This is the authority that was used for the Voters Rights Act of 1965. The second point I would like to make is an issue of fairness. Because of the excess petition requirements put on by so many States and the short period of time required, many individuals are excluded from the ballot, and for this reason, this should be corrected. There are some States, take, for instance, Georgia, wrote a law in 1943. There has not been one minor party candidate on the ballot since 1943, because it cannot meet the requirements. This is unfair. This amendment would correct this. Number 3, the third point. In contrast to some who would criticize an amendment like this by saying that there would be overcrowding on the ballot, there have been statistical studies made of States where the number of requirements, of signature requirements are very low, and the time very generous. Instead of overcrowding, they have an average of 3.3 candidates per ballot. Now, this is very important also because it increases interest and increases turnout. Today, turnout has gone down every year in the last 20 or 30 years, there has been a steady decline in interest. This amendment would increase the interest and increase the turnout. The fourth point that I would like to make is that the setup and the situation we have now is so unfair, many are concerned about how money is influencing the elections. But in this case, rules and regulations are affecting minor candidates by pushing up the cost of the election, where they cannot afford the money to even get on the ballot, so it is very unfair in a negative sense that the major parties penalize any challengers. And the correction would come here by equalizing this, making it more fair, and I would expect, I think, just everybody to agree that this is an amendment of fairness and equity and should be accepted. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to explain why I cannot vote for the Patient Protection Act (H.R. 4250). However, I would first like to express my support for two of the bill's provisions, relating to Medical Savings Accounts and relating to the proposed national health ID. Earlier this week I introduced legislation, the Patient Privacy Act (H.R. 4281), to repeal those sections of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 that authorized the creation of a national medical ID. I believe that the increasing trend toward allowing the federal government to track Americans through national ID cards and numbers represents one of the most serious threats to liberty we are facing. The scheme to create a national medical ID to enter each person's medical history into a national data base not only threatens civil liberties but it undermines the physician-patient relationship, the cornerstone of good medical practice. Oftentimes, effective treatment depends on a patient's ability to place absolute trust in his or her doctor, a trust that would be severely eroded if the patient knew that any and all information given their doctor could be placed in a data base accessible by anyone who knows the patient's ``unique personal identifier.'' While I was not here in 1996 when the medical ID was authorized, it is my understanding that this provision was part of a large bill rushed through Congress without much debate. I am glad that Congress has decided to at least take a second look at this proposal and its ramifications. I am quite confident that, after Congress hears from the millions of Americans who object to a national ID, my colleagues will do the right thing and pass legislation forbidding the federal government from instituting a ``uniform standard health identifier.'' Mr. Speaker, I am also pleased that Congress is addressing the subject of health care in America, for the American health care system does need reform. Too many Americans lack access to quality health care while millions more find their access to medical care blocked by a ``gatekeeper,'' an employee of an insurance company or a Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) who has the authority to overrule the treatment decisions of physicians! An an OB/GYN with more than 30 years experience, I find it outrageous that any insurance company bureaucrat could presume to stand between a doctor and a patient. However, in order to properly fix the problem, we must understand its roots. The problems with American health care coverage are rooted in the American tax system, which provides incentives for employers to offer first-dollar insurance benefits to their employees, while providing no incentives for individuals to attempt to control their own health care costs. Because ``he who pays the piper calls the tune,'' it is inevitable that those paying the bill would eventually seize control over personal health care choices as a means of controlling costs. Because this problem was created by distortions in the health care market that took control of the health care dollar away from the consumer, the best solution to this problem is to put control of the health care dollar back into the hands of the consumer. We also need to rethink the whole idea of first-dollar insurance coverage for every medical expense, no matter how inexpensive. Americans would be more satisfied with the health care system if they could pay for their routine expenses with their own funds, relying on insurance for catastrophic events, such as cancer. An excellent way of moving toward a health care system where the consumer is in charge is through Medical Savings Accounts (MSA's). I enthusiastically endorse those provisions of this bill that expand access to MSA's. It may be no exaggeration to say that MSA's are vital to preserving the private practice of medicine. MSA's provide consumers the freedom to find high-quality health care at a reasonable cost. MSA's allow consumers to benefit when they economize in choosing health care so they will be more likely to make informed health care decisions such as seeking preventive care and, when possible, negotiate with their providers for the lowest possible costs. Most importantly, MSA's are the best means available to preserve the patient's right to choose their doctor and the treatment that best meets their needs, free from interference by an insurance company or an HMO. Mr. Speaker, all those concerned with empowering patients should endorse H.R. 4250's provisions lifting all caps on how many Americans may purchase an MSA and repealing federal regulations that discourage Americans from using MSA's. For example, a provision in the tax code limits the monthly contribution to the MSA to one-twentieth of the MSA's yearly amount. Thus, MSA holders have a small portion of their yearly contribution accessible to them in the early months of the year. The Patient Protection Act allows individuals to make the full contribution to their MSA at any time of the year, so someone who establishes an MSA in January does not have to worry if they get sick in February. This legislation also allows both employers and employees to contribute to an employee's MSA. It lifts the arbitrary caps on how one can obtain MSA's and expands the limits on the MSA deductible. Also it provides that possession of an MSA satisfies all mandated benefits laws as long as individuals have the freedom to purchase those benefits with their MSA. However, as much as I support H.R. 4250's expansion of MSA's, I equally object to those portions of the bill placing new federal standards on employer offered health care plans. Proponents of these standards claim that they will not raise cost by more than a small percentage point. However, even an increase of a small percentage point could force many marginal small businesses to stop offering health care for their employees, thus causing millions of Americans to lose their health insurance. This will then lead to a new round of government intervention. Unlike Medical Savings Accounts which remove the HMO bureaucracy currently standing between physicians and patients, the so- called patient protections portions of this bill add a new layer of government-imposed bureaucracy. For example, H.R. 4250 guarantees each patient the right to external and internal review of insurance company's decisions. However, this does not empower patients to make their own decisions. If both external and internal review turn down a patient's request for treatment, the average patient will have no choice but to accept the insurance companies decision. Furthermore, anyone who has ever tried to navigate through a government-controlled ``appeals process'' has reason to be skeptical of the claims that the review process will be completed in less than three days. Imposing new levels of bureaucracy on HMO's is a poor substitute for returning to the American people the ability to decide for themselves, in consultation with their care giver, what treatments are best for them. Medical Savings Accounts are the best patient protection. Perhaps the biggest danger these regulations pose is ratification of the principle that guaranteeing a patients' access to physicians is the proper role for the government, thus opening the door for further federal control of the patient-physician relationship. I ask my physician-colleagues who support this regulation, once we have accepted the notion that federal government can ensure patients have access to our services, what defense can we offer when the government places new regulations and conditions on that access? I am also concerned that this bill further tramples upon state automony by further preempting their ability to regulate HMO's and health care plans. Under the 10th amendment, states should be able to set standards for organizations such as HMO's without interference from the federal government. I am disappointed that we did not get an opportunity to debate Mr. Brady's amendment that would have preserved the authority of states in this area. In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, while the Patient Protection Act takes some good steps toward placing patients back in control of the health care system, it also furthers the federal role in overseeing the health system. It is my belief that the unintended, but inevitable, consequence of this bill, will require Congress to return to the issue of health care reform in a few years. I hope Congress gets it right next time.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased that this subject has been brought to the House floor tonight. I am very pleased that the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Barr) has offered this amendment. Mr. Chairman, it does not solve the problem that we face here in the Congress and in this country, and that is the perpetual invasion of our privacy. It has been said even by the author of the immigration bill that the intent was not to have a national ID card, but if Members would read the regulations now being written by the Department of Transportation, it can be seen as nothing else. This indeed would be a national ID card. Last week, we dealt with the subject of medical IDs and a national data bank. Fortunately, something was put into the Patient Protection Act to stymie that a little bit. But there is an ongoing onslaught against personal privacy in this country. And in 1996, of course, when the immigration bill was passed, this authority was given. Quite frankly, even though I am quite pleased with the efforts that we have made here tonight, I think ultimately, if we are sincere about protecting the American people and guaranteeing that we do not have a national identification card, we will repeal that authority. Tonight we are not doing that, but at least we are putting a roadblock in these regulations now being written. I do not think this is an accident. I do not think that this is something that we should be surprised about. Too often, Congress writes regulations and gives authority to certain departments and agencies of government, and then they go beyond the scope; and, too often, we do not pay much attention to it. Fortunately, under these circumstances, I think that it has been brought to the attention of the Congress and proper action has been started, so I am very pleased to be able to support this amendment. Mr. Chairman, in the bigger picture, I think that we are going to continue to see this problem, because when a government gets very large, when a government gets very bureaucratic and when it is difficult to solve all the problems, the government naturally becomes more authoritarian and then the effort becomes how do we get the government to work efficiently? So there is a contest going on in the country today, and it is going to continue: the efficiency of government versus the privacy and the freedoms of the individual. I do not believe that we have been sent here to protect the interests of the State. We have been sent here to uphold the Constitution and protect the liberties of the individual. So this is a perfect example of a contest going on between the bureaucracy and the encroachment of big government versus the individual liberties of other American citizens. So I am pleased with this amendment and, hopefully, it will pass. I think we have to continue to be vigilant about privacy in our medical records and the abuse of the social security number as the national identifier. There are many, many pieces of legislation; there are 40 times we have authorized in this Congress for the social security number to be used as the identifier. It was never intended that way. So I plead with my fellow colleagues to continue to be vigilant and watch out and protect the individual liberty and the privacy of all of us.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I rise in support of the rule. Under the circumstances, the rule is very fair. It offers an opportunity for our side to vote for the Patient Protection Act as well as a vote for the opposition. I think that is quite fair, so I strongly support the rule. I would like to call to the attention of my colleagues one particular part of our bill that I think is very important and addresses a problem I see as being very serious. In 1996, the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill allowed for a national identifier and a national data bank to control all our medical records at a national level. This is very dangerous. In a bill that is called the Patient Protection Act, obviously the best thing we can do is protect patient privacy. If we do not, we interfere with the doctor-patient relationship, and this is a disaster. This whole concept of a national identifier--the administration is already working to establish this--is dangerous and we must do whatever is possible to stop it. I compliment the authors of this bill to prohibit this national medical data bank.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the Patient Privacy Act, which repeals those sections of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 authorizing the establishment of a ``standard unique health care identifier'' for all Americans. This identifier would then be used to create a national database containing the medical history of all Americans. Establishment of such an identifier would allow federal bureaucrats to track every citizen's medical history from cradle to grave. Furthermore, it is possible that every medical professional, hospital, and Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) in the country would be able to access an individual citizens' record simply by entering the patient's identifier into the national database. As an OB/GYN with more than 30 years experience in private practice, I know better than most 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 their doctor will be placed in a data base accessible by anyone who knows the patient's ``unique personal identifier?'' I ask my colleagues, how comfortable would you be confiding any emotional problem, or even an embarrassing physical problem like impotence, to your doctor if you knew that this information could be easily accessed by friend, foe, possible employers, coworkers, HMOs, and government agents? Mr. Speaker, the Clinton administration has even come out in favor of allowing law enforcement officials access to health care information, in complete disregard of the fifth amendment. It is bitterly ironic that the same administration that has proven so inventive at protecting its privacy has so little respect for physician-patient confidentiality. Many of my colleagues will admit that the American people have good reason to fear a government-mandated health ID card, but they will claim such problems can be ``fixed'' by additional legislation restricting the use of the identifier and forbidding all but certain designated persons to access those records. This argument has two flaws. First of all, history has shown that attempts to protect the privacy of information collected by, or at the command, of the government are ineffective at protecting citizens from the prying eyes of government officials. I ask my colleagues to think of the numerous cases of IRS abuses that were brought to our attention in the past few months, the history of abuse of FBI files, and the case of a Medicaid clerk in Maryland who accessed a computerized database and sold patient names to an HMO. These are just some of many examples that show that the only effective way to protect privacy is to forbid the government from assigning a unique number to any citizen. The second, and most important reason, legislation ``protecting'' the unique health identifier is insufficient is that the federal government lacks any constitutional authority to force citizens to adopt a universal health identifier, regardless of any attached ``privacy protections.'' Any federal action that oversteps constitutional limitations violates liberty for it ratifies the principle that the federal government, not the Constitution, is the ultimate arbitrator of its own jurisdiction over the people. The only effective protection of the rights of citizens is for Congress and the American people to follow Thomas Jefferson's advice and ``bind (the federal government) down with the chains of the Constitution.'' For those who claim that the Patient Privacy Act would interfere with the plans to ``simplify'' and ``streamline'' the health care system, under the Constitution, the rights of people should never take a backseat to the convenience of the government or politically powerful industries like HMOs. Mr. Speaker, the federal government has no authority to endanger the privacy of personal medical information by forcing all citizens to adopt a uniform health identifier for use in a national data base. A uniform health ID endangers the constitutional liberties, threatens the doctor-patient relationships, and could allow federal officials access to deeply personal medical information. There can be no justification for risking the rights of private citizens. I therefore urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the Patient Privacy Act.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, Congress should reject H.R. 3874, a bill reauthorizing the Women's, Infant, and Children's (WIC) program and other childhood nutrition programs, and the flawed redistributionist, welfare state model that lies behind this bill. Although the goals of this legislation are noble, the means toward achieving the goals embodied therein are unconstitutional and ineffective. Providing for the care of the poor is a moral responsibility of every citizen, however, it is not a proper function of the Federal Government to plunder one group of citizens and redistribute those funds to another group of citizens. Nowhere in the United States Constitution is the Federal Government authorized to provide welfare services. If any government must provide welfare services, it should be State and local governments. However, the most humane and efficient way to provide charitable services are through private efforts. Among their other virtues, private charities are much more likely to provide short-term assistance rather than fostering long-term dependency upon government programs. Mr. Speaker, I know that you, and many of my colleagues, understand that private charities are also much better able to target assistance to the truly needy than government programs, which are burdened with bureaucratic rules of eligibility, as well as procedures designed to protect the ``due process'' rights of recipients, which cannot be adequately changed to meet unique individual circumstances. Thus, many people who are genuinely needy do not receive needed help. In fact, more than 40 percent of all families living below the poverty level receive no government assistance. Private charities can also be more effective because they do not have to fulfill administrative requirements, such as the WIC program's rebate system, which actually divert resources from the needy. Private charities are also able to place an emphasis upon reformation of personal behavior while not imposing the controls on personal life that government programs, such as WIC, impose on the program recipients. When a pregnant woman signs up to receive WIC vouchers, she is trading away a large amount of her personal freedom. Her choices of where to shop will be restricted to WIC-approved vendors and her choice of what foods to buy will be restricted to those foods which match the WIC nutrition specifications. WIC recipients are also required to participate in WIC parenting and nutrition classes. As an OB/GYN I certainly recognize the importance of proper nutrition for pregnant women and young children. However, as a constitutionalist, I strenuously object to the federal government coercing pregnant women into accepting such services and restricting their choices of food products. The founders of this country would be flabbergasted if they knew that the federal government had monopolized the provisions of charitable services to low-income women, but they would be horrified if they knew the federal government was forbidding poor women from purchasing Post Raisin Bran for their children because some federal bureaucrats had determined that it contains too much sugar! Mr. Speaker, the fact that the manufacture of foods such as Raisin Bran battle to get their products included in this program reveals the extent to which WIC is actually corporate welfare. Many corporations have made a tidy profit from helping to feed the poor and excluding their competitors in the process. For example, thanks to the WIC program, the federal government is the largest purchaser of infant formula in the nation. According to the Congressional Research Service, food vendors participating in WIC received 9.86 billion in Fiscal Year 1997--75% of the total funds spent on the WIC program! This fiscal year, producers of food products approved by the federal government for purchase by WIC participants are expected to receive $10 billion dollars in taxpayer dollars! Small wonder the lobbyists who came to my office to discuss WIC were not advocates for the poor, but rather well-healed spokespersons for corporate interests! Any of my colleagues who doubt that these programs serve the interests of large corporations should consider that one of the most contentious issues debated at Committee mark-up was opposition to an attempt to allow USDA to purchase non-quote peanuts (currently the only peanuts available for sale are farmers who have a USDA quota all other farmers are forbidden to sell peanuts in the US) for school nutrition programs. Although this program would have saved the American taxpayers $5 million this year, the amendment was rejected at the behest of supporters of the peanut lobby. A member of my staff, who appropriately asked why this amendment could not pass with overwhelming support, was informed by a staffer for another member, who enthusiastically supports the welfare state, that the true purpose of this program is to benefit producers of food products, not feed children. The main reason supporters of a free and moral society must oppose this bill is because federal welfare programs crowd out the more efficient private charities for two reasons. First, the taxes imposed on the American people in order to finance these programs leave taxpayers with fewer resources to devote to private charity. Secondly, the welfare state erodes the ethic of charitable responsibility as citizens view aiding the poor as the government's role, rather than a moral obligation of the individual. The best way to help the poor is to dramatically cut taxes thus allowing individuals to devote more of their own resources to those charitable causes which better address genuine need. I am a cosponsor of HR 1338, which raises the charitable deduction and I believe Congress should make awakening the charitable impulses of the American people by reducing their tax burden one of its top priorities. In fact, Congress should seriously consider enacting a dollar-per-dollar tax credit for donations to the needy. This would do more to truly help the disadvantaged than a tenfold increase in spending on the programs in HR 3874. In conclusion, Congress should reject HR 3874 because the programs contained therein lack constitutional foundation, allow the federal government to control the lives of program recipients, and serve as a means of transferring monies from the taxpayers to big corporations. Instead of funding programs, Congress should return responsibility for helping those in need to those best able to effectively provide assistance; the American people acting voluntarily.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, when we go on the August break I will attend a number of events back in my district and one which I will be very proud to attend will be the Matagorda County 100 Club Awards banquet. This group provides assistance to the families of law enforcement personnel who are slain on the job. I can think of no better example of how people can freely work together to provide assistance to those who are in need, and who are most deserving of the help of their neighbors. Officers slain in duty give their lives to protect the liberties of the citizens. Our Nation has a strong tradition of local law enforcement, a tradition which would fail without the courage and willingness of men and women to put their lives on the line by working as state and local law enforcement agents. Once again, Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to commend the 100 Clubs and the brave men and women who serve as local law enforcement agents.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise to support this amendment. I would have to say this amendment is a very modest approach to a serious problem. I see no reason for the Exchange Stabilization Fund to exist. There is no constitutional authority for it. There is no economic benefit for it. It is detrimental to the people. The reason why we have to support this amendment is it is a modest, just a small step in the direction of openness in government, a little bit of accountability, a little bit of oversight. The idea that we can create a fund in 1934 and have essentially no oversight for all these years, I just wonder how many billions, probably hundreds of billions, of dollars that have come and gone in and out and all the mischief it has caused. It was originally set up to stabilize the dollar. And what does it do, as the gentleman from Alabama mentioned earlier, stabilizes the yen. Where did the money come from? It came from confiscation, not through taxation, but confiscating gold from the American people, revaluing the gold, taking the net profits, putting it into the Exchange Stabilization Fund, as well as the initial financing of the IMF. They tried to reassure us and say, well, this is not an injury to our appropriations process. We do not appropriate money. We do not lose money. Well, that is precisely the problem. We are supposed to have responsibility. It is not the kind of amendment I want. We should be talking about this in terms of a free society. Certainly, if we had a sound currency, under a sound currency we do not have all this kind of mischief going on. And certainly, if we had a lot of respect for the Constitution and actually knew something about the Doctrine of Enumerated Powers, we would say, where do we get this authority to prop up other countries and other currencies at the expense of the American taxpayers? This amendment, if we want to give a lot of foreign aid away, this does not preclude it, it just slows us up a little bit and makes us think about it. Yes, we can get into the currency markets to the tune of billions of dollars. They say, well, there is only 38; they might not be able to do any mischief. But my strong suspicion is that the line of credit to the Federal Reserve is endless in the time of crisis. This is why we need more openness. Because, ultimately, this is a threat to the dollar. The dollar, when it is devalued, it hurts the American taxpayer. It is a hidden tax. When we devalue the dollar, we are spending money indirectly. We take away wealth and purchasing power from the American people. And it is a sinister tax. It is the most sinister of all taxes. That is why the Exchange Stabilization Fund should either be abolished or put on the appropriations process. If we cannot do that or will not do that, we have to at least pass this amendment. Pass this amendment and say, yes. If we are going to give away $250 million per country for propping up a foreign currency or foreign country or propping up some banks that made loans overseas or propping up our competitors to our own industries, we have to at least know about it. I do not think this is much of an amendment. The fact that the President threatens to veto this bill just because we are acting responsibly, this is just a small step in the right direction. I see no reason why we cannot pass this amendment. We talk a lot about supporting the currency. On a day-to-day basis, $1.6 trillion are transferred over the wire service. There is not one reputable economist in this country that I know of that really defends currency intervention as being productive and being able to change the course of events. Because although $38 billion is a lot of money and intervention does cause sudden shocks, causes some bond traders, currency traders to lose money quickly, it has no long-term effect. So the original purpose under fixed exchange rate no longer exists. There is no need to prop up a dollar under floating currencies. This is used precisely to bail out special privileged people who have made loans overseas, special corporations around the country, special countries that are our competitors, and it is a way of getting around the Congress, it is a way of devaluing the dollar, putting more pressure on the dollar and hurting the American people. If for no other reason, if my colleagues disagree with all the economic arguments, there should be nobody that should disagree with the fact that we have a responsibility for open government. That is what this issue is all about, and that is what this amendment makes an attempt to do is try to at least get it back to where we will be responsible for our acts.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the rule but in opposition to H.R. 3682, the Child Custody Protection Act, because it is seriously flawed. Although well motivated, the problem we are dealing with is the breakdown of the American family, respect for life and abortion, not too much freedom to travel between States. Having delivered nearly 4,000 babies in my three decades of medical practice and having seen the destructiveness of abortion, I strongly agree that legalized abortion is the most egregious of all current social policies. It clearly symbolizes the moral decline America has experienced in the last 30 years. However, Federal law restricting interstate travel, no matter how well intended, will serve no useful purpose, will not prevent abortions, and, indeed, will have many unintended consequences. It is ironic that if this bill is passed into law, it will go into effect at approximately the same time that the Department of Transportation will impose a National I.D. card on all Americans. This bill only gives the Federal Government and big government proponents one more reason to impose the National I.D. card on all of us. So be prepared to show your papers as you travel about the U.S. You may be transporting a teenager. There is already a legal vehicle for dealing with this problem. Many States currently prohibit adults from taking underage teenagers across State lines for the purpose of marriage. States have reciprocal agreements respecting this approach. This is the proper way to handle this problem. Most importantly, this bill fails to directly address the cause of the problem we face regarding abortion, which is the absurdity of our laws permitting the killing of an infant 1 minute before birth, or even during birth, and a doctor getting paid for it, while calling this same action murder 1 minute after birth. The solution will ultimately come when the Federal Government and Federal courts get out of the way and allow States to protect the unborn. If that were the case, we would not have to consider dangerous legislation like this with the many unforeseen circumstances. 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 other 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. Nevertheless, rather than abide by our constitutional limits, Congress today will likely pass H.R. 3682. H.R. 3682 amends title 18, United States Code, to prohibit taking minors across State lines to avoid laws requiring the involvement of parents in abortion decisions. Should parents be involved in decisions regarding the health of their children? Absolutely. Should the law respect parents rights to not have their children taken across state lines for contemptible purposes? Absolutely. Can a state pass an enforceable statute to prohibit taking minors across State lines to avoid laws requiring the involvement of parents in abortion decisions? Absolutely. But when asked if there exists constitutional authority for the federal criminalizing of just such an action the answer is absolutely not. This federalizing may have the effect of nationalizing a law with criminal penalties which may be less than those desired by some states. To the extent the federal and state laws could co-exist, the necessity for a federal law is undermined and an important bill of rights protection is virtually obliterated. Concurrent jurisdiction crimes 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 criminal justice code is that it seriously increases the danger that one will be subject to being tried twice for the same offense. 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. The privilege and immunities clause as well as full faith and credit clause allow states to exact judgments from those who violate their state laws. The Constitution even allows the federal government to legislatively preserve the procedural mechanisms which allow states to enforce their substantive laws without the federal government imposing its substantive edicts on the states. 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. An inadequate federal law, or a ``adequate'' federal improperly interpreted by the Supreme Court, preempts states' rights to adequately address public health concerns. Roe v. Wade should serve as a sad reminder of the danger of making matters worse in all states by federalizing an issue. It is my erstwhile hope that parents will become more involved in vigilantly monitoring the activities of their own children rather than shifting parental responsibility further upon the federal government. There was a time when a popular bumper sticker read ``It's ten o'clock; do you know where your children are?'' I suppose we have devolved to a point where it reads ``It's ten o'clock; does the federal government know where your children are.'' Further socializing and burden-shifting of the responsibilities of parenthood upon the federal government is simply not creating the proper incentive for parents to be more involved. 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. 3682.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce the Freedom and Privacy Restoration Act, which repeals those sections of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 authorizing the establishment of federal standards for birth certificates and drivers' licenses. This obscure provision, which was part of a major piece of legislation passed at the end of the 104th Congress, represents a major power grab by the federal government and a threat to the liberties of every American, for it would transform state drivers' licenses into national ID cards. If this scheme is not stopped, no American will be able to get a job; open a bank account; apply for Social Security or Medicare; exercise their Second Amendment rights; or even take an airplane flight unless they can produce a state drivers' license, or its equivalent, that conforms to federal specifications. Under the 1996 Kennedy-Kassebaum health care reform law, Americans may even be forced to present a federally-approved drivers' license before consulting their physicians for medical treatment! Mr. Speaker, the Federal Government has no constitutional authority to require Americans to present any form of identification before engaging in any private transaction such as opening a bank account, seeing a doctor, or seeking employment. The establishment of a national standard for drivers' licenses and birth certificates makes a mockery of the 10th amendment and the principles of federalism. While no state is forced to conform their birth certificates or drivers' licenses to federal standards, it is unlikely they will not comply when failure to conform to federal specifications means none of that state's residents may get a job, receive Social Security, or even leave the state by plane? Thus, rather than imposing a direct mandate on the states, the federal government is blackmailing states into complying with federal dictates. Of course, the most important reason to support the Freedom and Privacy Restoration Act is because any uniform, national system of identification would allow the federal government to inappropriately monitor the movements and transactions of every citizen. History shows that when government gains the power to monitor the actions of the people, it eventually uses that power to impose totalitarian controls on the populace. I ask my colleagues what would the founders of this country say if they knew the limited federal government they bequeathed to America would soon have the power to demand that all Americans obtain a federally-approved ID? If the disapproval of the Founders is not sufficient to cause my colleagues to support this legislation, then perhaps they should consider the reaction of the American people when they discover that they must produce a federally-approved ID in order to get a job or open a bank account. Already many offices are being flooded with complaints about the movement toward a national ID card. If this scheme is not halted, Congress and the entire political establishment could drown in the backlash from the American people. National ID cards are a trademark of totalitarianism and are thus incompatible with a free society. In order to preserve some semblance of American liberty and republican government I am proud to introduce the Freedom and Privacy Restoration Act. I thank Congressman Barr for joining me in cosponsoring this legislation. I urge my colleagues to stand up for the rights of American people by cosponsoring the Freedom and Privacy Restoration Act.