Ron Paul

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I would like to discuss a few problems I think this country still faces. I want to mention three, but I will talk more about one in particular. Overall, I believe this country faces a serious problem in that our government is too big. When government is big, it means that liberty is threatened. Today, our governments throughout the land consume more than half of what the American people produce. In order to do that, there has to be curtailment on individual liberty. In the attempt to help people in a welfare-warfare state, unfortunately the poor never seem to be helped. A lot of money is spent, but due to the monetary system that we have, inevitably, the middle class tends to get wiped out and the poor get poorer, and very often in the early stages the wealthy get wealthier. In the meantime, the corporations seem to do quite well. So we live in an age where we have a fair amount of corporatism associated with the welfare-warfare state in which we live. The three specific problems that I want to mention, and I mention these because I think this is what the American people are concerned about, and sometimes we here inside the Beltway do not listen carefully to the people around the country. The three issues are these: The first are the scandals that we hear so much about, the second is an IMF bailout, and the third has to do with Iraq. Now, the scandals have been around a bit. We have heard about Travelgate and Filegate, and we also heard about interference in foreign policy dealing with foreign donations. Now, those I consider very serious and for this reason I join the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Barr) in his resolution to initiate an inquiry into the seriousness of these charges. Some of these charges have been laid aside mainly because there is another scandal in the news, something that has been much more attractive to the media, and that essentially is all that we have been hearing of in the last several weeks. I think this is a distraction from some of the issues that we should deal with. But that is not the one issue that I want to dwell on this evening. The IMF is another issue that I think is very important. This funding will be coming up soon. The Congress will be asked to appropriate $18 billion to bail out the Southeast Asian currencies and countries, and this is a cost; although we are told it does not cost anything, it does not add to the deficit, there is obviously a cost, and we cannot convince the American people that there is no cost just because of our method of budgeting and we do not add it into the deficit. Once again, these funds, whether they go to Southeast Asia or whether they go to Mexico, they never seem to help the little people; they never help the poor people. The poor are poorer than ever in Mexico, and yet the politicians and the corporations and the bankers even in this country get the bailout. This $18 billion is nothing more than another bailout. Now, the third issue is Iraq, and I want to talk more about that, because I am fearful we are about ready to do something very foolish, very foolish for our country, and very dangerous. Of these three issues, there is a common thread. When we think about the scandals, we talk about international finance, a large amount of dollars flowing into this country to influence our elections and possibly play a role in our foreign policy. Also, the IMF, which has to do with international finance, the IMF is under the United Nations and therefore it gets a lot of attention and we are asked to appropriate $18 billion. Then, once again, we have this potential for going to war in Iraq, again, not because we follow the Constitution, not because we follow the rule of law, but because the United Nations has passed a resolution. Some have even argued that the U.N. resolution passed for the Persian Gulf War is enough for our President to initiate the bombings. Others claim that just the legislation, the resolution-type legislation passed in 1990 that endorsed this process is enough for us to go and pursue this war venture. But the truth is, if we followed the rules and if we followed the law, we would never commit an act of war, which bombing is, unless we have a declaration of war here in the Congress. Somebody told me just yesterday that yes, but that is so old fashioned. Just look at what we have been able to do since World War II without a declaration of war. Precisely. Why are we doing this? And precisely because when we do it, what generally happens is that we are not fighting these wars, and they are not police actions, these are wars, and we are not fighting them because of national interests. We are not fighting them for national security, and therefore, we do not fight to win, and subsequently, what war can we really be proud of since World War II? We have not won them. We set the stage for more problems later on. The Persian Gulf War has led to the stalemate that we have here today, and it goes on and on. I think this is a very important subject. War should only be declared for moral reasons. The only moral war is a defensive war and when our country is threatened. Then it is legitimate to come to the people and the people then, through their Members in the House and Senate, and the President then declare war, and then they fight that war to win. But today that is considered very old fashioned, and the consensus here in this Congress is that it will not take much for Congress to pass a resolution. What worries me, though, somewhat is that this resolution will not be circulated among the Members for days and weeks and have real serious debate. There is always the possibility that a resolution like this will come up suddenly. There will be little debate, and then a vote, and an endorsement for this policy. The first resolution that has been discussed over in the Senate had language very, very similar to the same language used in the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which endorsed the expansion of the war in Vietnam, where 50,000 men were lost, and it was done not with a declaration of war, but by casual agreement by the Congress to go along. Congress should have and take more responsibility for these actions. It is only the Congress that should pursue an act of war. Bombing is an act of war, especially if it is a country halfway around the world and a country that has not directly threatened our national security. All of the stories about the monstrosities that occur and how terrible the leader might be may have some truth to it, but that does not justify throwing out the rule of law and ignoring our Constitution. This effort that is about to be launched, it has not been endorsed by our allies. It is getting very difficult to even get the slightest token endorsement by our allies to start this bombing. One would think if Saddam Hussein was a true threat to that region, his neighbors would be the first ones to be willing to march and to be willing to go to battle to defend themselves. But they are saying, do not even put your troops here, do not launch your effort from our soil, because it is not in our best interests to do so. Kuwait, the country that we went to war over not too long ago has given some token endorsement, but even their newspapers are carrying news stories that really challenge what the people might be saying about this effort. There was a Kuwaiti professor who was quoted in a pro-government Kuwaiti newspaper as saying, the U.S. frightens us with ads to make us buy weapons and sign contracts with American companies, thus, ensuring a market for American arms manufacturers and United States continued military presence in the Middle East. That is not my opinion; that is a Kuwaiti professor writing in a government newspaper in Kuwait. A Kuwaiti legislator who was not willing to reveal his name said the use of force has ended up strengthening the Iraqi regime rather than weakening it. Most people realize that. In the Middle East, Saddam Hussein has more credibility among his Arab neighbors than he did before the war. Other Kuwaitis have suggested that the U.S. really wants Hussein in power to make sure his weak neighbors fear him and are forced to depend on the United States for survival. Now, these are very important comments to be considered, especially when we are getting ready to do something so serious as to condone the bombing of another country. Just recently in The Washington Post, not exactly a conservative newspaper, talked about what Egypt's opinion was about this. This is interesting, because the interview was done in Switzerland at the World Economic Forum, and the interview was made by Lally Weymouth, and she talked to Egypt's Foreign Minister, Amre Moussa, the Foreign Minister of Egypt, our ally, a country that gets billions of dollars from us every year. So one would expect with all this money flowing into that country that they should quickly do exactly what we want. But this Foreign Minister was rather blunt: Egypt, a key member of the Gulf War coalition, is opposed to U.S. military action in Iraq. He said, We believe that military action should be avoided and there is room for political efforts. He said, If such action is taken, there will be considerable fallout in the Arab world, he warned. He said, We are not afraid of Saddam. He added that his country believes the crisis is a result of allegations that have not been proven. Yet, we are willing to go and do such a thing as to initiate this massive bombing attack on this country, and there has been nothing proven. Moussa also said that Iraq's possession of chemical and biological weapons must be pursued, of course. But this requires cooperation with Iraq, not confrontation. Even our President admits that more weapons have been removed from Iraq since the war ended than which occurred with the hundreds of thousands of troops in Iraq, as well as 88,000 bombs that were dropped in the whole of World War II, and it did not accomplish the mission. So he is suggesting that it is just not worth the effort and it is not going to work. And he, of course, speaks for one of our allies. He says, ``The whole Middle East is not comfortable with this, and I do not think there is support for such an option. All of us will face the consequence of such a military attack.'' ``All of us'' means all of them, not the people here in the United States. He said 7 years ago there was an occupation and an apparent aggression. Today it is a question over inspections, so therefore he is arguing strenuously that we not do this. The people in the Middle East, he says, see a double standard. He is talking for the Arabs. The people in the Middle East see a double standard because the Israeli Government does not comply with U.N. Resolution 242, but we see no action. The U.S. is too strong on one and too soft on the other. The peace process is falling apart. We do know that the peace process with Israel and the Palestinians is not going smoothly, yet this is behind some of what is happening because they do not understand our policy. He goes on to say, ``There is room for a political solution. Bear in mind the repercussions in the area. If the United States bombs, there will be Iraqi victims.'' Then he asks, ``What happens if the public sees a decisive move on the part of Iraq but not toward Israel? We have to take into consideration how the people who live near Iraq respond to something like this.'' Now, Steven Rosenfeld, in the Washington Post, on February 6, also made comments about the Middle East and the failure of the Mideast policy. And I thought he had a very interesting comment, because he certainly would not be coming at this from the same viewpoint that I have. In his statement, this again is Rosenfeld in the Washington Post, he said, ``There is a fatal flaw at the heart of Netanyahu's policy. He is not prepared to address the Palestinians' basic grievance. To think that Israel can humiliate the Palestinians politically and then reap the benefits of their security cooperation is foolish. It can't happen.'' Here we are being more involved in the Middle East process with Iraq in the hope that we are going to bring about peace. What about another close ally, an ally that we have had since World War II: Turkey. Turkey is not anxious for doing this. They do not want us to take the bombers and the troops out of Turkey. As a matter of fact, they are hesitant about this. This is an article from the Washington Times by Philip Smucker. He said, ``Turkey's growing fears of a clash in Iraq are based largely on what it sees as the ruinous aftermath of the Gulf War.'' So Turkey is claiming that they are still suffering from the Gulf War. ``The people,'' and this is quoting from the Foreign Ministry Sermet Atacanli, ``the people have started thinking that Turkey is somehow being punished,'' a senior foreign official said. ``We supported the war, but we are losing now.'' So they are getting no benefits. He said that since the war, Turkey has suffered economic losses of some $35 billion stemming from the invigorated Kurdish uprising on the Iraqi border and the shutting down of the border trade, including the Iraqi oil exports through Turkey. They used to have trade; now they do not. We encouraged the Kurds to revolt and then stepped aside, so the Kurds are unhappy with the Americans because they were disillusioned as to what they thought they were supposed to be doing. ``Turkey's clear preference is for Iraq to regain control of its own Kurdish regions on the Turkish border and resume normal relations with Ankara.'' Further quoting the foreign ministry of Turkey, ``Iraq cannot exercise sovereignty over these regions, so there has become a power vacuum that has created an atmosphere in which terrorists operate freely.'' It has taken quite some effort for Turkish forces to deal with this problem. What will happen if the bombs are relatively successful? More vacuum. More confusion. And more turmoil in that region. The military goals are questioned by even the best of our military people in this country, and sometimes it is very difficult to understand what our military goals are. We do not have the troops there to invade and to take over Baghdad or to get rid of Hussein, but we have a lot of bombs and we have a lot of firepower. Yet, we are supposed to be intimidated and fearful of this military strength of Saddam Hussein. Yet even by our own intelligence reports, his strength is about one-half what it was before the Persian Gulf War started. So there is a little bit more fear-mongering there than I think is justified. But if we do not plan to send troops, we just agree to send bombs, then it will not get rid of Hussein. Why are we doing this? Because some people question this and some people respond and say, that may be correct, maybe we do not have the ability to inflict enough damage or to kill Hussein. And some here have even suggested that we assassinate him. Well, I am not going to defend Iraq. I am not going to defend Hussein. But I do have a responsibility here for us in the Congress to obey the law, and under our law, under the Constitution, and with a sense of morality, we do not go around assassinating dictators. I think history shows that we were involved in that in South Vietnam and it did not help us one bit. Syria is another close neighbor of Iraq. Syria was an ally in the Persian Gulf War. Syria would like us not to do anything. Iraqi foreign minister Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf went to Damascus to see Syrian President Hafez Assad, marking the first time in 18 years that the Syrian leader met with an Iraqi official. This is one of the consequences, this is one of the things that is happening. The further we push the Iraqi people and the Iraqi Government, the further we push them into close alliances with the more radical elements in that region. It is conceivable to me that it would be to Hussein's benefit, and he probably is not worried that much, but I do not believe it is in our interest. I do not believe it is in the interest of the American people, the American taxpayers, the American fighter pilots, and certainly long-term interest in the Middle East. We will spend a lot of money doing it. That is one issue. We could end up having lives lost. We still have not solved all the problems and taken care of all the victims of the Persian Gulf War syndrome which numbers in the tens of thousands. Maybe we should be talking about that more than looking for more problems and a greater chance for a serious confrontation where lives were lost. The Iraqi and the Syrian views, according to this article, are very close and almost identical in rejecting a resort to force and American military threats. We do not get support there, and we should not ignore that. Just recently Schwarzkopf was interviewed on NBC TV's ``Meet the Press,'' and he had some interesting comments to make, very objective, very military-oriented comments. He would not agree with me on my policy or the policy that I would advocate of neutrality and nonintervention and the pro-American policy. But he did have some warnings about the military operation. He said, ``I do not think the bombing, I don't think it will change his behavior at all. Saddam's goal is to go down in history as the second coming of Nebuchadnezzar by uniting the Arab world against the west. He may not mind a big strike if, after it, the United Nations lifts economic sanctions against Iraq.'' I am afraid that this policy is going in the wrong direction, that we are going to have ramifications of it for years to come, and that we will and could have the same type of result as we had in Vietnam that took a decade for us to overcome. Mr. Speaker, there is no indication that this bombing will accomplish what we should do. Charles Duefler, deputy chief of the U.N. Special Commission in charge of Iraqi inspection said, ``Put bluntly, we do not really know what Iraq has.'' That is at the heart of the problem. Here is our U.N. inspector admitting that they have no idea. So how can we prove that somebody does not have something if we do not know what he is supposed to have? So the odds of this military operation accomplishing very much are essentially slim to none. Charles Krauthammer, who would be probably in favor of doing a lot more than I would do, had some advice. He said, ``Another short bombing campaign would simply send yet another message of American irresolution. It would arouse Arab complaints about American arrogance and aggression while doing nothing to decrease Saddam's grip on power. Better to do nothing,'' Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post. These are not my views. They are warnings that we should not ignore. Richard Cohen from the Washington Post had some advice. He said, ``Still military action is a perilous course. It will produce what is called `collateral damage,' a fancy term for the accidental killing of civilians and possibly the unintentional destruction of a school or mosque.'' We have heard of that before. ``That, in turn,'' he goes on to say, ``will provoke protests in parts of the Arab world, Jordan probably and Egypt as well. In both countries the United States is already considered the protector of a recalcitrant Israeli Government. As for Israel itself, it can expect that Iraq will send missiles its way armed with chemical or biological weapons.'' This is Richard Cohen warning us about some of the ramifications of what might happen. But during these past 8 years since the war has ended, there has been no signs that that is likely to happen. It is more likely to happen that some missile or some accident will occur that will spread this war from a neat little war to something much bigger than we are interested in dealing with. There are several other points that I would like to mention here. The one thing we cannot measure and we cannot anticipate are the accidents that happen. So often wars are caused by people being in the wrong place at wrong time, and then accidents happen and somebody gets killed, a ship is sunk, and we have to go to war. Other times some of these events may be staged. One individual suggested the possibility of a person like Saddam Hussein actually acting irrationally and doing something radical to his own people and then turning around and blaming the United States or Israel or something like that. So we are dealing with an individual that may well do this and for his specific purposes. But we would all be better off, not so much that we can anticipate exactly who we should help and who we should support; we have done too much of that. We help too often both sides of every war that has existed in the last 50 years, and we have pretended that we have known what is best for everybody. I think that is impossible. I think the responsibility of the Members of Congress here is to protect the national interest, to provide national security, to take care of national defense, to follow the rules that say, we should not go to war unless the war is declared. If we go to war, we go to war to fight and win the war. But we do not go to war because we like one country over another country and we want to support them. We literally support both sides in the Middle East, and it is a balancing act and, quite frankly, both sides right now seem to be a little bit unhappy with us. So the policy has not been working; we have not been able to achieve what we think we are able to do. But we must be very cautious on what we are doing here in the next few weeks. People say, well, we have to do it because Hussein has so much of this firepower, he has all of these weapons of mass destruction. It was just recently reported by U.S. intelligence that there are 20 nations now who are working on and producing weapons of mass destruction, including Iran and Syria. So why do we not go in there and check them out too? Why is it that we have no more concern about our national security concern about China? I think China can pose a national threat. I do not think we should be doing it to China. I do not think we should be looking to find out what kind of weapons they have. We know they sell weapons to Iraq. And we know they are a very capable nation when it comes to military. But what do we do with China? We give them foreign aid. They are one of the largest recipients of foreign aid in the whole world. So we do not apply the rules to all the countries the same, and we get narrowed in on one item and we get distracted from many of the facts that I think are so important. Some people believe that it is conceivable that the oil is even very important in this issue as well. We obviously knew the oil was important in the Persian Gulf War because it was said that we were going over there to protect our oil. Of course, it was Iraqi oil but some people believe sincerely that keeping this Iraqi oil off the market helps keep the prices higher and they do not need that to happen. As a matter of fact, it was in the Wall Street Journal today that that was further suggested. It said: Equally important the U.S. must terminate illegal oil exports from the Iraqi port of Basra. There, submerged barges depart daily for Iran, which sells the oil and, after a hefty rake-off, returns the proceeds to fund Saddam. So there are sales and there might be people that are looking at this mainly as a financial thing dealing with oil. The odds now of us being able to stop this bombing I think are pretty slim. I think that is rather sad because it looks like there will be a resolution that will come to the floor. There probably will not be a chance for a lot of debate. It will come up under suspension possibly and yet in the words may be toned down a little bit. It might not be identical to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. But all I would like to do is point out to my colleagues that this is more important than it appears, and we should not be so glib as to give this authority, to give the cover for the President to say, well, the Congress said it was okay. I do not think the Congress should say it is okay, because I think it is the wrong thing to do. And I think it could lead to so many, so many more problems. So we have a responsibility. If the responsibility is that Saddam Hussein is a threat to our national security, we should be more honest with the American people. We should tell them what the problem is. We should have a resolution, a declaration of war. Obviously, that would not pass but it looks like it will not be difficult to pass a resolution that will condone and give sanction to whatever the President does regardless of all the military arguments against it. So I see this as really a sad time for us and not one that we should be proud of. I do know that the two weakest arguments I can present here would be that of a moral argument, that wars ought to be fought only for defense and for national security. I have been told that is too old-fashioned and we must police the world, and we have the obligation. We are the only superpower. Well, I do not think that is a legitimate argument. I do have a lot of reservation that we are so anxious to go along with getting authority elsewhere, and that is through the United Nations. When the Persian Gulf War was started, getting ready to start, it was said that we did not need the Congress to approve this because the authority came from the United Nations resolution. Well, that to me is the wrong way to go. If we are involved in internationalism, where international financing now is influencing our presidential election, if international finances demand that we take more money from the American taxpayers and bail out southeast Asian countries through the IMF and that we are willing to have our young men and women be exposed to war conditions and to allow them to go to war mainly under a U.N. resolution and a token endorsement by the Congress, I think this is the wrong way to go. I do realize that we have been doing it this way for 40 or 50 years. But quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, I do not believe the American people are all that happy about it. I have not yet had anybody in my district come up to me and start saying, Ron, I want you to get up there and start voting. I want to see those bombs flying. As a matter of fact, I have had a lot of them come and say, why are you guys up there thinking about going to war? I have had a lot of people talk about that. So we should not do this carelessly and casually. There is no reason in the world why we cannot be willing to look at the rule of law. The rule of law is very clear. We do not have the moral authority to do this. This is, we must recognize, this is an act of war. When the resolution comes up to the floor, no matter how watered down it is, I think everybody should think very seriously about it and not be careless about it, not wait until a decade goes by and 50,000 men are killed. I think that is the wrong way to do it. There is nothing wrong with a pro-American foreign policy, one of nonintervention, one where we are neutral. That was our tradition for more than 100 years. It stood out in George Washington's farewell address, talk about nonentangling alliances. These entangling alliances and our willingness to get involved has not been kind to us in the 20th century. So we should really consider the option of a foreign policy that means that we should be friends with all. People will immediately say that is isolationism. Even if you are not for the IMF bailout, this argument really bewilders me. If you are not for the $18 billion bailout of the IMF, you are an isolationist. You can be for free trade and get rid of all the tariffs and do everything else, but if you are not willing to give your competitors more money and bail them out and bail out the banks, you are an isolationist. You are not for free trade. It is complete nonsense. There is nothing wrong with isolating our military forces. We do not have to be the policemen of the world. We have not done a good job and the world is not safer today because of our willingness to do this. One act leads to the next one. We are still fighting the Persian Gulf War, and it sounds to me like we are losing our allies. We must take this under serious advisement. We must not be too anxious to go and do something that we could be very sorry for. I know that people do not like this statement I am going to be making to be made, but I think there should be a consideration for it. So often Members here are quite willing to vote to put ourselves and our men in harm's way that could lead to a serious confrontation with many deaths. But if those individuals who claim that it would be best to assassinate Saddam Hussein or put land troops on there, I wonder if they would be willing to be the first ones on the beachhead. That really is the question. That is a fair statement. If you are willing to go yourself, if you are willing to send your child, then it is more legitimate to vote casually and carelessly to go marching off with acts of war. But if that individual who is getting ready to vote, if he himself or she herself is not willing to land on that beach and risk their lives, they should think a second time. In a war for national defense, if this country is threatened, every one of us should participate in it. We should and we can. We could do it our way, to participate in the defense of this country. But once it is being involved in a casual and a careless manner with not knowing what the goals are, not knowing what victory means, not fighting to win, this can only lead to bigger problems. This is the time to reassess it. I know time is running short. Everybody is afraid of losing face. Some people say, well, how do we back off and we cannot let Saddam Hussein lose face, and what about our own politicians who have been saying that we must do something. They will lose face. Would that not be the worst reason in the world to do this, because they are afraid of losing face because we threatened them? If it is the wrong thing to do, we should not do it. And there seems to me to be no direct benefit to the American people, certainly no benefit to the American taxpayer, certainly no benefit to peace in the Middle East. It is more likely to cause more turmoil. It is more likely to unify the Islamic fundamentalists like they have never been unified before. So what we are doing here is very serious business. Unfortunately, it looks like it is going to happen and it looks like there will be one or two or three or four of us that will say, go slow, do not do this, let us question this. But unfortunately, the only significant criticism we have had of the policy has been, do more faster. We do not need to do more faster. We need to do less quicker, much less quicker. Nothing has been happening in the last few years, the last few weeks. Does President Clinton need to bomb over the weekend or next week or two weeks from now? I say absolutely not. There is no need for this. Saddam is weaker than he used to be. He could be stronger after this is finished. So we must be cautious. We must take our time and think about this before we go off and make this declaration. It sounds like a lot of fun. We have a lot of bombers. We have a lot of equipment that we have to test, and we can go over there and see if the B-1 and the stealth bombers will work a little bit better than they have in the past. But this is not a game. This is not a game. This is serious business. One item like this, one event like this can lead to something else, and that is what we have to be cautious about. We cannot assume that, yes, we can bomb for a day or two or three or four and the stronger the rhetoric the more damage we are going to do. We need less rhetoric. We as a Nation have on occasion been the initiators of peace talks. We encourage the two groups in the Middle East, the Israelis and the Palestinians. We bring them to our country. We ask them to sit down and talk. Please talk before you kill each other. We go to the Protestants and we go to the Catholics and we say, please talk, do not kill each other. Why do we not talk more to Hussein? He is willing to. I know, I mean you have to take his word with a grain of salt, but would it not be better to sit down across the table and at least talk rather than pursue a course that, a military course that may be more harmful? If this would be a guarantee that it would get a lot better and that we would solve a lot of problems, maybe we could consider it. But even those who advocate this do not claim they know when the end stage is, what the ultimate goal is, and that they would expect success. They are not expecting this. They just want to bomb, bomb people. Innocent people will die. Those pictures will be on television. And I, quite frankly, do not believe the polls that most Americans want us to do this. I go home; I talk to a lot of my constituents. I do not find them coming and saying, do this. They do not even understand, the people who come and talk to me, they ask me what is going on up there. Why are they getting ready to do this? I mean, most people in this country cannot even find where Iraq is on the map. I mean, they are not that concerned about it. And yet all we would have to do is have one ship go down and have loss of life and then all of a sudden, then do we turn tail? Then is it that we do not lose face after we lose 1,000 men by some accident or some freakish thing happening? Sure, we will lose more face then. But we can save face if we do what is right, explain what we are doing and be open to negotiations. There is nothing wrong with that. I mean, there has not been a border crossing. The other thing is it would be nice if we had a policy in this country, a foreign policy that had a little bit of consistency. I have been made fun of at one time on the House floor for being consistent and wanting to be consistent. I do not particularly think there is anything wrong with being consistent. I think there should be a challenge on my ideas or our ideas. We should challenge ideas. But if you want to be consistent, if they are the right ideas, you should be consistent. But we talk about this horrible country, I am not defending the country and I am not defending Hussein, but we criticize him as an individual who invaded another country. I wonder what they are talking about. I wonder if they are talking about when he invaded Iran with our encouragement and our money and our support. Is that what they are talking about? Or are they talking about the other invasion that we did not like because it was a threat to western oil? I think that might be the case. So they talk about poison gas. Yes, there is no doubt about it. I think the evidence is out that he has used poison gas against his own people. Horrible, killed a lot of people. But never against another country, which means the line could be drawn by if he had ever used these weapons. We cannot investigate 20 countries. We cannot investigate North Korea. We cannot investigate China. Why do we have this obsession with investigating this country? But poison gases, under international agreements, we are not supposed to use poison gases. Poison gases, we used them, not against a foreign power but we used them against our own people. No, we did not have a mass killing but those families understood it. Over 100, more than 100, 150 people were gassed with gas that was illegal, according to our own agreements, and we used them at Waco. So at one time we were an ally of a country, at the same time he is using poison gas and invading another country and then, when he invades the wrong country, then we give him trouble. For many, many years, Noriega was our ally, and he was no angel when he was our ally. He received money from the CIA, but all of a sudden he wanted to be his own drug lord. He did not want to be beholding to our CIA, so we had to do something about him. There is nothing wrong with a foreign policy that is consistent based on a moral principle and on our Constitution. That means that the responsibility of the U.S. Congress is to provide for a strong national defense. There is nothing wrong with being friends with everybody who is willing to be friends with us. There is nothing wrong with trading with as many people that will trade with us, and there is nothing wrong with working for as low tariffs as possible. There is no reason why we should not consider at least selling some food and medicine to Castro. We have had a confrontation with Castro now for 40 years, and it has served him well because his socialism and his communism was an absolute failure. But he always had a scapegoat. It was the Americans. It was the Americans because they boycotted and they would not trade and, therefore, that was the reason they suffered. So it served him well. I would think that being willing to talk with people, if we believe in our system, if we believe that liberty is something to be proud of and that that works, I am convinced that it is better to have set an example to talk with people, trade with people, and go back and forth as freely as possible and we will spread our message much better than we ever will with bombs. How many bombs did we drop in South Vietnam? How many men were lost on our side? How many people were lost on the other side? How many innocent people were lost? So the war ends, after a decade. After a decade of misery in this country where we literally had to turn on our own people to suppress the demonstrations. But today I have friends who are doing business in South Vietnam, making money over there, which means that trade and talk works. They are becoming more Westernized. This whole approach of militancy, believing that we can force our way on other people, will not and cannot work. Matter of fact, the few quotes that I used here earlier are indicating that we are doing precisely the wrong thing; that we are further antagonizing not only our so-called enemies, but we are further antagonizing our allies. So if there is no uniformity of opinion of the neighbors, of Iraq, that we should be doing this, if we will not listen to the moral, if we will not listen to the constitutional issue, we should listen to the practical issue. His neighbors do not want us to do it. And what are we going to prove? We should not do it. We should reassess this. We should decide quietly and calmly and deliberately in this body that quite possibly the move toward internationalism, abiding by the U.N. resolutions, paying through the nose to the IMF to bail out the special interests, never helping the poor but always helping the rich, encouraging a system that encourages foreign countries to come in and buy influence, should be challenged. We should change it. And we do not have to be isolationists. We can be more open and more willing to trade and talk with people and we will have a greater chance of peace and prosperity. That is our purpose. Our purpose is to protect liberty. And we do not protect American liberty by jeopardizing their liberty and the wealth of this country by getting involved when we should not be involved. The world is a rough enough place already, and there will continue to be the hot spots of the world, but I am totally convinced that a policy of American intervention overseas, subjecting other nations to our will, trying to be friends to both sides at all times, subsidizing both sides and then trying this balancing act that never works, this is not going to work either. It did not work in the 1980s when we were closely allied and subsidizing Hussein and it will not work now when we are trying to bomb him. Neither will it work for us to not have somewhat of a consistent policy to ignore the other countries that are doing the very same thing at the same time the real threat possibly could be a country like China. And what do we do? We give them billions and billions of dollars of subsidies. There is nothing wrong with a consistent defense of a pro-America foreign policy. People will say, well, the world is different and we have to be involved. That is exactly the reason that we ought to be less aggressive. That is exactly the reason why we ought to take our own counsel and not do these things. Because we live in an age where communications are much more rapid. The weapons are much worse. There is every reason in the world to do less of this, not more of it. But none of this could happen. We could never move in this direction unless we asked a simple question: What really is the role of our government? Is the role of our government to perpetuate a welfare- warfare state to take care of the large special interests who benefit from this by building weapons and buying and selling oil? No, the purpose cannot be that. The welfare-warfare state does not work. The welfare for poor is well-motivated; it is intended to help people, but it never helps them. They become an impoverished, dependent class. And we are on the verge of bankruptcy, no matter what we hear about the balanced budget. The national debt is going up by nearly $200 billion a year and it cannot be sustained. So this whole nonsense of a balanced budget and trying to figure out where to spend the excess is nonsense. It just encourages people to take over more of the responsibilities that should be with the American people. We here in the Congress should be talking about defending this country, providing national security, providing for a strong currency, not deliberately distorting the currency. We should be protecting private property rights and making sure that there is no incentive for the special interests of this country to come and buy their influence up here. We do not need any fancy campaign reform laws. There is no need for those. We need to eliminate the ability of the Congress to pass out favors. I do not get any PAC money because there is no attempt to come and ask me to do special favors for anybody. I get a lot of donations from people who want liberty. They want to be left alone, and they know, they know that they can take care of themselves. Now, this point will not be proven until the welfare state crumbles, and it may well crumble in the next decade. The Soviet system crumbled rather suddenly. We cannot afford to continue to do this, but we must be cautious not to allow the corporate state and the militant attitude that we have with our policy to rule. We have to decide here in this country, as well as in this body, what we want from our government and what kind of a government we want. We got off from the right track with the founders of this country. They wrote a good document and that document was designed for this purpose, for the protection of liberty. We have gone a long way from that, until now we have the nanny state that we cannot even plow our gardens without umpteen number of permits from the Federal Government. So our government is too big, it is too massive, and we have undermined the very concept of liberty. Foreign policy is very important because it is under the conditions of war; it is under the condition of foreign confrontation that people are so willing to give up their liberties at home because of the fear. We should avoid unnecessary confrontations overseas and we should concentrate on bettering the people here in this country, and it can best be done by guaranteeing property rights, free markets, sound money, and a sensible approach to our foreign policy.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, in 1964, a resolution passed this Congress which urged the President to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression, the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. Today there is a resolution floating around this Congress that urges the President to take all necessary and appropriate actions to respond to the threat posed by Iraq. We should remember history. We lost 50,000 men after we passed that last resolution. We do not have a sensible policy with Iraq. We should move cautiously. Madam Speaker, I would also urge other Members to be cautious when they talk about a surgical strike and assassination. Assassination of foreign leaders is still illegal under our law. I urge my fellow colleagues, please, be cautious, be careful, and be wise when it comes to giving this President the right to wage war. Ironically, this President did not respond in the same manner with the Gulf of Tonkin resolution.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this rule; and I support H.R. 2846, which forbids the use of Federal funds to develop or implement a national test without explicit authorization from Congress. Supporters of protecting the United States Constitution from overreaching by the executive branch should support this bill. The administration's plan to develop and implement a national testing program without Congressional authorization is a blatant violation of the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers. However, support of this bill should in no way be interpreted to imply that Congress has the power to authorize national testing. Education is not one of the powers delegated to the Federal Government. As the 9th and 10th amendment makes clear, the Federal Government can only act in those areas where there is an explicit delegation of power. Therefore, the Federal Government has no legitimate authority to legislate in this area of education. Rather, all matters concerning education, including testing, remain with those best able to educate children: individual States, local communities and, primarily, parents. I therefore urge my colleagues to vote for H.R. 2846 which stops the administration from ultimately implementing national tests and oppose all legislation authorizing the creation of a national test. Instead, this Congress should work to restore control over their children's education to the American people by shutting down the Federal education bureaucracy and cutting taxes on American parents so they may better provide for the education of their own children.

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of HR 2846, which forbids the use of federal funds to develop or implement a National Test without explicit authorization from Congress. Supporters of protecting the United States Constitution from overreaching by the Executive Branch should support this bill as the Administration's plan to develop and implement a national education test without Congressional authorization is a blatant violation of the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers. However, support for this bill should in no way be interpreted to imply that Congress has the power to authorize national testing. After all, Congress, like the Executive and the Judicial branches of government, must adhere to the limitations on its power imposed by the United States Constitution. Although many seem to have forgotten this, in our system, the limits set by the Constitution, rather than the will of any particular Congress, determine the legitimate authority of the United States Government. The United States Constitution prohibits the executive branch from developing and implementing a national test, or any program dealing with education. Education is not one of the powers delegated to the Federal Government, and, as the ninth and tenth amendment make clear, the Federal Government can only act in those areas where there is an explicit delegation of power. Therefore, the Federal Government has no legitimate authority to legislate in the area of education. Rather, all matters concerning education, including testing, remain with those best able to educate children--individual states, local communities, and, primarily, parents. Implementation of a national test also must be opposed because of its primary effect: the de facto creation of a national curriculum. Many supporters of a national testing try to minimize this threat to local and parental sovereignty by claiming the program would be voluntary. However, these are many of the same people who consider Goals 2000 a ``voluntary'' program, despite the numerous times Goals 2000 uses the terms ``shall'' and ``must'' in describing state functions. Furthermore, whether or not schools are directly ordered to administer the tests, schools will face pressure to do so as colleagues and employers inevitably begin to use national tests as the standard by which students are measure for college entrance exams and entry-level jobs. At the very least, schools would soon find federal, and perhaps even state, funding conditioned upon their ``voluntary'' participation in the national testing program. Educators will react to this pressure to ensure students scored highly on the national test by ``teaching to the test''--that is, structuring the curriculum so students learn those subjects, and only those subjects covered by the national tests. As University of Kansas Professor John Poggio remarked in February of last year, ``What gets tested is what will be taught.'' Government bureaucrats would then control the curriculum of every school in the nation, and they would be able to alter curriculums at will by altering the national test! Private schools and home schools will be affected as well, as performance on the national tests becomes the standard by which student performance is judged. Those in private and home schools will face increasing pressure to participate in national testing and shape what is taught to fit the criteria of the tests. National testing is a backdoor means by which the federal government can control the curriculum of every school in the nation. Implementation of national testing would be a fatal blow to constitutional government and parental control of education. The Executive Branch has no constitutional authority to implement and develop a national test and the Congress has no authority to authorize the test. I therefore urge my colleagues to vote for H.R. 2846, which stops the Administration from ultimately implementing national tests and oppose all legislation authorizing the creation of a national test. Instead, this Congress should work to restore control over their children's education to the American people by shutting down the federal education bureaucracy and cutting taxes on America's parents so they may provide for the education of their own children.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, the Saudis this past week expressed a sincere concern about an anti-American backlash if we start bombing Baghdad. We should not ignore the feelings of the Saudis. If a neighbor can oppose this bombing, we should be very cautious. In the next week or two, we may have a resolution coming to this floor endorsing the bombing and, in essence, allowing for a declaration of war. Saddam Hussein does not pose any threat to our national security. We should be going very cautiously. Bombing might cause some accident regarding biological warfare. It may cause an irrational act by Saddam Hussein with one of his neighbors. It is bound to kill innocent lives, innocent civilians in Iraq. It could kill many American flyers as well. It costs a lot of money. And even if we do kill Hussein, what do we do? We create a vacuum, a vacuum that may be filled by Iran. It may be filled by some other groups of Islamic fundamentalists. There is no real benefit to pursuing this. Our own military has said this is like putting on a show. It is political, not a military operation.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, the first session of the 105th Congress has been completed and the third year of the conservative revolution has passed. Current Congressional leadership has declared victory and is now debating on how to spend the excess revenues about to flow into the Treasury. As the legislative year came to a close, the only serious debate was over the extent of the spending increases negotiated into the budget. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same. Control over the Congress is not seriously threatened, and there has been no clear- cut rejection of the 20th century welfare state. But that does not mean that there is no effort to change the direction of the country. It is just that it is not yet in progress. But many taxpayers throughout the country are demanding change, and today there are more people in Washington expressing a sincere desire to shrink the welfare state than there were when I left 13 years ago. The final word on this has not yet been heard. In contemplating what needs to be done and why we have not done better, we should consider several philosophic infractions in which Members of Congress participate that encourage a loss of liberty and endanger our national security and the republic while perpetuating the status quo. Following are some of the flaws or errors in thinking about issues that I find pervasive throughout the Congress: Foreign affairs. Although foreign affairs was not on the top of the agenda in the last session, misunderstanding in this area presents one the greatest threats to the future of America. There is near conformity, uniformity of opinion in the Congress for endorsing the careless use of U.S. force to police the world. Although foreign policy was infrequently debated in the past year and there are no major wars going on or likely to start soon, the danger inherent in foreign entanglements warrants close scrutiny. The economy, crime, the environment, drugs, currency instability, and many other problems are important. But it is in the area of foreign policy and for interventionism that provokes the greatest threat to our liberties and sovereignty. Whenever there are foreign monsters to slay, regardless of their true threat to us, misplaced patriotic zeal is used to force us to look outward and away from domestic problems and the infractions placed on our personal liberties here at home. Protecting personal liberties in any society is always more difficult during war. The uniformity of opinion in Congress is enshrined with the common cliches that no one thinks through, like foreign policy is bipartisan; only the President can formulate foreign policy; we must support the troops and, therefore, of course, the war, which is usually illegal and unwise but cannot be challenged; we are the only world's superpower; we must protect our interests like oil. However, it is never admitted, although most know, our policy is designed to promote the military industrial complex and world government. Most recently, the Congress almost unanimously beat the drums for war, i.e., to kill Hussein; and any consideration of the facts involved elicited charges of anti-patriotism. Yet in the midst of the clamor to send our planes and bombs to Baghdad, cooler heads were found in, of all places, Kuwait. A Kuwaiti professor, amazingly, was quoted in a proper pro-government Kuwaiti newspaper as saying, ``The U.S. frightens us with Saddam to make us buy weapons and sign contracts with American companies,'' thus ensuring a market for American arms manufacturers and United States' continued military presence in the Middle East. A Kuwaiti legislator was quoted as saying, ``The use of force has ended up strengthening the Iraqi regime rather than weakening it.'' Other Kuwaitis have suggested that the U.S. really wants Hussein in power to make sure his weak neighbors fear him and are forced to depend on the United States for survival. In spite of the reservations and reasons to go slow, the only criticism coming from congressional leaders was that Clinton should do more, quicker, without any serious thought as to the consequences, which would be many. The fact that of the original 35 allies in the Persian Gulf War only one remains, Great Britain, should make us question our policy in this region. This attitude in Washington should concern all Americans. It makes it too easy for our presidents to start a senseless war without considering dollar costs or threat to liberty here and abroad. Even without a major war, this policy enhances the prestige and the influence of the United Nations. These days, not even the United States moves without permission from the UN Security Council. In checking with the U.S. Air Force about the history of U-2 flights in Iraq, over Iraq, and in their current schedules, I was firmly told the Air Force was not in charge of these flights, the UN was. The Air Force suggested I call the Defense Department. There is much to be concerned about with our current approach to foreign policy. It is dangerous because it can lead to a senseless war like Vietnam or small ones with bad results like in Somalia. Individual freedom is always under attack; and once there is any serious confrontation with a foreign enemy, we are all required to rally around the President, no matter how flawed the policy. Too often, the consequences are unforeseen, like making Hussein stronger and not weaker after the Persian Gulf War. The role of the military industrial complex cannot be ignored; and since the marching orders come from the United Nations, the industrial complex is more international than ever. But there is reason to believe the hidden agenda of our foreign policy is less hidden than it had been in the past. In referring to the United States in the international oil company success in the Caspian Sea, a Houston newspaper recently proclaimed, ``U.S. views pipelines as a big foreign policy victory.'' This referred to the success of major deals made by giant oil companies to build pipelines to carry oil out of the Caspian Sea while also delivering a strong message that, for these projects to be successful and further enhance foreign policy, it will require government subsidies to help pay the bill. Market development of the pipelines would be cheaper but would not satisfy our international government planners. So we must be prepared to pay, as we already have started to, through our foreign aid appropriations. This promotes on a grand scale a government business partnership that is dangerous to those who love liberty and detest fascism. And yet, most Members of Congress will say little, ask little, and understand little, while joining in the emotional outburst directed towards the local thugs running the Mideastern fiefdoms like Iraq and Libya. This attitude, as pervasive as it is in Washington, is tempered by the people's instincts for minding our own business, not wanting Americans to be the policemen of the world, and deep concern for American sovereignty. The result, not too unusual, is for the politicians in Washington to be doing one thing while saying something else at home. At home, virtually all citizens condemn U.S. troops serving under UN command, and yet the financing and support for expanding the United Nations' and NATO's roles continues as the hysteria mounts on marching on Baghdad or Bosnia or Haiti or wherever our leaders decide the next monster is to be found. The large majority of House Members claim they want our troops out of Bosnia. Yet the President gets all the funding he wants. The Members of Congress get credit at home for paying lip service to a U.S. policy of less intervention, while the majority continue to support the troops, the President, the military industrial complex, and the special interests who drive our foreign policy, demanding more funding while risking the lives, property, peace, and liberty of American citizens. Congress casually passes resolution after resolution, many times nearly unanimously, condemning some injustice in the world, and for the most part there is a true injustice, but along with the caveat that threatens some unconstitutional U.S. military interference, financial assistance, or withdrawal of assistance, or sanctions in order to force our will on someone else. And it is all done in the name of promoting the United Nations and one-world government. Many resolutions on principle are similar to the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which became equivalent to a declaration of war and allowed for a massive loss of life in the Vietnam fiasco. Most Members of Congress fail to see the significance of threatening violence against countries like Libya, Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Iraq, Iran, or Haiti. Yet our credibility suffers since our policies can never satisfy both sides of each regional conflict. In the Middle East, even with all our announced intentions and military effort to protect Kuwait, our credibility is questioned as most Arabs still see us as pro-Israel, anti-Arab, and motivated by power, oil and money. America's effort to prevent a million casualties in Rwanda does not anywhere compare to our perennial effort to get Hussein. It is hardly violations of borders or the possession of weapons of mass destruction that motivates us to get Hussein or drive our foreign policy. We were allies of Iraq when it used poison gas against the Kurds and across the border into Iran. We support the Turks even though they murdered Kurds, but we condemn the Iraqis when they do the same thing. There are more than 25,000 Soviet nuclear warheads that cannot be accounted for, and all we hear about from the politicians is about Iraq's control of weapons of mass destruction. Our policy in the Middle East is totally schizophrenic and driven by Arab oil, weapon sales, and Israel. This is especially dangerous because the history of the West's intrusion into the Middle East for a thousand years in establishing the artificial borders that exist today has created a mindset among Islamic fundamentalists that guarantees that friction will persist in this region no matter how many Husseins or Ayatollahs we kill. That would only make things worse for us. As much as I fear and detest one-world government, this chaos that we contribute to in the Middle East assures me that there is no smooth sailing for the new world order. Rough seas are ahead for all of us. If the UN's plans for their type of order is successful, it will cost American citizens money and freedom. If significant violence breaks out, it will cost American citizens money, freedom, and lives. Yes, I fear a biological and even a nuclear accident. But I see our cities at a much greater risk because of our policy than if we were neutral and friends with all factions instead of trying to be a financial and military ally of all factions depending on the circumstances. The way we usually get dragged into a shooting war is by some unpredictable incident, where innocent Americans are killed after our government placed them in harm's way and the enemy provoked. Then the argument is made that once hostilities break out, debating the policy that created the mess is off limits. Everybody then must agree to support the troops. But the best way to support our troops and our liberties is to have a policy that avoids unnecessary confrontation. A pro-American constitutional policy of nonintervention would go a long way toward guaranteeing maximum liberty and protection of life and property for all Americans. American interests around the world could best be served by friendship and trade with all who would be friends, and subsidies to none. The balanced budget. There is a naive assumption in Washington that the budget is under control and will soon be balanced, while believing perpetual prosperity is here and new programs can now be seriously considered. It reminds me of an old Chinese saying, when words lose their meaning, people lose their liberty. Even the revolutionaries have claimed victory. One of the staunchest Members recently declared, in the end we achieved a balanced budget for the first time since 1969. Medicare and welfare were reformed, all in three short years, a truly remarkable record on how far we have come. I can understand a positive spin on events of the last three years by party leaders. That is what party leaders do. But the revolutionary members of the 104th Congress should not be taken in easily or quickly. But Washington has a strange way of dulling the senses, and no one enjoys peer rejection or lonely fights, where one is depicted as pursuing a fruitless adventure and appearing negative. Capitulating to the status quo is the road of least resistance, and rationalizations are generously offered up. It has been especially tempting for Members of Congress to accept the projection of higher revenues as a panacea to our budgetary problems. The prevailing attitude in Washington as 1997 came to a close was that the limited government forces had succeeded. The conservative revolution has won, and now it is time to move on and make government work more efficiently. I am sure some know better, but the real reason for these declarations of budgetary success is for the sole purpose of maintaining power. Minority leaders find themselves frustrated because they know spending has gone up, and the higher tax revenues have helped those in charge. The Republican Congress and President Clinton benefited, while the Democratic Congressional leaders could only ask why can't more be spent on welfare if the country is doing so well? Fundamental problems like the size of the budget, the deficit, the debt, higher taxes, currency problems and excessive regulations were put on the back burner, if not ignored altogether. While complacency regarding foreign policy sets the stage for danger overseas, this naive attitude regarding the budget and the deficit is permitting the welfare state to be reenergized and cancel entirely any efforts to reduce the size and scope of government. Under Reagan, as in the early parts of the Republican control of Congress, some signs of deceleration in the growth of government were seen. But even then, there was no pretense made to shrink the size of government. And, once again, the path of least resistance has been to capitulate and allow government to grow as it has been for decades. Heaven forbid, no one ever again wants to be blamed for closing down nonessential government services. Only cruel and heartless Constitution lists would ever suggest such a politically foolish stunt. It is not going to happen. 1997 has proven what many have suspected, that reversing or arresting a welfare state cannot occur by majority vote. With apparent wealth abundance in the United States, the reversal assuredly will not come with ease. Once redistribution of wealth is permitted by the democratic vote, destruction of production will occur before the majority will choose to curtail their own benefits. The end is closer than most realize, considering the optimistic rhetoric coming from Washington, plus the fact the majority of citizens are beneficiaries of the system, and even the producers have grown dependent on government protection, grants, contracts and special subsidies. Although the session ended on a modestly happy bipartisan note, I suspect in time 1997 will be looked upon as a sad year, in that the limited government revolution of 1994 was declared lost by adjournment time in November. That does not mean the fight for liberty is over, but the hope that came by reversing Congressional rule after 40 years has been dampened and a lot more work is necessary for success. The real battle is to win the hearts and minds of Americans outside of Washington to prepare the country for the day when the welfare state ceases to function due to an empty treasury and the dollar, not worth its weight, comes under attack. Specifics worth pondering: The budget for current fiscal year 1998 calls for expenditures of $1.69 trillion, or $89 billion above last year. The 1997 budget was $22 billion over 1996. The so-called balanced budget bragged about is to occur in the year 2002, with more cuts being made in the year 2001 and a level of spending far above today's. The expenditures in the year 2002 are expected to increase to $1.9 trillion, over $200 billion more than this year. Increased revenues obviously accomplish the job of a theoretically balanced budget, but also these projections do not take into account the huge sums borrowed from Social Security. Even if things go well and as planned, the optimism is based on deception, wishful thinking and a huge raid on the Social Security and other trust funds. In spite of this, the politicians in Washington are eagerly planning on how to spend the coming budgetary surpluses. All these rosy projections are dependent on economic strength, steady low interest rates, and no supplemental appropriations. Every session of Congress gets supplementals, and if the economy takes a downturn, the higher the appropriation. The last three years are not much to brag about. Domestic spending has gone up by $183 billion. In the prior three years, when Democrats controlled the Congress, spending increased by $155 billion. Tax increases are now inevitably referred to as revenue enhancement and closing of loopholes. In spite of some wonderful IRS bashing by nearly everyone and positive hearings in exposing the ruthless tactics of the IRS, Congress and the President saw fit to give the IRS a whopping $729 million increase in its budget, hoping the IRS will become more efficient in their collection procession. Real spending cuts are not seriously considered. Congress continues to obfuscate by calling token cuts in previously proposed increases as budget cuts. The media and the proponents of big government and welfare obediently demagogue this issue by decrying why the slashes in the budget are inhumane and uncaring. Without honesty in language and budgeting, true reforms are impossible. In spite of the rhetoric, bold new educational and medical programs were started, setting the stage for massive new spending in the future. New programs always cost more than originally projected. The block grant approach to reform did not prompt a decrease in spending, and frequently added to it. The principle of whether or not the Federal Government should even be involved in education, medicine, welfare, farming, et cetera, was not seriously considered. The 1998 budget is the largest ever and represents the biggest increase in the domestic budget in eight years. Those in charge threw in the towel and surrendered all efforts this past year to cut back the size of government. In this fiscal year, many concede the deficit will actually go up, even without a slowing in the economy. In this year's budget, Medicare and Medicaid increased four to five times the rate of inflation. This is not a complete surprise to the logical skeptics when it comes to fiscal matters, but it is just a little exasperating to hear the positive pronouncements of current leaders who just a few years ago would have been only too eager to point out the shortcomings of deceptive arithmetic. Power is a corrupting influence, but, for now, at least, a Congressional power shift is not in the making. There are still a lot of recipients that are happily reassured that additional revenues can be found. The new management is welcomed, and it is hoped the new guys on the block can salvage for a while a system that many deep down in their hearts are convinced is not manageable for much longer. There is a sense of relief the welfare state has received a reprieve. One can almost hear the sigh amplified by hearing of the problems in the Southeast Asia countries with their currency and stock market problems, not realizing it is the U.S. taxpayers and the dollar that will be called upon for the bailout of this financial crisis. The great danger of all of this is the false sense of economic security Congress feels, that has prompted total abandonment of efforts to actually cut any spending and with plans being laid for spending increases. The message is this: The politicians will never limit spending, but, eventually, the market will. It has already done so in Thailand, South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia. The international currency crisis: Congress lacks concern and understanding of the significance of the Asian currency crisis. Monetary policy has never excited many Members of the Committee on Banking, let alone other members of Congress. A handful of Members do consistently complain to the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, but inevitably it is to object to the high interest rates and not enough credit being available to either the poor or the rich beneficiaries of Central Bank credit largesse. The Southeast Asian currency and economic bailout will exceed $100 billion. We will be propping up these currencies by sending American taxpayers' dollars, the same thing we did in Mexico in 1995. Multilateral efforts through the IMF, World Bank and other development banks are used, and in each one the United States is the most generous donor. IMF bailouts, just as our military foreign intervention, are generally supported by the leadership of both parties. The establishment has firm control in these two areas and who, out of ignorance or neglect, the Congress as a whole provides little resistance. When the stronger currencies, in this case the dollar, props up a weaker currency, it is nothing more than an example of an international transfer of payment that helps our banks and international corporate investors who have financial exposure in the country or currency under attack. These bailouts will work, to some degree, until the dollar itself comes under attack. Our relatively strong economy and the current perceptions of undue dollar strength allows great leverage in this extremely expensive and risky bailout operation. The genius of it all is that Federal Reserve credit expansion and its off-budget budgeting permits these funds to be spent without oversight. IMF appropriations are not even counted toward the deficit, and credit expansion is under complete control of the Federal Reserve. Long-term, the average American citizen suffers through higher interest rates, rising prices, recessions and lower standard of living, but the cause and effect is conveniently hidden from the public and the Congress. After the Mexican bailout, her citizens lost 50 percent of their purchasing power, a dramatic pay cut. Yet the great danger is that some day we will be forced to pay, possibly with a dollar crisis that will make the Asian currency crisis look small in comparison. All currency crises are serious and usher in economic and political problems for the country involved, and since no one likes it, blame is generally misplaced. When the dollar comes under attack, since it is the reserve currency of the world, a much more serious crisis than we are currently witnessing in Asia will occur. Only a universal acceptance of a single worldwide commodity standard of money can prevent these periodic devaluations and disruptions in trade that are so prevalent today. The day before we adjourned the first session of the 105th Congress, the Committee on Banking and Financial Services held hearings on the Asian currency crisis, but it was more an attempt to reassure the financial community than to sort out the cause and do something about it. Instead, the dollar was crowned king, and Greenspan promised stability. Our real interest rates, balance of payments, our current account deficit and budgetary deficits were conveniently ignored, because if they had been looked at seriously, it would have been recognized that the U.S. and the world faces a major financial crisis once the dollar can no longer be used to bail out the world financial system. Currency issues are serious and a much bigger problem than Congress realizes. Even the Fed has convinced itself it is quite capable of managing our fiat currency and our financial markets through any crisis. The money managers are every bit as powerful as the Congress, which taxes and spends, but the Federal Reserve's actions are much less scrutinized. But when push comes to shove, the markets always win out. Interest rates are less than one percent in Japan, but have not prompted borrowers to come forth nor bankers to lend. The proposed $25 billion injection by the Bank of Japan will not solve the problem either. Even central bankers cannot push on a string. The sad part is that all these shenanigans will cause undue suffering to the innocent who lose their jobs, suffer from price inflation and see their standard of living shrink. Eventually, everyone though is threatened by the political disruption that can ensue with a currency mishap. Our greatest concern should be for our loss of liberties that so often accompany a currency crisis. Congressional attitude toward monetary policy is not likely to change soon, so we can expect a lot more turmoil in the currency markets in the months ahead. Two special areas. Congress in the past year capitulated in two significant areas by not only failing to cut spending, but massively increasing government's role in medicine and in education. House Republicans bragged that 7 out of 8 educational initiatives passed the House, many of them being quite expensive. Charter schools cost over $100 million, funding for vouchers was increased, $3 billion was appropriated to extend student loans, and a new $210 million reading in excellence program was initiated. A program for high-tech training and one designed to help children with disabilities was also started. Clinton's new health care program for children was accepted by Congress, which will eventually cost billions and further centralize medical care in Washington, while quality of care is diminished. Billions of dollars increased in NIH, AIDS research and preventative health care were also approved. The Federal Government has been involved in education and medicine more than in any other domestic area. This has caused a serious price inflection for these two services, while undermining the quality and results in both. The more we spend, the higher the cost, the worse the service, and the greater the regulations. So what did Congress do to solve the problems in the past year? Even in this so-called age of cutting back and a balanced budget, it expanded government precisely in the two areas that suffer the most from big government. This is strong evidence that we have not yet learned anything in the past 50 years, and the 1994 revolution has not yet changed things. We can expect more HMO's and PPO mismanagement, rationing medical service and price control of all medical services. Shortages of quality health care and education will result. Devolution. Block grants are the popular vehicle to restore local control of the Federal bureaucracy. The housing bill, the first major change to public housing since the Depression, did not cut spending, but actually increased funding through the block grant system of devolving power to the States. A token effort similar to this was made in the early 1970s under Nixon called revenue-sharing. It did not work and was dropped. This new method will not work either. Whether the bureaucrats are in Washington or in the State capitols, it will not change the dynamics of public housing. Public ownership, whether managed locally or federally, cannot replace the benefits of private ownership. Besides, the block grant method of allocating funds does not eliminate the need to first collect the revenues nationally and politically distribute the funds to the various State entities. Strings will always be attached no matter how many safeguards are written into the law. The process of devolution is an adjustment in management and does not deal with the philosophic question of whether or not the Federal Government or even the State governments ought to be involved. The high hopes that this process will alter the course of the welfare state will, I am sure, be dashed after many more years of failures and dollars spent. There is essentially no serious consideration in Washington for abolishing agencies, let alone whole departments. If the funding for the pornographic NEA cannot be cut, which agency of government should we expect to be? The devolution approach is not the proponents of big government's first choice, but it is acceptable to them. Early adjournment meant the call for more spending was satisfied and the supporters of big government, in spite of the rhetoric, were content. Searching for a partisan issue, the minority was content with campaign reform and the questions surrounding illegal voting. Devolution is said to be a return to States rights since it is inferred that management of the program will be decentralized. This is a new 1990s definition of the original concept of States rights and will prove not to be an adequate substitute. At the same time these token efforts were made in welfare, education and human resources reform, Congress gave the Federal Government massive new influence over adoption and juvenile crime, education and medicine. Block grants to States for specific purposes after collecting the revenues at the Federal level is foreign to the concept that once was understood as States rights. This process, even if temporarily beneficial, will do nothing to challenge the underlying principle and shortcomings of the welfare State. Real battles. The real battles in the Congress are more often over power and personalities than philosophy. Both sides of most debates represent only a variation of some interventionist program. Moral and constitutional challenges are made when convenient and never follow a consistent pattern. These, along with the States rights arguments, are not infrequently just excuses used to justify opposing or approving a program supported for some entirely different reason. The person who makes any effort at consistency is said to be extreme or unyielding. After giving a short speech criticizing the inconsistency of our foreign policy, another Member quickly rose to his feet and used the Walter Emerson quote to criticize my efforts saying, ``A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.'' Criticizing another Member for following a consistent freedom philosophy and strict adherence to the Constitution is more of an attempt to reassure the critics themselves who are uneasy with their own position. Obviously, criticizing one for consistency either means that pragmatism and inconsistency is something to be proud of, or there is little respect for the philosophy that is consistently being defended, a truth the critics are not likely to admit. Public relation debates. Oftentimes the big debates in Congress are more public relation efforts than debates on real issues. This is certainly true when it comes to preventing foreign aid funds from being used by any organization for abortions. I agree with and vote for all attempts to curtail the use of U.S. taxpayers' funds for abortion within or outside the United States. But many in the pro-life movement are not interested in just denying all birth control, population control and abortion money to everyone, and avoid the very controversial effort to impose our will on other nations. Believing money allocated to any organization or country is not fungible is naive, to say the least. The biggest problem is that many who are sincerely right to life and believe the Mexico City language restriction on foreign aid will work are also philosophic believers in internationalism, both social and military. The politics of it has allowed temporary withholding of IMF and U.N. funds in order to pressure the President into accepting the restrictive abortion language. Withholding these funds from the United Nations and the IMF in this case has nothing to do with the criticism of the philosophy behind the United Nations, the IMF, the World Bank, and why the international government agencies are tax burdens on the American people. It is conceded by the majority on both sides of this debate that the U.N., the IMF, the development banks and even the funds for population control are legitimate expenditures and eventually will be funded. The question is only whether or not a public relations victory can be achieved by the radical pro-abortion supporters of the President's or the pro-life supporters. We have at least started to debate the merits of any money at all going to population control, the United Nations or the IMF. This is where the debate should be. Even though the restrictions that the Mexico City language might place on foreign expenditures probably will not change the number of abortions around the world, the vote itself does reflect, through Congress, the sentiment of the American people, and therefore, its importance cannot be denied. But I am convinced that if the American people had the option of whether or not to send any money at all, they would reject all the funding, making the restriction debate moot. Most would agree with the fungibility argument, even when funds are sent for reasons other than family planning and abortion like military assistance. The amazing thing is how important the debate can appear by threatening to withhold greatly sought after IMF funds for an argument that does not get to the heart of the issue. What should be debated is whether or not Congress has the moral and Constitutional authority to use force to take funds from American citizens for social engineering around the world, much of which results in resentment toward America. The weak and ineffective conditions placed on foreign aid money to prevent abortions is hardly a legitimate reason for continuing the illegal funding in the first place. At times, in efforts to get more swing votes to endorse Mexico City language, some pro-life forces not only will not challenge the principle of our funding for birth control and population control overseas, but believe in increasing the appropriation for the program. If the Constitutionists cannot change the nature of the debate, we will never win these arguments. Corporatism. Congress and the administration is greatly influenced by corporate America. We truly have a system of corporatism that if not checked will evolve into a much more threatening form of fascism. Our welfare system provides benefits for the welfare poor and, in return, the recipients vote to perpetuate the entire system. Both parties are quite willing to continue the status quo in not questioning the authority upon which these programs are justified, but the general public is unaware of how powerful corporate America is in changing and influencing legislation. Even those programs said to be specific for the poor, like food stamps, housing, education and medicine, have corporate beneficiaries. These benefits to corporate America are magnified when it is realized that many of the welfare redistributionist programs are so often not successful in helping the poor. But there are many other programs precisely designed to satisfy the special interests of big business. A casual observer that might think the political party that champions the needs of the poor would not be getting political and financial support from the rich. But quite clearly, both parties are very willing to receive financial and political support from special interests representing the rich and the poor, business and labor, domestic and foreign. We should not expect campaign reform are reliable revelations of campaign fund-raising abuse in today's political climate. There are strong bipartisan reasons to keep the debate on only a superficial level. All the rules in the world will never eliminate the motivation or the ability of the powerful special interests to influence Congress. Loopholes and illegal contributions will plague us for as long as Congress continues with the power to regulate, tax, or detax, or punishes essentially everyone participating in the economy. The most we can ever hope for is to demand full disclosure. Then, if influence is bought, at least it would be in the open. The other most difficult task, and the only thing that will ever dampen special interest control of government, would be to radically reduce the power of Congress over our lives and our economy. Taxpayer funding of campaigns would prove disastrous. The special areas of the budget that are of specific benefit to corporate America are literally too numerous to count, but there are some special programs benefiting corporations that usually prompt unconditional support from both parties. The military industrial complex is clearly recognized for its influence in Washington. This same group has a vested interest in our foreign policy that encourages policing the world, Nation building, and foreign social engineering. Big contracts are given to friendly corporations in places like Haiti, Bosnia and the Persian Gulf region. Corporations benefiting from these programs are unable to deal objectively with foreign policy issues, and it is not unusual for these same corporate leaders to lobby for troop deployments in worldwide military intervention. The U.S. remains the world's top arms manufacturer and our foreign policy permits the exports to world customers subsidized through the Export-Import Bank. Foreign aid, Overseas Private Investment Corporation, Export-Import Bank, IMF, World Bank, development banks are all used to continue bailouts of Third World countries heavily invested in by our corporations and banks. Corporations can get special tax treatment that only the powerful and influential can achieve. For instance, pseudo- free trade legislation like NAFTA and GATT and the recent Fast Track legislation shows how much big business influences both congressional leaders and the administration. While crumbs are cast to the poor with programs that promote permanent dependency and impoverishment, the big bucks go to the corporations and the banking elites. The poor welcome the crumbs, not realizing how much long-term harm the programs do as they obediently continue to vote for a corporate-biased welfare state where the rich get richer and the poor get forgotten. Since generally both parties support a different version of interventionism, one should not expect the programs for the rich to be attacked on principle or cut in size. The result of last year's legislative session should surprise no one. Both types of welfare expenditures benefit from a monetary system that creates credit out of thin air in order to monetize congressional deficits when needed and manipulate interest rates downward to nonmarket levels to serve the interests of big borrowers and lenders. Federal Reserve policy is an essential element in serving the powerful special interests. Monetary mischief of this type will not likely be ended by congressional action, but will be eventually stopped by market forces, just as has recently occurred in the Far East. Voluntary contracts. There is little understanding or desire in Congress to consistently protect voluntary contract. Many of our programs to improve race relations have come from government interference in the voluntary economic contract. Government's role in a free society should be to enforce contracts, yet too often it does the opposite. All labor laws, affirmative action programs and consumer protection laws are based on the unconstitutional authority of government to regulate voluntary economic contracts. If the same process were applied to the press, it would be correctly condemned as prior restraint and ruled unconstitutional. Throughout the 20th century, economic and personal liberties have undergone a systematic separation. Rules applying to the media and personal relationships no longer apply to voluntary economic transactions. Some Members of Congress are quite vocal in defending the First Amendment and fight hard to protect freedom of expression by cautioning against any effort at prior restraint. They can speak eloquently on why V chip technology in the hands of the government may lead to bad things, even if proponents are motivated to protect our children from pornography. Likewise, these partial civil libertarians are quite capable of demanding the protection of all adult voluntary sexual activity. They mount respectable challenges to the social authoritarian who never hesitates to use government force to mold society and improve personal moral behavior. But these same champions of personal liberty do not hesitate at all to use the same government force they readily condemn in social matters to impose their vision of a fair and equitable economic system on all of us. Thousands of laws and regulations are on the books to assure equality in hiring, pay, and numerous other conditions of employment and for theoretical consumer protection. Ironically, the enemies of the voluntary contract, when dealing with the media and personal associations, are the best defenders of economic liberty and the voluntary economic contract. Unless this glaring inconsistency is reconciled, the republic cannot be salvaged. Too often, the two sides compromise in the wrong direction. Economic libertarians concede too much to the welfare proponents and the social libertarians concede too much to the authoritarians who eagerly try to legislate good behavior. This willingness to compromise, while at the same time criticizing those who have firm beliefs as being overly rigid, serves as a serious threat to the cause of liberty. A consistent defense of all voluntary associations does not preclude laws against violence, fraud, threat, libel and slander. To punish acts of aggression and protect non-violent economic and social associations is the main purpose of government in a constitutional republic. Moral imperfections cannot be eliminated by government force any more than economic inequalities can be eliminated through welfare or socialist legislation. Once government loses sight of its true purpose of protecting liberty and embarks on a course where the generous use of force is used to interfere in the voluntary social and economic contracts, liberty will be diminished and the foundation of a true republic undermined. That is where we are today. The effort on both sides to do ``good'' threatens personal liberty. There is no evidence that laws designed to improve personal sexual habits, the quality of the press or the plight of the poor have helped. The poor, under all programs of forced redistribution of wealth, always become more numerous. And the State inevitably abuses its power when it tries to regulate freedom of expression or improve personal behavior. Too often both sides allow the principle of government force to be used to interfere in the internal affairs of other nations at a great cost and risk to American taxpayers, while accomplishing little except to promote a firm hatred of America for the interference. This itself is a threat to our security. The resulting conditions of international conflict are used as an excuse to curtail the civil liberties of all Americans. In recent years, freedom of the press has been severely challenged when we are actively involved in military operations. Our young people are threatened as they are needlessly exposed to enemy fire and medical experimentation and there is an economic cost through higher taxes. National sovereignty designed to protect liberty in a republic is challenged as our foreign operations are controlled by U.N. resolutions, not Congress. Under these conditions, our cities are more likely to be targeted by terrorists for the hatred our policies fuel. Draft registration remains in place just in case more bodies are needed for our standing U.N. armies. The draft remains the ultimate attack on volunteerism and represents the most direct affront to individual liberty. This is made that much worse when one realizes that it is highly unlikely that we will ever see American troops in action under anything other than a U.N.-sponsored war or military operation. Only with a greater understanding and respect for individual liberty and the importance of voluntary associations in all areas of social and economic life will we be able to preserve our liberty, peace and prosperity. This is required for the republic to survive. Congress reflects the nation's current obsession with political correctness. The strange irony is that this whole movement has been encouraged by groups and individuals who in the past have been seen as the champions of free expression and civil liberties. These efforts to interfere with freedom of expression come from a desire to punish those in economic superior positions. Political correctness encourages promotions or firings for casual and rude statements once ridiculed by merely ignoring them. The age of victimization demands political correctness be carried to an illogical conclusion and the plan for perfect economic equality demands language that reflect these goals. It's truly an area that reflects a complete lack of understanding of the principles of liberty and is an understandable result of this century's division of liberty into two parts. The motive seems to be to make people better by forcing them to use only correct language and to provide special benefits to groups that are economically disadvantaged. It's not uncommon to hear of people losing their jobs and reputation over harmless comments or telling off-colored jokes. Talk about discrimination, this is the worst. The concept of ``hate crimes'' is now enmeshed in all legislation. Pretending we can measure motivation and punish it is preposterous. Varying penalties, thus placing more value on one life than another, is a totalitarian idea. The political correctness movement and the concept of hate crimes will lead to laws against ``hate speech.'' Clearly the constitution is designed to protect protesters, even those who express hatred at times and is not limited to the protection of non-controversial speech. Freedom of expression is indeed under serious attack in this country. Already there are laws in two countries prohibiting even questioning the details of the Holocaust. In America that's certainly not permitted under the rules of political correctness. Some still believe that ``hate crimes'' in America are limited to identifying the racial and religious motivation behind a violent crime. But it's scary when one realizes that already we have moved quickly down the path of totalitarianism. In 1995, 57% of all hate crimes reported were verbal in nature. These crimes now being prosecuted by an all powerful federal police force, at one time were considered nothing more than comments made by rude people. The federal police operation is headed up by the Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Education and can reach every nook and cranny of our entire education system as it imposes its will and curriculum on teachers and students. Whatever happened to the child's logic of ``sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me?'' This basic philosophy offered a logical response to taunts by bullies. Today, the bully is the government which is determined to regulate, enforce, and imprison anyone who doesn't tow the line of political correctness, multi- culturalism and follow government dictated social and economic rules. But why can't we consider a solution that incorporates the healthy skepticism of those opposing government mandated V-chips and telephone monitoring devices with those who see the foolishness and danger of political correctness, especially seen when it comes to enforcing crimes against hate speech. Too often the same people who understand the hate crimes issue are the ones that believe government ought to be able to monitor our telephone and computer and censor television programming. This confusion is becoming structural and the longer it's an accepted principle, the greater the threat to the Republic and our liberties. As long as it is fashionable or humorous to refer to one who consistently defends individual liberty as a ``hobgoblin of little minds'' our liberties will be threatened. Accepting and rationalizing any inconsistency while rejecting the principal defenders of a free society as impractical represents a danger to the republic. A strict adherence to the Constitution is surely not something that should be encouraged or tolerated, according to these critics. By insisting that all government action be guided by tolerance and compromise in any effort to protect liberty, it is only natural that strict observance to standards in other areas would be abandoned. And it is true, we now live in an age where life has relative value, money has no definition, marriage is undefinable, moral values are taught as relative ethics in our classrooms, good grades in the classroom no longer reflect excellence, success in business is often subjected to doubts because of affirmative action, and corporate profits depend more on good lobbyists in Washington than creative effort. Pragmatism and interventionism are popular because of their convenience and appeal to those who crave governing over others and those who expect unearned benefits. This process can last a long time when some incentives to produce remain in place. But eventually it leads to an attack on the value of money confiscatory taxation, over regulation, excessive borrowing on the future and undermining of trust in the political process. Once this system is entrenched, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to gracefully reverse the process. The usual result is the various groups receiving benefits become highly competitive and bitter toward each other. Eventually, it leads to a time when compromise and government planning no longer look practical nor fair. In the next few years, we can expect this to become more evident as Congress will be forced to acknowledge that the budget has more problems than was admitted to in the closing days of the first session of the 105th Congress. If we do not define the type of government we are striving for and reject interventionism as a doctrine, the endless debate will remain buried in details of form and degree of the current system with no discussion of substance. Merely deciding where to draw the line on government involvement in our lives will consume all the energy of the legislative process. Whether or not we should be involved at all will receive little attention. In order to direct our efforts toward preservation of liberty, in lieu of planning the economy and regulating people, we must have a clear understanding of rights. But could British Prime Minister Tony Blair be telling us being about Western Civilization and government's responsibility to the people? Blair was quoted in a recent visit with the President as saying, ``I tell you, a decent society is not based on rights, it is based on duty. Our duty to one another. To all should be given opportunity, from all responsibility demanded.'' This sounds just a tad authoritarian and closer to the Communist Manifesto than to the Magna Carta or to the Bill of Rights. A free society is just the opposite. I argue that a free society is the only ``decent'' society and the only one that I care to live in. A free society depends entirely on personal rights for which all individuals are naturally entitled. This was the bedrock of the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution and the principle upon which our republic rests. Yet today most of the West, now engulfed by Keynesian welfarism, sadly accepts the Blair philosophy. Duty and responsibility, as Blair sees it, is not the voluntary responsibility found in a free society but rather duty and responsibility to the State. He is right about one thing. If duty to the State is accepted as an uncontested fact, rights are meaningless. And everyday our rights are indeed becoming more threatened. We have come to accept it as immoral and selfish to demand individual rights. Today, rights are too frequently accepted as being collective, such as minority, gay, women, handicapped, poor, or student rights. But rights are only individual. Everyone has a right to life, liberty and property, and it comes naturally or is a God-given gift. The purpose of the State is to protect equally everyone's rights. The whole purpose of political action should be to protect liberty. Free individuals then with a sense of responsibility and compassion must then strive for moral excellence and economic betterment. When government loses sight of the importance of rights and assumes the responsibility reserved to free individuals and sets about to make the economy equally fair to everyone and improve personal nonviolent behavior, the effort can only be made at the expense of liberty with the efforts ending in failure. National governments should exist to protect individual liberty at home by enforcing laws against violence and fraud and from outside threats. The bigger and more international government becomes, the more likely it is that the effort will fail. The original challenge to the champions of freedom centuries ago was always to limit the powers of the king. Today the challenge, every bit as great but harder to define, is to limit the power of democratic parliaments and congresses. Democratic elections of leaders is one thing, but obsession with determining all rights by majority vote has now become liberty's greatest enemy. Throughout this century, and as the movement grows for one world government, the linchpin is always democracy, not liberty or a constitutionally restrained republic as our Founders preferred. As long as the democratic vote can modify rights, the politicians will be on the receiving end of bribes and money and will be the greatest influence on legislation. When government's sole purpose is to protect the lowliest of the minority, the individual, there will be no market for influence buying. Regulating the peddlers of graft will only make things worse for the rules will further undermine the right of the individual to petition and seek his own redress of grievances. Detailed rules on political donations and lobbyist activity can easily be circumvented by the avaricious. Only a better understanding of rights and the proper role of government will alter the course upon which we have embarked. Political leaders no longer see their responsibility to protect life and liberty as a sacred trust and a concept of individual rights has been significantly undermined throughout the 20th century. The record verifies this. Authoritarian governments, in this the bloodiest of all centuries, have annihilated over 100 million people, their own. Wars have killed an additional 34 million, and only a small number of these were truly in the defense of liberty. The main motivation behind these mass murders was to maintain political power. Liberty in many ways has become the forgotten cause of the 20th century. Even the mildest mannered welfarist depends on government guns and threats of prison to forcefully extract wealth from producers to transfer it to the politically well-connected. The same government force is used by the powerful rich to promote from the programs designed to benefit them. The budgetary process and the transfer of wealth that occurs through monetary inflation is influenced more by the business and banking elite than by the poor. The $1.7 trillion budget is not an investment in liberty. The kings are gone and I doubt that we will see another Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot or Mao, but the ``majority'' in our legislative bodies now reign supreme with one goal in mind: maintaining power. To do this they must satisfy the power brokers, pretending they are humanitarian saviors while ignoring their responsibility to protect individual liberty. ``Democracy'' is now the goal of all those who profess progress and peace, but instead they promote corporatism, inflationism, and world government. The question is, where will our alternative come from? Which group or individual truly speaks for liberty and limited government? The speeches, the rhetoric, the campaigns rarely reveal the underlying support most politicians have for expanding the State, especially when coming from those who are thought to be promoting limited government. Those who believe in welfare and socialism are frequently more straightforward. But we are now hearing from some traditional ``opponents'' of big government, admonishing us to stop ``trashing'' government. Instead, we should be busy ``fixing it.'' They do it without once challenging the moral principle that justifies all government intervention in our personal lives and economic transactions. William J. Bennett strongly condemns critics of big government saying, ``. . . some of today's antigovernment rhetoric is contemptuous of history and not intellectually serious. If you listen to it, you come away with the impression that government has never done anything well. In fact, government has done some very difficult things quite well. Like . . . reduced the number of elderly in poverty . . . passed civil rights legislation . . . insure bank deposits and insure the air and water remains clean.'' Bennett's great concern is this. ``Disdain of representative government (democracy) however, makes it virtually impossible to instill in citizens a noble love of country'' (the State rather than liberty). Bennett complains that Americans no longer love their country because of their ``utter contempt some have directed against government itself.'' In other words, we must love our government ruled by the tyrannical majority at all costs or it is impossible to love freedom and America. Any effort to limit the size of government while never challenging the moral principle upon which all government force depends, while blindly defending majoritarian rule for making government work, will not restore the American republic. Instead, this approach gives credibility to the authoritarians and undermines the limited government movement by ignoring the basic principles of liberty. Only a restoration of a full understanding of individual rights and the purpose of a constitutional republic can reverse this trend. Our republic is indeed threatened.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, it appears the administration is about to bomb Iraq. The stated reason is to force UN inspections of every inch of Iraqi territory to rule out the existence of any weapons of mass destruction. The President's personal problems may influence this decision, but a flawed foreign policy is behind this effort. Why is Iraq a greater threat to U.S. security than China, North Korea, Russia or Iran? They all have weapons of mass destruction. This makes no sense. There was a time in our history that bombing foreign countries was considered an act of war, done only with a declaration by this Congress. Today, tragically, it is done at the whim of Presidents and at the urging of congressional leaders without a vote, except maybe by the UN Security Council. But the President is getting little support and a lot of resistance from our allies for this aggressive action. Sadly, our policy in the Middle East has served to strengthen the hand of Hussein, unify the Islamic Fundamentalists and expose American citizens to terrorist attacks. Hussein is now anxious for the bombs to hit to further stir the hatred and blame toward America for all the approximate he has inflicted on his people.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I am not sure what the gentleman is getting at. I know the most important thing for freedom and peace is for me to obey the Constitution. Where is it the authority of the Constitution for us to police the world?

Mr. PAUL. I think that is not the debate on the floor right now. I think when our national security is threatened, the American people have a right to vote through their Congressmen for a declaration of war. This is the kind of thing that leads to Vietnam War-type wars and U.N. sanctions. This is the kind of thing that leads to Koreas, Vietnams and useless wars. This is why we did not win the war in the Persian Gulf and why we are still faced with this problem.

Mr. PAUL. I believe in the responsibility of this U.S. Congress to assume that they are the ones that declare war in a proper manner. Mr. Speaker, in closing, I have no criticism about those who are challenging the leadership in Iraq. I condemn them. I challenge, though, the technique that we are using, the process that we are using. I do not believe we have the authority. Long-term, it is not effective. It is totally inconsistent when we are dealing with China. These token resolutions that we dealt with on China will have nothing to do with solving the problem. At the same time, we give them more money, we give the Turks more money, we give China more money, we give Indonesia more money, and they are all in the process of abusing civil liberties. I just think that we have conveniently picked a whipping horse and we are pretending that we are doing some good.

Mr. PAUL. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, I agree certainly with the sharp criticism against the government and the leaders of Iraq. I do disagree with what we are trying to do here, not because it is not well motivated, but I do not see that we have the authority to all of a sudden impose our system of justice across the entire world. I do not think it is effective. I think it drums up anti-American hostility more than it achieves justice. But there is a bit of inconsistency here. Earlier it was mentioned that it is not only the Iraqis that abuse the Kurds, the Turks do it as well. Why are the Turks not included in this? Why do we not call them out and put them on the carpet and demand justice from the Turks? But they happen to be our allies. At the same time, we ignore other major problems. What did we do with China? The leaders of China came here, they got the red carpet treatment and a promise of more money. But how do they treat their people at Tiananmen Square and currently throughout their whole country? They abuse civil liberties there. But are we going to do the same thing? Do Members think we can do that? We pick and choose and pretend that we are going to perform this great system of justice on the world. Indonesia today, they are getting bailed out by the American taxpayer to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. They mistreat in a serious manner the people in East Timor. But here we decide all of a sudden that we are going to, through the United Nations, expose the American taxpayer, expose young American soldiers, because how are we going to enforce these things? Where do we get this authority to be the policeman of the world? I do not believe we have this authority. I believe it is detrimental overall to our national security. I believe it is a threat to the American people and indirectly, in many ways, to the taxpayer. I object. I object generally to so many of these amendments, so well- intended. I do not disagree with the challenges, the charges made against Iraq and the leadership. I strongly criticize the approach to trying to solve this very serious problem.

Mr. PAUL. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, the Asian financial markets are unsteady, and for good reasons. Many have correctly anticipated the ongoing financial events as a natural consequence of a sustained worldwide credit expansion of unprecedented proportions. According to free market/sound money economics, all credit expansions set the stage for the correction. These corrections are undesired by the dreamers of perpetual prosperity generated by loose central bank monetary policy. The source of the problem, the world financial markets currently face, is unwise monetary policy--plain and simple. Although the business cycle has been fully understood by the Austrian free market economists throughout most of this century, they have been ignored by our government-run universities, the major media, and the politicians. And since the now-collapsing financial bubble was the largest ever, due to an unprecedented globalization of credit expansion, the implications for the world economy should gain the attention of everyone concerned about public policy. The world has been functioning with total fiat currencies for more than a quarter century--a first. Even with continuous adjustment in the international exchange markets, artificial relationships develop between currencies. These imbalances are subject to market forces, demanding new exchange rates, and as we are witnessing, they occur with shocks to the entire financial system. More huge IMF bailouts as are currently planned will not solve the problems. The suspension of standard lending limits only sends the wrong signal of fiscal and monetary irresponsibility and sets the stage for a larger financial crisis. According to normal IMF lending standards, a country can only borrow up to 150 percent of its quota with the fund. However, the Mexican peso crisis created a new precedent and allowed a country to borrow more than the rules allowed. Thailand will get $3.9 billion from the IMF which is 505 percent of its quota while Indonesia will receive $10.1 billion amounting to 490 percent of its quota. Mexico was offered $17.8 billion, 688 percent of its quota, in 1995. Governments can instill value in a paper currency only temporarily; but markets ultimately dictate real worth at great cost to the currency stability the money managers pretend to achieve. More bailouts at the expense of the American taxpayers are wrong. Monetary inflation and credit expansion of paper currencies mislead all financial participants. Fictitious interest rates promote mal- investment, over capacity, excessive debt, false confidence and rampant speculation. The longer the misdirected economy functions, the more widespread the credit expansions and the bigger the bubble and unfortunately the more serious the correction. And this current expansion has been a big one. The principal engine of this inflation has been the Federal Reserve, fueled by its misperception about the dollar's influence on worldwide credit expansion. Without the benefit of a commodity standard of money and with a fiat dollar being retained as the reserve currency of the world, our excesses have been paid for by foreigners willing to sell us goods for our paper, buy our treasury bills, hold them in reserve and use them to expand their own currencies and credit, thus feeding their own domestic booms. Congress does have a role in and responsibility for all of this. Instead of conceding monetary policy to a highly secretive, unaudited, off-budget, without oversight, central bank, our responsibility, under the Constitution, is to guarantee a sound convertible currency. There is no authority whatsoever for reckless credit expansion to be used as a tool for managing the economy. This illegal power to do so has given us everything from the Great Depression to the inflation of the 1970's and all the recessions in between. Inflationism has permitted excessive welfare spending and the accumulation of a $5.4 trillion national debt, by a central bank's ever-willingness to monetize the debt generated by the Congress. As financial conditions continue to adjust, and probably worsen, we here in the Congress must give serious consideration to monetary policy, our constitutional responsibilities to maintain a sound economy and assume rigid oversight of the Federal Reserve. Placing blame elsewhere for the turmoil would be a rejection of our responsibilities. If we fail to address this problem correctly, the dollar and the U.S. economy will one day come under siege similar to what is currently happening in Asia. We should work diligently to prevent that from happening.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, Congress wisely did not vote to appropriate $3.5 billion appropriation for the IMF which will be used to help finance the new arrangements to borrow [NAB]. These funds will not be used much differently than previous funds allocated to the IMF over the years under the GAB, or general arrangements to borrow. Regardless of what we are told and how this funding is described, these funds are used for more bailouts to countries in trouble and present a burden to the U.S. taxpayer. The IMF has a poor track record of preventing financial crises. ``All of the major currency and banking crises of the last five years have occurred under conditions of heightened surveillance by the IMF,'' according to Gregory Fossedal, a leading expert on the subject, reports William Simon, the former Secretary of the Treasury and the current president of the Olin Foundation, in a recent issue of the Wall Street Journal. This article clearly explains why the IMF ``may actually promote crises, because governments often resist sound economic and financial policies . . . because they know that the IMF will be there to bail them out in the event of a crisis.'' We should add that the IMF will be bailing them out with U.S. taxpayers' money if we fail to follow the sound judgment of the House and reject any additional IMF funding. Such moral hazard fears are widespread and well founded. ``[With outside assistance], governments may be encouraged to delay necessary policy reforms and investors may be tempted to continue pouting money into recklessly run economies on the assumption that they will be bailed out if things go wrong,'' writes Robert Choate in the Financial Times. Under the IMF's standard limits on borrowing, countries are limited to 150 percent of their respective quota. Thailand will get $3.9 billion from the IMF or 505 percent of its quota, and Indonesia will get $10.1 billion or 490 percent of its quota. While these allotments are larger than the IMF's own rules would normally allow, Mexico was offered $17.8 billion or 688 percent of its quota in 1995. What was the lesson Thailand and Indonesia learned from the IMF's treatment of Mexico? The generosity of several governments and international institutions towards Indonesia is likely to cause more problems than it resolves . . . Investors will be encouraged to take ever bigger risks in other emerging economies, confident that they too will be bailed out. This may already be happening: when word came on October 31st that an agreement had been reached with Indonesia, share prices rose in Brazil, another country where investors are worried about a currency collapse. If the IMF, and especially the Americans, stand ready to help the Indonesians, the markets seem to have concluded, they are certain to come to the aid of Brazil . . . The structure and size of the Indonesian loans package create worrying precedents,'' writes The Economist in the current issue. Although it is assumed that only Third World nations are bailed out, the United States has been a recipient of such funds when the dollar was under attack in the late 1970's. For every benefit there is a cost. One of the costs to those who receive funds will be the acceptance of conditionalities placed on them by the IMF which will advocate certain policies for those countries receiving the money. Generally, this deals with directives on taxes, spending , and deficits. Although currently our dollar and economy seem strong, we are nevertheless setting the stage for the day when the U.S. dollar will once again need to be bailed out along IMF surveillance and conditionalities on how to manage our own economy.***HD***History The IMF was set up by the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1944 and came into operation shortly after World War II. The original intent of the IMF was to permit short-term loans to prop up those currencies whose issuing countries had negative balance of payments under the pseudo fixed-exchange rates of the Bretton Woods Agreement. However, this entire system collapsed in the early 1970's, and the IMF has since then had to create a new job for itself. It now supports the economies of weaker nations by making structural long-term loans and bails out currencies that have come under attack such as in Mexico, Russia, Thailand, and most recently Indonesia. Economics of the IMF This whole process is doomed to failure. Some knowledgeable economists, even in the 1940's, predicted that the concept of the IMF would not work and they were vindicated in 1971 when the fixed exchange rates established under Bretton Wood's system collapsed. Bretton Woods institutionalized the notion that the IMF could be made of the lender of last resort to all the countries of the world by bailing out the weaker currencies, just as the Federal Reserve portends to be the lender of last resort to our domestic banks. The problem is that this type of insurance encourages a recklessness monetary idea. The floating rates, which have existed since the breakdown of Bretton Woods in 1971, have functioned only with the assistance of the free- market floating rate system. Nevertheless, fluctuating fiat currencies eventually lead to chaos as we currently see in the Asian markets. Worldwide currency and financial conditions today are exactly opposite of what a market determined single hard currency would produce. To the extent governments manipulate the value of their currencies at will, we can expect sharp and sudden adjustments in the economies of the world. The IMF's policies resulted in international inflationism with the use of the special drawing rights [SDR's] and its guarantee that the weak currencies will bail out the even weaker currencies. It is through the IMF, along with the World Bank, that international economic planning is pursued while enhancing the concept of international government. The IMF, through the manipulation and bailing out of certain currencies, serves as a welfare tool of transferring real wealth from the richer to the poorer countries. The mechanism of the IMF, over the years, has also served to bail out banks which overextended themselves investing poor nations but do not want to be left holding the bag. Likewise, corporations which are encouraged to invest overseas through our inappropriate loan subsidies, such as the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and the Export-Import Bank, are also able to socialize the cost of risky ventures when these weaker economies predictably threaten a default. The IMF comes to the rescue of the bankers and the corporations as well as the wealthy individuals of the particular countries being bailed out. For the most part the real cost falls on the United States' taxpayers because they pay a disproportionate share of the IMF funding. Thus, the American taxpayer suffers through a lower standard of living. If we were to put purple dye on the bills that we were sending to Indonesia today, the bankers and investors on Wall Street would be walking around with purple pockets tomorrow. legislative situation The $3.5 billion new appropriation for the IMF was not brought to the House floor in the Conference Report of the Foreign Operations Appropriations bill. It was not funded in the House version of the foreign ops bill but did appear fully funded in the Senate version. The exact reason why it was not in the House version is not clear, but quite possibly it was to avoid open discussion about this new funding program that we are about to embark on at the U.S. taxpayer's expense. Because of this process, we have had no House debate on this issue, there has been no expression of any interest in the House and certainly only a minimum understanding regarding this new funding. There are many powerful special interests that influence complicated legislation like this and easily skirt the attention of most Members of Congress. The most facetious argument made by the political supporters of this appropriation, as has been the case over the decades, is that there is no cost for it. Although it requires an appropriation, the claim is that this is merely a transfer of assets between the United States and the IMF. The argument goes that if we give the IMF $3.5 billion, it, in turn, will give us a financial instrument indicating that we are entitled to the $3.5 billion the IMF pays interest on the funds they hold. The fallacy, of course, is that this money is taken out of the economy, removed from available sources of credit and is no longer available to the American citizen. Just because the CBO calls this a transfer of assets and is not counted in the budget deficit does not make it harmless, to say the least. These funds are justified in the name of protecting the international monetary system which is nothing more than bailing out countries which have spent and inflated more than others and hope to receive their salvation at U.S. taxpayer expense. No additional funding should be given to the IMF. The IMF is no longer fulfilling its original intent and is now actually involved in projects which were never authorized. Even Bill Simon and George Schultz, both former Secretaries of the Treasury, advocate abolishing the IMF. The development institution mission that the IMF now claims to have converted itself into merely duplicates the efforts of other institutions that have the authority and expertise to act as one. Groups as diverse as the liberatian Cato Institute and the Friends of the Earth, a worldwide network of environmental organizations, point out that the IMF is not a development organization and should get out of the development business. The entire Mexico bailout a couple of years ago required more than $50 billion, mostly U.S. taxpayers' money, to temporarily stabilize Mexico's financial markets. However, this was primarily done to bail out the Government of Mexico, as well as bankers and investors on Wall Street. Since the IMF is incapable of preventing problems, in time the market will make it irrelevant. But in the meantime, the process will continue to cost the American taxpayers a lot of money regardless of whether or not it's accounted for in the deficit. The least that should be done is that if we feel compelled to pour more money into the IMF, we should demand the return of the U.S. gold that the IMF holds. According to the central bankers of the world, gold has been totally discredited, and the managers of fiat currencies claim to manage quite well without it. If this is the case, there is no sound reason for the IMF to hold gold and, thus, the gold should be restituted, or dispersed to the respective countries. The IMF has spent more than $170 billion since the 1960's, and since 1978 there has been no monetary role for gold according to central bankers. The IMF is nothing more than an international engine for inflation fueled by the creation of credit. The IMF's special drawing rights is an international fiat currency that, through the dilution effect, the weak currencies bail out the even weaker ones. Even if there is only a minimal increase in taxation necessary to finance IMF appropriations, the resulting inflationary impact is something that cannot be avoided or ignored. There is no economic nor political benefit to the United States to continue participating in the IMF. Financial conditions around the world are now as precarious as they have ever been and a financial bubble built on the inflationary nature of all fiat currencies, along with IMF monetary mischief, warrants immediate and serious discussion regarding the need for a sound currency based on real value. All financial bubbles and all inflations require corrections by recessions or depressions. These unwise central bank policies always result in these conditions. Although it might be tempting to divert blame from the central bankers of the world, including our Federal Reserve and the IMF, the responsibility truly lies with the U.S. Congress which permits these policies to exist by abdicating responsibility over monetary policy and appropriates funds to the IMF every time it is asked. In time, the dollar will surely be on the receiving end of negative market forces. The dollar as a reserve currency has enjoyed the benefit of foreign central banks willing to hold them while we merrily march on with our inflationary policy and deficit financing. However, no country can pursue a policy that perpetuates huge negative balance of payments and negative balances of trade for extended periods of time. Eventually those dollars must return to their origin and devalue its existing currency. If one is concerned about the seriousness of the recent crises in Mexico, Indonesia, Thailand and elsewhere in the Far East, one should be that much more concerned about what will happen when the target becomes the United States dollar. This will probably occur after there is a definite downturn in our economy with escalating deficits. The mirage of low deficits that some claim for the U.S. Federal budget will be replaced by the reality that we are spending our children's future by borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars each year from the various trust funds. Today, inflating the dollar to bail out a weaker currency may give the appearance of working, but once the tables are turned, dollar inflation, in order to bail out the dollar or the U.S. economy, will do exactly the opposite. The time to correct this problem is now. The U.S. House should vote down funding $3.5 billion to perpetuate an international monetary system of finance which is doomed to fail, which is unfair, and which serves the powerful special interests at the expense of the American taxpayer--if it ever comes up for a vote. Unfortunately though, economic and financial chaos around the world will only serve as an excuse for the believers in strong international government to further intervene and pursue their goals. But what is needed is less government, less inflation and less international management of our currencies and our economy and more emphasis on a sound currency, free markets, and individual liberty.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, is fact track dead? Hardly. This 25-year-old process is ingrained in the political process and will not soon disappear. The imperial presidency is alive and well as Congress continues the process of acceding power to the executive branch through such processes as the line item veto, administrative law, War Powers Act, Executive orders, and trade negotiations. The attempt at devolution, which is now ongoing, does little to attach the ever growing power of the Presidency. As Congress--and especially the House--reneges on its responsibility under the concept of separation of powers, the people suffer by loosing their most important conduit to the Federal Government. Members opposed fast track for various reasons, some sensible, some less so. Serious proponents consistently stated their support came from their convictions regarding free trade. However, political deals, threats and pressure from financial supporters influenced less serious supporters. This process is nothing new, but in the recent efforts to pass fast track, record offers to persuade Members of Congress to change their vote were made on both sides of the debate. The President and the congressional leaders had a lot to offer and the unions and environmentalists were not bashful about their use of intimidation. In spite of the blatant politics of it all, there were among us principled free traders, true believers in U.S. sovereignty, serious concerns for domestic labor, and environmental laws and dedicated populist protectionists. And then there were the laissez-faire capitalists, individual liberty, U.S. sovereignty and low tariff proponents, positions held by a scant few. The supporters of fast track cavalierly dismissed all thoughtful opposition. The delivery of power to the Presidency argument was said to be bogus; the treaty versus agreement argument was argued to be nothing more than designed by those wanting to hide behind the Constitution and those concerned about NAFTA boards, world trade organizations, or the multilateral agreement on investments were all just conspiracy nuts the same group of individuals who are concerned about who is flying the unmarked black helicopters around the country. So much for serious debate. A few points worth noting: First, most members of the coalition, who pushed fast track, have in the past, promoted war under the U.N. banner, bailouts by the IMF, foreign aid, corporate welfare, secret centralized banking, and World Bank loans? Is there any wonder that a populist backlash, from Nadar to Buchanan, blossomed and actually won this round? Second, the chief corporate supporters of the fast track process who claimed to be defenders of freedom and free trade have essentially no record of ever promoting free market economics or any organization dedicated to capitalism and sound money. They are all experts in understanding the corporate welfare state and are promoters of the Export/Import Bank, Overseas Private Investment Corporation, foreign aid, the military industrial complex, fractional reserve banking, public housing, all types of government guaranteed loans and much more. So why this sudden loyalty to freedom of trade and low tariff taxes? This is a question worth pondering. Could it possibly be that fast track, NAFTA and the WTO have nothing to do with real free trade? Could it be that corporate America is ensconced in a modern-day corporatism that see fast track as a vehicle toward a managed trade system that serves the powerful at the expense of the weak? Certainly the ready willingness to grant exemptions to various industries and commodities during the negotiations suggests less than a principled effort to promote free and unhampered trade. Third, this current debate has entirely ignored the nature of modern- day protectism. Already, in recent years, sanctions have been applied through international governmental bodies 61 times. These originate from complaints from industries that claim they are being subject to unfare competition from those who are selling their products at a lower price. Currently, there are still pending 27 proposals for more sanctions. Fourth, since the breakdown of the Bretton Woods Agreement, trade has been manipulated by the various countries through competitive currency devaluations. This is ongoing and is currently driving the bailout in Southeast Asia, just as was done 2 years ago in Mexico. All this currency and IMF activity is to promote trade in one direction or another and to bail out the powerful special interests who invested in countries when the times were good but want help once the markets turned against them. There is no reason why free trade agreements can't be drawn up much more simply and in a bilateral fashion with Congress fully participating. Low tariffs and free trade with any country can be accomplished with an agreement less than one page in length. This whole debate ignores the fact that countries that impose high tariffs on their people suffer much more so than the countries hoping to export products to them. This whole debate on fast track was designed to obscure the definition and process of real freedom in trade. Fortunately further casual endorsement of this process, first started by Richard Nixon, was met with a setback, temporary as it may be, in the inexorable march toward the NWO and the one world government.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, I rise to point out to the House a piece of legislation that I am sure will be passed tonight or in the morning in the wee hours when a lot of people are not paying much attention, and that is the foreign operations appropriations conference report. I would like to point out that buried in this report is a $3.5 billion new program called the new agreements to borrow, further funding for the IMF. These are the funds that will be used to bail out Third World nations and also bail out bankers and industries that have invested in these nations such as in Mexico or Indonesia. This is considered not to be expensive because of our special accounting procedure here, it is not on budget. It is supposed to be for free. But let me call my colleagues' attention to this: new agreements to borrow, IMF, new funding in the foreign operations bill report. This is inflationary, it is detrimental to the dollar, and it is subsidizing foreign interests as well as special banking and industrial interests here.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to express my opposition to the Reading Excellence Act, which creates yet another unconstitutional, ineffective, $260 million new Federal education program. I do not challenge the motivation of those who today bring this bill to the floor. The supporters of this bill claim that by passing the Reading Excellence Act, the Federal Government will, quote, enable every child to learn to read, end of quote. Now, this is certainly a noble goal, but before Congress creates yet another Federal program, perhaps we should consider that over the past 60 years Congress has created a plethora of social programs, each one promising to bring to an end all the social ills. These programs have not only failed to create the promised utopia, but in many cases worsened the very problems they were created to solve. Nowhere is the Federal Government's failure to improve the lives of the American people through the welfare state more dramatically illustrated than in education. In 1963, when Federal spending on education was less than $900,000, the average Scholastic Achievement Test score was approximately 980. Thirty years later, when Federal education spending ballooned to $19 billion, the average score fell to 902. Furthermore, according to the National Assessment of Education Progress Survey, only 37 percent of America's 12th graders were actually able to read at a 12th grade level. Despite this history of failed Federal programs, Congress is once again planning to solve a social problem it helped create through an increase in Federal power. Mr. Speaker, it is ironic that the reason we are considering this bill is because the budget agreement, which was supposed to end the era of big government, calls for the creation of a Federal literacy program. Obviously, the budget does not end big government, but preserves and expands unconstitutional State interference in areas where the Federal Government has neither legitimacy nor competence. Rather than returning money and authority to the States and the people, commensurate with the 10th amendment, this bill creates another complex bureaucratic process, laden with rules, regulations, and State mandates. Under this bill, States receiving a literacy grant must establish a reading and literacy partnership, the markup of which is dictated by the Federal Government. The partnership must then apply for a grant to the Secretary of Education, explaining how they would comply with all of the bill's mandates. The grants are then approved by a Peer Review Panel, a group of experts chosen by the National Institute for Literacy and other federally funded organizations. States receiving grants under this program would then have to distribute those grants to Local Education Agencies [LEA's] who submit a plan to the States' reading and literacy partnership. Among the information that States would be required to submit is a description of how subgrants made by the partnership would achieve the goals of the act, a description of how the partnership would evaluate subgrantees, and a description of how states will guarantee that a portion of the funds will be used to provide tutorial assistance grants. Those receiving Federal literacy funds may only use them for federally defined purposes. Thus, this legislation creates another bureaucratized program rooted in pseudo- federalism, whereby States have the right to spend money on federally defined goals and within the limitations set by Congress--provided, of course, they jump through all the congressionally constructed Federal hoops. Recipients of Federal literacy funds must base their programs on reliable, replicable research, defined as research meeting scientific standards of peer-review. While none question the value of research into various educational methodologies it is doubtful that the best way to teach reading can be totally determined through laboratory experiments. Learning to read is a complex process, involving many variable, not the least of which are the skills and abilities of the individual child. Many effective techniques may not be readily supported by reliable, replicable research. Therefore, this program may end up preventing the use of many effective means of reading instruction. The requirement that recipients of Federal funds use only those reading techniques based on reliable, replicable research, which in practice means those methods approved by the federally funded experts on the Peer Review Panel, ensures that a limited number of reading methodologies will, in essence, be stamped with Federal approval. Furthermore, this bill mandates that schools participating in the Federal literacy programs must make available to parents assurance of teacher qualifications. It is probably a good idea that local schools make this information available to parents, but it not the role of the Federal Government to dictate local schools implement everything we in Congress think is a good idea. In addition, this provision seems to have been motivated by a desire to start Congress down the road to establishing a national system to certify teachers. Due to the unfortunate influence of the Federal Government, the teaching methodologies funded under this program will become the methodologies used in every classroom in the Nation. Thus, this bill represents another step toward imposing a national curriculum. Supporters of this bill will respond that the Federal Government is merely encouraging the use of sound instructional techniques. Setting aside the question of whether or not techniques based on reliable, replicable research can really lead one to discover the best means of educating children, the Constitution prohibits the Federal Government from any interference in the methodologies by which children are educated. This constitutional prohibition on Federal interference in education contains no exception for techniques based on reliable, replicable, research. Mr. Speaker, another indication that this bill will move America toward a national curriculum is that the bill creates a Federal definition of reading, thus making compliance with Federal standards the goal of education. Furthermore, the Reading Excellence Act requires each grantee to evaluate the success of their programs. Of course, the most effective way to evaluate the success of the various literacy projects reviewing Federal funds is to administer a uniform test to the students participating in those programs. Thus, despite the overwhelming congressional rejection of national testing just last month, Congress is now considering authorizing the creation of a de facto national reading exam. Another reason to oppose this bill is that it increases Federal support for a so-called family literacy services. One of the hallmark of totalitarianism is State-control of child rearing. Despite the language that participation in these programs is voluntary, these programs enable government- funded social workers to subtly coerce parents to cede control of their child to the State. Mr. Speaker, the Reading Excellence Act represents another unconstitutional intrusion on the rights of States, local communities, and parents to educate children free from Federal interference. It also takes several large steps down the dangerous road toward a national curriculum. Therefore, I urge my colleagues to reject this bill, and instead support measures such as educational tax credit that will empower parents to provide effective literacy instruction for their children.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this amendment. I tend to agree with the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Taylor] that much of what we have done so far on these various bills have not done a whole lot. We have talked about rectifying the conditions in China, changing human rights, dealing with forced labor, providing for religious freedom, and dealing with the abortion issue. I do not think much will come of those amendments. I felt that some of those were technically flawed. This amendment is different. This is a much better amendment. This amendment gets to the heart of the matter. It is possible, due to a veto or some other technique, that this does not become law, but it should. If it became law, it would restrict our funding for the Chinese. This is what should be done. I do not believe that the type of legislation that we have been passing can really change the nature of China. I believe that we have a responsibility here in the Congress to provide for the freest society possible and to set the best example for the record, and that is the best way to change the internal affairs of other nations, and that we do not have this moral authority or constitutional authority to impose our will. But in the same light, we do not have the responsibility or authority, nor should we ever take hard-earned funds from the American taxpayers to subsidize regimes like Red China. So this is why I feel strongly about this issue, that we should stop this loaning through these international agencies. When the foreign operations appropriation bill came to the floor, we discussed the issue of the Export-Import Bank. This does not deal with the Export-Import Bank, this deals with the $4 billion they get from the international agency. I applaud the chairman for dealing with this. But I proposed an amendment that would deal with the direct subsidies of $4 billion more from the Export-Import Bank which goes to Red China. We were able to garner 40 votes to send a message and say that China should not be receiving these subsidies. So even with the best of light on legislation like this, it is moving in the right direction, it is doing the right thing, but still, the American people will be obliged to provide $4 billion worth of aid to Red China through the Export-Import Bank. I do not believe this is a proper function for government. I do not believe for a minute the American people want to do this. I believe it is endorsement of a system that we do not like. At the same time, I do not believe these token bills that we have passed will do hardly anything to change the internal nature of what is occurring in Red China. But if we could send them a message and say we would not subsidize them, take the funds away, someday maybe we will reconsider taking away the funds from the Ex-Im, but we ought to pass this bill tonight.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this legislation. It is a step in the right direction. Get rid of the Code, get rid of the IRS, and get rid of the income tax. Mr. Speaker, I rise in tepid support of H.R. 2676, the Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act of 1997. As most recently evidenced by Senate hearings, taxpayers across the country are clamoring for real reform. Yet, instead of delivering genuine reform, the Congress delivers an Oversight Board made up, in part, of experts from the fields of management, customer service, Federal tax laws, and information technology--in other words, more guards to oversee the watchdogs. I can support this bill because it partially shifts the burden of proving guilt from the taxpayer to the Government. Innocent until proven guilty is a tenet that permeates any free society but has somehow been ignored with respect to the Internal Revenue Service's imposition of criminal penalties. Additionally, this bill makes political audits by executive branch officials felonies punishable by fine and/or imprisonment. While these small steps are laudable, in light of the massive nature of the problem, the complexity of the Tax Code, and the oppressive nature of the excessive taxation under which we are currently so heavenly burdened, this bill is but token reform. The current taxation problem is rooted in the excessive spending by Government resulting from a bad case of congressional activism under which the legislative body has repeatedly overstepped it's article I, section 8, constitutional powers. No one likes to pay taxes--almost. The large majority of people in any society enjoy the benefits that come to them through Government programs, yet, essentially no one likes to have their taxes increased, believing they are always on the short end of receiving benefits in return. And this of course is true. The most people never get back what is taken from them in the form of taxes. Oliver Wendell Holmes, however, was different. He claimed he likes to pay taxes saying: ``I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilization.'' In a more famous quote, Holmes said: ``Taxes are what we pay for civilized society.'' A more accurate statement might be that taxes, especially if collected with the tactics of the IRS, are what permits Governments to act in a most uncivilized manner. Teddy Roosevelt, during the Progressive era, 1902, appointed Oliver Wendell Holmes, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, a time during which the ground work was laid for the modern welfare state later promoted by Teddy's cousin FDR. And it was not too many years after the appointment of Oliver Wendell Holmes to the Supreme Court that these progressive ideas led to the establishment of the income tax, the IRS, and an equally threatening organization, the Federal Reserve. Frank Chadorow had a much better understanding of what the income tax meant. ``Income taxation is in principle the worst of all forms of taxation because it begins by asserting the prior right of the state to all wealth.'' This principle can be applied to almost all taxes. A tax on inheritance could be considered even worse since we accumulate property and capital often with after taxed money. Since all taxes are essentially a tax on productive effort, whether it be corporate tax or even a sales tax, this principle is certainly accurate when the revenues are used for redistributive purposes. I see nothing wrong with the slogan ``taxation is theft,'' when the revenues are used to transfer wealth or privilege from one group or person to another. In spite of all the talk in recent months regarding the method of taxation and the abuse by the IRS these basic principles are not being discussed. There has been too much emphasis placed on the taxing process rather than the philosophical principles that not only endorse but encourage an abusive tax system. The recent Senate hearings on IRS procedures however were very beneficial in that they were reported by the major media and confirmed what most Americans suspected. Probably the most outrageous confirmation was that IRS agents did confess to a deliberate policy directed toward the weak and the poor to intimidate and make examples of them. Agents testified that the wealthy and the sophisticated were generally left alone because they were more capable of defending their rights. This is an outrage that should not be forgotten and should be used as a strong motivation to eventually do something about our tax system. The fact the some citizens have even committed suicide over the pressure of facing the tax collectors is something that should not ever happen in the civilized society that Holmes claimed we were paying for. Thousands of Americans are quite willing to pay the penalties and excess tax without challenging the Government even when they know they are right because the emotional and financial penalty of fighting the IRS is too great. For the last four decades it has become known to most Americans that both Republican and Democratic administrations have been willing to use the IRS, and for that matter other regulatory agencies, to punish their political enemies. It seems that the current administration has refined this technique to near perfection. It has been quite willing to attack, through the Tax Code, those foundations and groups that oppose Clinton's policies while ignoring the friendly ones. If we indeed lived in a truly civilized society individuals would be willing to come forth and reveal the Government's atrocities against its own people instead of choosing to hide their identity. The fact that IRS agents are hidden behind screens makes one think that they believe they belong to an organization such as the Mafia and if discovered they themselves would become a victim. It reminds me of the horrible pictures that we see of our FBI, BATF, and DEA agents making questionable raids on private citizens with stocking caps over their heads. In a civilized and free society, Government agents would act as our servants and not convey an appearance of a criminal element. But, nearly two decades ago Milton Friedman asked ``When you sit across the table from a representative of the IRS who is auditing your tax return, which one of you is the master and which the servant?'' In light of recent revelations the administration was quick to defend the IRS and explain the need for a strong collection agency. What else could we expect? However, even the administration senses that the public is on the verge of revolt and quickly added that certain reforms would be necessary. Reforms suggested by the administration included an advisory board, of course without clout, as well as making sure the IRS offices were kept open for longer periods of time including Saturdays. The advisory board would be used to advocate suspensions of seizure of property when appropriate. Sure. When an agency of Government is acting outside the law, i.e., the Constitution, while continuously making numerous errors, then expanding their hours seems to me to only compound our problem, not reduce them. Though I'm sure some Americans will see this as a positive for the administration, hardly will this do anything to help the problem. Even the Republican proposal to have a private board with more clout doesn't address the real problem. And another Taxpayer's Bill of Rights won't help either. If a private board is being appointed, what would keep the establishment from appointing friendly people to the board? I can't see where this would be any different from the IRS being supervised by political hacks from the Treasury Department. This whole notion that better service can be given to the taxpayer is a bit preposterous. The fact that we call this the Internal Revenue Service is an obvious misnomer. How can an agency of Government that sets out to confiscate our wealth provide a service to us? It is just as preposterous to refer to victims as customers. Taxpayers are no more customers of an organization providing a service than the man in the moon. This type of wording is nothing more than the newspeak of which Orwell wrote. So far the reforms advocated by the administration and the Congress will do nothing to solve our long-term problems. Other more serious reforms have been suggested, such as eliminating the current Tax Code and replacing it with a flat tax or a national sales tax. Both of these proposals come up far short of dealing with the real problem. Supporters of both proposals never touch the problem of the Social Security, Medicare, flat tax of 17 percent which not only is here to stay but will surely rise. Since these programs are sacred no one can suggest that something should be done about them. But in reality, as I have mentioned before, the Social Security and Medicare tax is an income tax that is used for general revenues as the trust funds are nonexistent. When one adds the tax that the employer and the employees pays, which is the real labor cost, each individual is paying 17 percent of their income up to $65,000, which is a truly regressive income tax. If a flat tax of 17 percent is added we are immediately at 34 percent and rising. With a flat tax this high and with removal of tax exemptions for everything, and especially our donations as well as our interest on our houses, we are actually setting the stage for a much higher tax rate which will make no one happy. Sure, there might be a little less difficulty figuring out the code, a cost in and of itself, but if one can save some money by having a complex code this could actually be better than a simple code where we are forced to divvy up more to the welfare state. Besides, the flat tax that is proposed has exemptions for low income so immediately it is a flat tax after a certain amount thus it is in reality a graduated tax. Businesses would still have to deduct the expense of doing business prior to reporting their profits. A national sales tax has also been bantered around as an alternative to the income tax. Where it too has some advantages, reducing the effects of the complicated Tax Code and making filling out our tax returns easier, it also has many short-comings. First, nobody knows precisely what rate would be require to pay all the bills. Some have suggested 15 percent, others believe it will be over 30 percent, which I am inclined to believe. The reason it's impossible to calculate is that at a certain level of taxation there will be a motivation to avoid the sales tax by expanding the underground economy. The argument is made that the sale tax is a good way to collect revenue because those who are ducking taxes like the drug dealers and other criminals will be forced to pay the sales tax when they buy luxury items. There is nothing automatic about that assumption. Besides, IRS agents, who may be called something else, will be required to monitor every small business and every small profession to make sure that the revenues are collected and deposited in the Treasury. I can imagine that many small businesses and entrepreneurs working at home will have every bit as many records to fill out as they do now with their tax return. Obviously, reforming the tax collecting system to make productive Americans happy is much more difficult than meets the eye. Many Americans and Washington politicians are overly optimistic about changing the method of collection as the solution to the problems we face with our over exuberant revenuers. Changing the collecting system, if the goal is to pay the bills and avoid a deficit, does nothing to solve the real problem of disenchantment with Government and the disgust with high taxes as well as with the prodding Federal bureaucrats who invade every aspect of our lives. What is really upsetting most productive Americans is the fact that they have to work until July 3, before they get to keep any of their earnings for themselves. It's ironic that July 4th is our first day of independence from all taxation. This does not even take into consideration the inflation tax, i.e., the loss of value of our purchasing power, as our Government continues to diminish the value of the dollar. The inflation tax is something that is much more difficult to understand and yet is the tax of last resort of all authoritarian governments. We are now at the point where the American people are starting to rebel against any increase in taxation. In spite of the fact that we cannot pay our bills we were actually able, for political reasons, to make a token cut in some taxes last summer. This sill not prevent our Government, acting through the Federal Reserve, from creating new credit when necessary thus diminishing the value of the money already held. On this tax, however, because it's difficult to see and the victims harder to find, the measurement is elusive. For this reason I am predicting that when push comes to shove with the budget it will be the ultimate tax used on the American people in an effort to continue to finance the welfare/warfare state. The real tragedy of this is that perceptions of the value of the dollar make it almost impossible to predict who the victims are going to be and when the value of the dollar will suddenly change. For instance it was quite clear when the recent devaluation hit the Mexican Peso it occurred suddenly and sharply and the victims were the middle-class and the poor throughout the country. But it was not gradual, steady and logical because the inflation tax frequently comes in sudden bursts. The attention that token reforms are getting today, whether it be reforming the current system and devising a friendlier IRS or talking about a flat tax or a sales tax, actually is more of a distraction than a constructive debate. I am not saying this is intentionally done or of no value but I think that is the result of the current discussion. The reason for this is that fundamentally and foremost it's not a tax problem we face. The basic problem confronting us as a country is a spending problem. Concentrating only on taxes, which is okay to a degree, avoids the subject of the size of government and the reason why the Government spends so much of the Nation's output. If we concentrate only on taxes and we avoid the subject of the role of Government and why the Government wants more of our money, we cannot and will not solve the problem. The goal ought to be to shrink the size of government and lower taxes. As bad as the income tax is on principle, an income tax of 3 percent on all money earned would not cause a tax revolt and most Americans would voluntarily pay their taxes. Even a national sales tax of 5 percent would not prompt a hue and cry over the tax system. The problem, of course, is that the Government is spending way too much money and there is no serious effort to cut back. Recent budgetary efforts in Washington indicates that there's not much chance that the current Congress is going to do anything about cutting back. The welfare state is alive and well. Even the National Endowment for the Arts could not be cut, Clinton's health program is being implemented by the Republican Congress, public housing money is increasing, and just recently, in our Education Committee, a Republican proposal supported by Democrats to increase national educational expenditure for the purpose of promoting charter schools was easily passed, although it authorized a new $100 million program. As long as this attitude prevails on the spending side, Saturday morning hours for the IRS and keeping telephone lines open 24 hours or having a review panel or instituting a sales tax or a flax tax will do nothing other than delay the serious discussion about reducing the role of government in our lives, in our economy and in the world at large. Supply side economics pushed by many during the 1980's argued strenuously for lower tax rates with which I agreed. But the goal of the supply siders was merely to stimulate the economy so that higher revenues would flow to Washington--a bad motivation. It is possible that with lower tax rate the economy would pick up but if the result was higher tax revenues, these revenues should be used to further cut taxes not increase expenditures. At the same time the supply siders were pushing the lower tax rates for the purpose of increasing revenues, they were advocating higher and higher budgets for the IRS to enhance the ability of the tax collectors. The Reagan administration was quite receptive to this principle believing that if a $1 billion in additional funds was given to the IRS it promised to produce $17 billion more in revenues through the process of harassment, intimidation and audit. Even this year the Treasury bill appropriation, which contained the pay raise for the Members of Congress, had an increase in the IRS budget of 9 percent giving them an increase of more than a half billion dollars to do exactly what they have been doing for decades. So, in the middle of the hearings on the Hill revealing the outrageous tactics of the IRS, and at the same time the politicians were propagandizing for tax reform, the large majority of Democrats and Republicans were voting for a huge increase in the IRS budget to continue the very process they were publicly condemning. Today the atmosphere in Washington can be described as deceptively optimistic. Many of those who were preaching cutbacks and austerity a few years ago are claiming great victories with the accomplishment of a balanced budget. This budget is not balanced regardless of what the politicians are saying. Last year's national debt went up nearly $200 billion when the funds taken from the trust funds are considered. Members are actually sitting around figuring out how to spend the excess they expect over the next several years. What they don't understand is that their projections of our future spending habits, the tax revenues, interest rates, and the state of the economy are unknown to them and quite frankly are going to be a lot different than their optimistic projections. All taxes are extracted from the productive effort of the people. Whether the tax comes through an income tax, a sales tax, an inheritance tax, a school tax, property tax, or whatever, this is the method whereby the state confiscates the productive effort from the people. Governments produce nothing. All governments can do is use force to redistribute wealth and pay off their political cronies. The name of the game is power. Power is achieved by the politicians through the control of people's income through a taxing system as well as manipulating the value of money. As Chief Justice John Marshall said: ``The power to tax is the power to destroy.'' It is not just a coincidence that those who introduced us to the welfare state, the Progressives of the early 20th century, believed both in the power to tax as well as the power to inflate. In our relatively free society where productive efforts still exist and a profit motive remains, big government programs can be tolerated and funded for long periods of time. But as time goes on the productive ability of corporations and individuals is diminished as are all our freedoms for personal freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom. Today, we are living under conditions which encourage the export of capital and the exporting of jobs while encouraging the immigration of individuals who will do quite well living off our welfare state. In spite of the euphoria now being expressed in Washington, at the height of our so-called recovery, the conditions are set for soon recognizing that productive efforts are being impeded by our tax and regulatory system and there has been absolutely no serious intent to change our spending habits. The welfare/warfare state is moving briskly along and is being encouraged by the deceptive pronouncements that our budget is balanced and all we need to do is change the method by which we collect revenues. We do not have a technical problem or an IRS code problem. We have a problem in defining the proper role for government. As long as the majority of the American people still believe it's in their best interests to have a government that redistributes wealth and polices the world, this crisis will continue to build. A proper sized government would require minimal taxes and would be designed for the protection of liberty and equal justice for all. We have come a long way from those intentions of the Founders of this country, but we'll soon face a crisis of confidence and be forced once again to decide for ourselves just what kind of government we want and how much government will tolerate. Let's hope and pray that those of us who believe in limited government and maximum individual freedom will use the events of the coming years to promote the cause of liberty and not just tinker with the Tax Code. When that day comes the big tax debates will probably be; should we have a 5-percent import tax or a 10-percent import tax and we will not be dealing with a Federal income tax nor a Federal sales tax at all. Moreover, we will not be concerning ourselves with triffling reforms of a revenue agency which harasses our people and eats out our substance. Let us hasten that day.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, the Congress has never earned high marks for consistency. We do spend many hours debating the minor differences in the management of many centralized programs that are generally unwarranted. But when it comes to foreign policy, I see both sides of the aisle are eagerly agreeing with the President that we must threaten force and use of force in Iraq. Yet, Mr. Speaker, there is no indication that this is a proper position. We have been told by the Ambassador to the United Nations that the reason we must threaten force in this area is that it is a direct threat to the security of the United Nations. Here all along I thought I was here in the Congress to protect the security of the United States. We are inconsistent because the majority of Americans want us out of Bosnia. Most Members of Congress argue and vote to get us out of Bosnia. There is no indication that we are going to get out of Bosnia. Yet, here we are, chanting away that we should use force and threaten force in Bosnia. We do not have that same policy with China.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from California [Mr. Riggs] for yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this legislation. I was in support of the scholarship programs that we just voted down. But this bill introduces the notion of a brand new Federal program. I have not seen the problem to be lack of Government intervention at the Federal level, nor lack of funds. I believe very sincerely that our public school system faces too much regulation from the Federal level, we do not need a new program. In this bill we will have mandates from the Federal Government on the States. There is also recommendations in here that the curriculum be evaluated. To me, this introduces a notion that we are so much opposed to testing, because it is the eventual evaluation and setting of standards that I think is so dangerous to the public school system. This bill has $100 million in it. I can see why some who believe in big government believe in expanding the role of government in education, would support this. I strongly oppose it. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to express my opposition to H.R. 2616, a bill amending titles VI and X of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to expand the use of charter schools. Despite the understandable enthusiasm many members of Congress feel toward charter schools, Congress should reject this bill as it represents an unconstitutional federal infringement upon the authority of states, local communities, and individual citizens to control education. The tenth amendment reserves to the states and the people ``all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution,'' and thus forbids the federal government from any interference in education be it by mandating a national curriculum or providing incentives to states and localities to form charter schools. The drafters of the constitution made no exception for education in the tenth amendment. H.R. 2616 encourages states to alter their education laws and policies for the purpose of increasing the number of charter schools to at least 3,000 by the year 2000. In order to achieve this congressionally set goal, the Secretary of Education is instructed to give prioritized funding to states which allow charter schools a ``high degree of autonomy'' over their respective budgets and expenditures; have at least one chartering authority which allows for an increase in the number of charter schools each year; and provides for periodic review and evaluation by the authorized public chartering agency of each charter school. Thus, the federal government will use monies seized from the American people to ``persuade'' the states to create more charter schools with federal specifications. Of course, if the federal government reduced its oppressive level of taxation, the American people would have more resources to devote to education and states would feel less compelled to obey Congressional mandates in order to finance education. A federal policy of encouraging charter schools represents an exercise in legislative hubris incompatible with ending ``the era of big government.'' The charter school model may not be appropriate for every state in the nation. Whether or not a charter school is appropriate for a local community is a decision best made by the people in that respective community. Yet, this bill makes it national policy to encourage the formation of charter schools throughout the nation because Congress has determined charter schools are desirable. However, a centralized body such as Congress is institutionally incapable of knowing what reforms work best for every school district in this large and diverse nation. Therefore, rather than expanding federal programs, Congress should defund the federal education bureaucracy and return control over education to those best suited to design effective education programs--local communities and individual citizens. Proponents of this bill claim that it expands the educational options available to the nation's children. However, increasing federal involvement in education actually decreases the ability of parents to control their child's education. As a greater percentage of the nation's educational resources are devoted to fulfilling the wishes of Congress, fewer resources will be devoted to fulfilling the wishes of America's parents. This is because some people who would otherwise operate a religious-based school, for example, will instead open charter schools in order to receive federal funds. Since charter schools cannot offer religious instruction, those parents who would send their children to that school if it provided a parochial education are denied the ability to educate their children in accordance with their preferences. Mr. Chairman, further evidence of how this bill would actually limit educational options can be found in the language making ``evaluations'' of charter schools one of the stated purposes of the federal charter school program. National evaluation is a process whereby federal bureaucrats determine which are the best education practices, leading to a federally-approved set of ``best practices'' for charter schools. Over time, charter schools will face pressure, perhaps applied by future Congresses, to adopt those practices favored by the federal government. Language in this bill giving the Secretary of Education the power to make grants based on how well charter schools meet the academic performance requirements guarantees an increasing level of uniformity among the nation's charter schools. This may extend as far as federal control, or at least ``oversight,'' of the curriculum offered by charter schools! Defenders of this bill may point out that the statute specifies the review and evaluation of charter schools to determine how well the charter school meets or exceeds state performance standards. However, it is unlikely that any state seeking federal funds would set standards different from those favored by the federal educrats. Furthermore, states applying for federal funds for charter schools must describe to the Secretary the goals of charter schools and the means by which charter schools will be evaluated by the state, as well as the curriculum and instructional practices to be used by the states charter schools, thus giving the Secretary another means by which to impose a uniform federal model of charter schools. This bill further centralizes education by ratifying the increase of federal expenditures for charter schools to one-hundred million dollars contained in this year's budget and ``such sums as necessary for each of the four succeeding fiscal years.'' An authorization of ``such sums as necessary'' gives appropriators carte blanche to increase appropriations every year. Since federal education programs are funded by taking money from hardworking American taxpayers, increasing federal expenditures on charter schools, or any other education program favored by Congress, leaves America's parents with fewer resources to educate their children in the way they deem fit. Mr. Chairman, if educational choice is to be the priority, Congress should support large educational tax credits for parents, such as those contained in the Family Education Freedom Act (H.R. 1816). Insofar as ``he who pays the piper calls the tune,'' expanding federal education programs and federal education expenditures will inevitably lead to increased federal control. Conversely, education tax credits will restore parental control over education. Moreover, the tax credit approach is much more consistent with this Congress' stated goal of decentralizing education authority. In conclusion, this bill, while dressed up in the rhetoric of ``fostering educational innovation and increased parental empowerment,'' is really yet another unconstitutional infringement upon the rights of states, localities, and, especially, parents to control education. Charter schools may be a valuable educational reform. However, it is neither the constitutional nor practical role of Congress to encourage states to adopt a particular reform. Therefore, Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to reject this proposal and instead, work to eliminate all federal educational programs which interfere with education and, instead, return authority over education to the rightful owner--the American people.

Mr. PAUL

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this legislation. I have been on the education committee now for 10 months, and I have not yet heard any Member stand up and brag about the public school system. Everybody seems to be critical of the system, and everybody has suggestions on what we can do. I think the problem with the school system has definitely gotten worse since we have gained control of the public school system at the national level. There is pretty good evidence to this, and I think a new program and new expenditures up here will not do the trick. This program, however, does not fall into that category. I believe that the States ought to have the right to set up one of these programs where scholarships can be offered. This is quite a bit different than mandating and dictating a brand new program and new appropriations. So I think this is a step in the right direction. We should not be fearful of choice; we should not be fearful of competition. If we are serious about education, I think we should get beyond equating good education with the school lunch program. I cannot quite see the analogy of saying a good lunch is equivalent to good education. But, more Federal programs will not solve the problem, and I believe very sincerely that if we allow some choice and if we allow some competition, we might see some improvement. I do not believe this program is going to solve the problem of our educational system. We have serious structural problems. Some day we will have to look at the history of the public school system and look to the time when the public schools worked much better with local control and local financing. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to express my support for H.R. 2746, the Helping Empower Low-Income Parents [HELP] Scholarships Amendments of 1997. The HELP Act allows States to use title VI funds for school voucher programs if the State has a voucher law. Nothing in this bill forces states to adapt a voucher program, states without voucher programs will not lose a penny of federal funds. HELP does not create a new federal program, nor does it provide a justification for an increase in federal education funds. Furthermore, this bill addresses the legitimate concerns that federally funded voucher programs will lead to state regulations of private schools by explicitly stating that receipt of these funds cannot be used as a reason for force religious schools to alter their curriculum, or force private schools to change their admission requirements. Additionally, participating private schools must only be in compliance with state regulations in effect one year prior to passage of the HELP Act. Under 10th amendment to the Constitution, the question of whether or not to fund private-school voucher programs is a left solely to the state and localities. However, congressional activism has undermined state and local control of education as the federal education bureaucracy has grown increasingly powerful. Thus, many states now feel compelled to obey federal dictates and only engage in those education policies for which they can receive federal funds. Individual states, localities and, in many cases, even private citizens cannot afford to support education programs without financial help from the federal government because of the oppressive tax burden imposed on the American people by this Congress! Congress then ``returns'' the money (minus a hefty federal ``administrative'' fee) to state governments and the American people to spend on federally approved purposes. While the very existence of federal education programs and funding is an insult to the Constitution, and while the most effective education reform to entirely defund the federal education bureaucracy and return education funding to America's parents through deep tax credits and tax cuts, the more options the federal government provides states, localities, and individuals in the use of federal education dollars the better. Mr. Speaker, authority for funding education belongs to the people and the states. We in Congress have no legal or moral justification for denying the people the right to pursue any education reform they believe will help America's children--whether it is vouchers, charter schools, or statewide testing. Mr. Speaker, my long-term goal remains the restoration of limited, constitutional government in all areas, including education. Until that goal is achieved, I will support measures, such as the one now before us, to give the states and the people as much control as possible over education dollars. After all, in the words of the pledge to abolish the IRS many of us signed last week, it is their money, not ours. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting H.R. 2746, the Helping Empower Low-Income Parents [HELP] Scholarships Amendments of 1997.