Charlie Rangel

Mr. RANGEL

Mr. RANGEL. Medical services mean abortion. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. RANGEL. The gentleman from Misouri [Mr. Talent] said all of these problems that society is facing is because the children are born out of wedlock. You describe it a crime, that drugs, that poverty is all due to this. But it could very easily be said that it is poverty that has driven the very same things that you are talking about. It is so unfair for you to pick one of these things, and you are right. You are right, that these things are all there together. But if a person was working, they would not be making the babies.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Chairman, I am.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I cannot find it in my heart to be as cruel to the gentleman for Oregon as his party has been to him, and as small as this token is, I want to thank him for having the courage to stand up with these people and at least to offer diapers, clothes, or something because the mother happened to be 17. It does not make any sense on our side of the aisle, but since you are courageous enough to stand up against the people on the other side, especially those from the committee that is finding ways to be mean, then what I will do is just support this amendment and hope that perhaps this feeling might be generated among your colleagues to such an extent that they would be prepared to do the right thing and spare the children for whatever faults they find in his or her mother.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to address the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Chairman, if children were not being hurt, I would think this is the best political thing that could happen to the Democrats, to really expose what is going on here, where we take 10 of these amendments, and each time someone stands up and asks ``What does it mean,'' then the gentleman's time has expired. We have all of these amendments that Democrats have put in to really guarantee something for the children, and the gentlewoman knows that there is no guarantee here except to the Governors. Everything that is in this bill guarantees the Governors that they get the package on the block grant, and there is nothing that is guaranteed to the child, because the entitlements are shattered which we had before. Take a look at some of these great things in this en bloc amendment. The first one is here, by the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Talent], where he says ``Every problem the United States of America has in crime, in welfare, in poverty, in drugs, is due to the fact that we have a single parent.'' What is this? A sense of the Congress? Then we have a gentleman that comes here from Illinois and he has language circulated in all of the documents which says that ``403 of the bill is to ensure that no funds under the bill can be used for medical services.'' The chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means said this is not controversial, but the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hyde] claims it only means to stop abortions. Then we have another provision, that deadbeat dads who die are still liable under the bill. This is very important. Another provision provides that if you are a fugitive of justice you are denied welfare. Give me a break. What we should have is debates on the good parts of the bill, which say this: ``We want people to work.'' We ask that our Members, what, give them the training, give them the opportunity, and put them to work. If there is no job available to them, do not make that child suffer. We ask Members to take a look at the 18-year-old, and we say if she made a mistake, do not punish the child. Make certain that she lives with adult supervision, that she gets training, that she gets a job, but no, they say that they have a better way to do it because we did not do it right. Mr. Chairman, all we are asking is this. They have the votes. They know darned well that the substance is not on their side. The whole world now looks at this bill and they know now what the other side are really trying to do. That is to get the Federal Government out of caring, to get them out of education. They are going to abolish the whole department, to get them out of welfare, to get them out of Medicaid. should be handled by orphanages and by the private sector and by charities. All we are saying is one thing: Give us a chance to debate these things. Do not shove it down the American people's throat.

Mr. RANGEL. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

Mr. RANGEL. I yield to the gentleman from Oregon.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Chairman, why is the gentleman circulating this around?

Mr. RANGEL. All I have to say to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Shaw] is each time we try to deal with this document, the gentleman's time has expired. You say it is noncontroversial. You explain the Hyde amendment which says that no funds under section 403 are to be used for any medical services. Then the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Hyde] says he only means abortion. That is not controversial?

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, again I cannot turn my back on those people who have the courage to try to find a decent theme in this type of thing. I cannot see, however, how this really changes the direction in which the bill would be going, just to give the vouchers to these additional children. But I do hope that we recognize that the bill that is before us is really taking the Federal Government out of all responsibility to take care of our poor, of our children, of our sick and our aged, and I guess it is a part of an overall scheme to say that those people on the local level, those in the cities and those in the State, that they know better than we in Washington. And if that is so, why do we not give them full discretion to do everything? Why is it that we see fit to say that we do not want any strings attached to the governors when it comes to doing the mean-spirited things, but we are just saying that they may provide such vouchers? Why can we not say if they want to a provide cash assistance, let them do that too?

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I want to congratulate the gentleman for attempting to improve this bill. But it does not improve it dramatically. Somewhere somebody got the idea that when someone is 18 years old and they have a child that you punish the child. You just say that has to stop somewhere. And so they said, no cash benefits would go to the child, not even if the child was under some type of adult supervision or that the child was kicked out of the home or the child had no place to go. Arbitrarily they said that just being 18 years old was enough by itself to deny benefits. A mandate, a mandate to the States. My God, the Council of Catholic Bishops said that this would encourage abortion. The cardinal is concerned about it. I do not know whether buying diapers is going to clear this thing up at all. I mean, we are saying to the kid that if you really think that it is the cash incentives, then maybe some of the people on the other side would think that the mother would have the child in order to get the diapers and school supplies, since you have this irrational logic that they are making babies for the cash assistance. No, I do not really think you can perfect this dramatically by just being kinder and gentler and the amendment does do that by providing for vouchers. But I think the whole world ought to see what is the intent behind the bill. Just being 18 years old, how long does the mother get for vouchers for school supplies or diapers? Does it go into clothing? Does it go into any other things? I mean, I will wait until the gentleman finishes, because I would like to yield to him and ask him. Since it is not written out here, you are going to dramatically improve this bill by allowing the mother that is 18 to get diapers and school supplies and what else?

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman ought to know that some of the witnesses were here, like the Cardinal of the Archdiocese of New York and the Council of Bishops, Catholic Bishops. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Deal].

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Chairman, I yield my time to the gentleman from Florida to answer some of my questions. I have already complimented the gentleman enough. I want to know why he did not see fit to support the gentleman who thought that if a baby came from someone 17 or a baby came from someone 18, that the child should not be discriminated against because of the age of the mother. That is why I thought the gentleman stood up.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Chairman, I cannot congratulate the gentleman enough for being sensitive to the fact that we do not have the right to just arbitrarily pick some year in someone's life and deny that child benefits. Somehow the gentleman has reached a point that he feels that maybe just allowing them, the States, to do the right thing, that that would dramatically change the bill. However, Mr. Chairman, I hope we see the way this is treated. That is the reason why I took time to oppose this, and probably in the final analysis my conscience will not allow me to do it, just to show the depth of the mean-spiritedness that is involved here. For the gentleman to have to come forward in the majority party and say ``Can the kid get some diapers, some clothes, or just something that the Governor may think is in the best interests of the children, of the child born to a teenager 18 years old,'' and then to be knocked down by his own majority party, because what did he want to do, the right thing? Mr. Chairman, I will yield to the subcommittee chairman, because I know in his heart he, too, wants to do the right thing. We were not governed by conscience here, we are governed by a contract. The gentleman signed that contract, by golly. It does not make any difference how many children, how many aged, how many sick are going to be hurt, he signed the contract and he has to keep it. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Shaw].

Mr. RANGEL. Will it give the State the option to provide cash assistance, if in its wisdom that is what they wanted to do? After all, we have to realize that the government does not have the answer for everything. The gentleman trusts the Governors, doesn't he? Why will the gentleman not allow them to give cash assistance?

Mr. RANGEL. Well, suppose there were some other need? How long does this go on? Is there a time certain that it is cut off?

Mr. RANGEL

Mr. RANGEL. The Cardinal said he had an agreement with the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon], and I just wanted to know whether that is included.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to ask the chairman of the committee about certain commitments that the Cardinal thought were made to him as they relate to this bill, but obviously those commitments were not made and we do not have time for a dialogue. But one of the reasons why I want to encourage the House to vote against this rule is because while the chairman of the committee would indicate that these were Democratic and Republican rules, when I take a look at it, the Democratic rules that would guarantee foster care and adoption, that would guarantee jobs, that would guarantee child care, that would guarantee that the child not be punished because of an irresponsible mother who could not identify the father, and an amendment that would guarantee vaccination and national nutrition, I would say that these were good amendments that the Democrats had, amendments that no one passed on. But then I look at the amendments that were made in order, and one of them says that a deadbeat dad who died is still liable for the money.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I have some other amendments here that I would like to discuss on the floor later.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon] yield?

Mr. RANGEL. I thank the gentleman for yielding, my friend and colleague. Mr. Speaker, last Monday I had an opportunity to meet with Cardinal O'Connor on this bill, and we had a very long session. Cardinal O'Connor indicated a great concern about the children being hurt, especially those with teenage----

Mr. RANGEL

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I would like to pay tribute to Mr. Carl Marion Frierson, a dedicated member of my district until his death. Mr. Frierson was the third born and second oldest son of the late Elon and Nora Frierson. Born on May 18, 1925 in Philadelphia, PA, Carl served in the U.S. Navy from August 24, 1943 to June 2, 1946. He was honorably discharged with the rank of machinist mate 3C SV-6. After serving his country, Carl moved to Harlem where he resided for over 45 years. Mr. Frierson was employed with the State labor department as a supervisor of safety and health for 20 years before his retirement. Carl Frierson was also a Mason who held the exalted position of Worshipful Master. Mr. Frierson's unyielding dedication to the youth of the community included being a Boy Scout leader at the Explorer level, watching the children of young parents so that they could work, spending time at local schools, and at times helping out young parents by providing rent assistance. Mr. Frierson's relentless devotion to his family and the Harlem community gives me great pride to have been his Representative.

Mr. RANGEL

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize the achievements of a group of young people from my congressional district in Harlem, members of the Mott Hall Middle School chess team, the Dark Knights. Through their dedication and enjoyment of chess, the Dark Knights have become city-wide and national champions in a demanding game. The team's members, who are black, Latino, and Asian, have, through their belief in themselves challenged us to believe in them, and students like them. I congratulate them and the coaches, parents, and private citizens who have assisted them. They challenge us all to raise the expectations and possibilities our Nation holds for all young people of color. I encourage you to read the attached article from the February 17 Wall Street Journal: [From the Wall Street Journal, Feb. 17, 1995] A Winning Gambit in Harlem (By Hugh Pearson) New York.--Twenty-eight-year-old Maurice Ashley is standing before a classroom of students in Harlem's Mott Hall Middle School. Behind him, unsurprisingly, is a blackboard. But on it is displayed something unexpected: the diagram of a chessboard. Mr. Ashley is preparing his team of chess-playing hotshots for the following weekend's competition. ``I'm going to show you a game that's so dramatic in exposing weak squares, it's ridiculous,'' he tells them. The team calls itself the Dark Knights. Its members know they can trust Mr. Ashley's judgment: He is an international chess master--indeed, the highest-ranking black chess player in the world. Last year he coached the Dark Knights to the National Junior High School Chess Team Championship. Mr. Ashley details the opening moves of the game, then dramatizes an unusual maneuver. ``It's called a Dutch. And it's characterized mainly by the fact that this pawn goes to [position] F5 in order to get real serious control of this E4 square. As you can see, D5 and F5 pawns are controlling E4.'' He pauses. ``What could go wrong with a move like this?'' ``It blocks his C8 bishop,'' answers a student. ``That's right. The C8 bishop could have a very hard time getting into the game.'' Problem Solving With such teaching Mr. Ashley guides the team through various moves and countermoves that may come up in competition. Periodically he gives them a break from blackboard instruction and divides the class up into pairs. Over real chessboards, they puzzle out problems of increasing difficulty, sometimes competing with one another. The pairs choose names for themselves, which Mr. Ashley writes on the blackboard so he can keep score. With the imagination and humor typical of 12-, 13-, and 14- year-olds, one pair decides to call itself ``Storm Soldiers and One Fool''; another is ``Men in Tights.'' Yet another chooses the name ``Confused.'' When this pair gives a wrong answer, Mr. Ashley says: Everyone laughs. Mr. Ashley doesn't worry that his students will take his kidding the wrong way. They are good at chess, and they know it. He obviously feels no need to patronize them, reassure them or redeem them from feelings of disadvantage. When Mr. Ashley coached another team--the Raging Rooks of Harlem--to a national junior-high-school chess championship in 1991, one team member, Sharu Robinson, wondered out loud at the national media attention: ``Why is it that they're acting as though we we're some Cinderella team that came out of nowhere and won? We went, we knew what we were doing, we kicked butt, and that's it. What's the problem?'' Of course the problem--or rather, the surprise--was the color of their skin. ``One, it's about being black,'' says Mr. Ashley, reflecting on the odd reaction he gets when he tells people that he teaches chess to Harlem youths. ``Two, it's the fact that it's chess, which has this mystique surrounding it. It's not the urban game; it's the urbane game, the game of the elite.'' People are often skeptical of the value of chess instruction. ``Chess players are considered to be in their own intellectual stratosphere,'' Mr. Ashley explains. ``The strategy of teaching it to kids already seems wrong. And then to teach it to young black kids on top of that brings in all the stereotypes; that they're too disadvantaged to learn the game; that they aren't really smart; that they're more physical than intellectual. The stereotypes are just so dramatic on all levels that it's too far for most people to stretch.'' Mott Hall defies such stereotypes regularly. More than a quarter of the school's students--who are black, Latino and Asian--receive chess instruction twice weekly, as part of an educational initiative that sees chess as a competitive, engaging way of learning analytical reasoning. The program is financed by a prominent New York real-estate developer, Daniel Rose, as part of his Harlem Educational Activities Fund. The fund itself is an unusual success story. Besides its chess component, HEAF finances a program designed to improve the reading skills at the New York City elementary school with the lowest average reading scores. (Mott Hall, it should be noted, is the public school for gifted Harlem children; for the past four years its reading scores have been the highest in the city for public middle schools.) The fund also provides tutoring to Harlem youths, to help them prepare for the entrance exams to New York's three most exclusive public high schools (Stuyvesant, Bronx High School of Science and Brooklyn Tech). A mentoring program assists those who are admitted and eventually advises them about picking the right colleges. HEAF's track record is impressive. One way or another, it has served more than 1,000 youths since its inception in 1988. Besides facilitating Mott Hall's chess victories, the fund has raised the reading scores at the city's lowest- scoring public elementary school substantially. In 1992, only 9% of its students scored at or above the city's average grade level; this past year 30% did. So far the fund's tutorial instruction has helped nearly 200 Harlem youths score high enough to enter the city's top public high schools. Mr. Rose's efforts are just one of many privately funded programs by wealthy businessmen concerned about the lack of educational opportunities for children who live in poor urban areas. Many such programs, like the ``Student/Sponsor Partnership'' founded in 1986 by Dillion Read investment banker Peter Flanigan, are designed to funnel students from such communities into private and religious schools. Mr. Rose, by contrast, believes in the importance of public schools. He feels that the private sector has a crucial role to play in making up for dwindling tax dollars. But he also feels that the private sector should lead the way in ensuring that school funds are spent more efficiently. ``The gross expenditures in the New York City public school system are very high,'' he explains. ``But it doesn't show up in the classroom. Given the horrendous number of students graduating as functional illiterates, obviously something isn't working. The resources we have must be redirected.'' To Mr. Rose, chess instruction is one way of redirecting such resources profitably. Mr. Ashley agrees. ``Kids have a natural excitement and curiosity for the game,'' he explains. ``As they get deeper and deeper into it, they become more and more confident, more and more sure of themselves. Their self- esteem rises. I look at the kids I've instructed here in Harlem who have gone on to high school and they have this peaceful aura about them.'' Both men are convinced that the mastery of chess complements--and encourages--academic success. Sharu Robinson, for one, will graduate this year from The Dalton School, one of New York's most prestigious private schools. There is every reason to believe that there are many students like Sharu--especially nonwhite students who may have absorbed a false message about the supposed limits of their intellectual abilities--who can benefit enormously from learning a game that requires of its practitioners analytic reasoning, mental discipline and strategic skill. Mr. Rose dismisses the recent attention given to hereditary factors in intelligence sparked by controversy over ``The Bell Curve.'' He strongly believes that environment plays the decisive role in intellectual achievement. a firm grounding Mr. Ashley's personal experience lends support to this view. His family arrived in the U.S. from Kingston, Jamaica, when he was 12. In Kingston he was immersed in an environment where, as he put it, ``I didn't have the word `disadvantaged' pummeled into my brain.'' So when his mother brought him and his two brothers to live in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, he had a firm enough grounding to keep himself focused on his studies, even though drug dealers plied their trade nearby. ``I just dealt with it,'' he says. He later graduated from City College and soon after became the chessmaster he is now, capable of leading classrooms of Harlem junior-high-school students to major chess championships. The following weekend, it happened again. The Dark Knights of Mott Hall captured first place in the New York City Junior High School Chess Team Championship. Team members received the top five individual awards as well. Whatever Maurice Ashley is doing to register these victories, his efforts obviously help to demonstrate that private philanthropy and talented individuals have a crucial role to play in improving the quality of education in our public schools.