Charlie Rangel

Mr. RANGEL

Mr. RANGEL. Madam Speaker, I rise today to introduce the article, ``Caribbean Call Centers Booming,'' published in New York CARIB News on September 19, 2007. The piece notes that American corporations are increasingly setting up centers in the Caribbean, breathing new life into the region's workforce and diversifying its economy. A drop in communication costs has ushered in newfound competition, willing the area's island nations to extend tax incentives in search of business--and it's working. For those economies with the smallest populations, it's made a world of positive difference, injecting droves of new workers and reducing rampant unemployment. Caribbean Call Centers Booming Castries.--In a global search for low-cost customer service, AOL considered call centers in India and other hotspots--then settled on the tiny island of St. Lucia. In choosing the Caribbean island, AOL, a unit of Time Warner Inc., joined other U.S. companies that have made the region a new global hub for call centers. Plunging communication costs, workers who relate easily to American customers and the region's famed hospitality are attracting American corporations, boosting the work force in the ``nearshore'' service industry in the Caribbean. Jamaica is one of the leaders with about 14,000 employees in the sector. In the Dominican Republic, 18,000 agents, many of them bilingual, are handling calls in English and Spanish. Call centers dedicated to customer service have also opened in Barbados, Trinidad, and Dominica. According to Robert Goodwin, the AOL manager who chose a call centre in St. Lucia, the islands all seem to be really positive as opposed to the surly attitudes you have in some of the other places. AOL still uses call centers in India and elsewhere for technical support and other services--taking advantage of that country's large numbers of workers with technical and advanced degrees. But the Caribbean is becoming increasingly competitive in the call centre industry, with island governments offering tax and other incentives to lure companies to their shores. Jamaica, for example, granted call centers ``free zone'' status that allows owners to repatriate 100 percent of their earnings tax-free. The Caribbean has taken only a tiny share of the market from still-hot India and the Philippines, but the impact is huge on islands with tiny populations. In Montego Bay, a resort area on Jamaica's north coast that accounts for about half the island's call centre jobs, developers have rapidly built thousands of concrete, single- family homes to accommodate the workers. The industry owes much of its success to a telecommunications liberalization that began sweeping former British colonies in the Caribbean about six years ago. As new suppliers have challenged the monopoly of Britain-based Cable & Wireless PLC, lower prices allowed the region to compete. The collections and call-centre firm KM2, which holds the AOL contract in St. Lucia, has opened a site in Barbados and, according to owner David Kreiss, the firm is looking to expand again as new telecoms install fiber optic cable. The number of people working at Caribbean call centers has increased from 11,300 in 2002 to a current total of 55,000, with an annual economic impact of US$2.5 billion. Large American companies including Verizon, AT&T, Delta Air Lines, AIG and Nortel have used Caribbean call centers, while often keeping operations in Asia or elsewhere. While much of the profits go to U.S.-owned operators, the islands welcome the business to diversify their economies and counter high unemployment.

Mr. RANGEL

Mr. RANGEL. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize soldiers who are fighting and dying in the war, but are not American Citizens and to enter into the record an article from the September 18, 2007, edition of the New York Times entitled, ``Becoming an American Citizen, the Hardest Way'' by Clyde Haberman. Everyday there are men and women who are not yet American citizens fighting on the battle fields in Iraq and Afghanistan. Words alone are not enough to express my gratitude and sincere thanks to American and soon-to-be American soldiers, who made the ultimate sacrifice by putting their lives on the line everyday. Volunteering to serve in the armed forces is a brave and noble act and there are so many soldiers who do so in part due to the opportunity presented by the accelerated naturalization process available to those who enter military service. To date, there have been 103 posthumous grants of American citizenship to non-citizen war soldiers. The sacrifice made by non-citizens who have and are currently enlisting in the armed services demonstrates the value of American citizenship. Their sacrifice and commitment is honorable and should never be forgotten. Our great country, despite some of the challenges we face, continues to be the place in the entire world where people from all over the world are inspired by democracy, justice, freedom of religion, peace, and an opportunity to pursue happiness. This explains the motivation for non-citizens to enlist in the military and put their lives on the line in hopes of achieving their American dream. I'm grateful that I had an opportunity to assist with the granting of American citizenship to Corporal Alcantara of the United States Army, one of my constituents, who lost his life in Iraq. I grieve at the loss of the life of a young man with such a great promise and I again extend my heartfelt sympathy to his family and many friends in our community. [From the New York Times, Sept. 18, 2007] Becoming an American Citizen, the Hardest Way (By Clyde Haberman) On an August day when some Iraqi's homemade bomb tore through him, Cpl. Juan Mariel Alcantara became an American. He never got to appreciate the honor. A little-discussed detail of this war is that some of those fighting in it as soldiers of the United States are not American citizens. Over all, about 21,000 noncitizens are serving in this country's armed forces, the Defense Department says. Until death claimed him on Aug. 6, one of them was Corporal Alcantara of the United States Army. He did not live long enough to acquire a richly textured biography. He was born in the Dominican Republic, reared in Washington Heights. He was 22 when the bomb--an improvised explosive device, in military-speak--ended his life and the lives of three fellow soldiers from the Second Infantry Division while they searched a house in Baquba, north of Baghdad. At 22, Corporal Alcantara was old enough to have talked about going to college and maybe becoming a New York police officer, old enough to have a fiancee, old enough to have fathered a baby girl he never saw, Jaylani, 6 weeks old when he was killed. He was old enough, too, to have sought American citizenship. Every year, thousands of noncitizen soldiers do that, through an accelerated naturalization process offered to those who put themselves in harm's way so that the rest of us can go about our lives untouched by war. And every year, some of those soldiers become citizens only after they have literally been wrapped in the flag. No other war has produced anywhere near as many posthumous citizens as this one, according to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. Corporal Alcantara is the latest, No. 103. He is the 12th from New York, an honor roll that reflects today's city: 10 men and 2 women born in the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Guyana, Belize, Trinidad and Tobago, Myanmar and Nigeria The Americanization of Juan Alcantara came at his family's request. Representative Charles B. Rangel of Manhattan helped shepherd the application through the bureaucracy in a matter of days. Officially, the corporal was declared an American from the day he died. There was a formal ceremony yesterday in the colonnaded Great Hall of City College of New York. Corporal Alcantara's relatives accepted his certificate of posthumous citizenship. They sat somberly in a front row: his mother, his two sisters and his fiancee, Sayonara Lopez, who fed Jaylani from a bottle. Like scores of others filling the rows behind them, they carried small American flags. Yesterday was Citizenship Day across the country, a celebratory day for newly minted Americans. In the vaulted majesty of the Great Hall, used on occasion for such ceremonies, 242 people from 51 countries took the oath of citizenship. They were men and women like Lance Whitely, 32, formerly of Jamaica, now of the Bronx. ``It's everybody's dream to become an American citizen,'' he said before the ceremony began. The new citizens listened to speeches on America's grandeur and watched a large-screen video of President Bush offering congratulations. Mr. Rangel, a critic of the Iraq war, left politics at the door. He spoke of a country that is hardly perfect but is ever working to make itself better. Once a combat soldier himself, part of the same Second Infantry Division during the Korean War, he talked about Corporal Alcantara's sacrifice and America's debt to him. Throughout, the Alcantara family sat disconsolately. They applauded with the others and recited the Pledge of Allegiance and waved their little flags. But their hearts were elsewhere. Maria Alcantara, the soldier's mother, is clearly a woman of stricken soul. She holds Mr. Bush responsible for her son's death. Corporal Alcantara's Iraq duty was supposed to have ended on June 28, a day before his daughter was born. But his tour was extended as part of the president's troop ``surge.'' ``If my son had been allowed to return, he would be alive,'' Ms. Alcantara said in Spanish, ``and he''--meaning the president--``is guilty.'' ``My happiness, my everything, is gone,'' she said. The mother, who is not an American citizen, also spoke of being grateful for her son's naturalization. Still, gratitude does not bring peace of mind, said one of her daughters, Fredelinda Pena. ``It's not a happy moment,'' Ms. Pena said. Unlike others on this day of celebration, the family wiped away tears. When the president's image appeared on the screen, Ms. Alcantara kept her head down. She could not bring herself to look at the man who she felt was the reason her son did not come home.

Mr. RANGEL

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 703, I call up the bill (H.R. 3648) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to exclude discharges of indebtedness on principal residences from gross income, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, first I want to thank the minority ranking member on the Ways and Means Committee and our staffs for working to bring some relief to those people that are feeling the problems of the subprime mortgage crisis. I want to make a special thanks to Congressman Rob Andrews, whose creativity in working with the committee, along with Zach Space, gave us the direction to remove some of the inequities that may relieve some of the pain that people are feeling. It's a commonsense piece of legislation that when the banks and those that hold the mortgage decide to give forgiveness on some parts of that loan, that these parts of the loan not be considered as income and does not create a taxable event. So we do that. We passed it out by voice vote because it just made a lot of sense. In addition to that, we make it easier for people to extend their mortgage insurance, as well as those people who own condos, to be able to get relief from debts that they may have by getting long-term extension of private mortgage insurance on all of them. Finally, the bill makes it easier for taxpayers to form housing cooperation co-ops. We give a general relief and at the same time make it more difficult for people to move into their rentals or vacation homes and enjoy the same tax relief as they move from their original homes. In other words, they can only get the tax relief for that part of the time they actually lived in the rental or the vacation home, rather than having the luxury of moving from one vacation home to the other and enjoying the tax benefits. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to one of the hardest- working members of the committee that spent a lot of time on this subject matter, Mr. Blumenauer, and allow him to delegate the time as requested by other Members of the House.

Mr. RANGEL

Mr. RANGEL. Madam Speaker, I rise today to introduce a story from the New York CARIB News of September 18, 2007 entitled, ``Black Pioneer Althea Gibson''. This article highlights the accomplishments of Althea Gibson, the admirable tennis player who in spite of adversity reached great success, leaving a great legacy to the sport. Ms. Gibson became the first African American-male or female- to win the US. National Championships, which until then was a segregated tournament and she made history by not only breaking the color barriers but by winning the Grand Slam. Ms. Gibson continued to leave her mark in tennis by winning the 1956 French Open, again, becoming the first black woman to win the Grand Slam event. Following those enormous achievements she continued to excel in important international tennis tournaments such as Wimbledon and the US. Championships. In recognition of her incredible contribution to the sport of tennis and to society, the U.S. Tennis Association hosted a tribute to her life at the US. Open in New York in late August. The champion died in 2003 but continues to be admired and to be an inspiration to women throughout the world. I applaud Ms. Althea Gibson for her great contribution to the sport of tennis and for the undeniable strength she endured to excel in a time when she was denied opportunity because of the color of her skin. Black Pioneer Althea Gibson (By Roy S. Johnson) Fifty years ago, in the late summer of 1957, Althea Gibson made history as she captured the U.S. National Championships title on the grass courts of Forest Hills. With that win, the 30-year-old Gibson became the first African American--male or female--to win that most prestigious Grand Slam tennis tournament crown. Just three years after the great Jackie Robinson had broken the color barrier in baseball, Gibson broke tennis' color barrier when she played in the 1950 U.S. Championships. Until then, tennis had been a segregated sport, with Blacks playing on their own tour--similar to the Negro Baseball Leagues-- under the auspices of the American Tennis Association. Her participation at Forest Hills that year was facilitated, in part, by Alice Marble, one of the top players of that era, who wrote an editorial in a national magazine calling for the sport to allow her to compete. That she did. Tall and lean, Gibson's look and her game resembled that of the elder Williams sister. ``Very graceful, very smooth,'' says former tennis star, now U.S. Fed Cup captain Zina Garrison, who befriended Gibson in the legend's later years and became a confidante. ``She glided around the court. When you look at Venus [Williams], Althea was very much like her.'' Six years after her Grand Slam debut, well before the tide of civil rights began to rise throughout America, Gibson made history once again--this time in magnificent fashion--by winning the 1956 French Open to become the first Black to win a Grand Slam event. The next year, she won Wimbledon and the U.S. Championships, then successfully defended both titles the following year. Gibson teamed with Angela Buxton, a Jewish player from Briton, to win the 1956 doubles championships at the French and Wimbledon. Both women experienced discrimination by their fellow players, but after their triumph at the All-England tennis club, a British newspaper touted: ``Minorities win.'' All told, Gibson, the daughter of South Carolina sharecroppers, won five Grand Slam singles titles and six Grand Slam doubles crowns, but her impact on tennis--and society--cannot be measured in mere trophy counts. She was a trailblazer of remarkable heart and courage, marking a path for those who would follow her, carrying herself with that special grace and dignity known only to true champions. ``Althea made tennis a better place, by opening doors and opening minds,'' said USTA president and chairman Jane Brown Grimes. ``For that, all of us owe Althea Gibson a debt of gratitude.'' In recognition of Gibson's myriad contributions to the sport of tennis and to society at large, the U.S. Tennis Association this year hosted a very special tribute to the late champion, who passed away in 2003 following a long illness. On an extraordinary evening of history and emotion, African-American women who are pioneers in their own fields, and the elite from the world of tennis, gathered to honor and celebrate one of their own. Call her tennis's own Jackie Robinson. The event, entitled ``Breaking Barriers,'' was held on the opening night, Aug. 27 of the 2007 U.S. Open at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, NY. It commemorated the 50th anniversary of Gibson's pioneering triumph at the 1957 U.S. National Championships (now known as the U.S. Open), and also provided a stage for Gibson's induction into the prestigious U.S. Open Court of Champions. But the evening proved to be so much more--an acknowledgement of the over- sight of having never before recognized Gibson as a barrier-breaking pioneer, and a unique first-time celebration of the historic firsts achieved by other prominent African-American women. Nearly two dozen Black women pioneers attended the tribute, including Olympians Jackie Joyner-Kersee (first Black to win back-to-back Olympic gold medals in the Heptathlon) and Dr. Debi Thomas (first Black Winter Olympics medal winner), astronaut Dr. Mae Jemison (the first Black female astronaut), gospel singer Yolanda Adams (first Black female to win the Contemporary/Inspirational Artist award at American Music Awards) and Ambassador Carol Moseley-Braun (first Black female U.S. Senator). Billie Jean King, whose own pioneering efforts on behalf of female athletes were celebrated at this venue last year, was part of the tribute, as was New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Rachel Robinson. Jackie Robinson's widow. Aretha Franklin, the first Black woman inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, performed at the tribute. Other trailblazing Black women attending were former poet laureate Nikki Giovanni (the first Black woman to receive the Rosa Parks Woman of Courage award), former Washington, D.C., mayor Sharon Pratt (first to be elected mayor of a major U.S. city), actress Phylicia Rashad (first to win a Tony for best performance in a play), Essence chairwoman Susan L. Taylor (first recipient of the Henry Johnson Fisher award), and businesswoman Sheila Crump Johnson (first to have a stake in three professional sports franchises). ``Althea Gibson dreamed the impossible and made it possible,'' said Johnson, who was a BET founder. ``She was one of the first African-American women in sports to say, `Why not me?' She empowered generations [of Black women] to believe in themselves, emboldened us to achieve and attain the unattainable. Her drive, spirit and passion continue to set an example for us today.'' ``I will always be grateful to her for having the strength and the courage to triumph in extreme adversity,'' said Venus Williams, a six-time Grand Slam singles champion, who also participated in the tribute. ``Her accomplishments set the stage for my success, and through players like me, Serena and many others to come, her legacy will live on.''

Mr. RANGEL

Mr. RANGEL. Madam Speaker, I rise today to introduce two stories written in the Washington Post on September 25, 2007 entitled, ``A Little Rock Reminder'' and ``The Legacy of Little Rock'', in recognition of the 50th anniversary of the integration of the school system of Little Rock, AR, by a brave group of Black children who came to be known as ``The Little Rock Nine''. Integration has been a long and difficult process here in the United States. Only 50 years have passed since President Dwight Eisenhower decided to send soldiers to protect and defend the newly acquired rights of nine Black students to go to a previously all White school. Those brave Black students who endured the difficulties of starting the process of desegregation in schools in 1957 should be remembered and appreciated today, on the anniversary, and everyday. It has been proven that integration is a key factor in the success of our society. A school where all races and nationalities work together is giving their students more than classes; they are teaching them the correct way to live, in harmony with the world. In addition it has been proven that an integrated learning environment leads to greater academic success. Our society today still has a long way to go but it is a much healthier one than 50 years ago. These children were brave enough to understand what their parents and other leaders of their community knew--that they deserve the same rights as the next one; they too are citizens of the United States and all it represents. Their efforts need to be commended. [From the Washington Post, Sept. 25, 2007] A Little Rock Reminder: Nine Pioneers Showed Why School Integration Matters (By Juan Williams) Fifty years ago this week, President Dwight Eisenhower risked igniting the second U.S. civil war by sending 1,000 American soldiers into a Southern city. The troops, with bayonets at the end of their rifles, provided protection for nine black students trying to get into Little Rock's Central High School. Until the soldiers arrived, the black teenagers had been kept out by mobs and the Arkansas National Guard, in defiance of the Supreme Court's 1954 ruling ending school segregation. The black children involved became the leading edge of a social experiment. Their lives offer answers to the question of what happens to black children who attend integrated schools, a question underscored by the recent Supreme Court ruling that voluntary school integration plans in Louisville and Seattle are unconstitutional. The June decision said a focus on mixing students based on their skin color violates every student's right to be judged as an individual without regard to race. The ruling confirmed a political reality: America long ago lost its appetite for doing whatever it takes--busing, magnet schools, court orders--to integrate schools. The level of segregation in U.S. public schools has been growing since 1988, reversing the trend toward integration triggered by Brown v. Board of Education. The movement away from school integration is glaring. The Civil Rights Project found in 2003 that the nation's 27 biggest school districts were ``overwhelmingly'' segregated with black and Latino students. Nationwide today, almost half of black and Latino children are in schools where less than 10 percent of the students are white. Those essentially segregated schools have a large percentage of low-income families and, according to researchers, ``difficulty retaining highly qualified teachers.'' Meanwhile, the average white student attends a school that is 80 percent white and far more affluent than the schools for minority students. This trend toward isolation of poor and minority students has consequences--half of black and Latino students now drop out of high school. Integrated schools benefit students, especially minorities. Research on the long-term outcomes of black and Latino students attending integrated schools indicates that those students ``complete more years of education, earn higher degrees and major in more varied occupations than graduates of all-black schools.'' That conclusion is reflected in the lives of the Little Rock Nine, who represent the black middle class that grew rapidly as better schools became open to black people during the 1960s and '70s. Ernest Green, 65, who became the first black student to graduate from Central High, is the most prominent of the nine. He earned a master's degree in sociology and worked in the Carter and Clinton administrations. He is director of public finance in Washington for Lehman Brothers. Melba Pattillo Beals, 65, chairs the African American history department at Dominican University in River Forest, IL, and wrote an award-winning book about her experiences at Central High; Elizabeth Eckford, 65, is a probation officer in Arkansas; Gloria Ray Karlmark, 64, moved to Sweden to work for IBM and later founded and edited the magazine Computers in Industry; Carlotta Walls LaNier, 64, started a real estate company in Colorado; Terrence Roberts, 65, is a psychologist in California; Jefferson Thomas, 64, fought in Vietnam and worked in government in Ohio for nearly 30 years; Minniejean Brown Trickey, 66, worked in the Clinton administration and is a visiting writer at Arkansas State University; and Thelma Mothershed Wair, 66, became a teacher. Part of their success comes from their ability to mix easily with black and white people and to comfortably join the social and professional networks that segregation kept from black people. In fact, most of the nine worked in mostly white organizations. And four of the nine married white people (three black women married white men, and one black man married a white woman). In her book ``Turn Away Thy Son,'' Arkansas native Elizabeth Jacoway notes that the nine never take a group picture with white spouses or mixed-race children. Jacoway believes they don't want to take away from black pride in their achievement or reignite segregationist fears about interracial sex. Terrence Roberts, who went on to become a psychology professor, thinks ``fear of black people in the family'' is still a driving force pulling Americans away from integrated schools. Ernest Green, whose first wife was white, calls it the ``zipper issue. . . sex and race are highly combustible.'' The interracial daughter of Minniejean Brown Trickey, Spirit Trickey, works as a Park Service tour guide at a memorial to the events at Central High. She says visitors regularly ask why so many of the nine broke the taboo against interracial marriage. ``My answer is that the Little Rock Nine followed the principles of nonviolence,'' she said. ``They married who they fell in love with. But it is telling that so many people ask about it. It tells me where we are today.'' [From the Washington Post, Sept. 25, 2007] The Legacy of Little Rock: Fifty Years Ago, He and 8 Others Became the Faces of Integration. Now He Is a Sign of Its Success. (By Avis Thomas-Lester) Ernest G. Green Jr. sees much of the world now from a top floor comer office on K Street, just blocks from the White House and a very long way from where he started. His BlackBerry holds the phone numbers of powerful men: former president Bill Clinton; Robert L. Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television and co-owner of the Charlotte Bobcats; former ambassador Andrew Young; and three candidates for president of the United States. He spends his days negotiating multimillion-dollar deals as managing director of public finance for Wall Street stalwart Lehman Brothers with clients including the City of New York and the State of Connecticut. He has a big house in Northwest Washington, ``a beautiful wife, three wonderful kids'' and a lot of gratitude for the circumstances that catapulted him from segregated Little Rock into U.S. history as one of nine students to integrate Central High School 50 years ago today. ``It has been a tremendous boost for me,'' said Green, who turned 66 on Saturday. ``It provided me with opportunities I never would have otherwise had. I had a tremendous window into the last half of 20th century.'' Green returned to his home town this weekend for events commemorating the 50th anniversary of the desegregation of Central High. Five decades ago, Green and eight other students were escorted into the school by the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division under orders from President Dwight Eisenhower after Gov. Orval Faubus used the state's National Guard to block the integration effort. In the year that followed, Green and the others, who came to be known as the Little Rock Nine, were tripped on the stairs, attacked in the halls and pushed out of lunchroom lines. Teachers and administrators largely ignored them. The few white students who befriended them were subjected to ill treatment as well. ``Clearly, none of us anticipated that it would be as difficult as it was,'' said Green, the first of the nine to graduate. ``But once we got there, all nine of us knew how important it was to stay. Backing down was not an option.'' His story is a testament to the potential of forced integration, a remedy widely debated now as many urban school districts become resegregated. Green said people miss out when they don't mingle with those who are different from themselves. ``We need to make sure children understand that they are more similar than different.'' Green never set out to become an icon of the civil rights movement, with a movie made of his life and a congressional medal to his name. What he did, he said, was simply step out of his comfort zone. ``Too many blacks today,'' he said, ``opt for comfort over taking a chance that might change their lives. We have to work hard to break through our comforts.'' Many wouldn't consider a childhood in the segregated South a comfortable place, but Green has fond memories of growing up at the comer of 21st and Pulaski. His father, Ernest Sr., who died when Green was 13, was a janitor at the post office; his mother, Lothaire, taught in Little Rock schools for 43 years. He, his sister, Treopia, and his brother, Scott, learned about taking a stand from their mother. In the 1940s, she supported the efforts of black teacher Susie Morris, who, with NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorney Thurgood Marshall, sued the Little Rock schools, demanding equal pay. His mother opened their home to Marshall when he was in town working on the case. Green grew up riding past the impressive edifice of Central High School, considered the best school in town. The name was stamped into the secondhand books that taught him U.S. history, algebra and chemistry. As a member of the marching band--he played tenor saxophone--at segregated Horace Mann High School, he had marched on Central's field. ``We didn't have a stadium, so the black schools played on the field one night and the white schools another,'' he recalled. Green was 13 when the U.S. Supreme Court, acting on arguments by Marshall, outlawed school segregation in the Brown v. Board of Education case. Even so, many officials in Southern states vehemently refused to carry out the order. No such sentiment was evident in Little Rock in 1957, which had a progressive reputation, Green said. Blacks owned businesses. There was a thriving black middle class. The public libraries and city buses were integrated, as was the University of Arkansas campus. Several Arkansas school districts had voluntarily integrated. It was against this backdrop that the Little Rock school board decided to integrate. ``I heard about it on the radio that they were looking for students interested in going to Central,'' said Minnijean Brown Trickey, another of the Little Rock Nine. ``It started off that there were 23 of us, but by the time we got to school that first day, there were only nine.'' It was Green's idea to attend Central High, and his mother, like the other parents, supported the decision. ``They had some idea of what it would do to change the opportunities for all the black folks in Little Rock if we were able to integrate the school,'' he said. Green said they were all thunderstruck by the level of resistance. ``We didn't think there would be a confrontation,'' he said. ``Orval Faubus was regarded as a progressive white Southerner. My mother had voted for him as governor. He didn't have an image of being a firebrand segregationist or racist.'' On Sept. 4, the students were denied entry by guardsmen and racists yelling epithets. After the NAACP took the case to court, they were allowed in on Sept. 23 but had to leave early because of fears of violence. Two days later, with an escort from the 101st Airborne, they were admitted. For four weeks, things were relatively quiet. Soldiers escorted the nine black students to class. Many avid segregationists kept their children at home. ``Once they saw we weren't leaving, they started to trickle back in,'' Green said. Soon, the harassment started. As the only senior, Green was a prominent target. ``It seemed to me that one of the things that would drive them crazy was if I were to be successful,'' he recalled. ``So I was determined to stick it out that whole year.'' Each morning, the black students would gather at one of their homes or at the home of Daisy Bates, the legendary Arkansas NAACP president, and her husband, L.C. Bates, founder of the Arkansas State Press, the state's leading black newspaper. The hostility didn't subside until the day before Green's graduation. ``There were a number of white kids who got up the nerve to come over and congratulate me for getting through the year,'' he said. The principal urged Green to take his diploma and go home without attending the commencement ceremony. ``Local authorities were afraid there would be some attempt to do physical harm to me, but I was convinced that I had angels looking over me,'' Green said. ``I figured I had gone through [too much] not to enjoy the benefits of the service.'' As it turned out, Martin Luther King Jr., who had gained prominence with the Montgomery bus boycott 2 years earlier, was in Arkansas. ``He came up the evening of the ceremony to sit with my mother, aunt and family,'' Green said. ``I didn't know he was in the audience until after the ceremony was over.'' The next five decades of Green's life have, in many ways, been defined by that year at Central High. He devoted himself to civil rights causes. At Michigan State University, which he attended on a full scholarship, he became president of the school's NAACP chapter and often protested the policies of the university's president, John Hannah. Thirty years later, he learned that Hannah had personally arranged for his scholarship. After earning bachelor's and master's degrees, Green moved to New York and worked with civil rights leaders A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin to recruit minorities into the building trades. In 1977, he was tapped by President Jimmy Carter as assistant secretary of labor for employment and training. He later formed a minority consulting company with Alexis Herman, who would be named Clinton's labor secretary. In 1987, capitalizing on the relationships he made in public service, he took a position with Lehman Brothers as an investment banker; his projects included underwriting municipal debt with governmental agencies and nonprofit organizations. Again, he drew on his experience at Central High. ``It made me a tougher negotiator, able to control my emotions and able to handle the ups and down of business and life,'' he said. The years have brought proud moments: In 1999, Clinton awarded Green and the rest of the Little Rock Nine the Congressional Gold Medal. There have also been humbling times: In 2002, Green was sentenced to 90 days of home detention and given a $10,000 fine for failing to declare and pay taxes on income he received as part of a planned business venture. Today, he works passionately to help young people. He noted that last week, 50 years after he entered Central High, black activists were gathered in Jena, La., to protest the treatment of six black youths arrested after a racially tinged brawl. ``A lot of people don't realize,'' he said, ``that there is still racial injustice in this country.''

Mr. RANGEL

Mr. RANGEL. He was excluded, too.

Mr. RANGEL. The Republican leadership excluded that man. The Republican leadership excluded him, as I had been excluded as a Democrat. He was excluded from participating by the Republican leaders.

Mr. RANGEL. I will answer the question if you yield.

Mr. RANGEL. Let me explain to the ranking member how difficult I know it must have been for you to see how the leadership in the House and Senate did this.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I want to support some of what Mr. Barton has just said in terms of being critical about the manner in which this bill, albeit it helps 3\1/2\ million more children, how it got to the floor. And I also want to sympathize with him, having been the ranking member of Ways and Means when the Republicans were in charge, so I know what being excluded means. But I want to assure him that he was not excluded by the House leadership, not the House Democratic leadership and not the House Republican leadership. The criticism that so many people have about this bill is misfounded. This is not the House bill. For those that are so sensitive about legal immigrants not being covered, you had an opportunity when the bill was in the House to vote for the House bill. And I hope for political reasons when you get back home, that vote was recorded the right way. But the reason it is not in this is because this is not the House bill. And I want to tell Mr. Barton that I was invited to go into the back room, but the back room was on the Senate side and it wasn't controlled by the Democratic leadership but by those Republicans who demanded that it be their way or the highway. So you can debate all you want how you want to help or hurt the children, but don't be critical of the Democratic leadership in the House. Be critical of this bipartisan agreement on what? The Senate bill. And I have been assured by the majority whip of the majority leader in the Senate that he wanted to go to conference, and it would take 60 votes in order to beat a filibuster even for us to have a conference on the bill or perhaps we could have heard from the ranking member and others that would be appointed to the conference. So the issue today is not how badly really the Republicans in the Senate handled this. They're in charge. They hold us hostage. You need 60 votes. You got a filibuster. So they have now capitulated to this bill that's now before us. And what is your decision? It is either you're going to help the kids or you're not. Either you're going to expand the coverage or you're not. And the President is not going to be in your district if you're lucky, but he doesn't have to explain anything if he vetoes.

Mr. RANGEL

Mr. RANGEL. Let me tell you what it means, distinguished ranking member. Distinguished ranking member, what it means is that the deal that we cut, if we change anything over here, the Republicans on the other side are going to drop everything. So we are trying to cooperate with this Republican Senate bill. So even if the distinguished gentlemen here would want to agree, we can't do it. We are held hostage by the other side. Let us put down our arguments and march over there and correct this thing. But I agree with you, that language should have been corrected with both Houses, but the Republicans objected to any changes or any additions. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel), a member of the Ways and Means Committee who is a leader in the Democratic Party, a leader in our Congress, and a leader in our country. We are proud to have him on this bill. (Mr. EMANUEL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to an outstanding member of the Ways and Means Committee from the sovereign State of New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell). (Mr. PASCRELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, when Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi shattered the glass ceiling and made history as the first woman to become Speaker in the history of the United States Congress, the one picture that remained to commemorate this great event was the children that were there when she was sworn in. It wasn't a symbol of the war or the deficit or the Republicans or Democrats; it was this Congress sharing with the rest of the country our deep commitment to the children of our country. And that is our investment. Whether you are liberal, conservative, Republican, or Democrat, no one can challenge that our most precious human beings are those who cannot protect themselves. We have this opportunity to join with the Speaker as she closes this argument to set aside the partisanship and to be able to say, no matter what our differences, it was the children, it was the children that prevailed, and I voted with them. I yield the balance of my time to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes. My friends, this is almost an historic occasion because, like the President of the United States said, it is our intention to extend health care to cover 10 million kids. I don't care how you cut it. You can call it socialized medicine. You can say it's outside of the budget. But when you go home, the question basically is going to be were you with the kids or were you not? It is not just the human and right thing to do, but from a fiscal point of view, how many billions of dollars do we save by providing preventative care to these youngsters? And certainly from a tax writer's point of view, how many of these kids are going to grow to be productive workers so that they can pay taxes and make a contribution to this great Republic? I don't know how you're going to explain how the kids can go to emergency wards if they get ill, as the President of the United States has indicated; but I know one thing, those of us who have kids and grandkids want the very best for them, and we do have this occasion now. Now, there are a lot of complaints from the other side that they did not participate in the writing of this bill. Having been in the minority for so long, let me say that every one of you on the Republican side that did not participate, that complained, you have good cause. You were not involved. And I might heartily add, neither were Members on the Democratic side involved. If you really want to find out who called the shots on this bill, which is not the House bill, it's those people on the other side of the Capitol that believe that everything that has to pass the Senate, that you need 60 votes for. And that's the long and the short of it. So, you may call it the Democratic majority, as I once did, but they're being held hostage by the Republican minority. And so I participated in terms of seeing what they wanted to do. And believe me, what they said to the House of Representatives, Republicans and Democrats alike, take it or leave it. And so if you want to join with me in looking for someone to criticize, after the debate we can meet in the lobby and talk about it. But you had an opportunity to vote for a better bill; it was here. And for those who are concerned that legal immigrants can't get services, I hope you voted for the House bill because it was in there. But if you really want to complain about it being un-American, walk with me to the other side, and we'll find the culprits who did it, and they're not Democrats. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. Announcement By the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. RANGEL. I have a parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. RANGEL. Does it violate any of the House rules if I refer to the bill before this House as the ``Republican-controlled Senate'' bill?

Mr. RANGEL. Well, does it violate any of the House rules if I refer to this bill as a bill that is a Senate bill controlled by the Republicans on the other side of the House? I want to make it clear it's not a House bill.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume because I want to share a lot of complaints about what those Republicans did to a good, decent House bill. So if you want to join with me with your criticism, don't criticize anyone here. It is not my fault that your leaders were excluded from the so-called ``conference.'' We had no conference. I know how it feels to have been in the minority, having been there for a decade. So I share with you why you were left out. But had I been in charge, and not the Senate, I would have wanted you there, your judgment. Even if it was just to read the bill over and over and over, at least you would have been participating. I yield to the chairman of the Health Subcommittee. No one is in a better position to let you know that this is not the House bill. As hard as he worked to reform Medicare, to make certain that we preserved it, to reform that bill, to get $5 billion for the people in the rural areas, to help the aged poor, and really to help the doctors that work hard every day and deserve a decent reimbursement, that, my friends, was in the House bill. But our friends on the other side, the Republicans said, ``No, take it or leave it.'' Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman that worked hard for the House bill, the gentleman from California (Mr. Stark). (Mr. STARK asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I am going to act as if I didn't hear that gentleman call this bill a fraud four times. I was in that back room with Senator Grassley, Senator Reid and our dear friend Orrin Hatch. It's their bill. So you call it what you want. But please don't call it a fraud, because it is a Senate bill. And they are very sensitive over there. So I just want to make that clear. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to give 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood). I cannot think of a Member of this House that has worked harder in trying to bring civility, no matter what the issue was. I heard he wasn't going to run for reelection. I just want him to know publicly that both sides of the aisle will miss him. (Mr. LaHOOD asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. RANGEL. I can discuss it in some detail.

Mr. RANGEL. If we can get them to open up this, we can do business.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Schwartz) who is an outstanding member of the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I think my time along with Mr. McCrery's is short. If you can give us the amount of time, I think I am going to pass right now.

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