Bernie Sanders

Mr. SANDERS

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

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens]. (Mr. OWENS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of my colleagues I would like to have printed in the Record this statement by a high school student from Vermont, who was speaking at my recent town meeting on issues facing young people. A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state. The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. That is the Second Amendment in its entirety. The Second Amendment was one of the first amendments to be ratified being part of the Bill of Rights and is also the shortest and arguably the vaguest of all amendments in the constitution. Despite all of the discussions surrounding the issue, it is still not clear precisely what the amendment means. The Second Amendment grew out of a law passed by British Parliament during the latter period of the Colonial era. The law effectively prohibited any colonist from possessing a firearm of any kind so as to prevent any possibility of rebellion. Eventually, of course, the colonists disregarded that law, overthrew the British and set up their own nation. Later once the Revolutionary War had been won and the United States was relatively secure in its status as an independent country, the founding fathers decided that it was necessary to formally allow the people a means of defense against the government. One of the founding principles of the Revolution had been that the people had the right to overthrow the government if they believed it to be unworthy. One of the most effective means to overthrow the government was, of course, with firearms and so the Second Amendment was born. Since the Second Amendment mentions the militia specifically, one would assume that the right to keep and bear arms relates specifically to the militia and that the intended meaning of the Second Amendment was that the people have the right to use arms as members of the militia in order to protect themselves from tyrannical governments. On the other hand, if one considers the state of the world in 1791 when the Second Amendment was ratified, the notion of the founding fathers allowing exclusively members of state militias to bear arms seemed ridiculous. Most people in the 18th Century needed firearms in order to survive because most food needed to be hunted. Personal firearms were a necessity for survival and yet in today's society with cheap hamburger in every supermarket and good steak in every expensive restaurant, firearms are no longer necessary for survival. Therefore, one of the original reasons for the Second Amendment has perhaps been outlived. What then is the use of the Second Amendment? I believe that the Second Amendment's relevance in today's world pertains to the militia. It is essential for the survival of American ideals that Americans have the right to overthrow corrupt government. That was one of the main principles behind the Second Amendment, that Americans should be allowed to possess firearms in order to defend themselves as members of state militias. Regardless of the intentions of the Second Amendment, the wording itself is rather vague. It does not specifically state in the Bill of Rights the extent to which firearms should be allowed. Therefore, it seems that simply from reading the Bill of Rights and without accounting for other factors, the possession of firearms can be limited although not prohibited altogether. It is also important to remember that the Constitution was written with the awareness that it would be changed, that as the world progressed, new issues would become important and old issues would become less important. We have repealed an amendment before and while I do not necessarily advocate repealing the Second Amendment, the amendments to the Constitution are not set in stone and if times change, the Constitution ought to change with it. Perhaps it is time to rethink the issue of gun freedom. Is the possession of a firearm a general necessity? Is the private possession of a handgun ever necessary? And, most importantly, do the risks of gun freedom outweigh the benefits?

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of my collegues I would like to have printed in the Record this statement by a high school student from Vermont, who was speaking at my recent town meeting on issues facing young people. Ms. Schrupp. It is estimated that between 100 million and 200 million children of the world under the age of 15 work. The concern is for children exposed to hazardous working conditions, for those who are exploited and endangered mentally and physically. These children make barely or under subsistence level wages and work without any proper benefits or hope of receiving an education. This education can lift them out of their present state of living and this is the education that is not available to them. This is not a new phenomena, one that has recently become a priority for global consideration and global course of action. Unicef's 1997 report on the state of the world's children has focused specifically on the problem of hazardous child labor. Western media has started informing Americans of the conditions of soccer ball workers, soccer ball assemblers in Asia, rug makers in Pakistan, glass makers in India and textile workers in Asia and Central America. These workers are children hired for their low cost and expendable nature, their small fingers, and their inability to organize or question. The fact that some of these children are working for American-based transnational companies has put the pressure on these companies to discontinue condoning the practice of child labor. According to the U.S. Department of Labor's report on the apparel industry and codes of conduct, corporate codes of conduct under business guidelines prohibiting the use of child labor are becoming more common as consumers as well as religious, labor and human rights groups are increasingly calling upon companies to take responsibility for the conditions under which the goods they sell are being manufactured. Codes of conduct for American industries such as sports equipment and textile manufacturers are essential to stopping the importation of goods made by child labor either correctly or indirectly. Huge and popular names like Disney, Gap, Nike, Getz, Arizona, Eddie Bauer, and Gitano have been directly linked to overseas and in some cases national sweatshops where they can take advantage of the cheap and hard working supplies of local labor. The most obvious examples of overseas sweatshops owned by American-based companies are the Maquiladoras of Central America where textiles are manufactured. 15-year-old girls who work in the Maquilas of Honduras tell how they're forced to take birth control bills on a daily basis and are required to pay for an expensive abortion injection if they do become pregnant. These girls are not allowed to leave each day until they fill a production quota. If a rush order for clothes came in, observers would note these girls entering the Maquilas at 7:00 a.m. and not returning until sometimes as many as 23 hours later. That's a 23-hour workday. In China, Indonesia, and Pakistan, sporting equipment used in the United States is manufactured by child laborers. Jonathan Silvers wrote the following report in the Atlantic Monthly on soccer ball factories in Pakistan. No amount of preparation could have lessened the shock and revulsion I felt on entering the sporting goods factory in the town of Sialkot where scores of children, most of them aged five to ten, produce soccer balls by hand for about a dollar and 20 cents a day. The children work 80 hours a week in near total darkness and total silence. A partial list of infractions for which they may be punished is tacked to a wall near the entrance. It's a document of dubious utility. The children are illiterate. Punishments are doled out in a storage closet at the rear of the factory. There children are hung upside down by their knees, starved, caned or lashed. The punishment room is a standard feature of a Pakistani factory, as common as a lunchroom at a Detroit assembly plant. Eighty percent of the soccer balls sold in the United States are imported from Pakistan. These are the same soccer balls that were used in the 1996 summer Olympic games and all professional sporting events. The Fowl Ball Campaign, a campaign launched by a coalition of non-governmental organizations, cannot prove that any soccer balls manufactured in Pakistan are not made by children. Still, these reports show only a fraction of the picture. Most cases of child labor do not involve western companies but occur in domestic households unseen and unregulated. The more sinister forms of child labor such as child prostitution and the virtual slavery of bonded labor are often far removed from western markets and influence. They remain a national issue for these developing companies, many of which protest sovereign rights to run their nation's factories as they see fit. Most of the time, however, the children are employed at ages ruled illegal even by their country's governments. For this reason, the United States needs to take responsibility for more than direct involvement with child labor. Countries, companies, and non-governmental organizations around the world are working together to not only eliminate child labor but to create conditions in developing countries which will prevent the exploitation of children. The Convention on the Rights of a Child was signed into international law by the United Nations in 1990. It is the most widely ratified treaty in history signed by all but six members of the United Nations General Assembly. The Convention expresses the conviction that children have rights, the same full spectrum of rights as adults, civil and political, social, cultural and economic. The United States is one of the six countries that has not yet signed this Convention. American taxpayers' dollars are used to fund free trade zones which contribute to an environment of poverty for the people of developing countries. It is this kind of environment that supports the exploitation of children by national, international companies. Often a free trade zone means no corporate taxes, no income taxes, no regulations and no unions. GAT and the World Trade Organization are influenced heavily by the U.S. and it is here that the United States must take some responsibility for the fact that they support organizations which do not recognize child labor as a relevant issue. Other organizations which receive support from the United States are the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. These organizations are responsible for massive government adjustment into developing countries. The structural adjustment programs primarily consist of spending cuts that hurt social and educational programs. These cuts hurt the lower classes of the country and make the cycle of child labor all the more difficult to break. It is a cycle, one perpetuated by poverty and employees willing to exploit the poor and the helpless. The greatest setback for these children is their lack of education. Everyone agrees that the key to ending child labor is in mandatory education legislation. This is important because while many people express the need for economic sanctions and boycotts, large-scale sanctions cannot be imposed on developing countries until safe and productive alternatives are developed for the children who would lose their jobs. What then is the solution to this problem? What can we do to ensure that children are not exploited throughout the world? There are many factors of influential power in the United States. The most important one is the power of the individual. The incredible accomplishments of NGOs, that's non-governmental organizations, across the world were all put into action by individuals who wanted to make a difference. The death of child activist Icbow McSee sparked the birth of Free the Children, an organization dedicated to children's rights. Free the Children is run by students ages 8 through 18. The group of school children in Quincy, Massachusetts who raised $144,000 to build schools and educational programs in Pakistan in order to help fulfill Icbow McSee's uncompleted dream is another example of this incredible power. Even in the simple choices of the consumer, the individual can make a statement about what methods of production they will and will not support. Educating others about the situation is also an individual source of power. The media is a valuable tool in expressing individual opinion. Disney and Gap in particular received enough negative publicity to publicly embarrass the companies into amending their production methods. Bob Herbert wrote recently in the New York Times that Nike is important because it epitomizes the triumph of monetary values over all others and the corresponding devaluation into peculiar interests and values we once thought of as human. Corporations do not like to create this kind of name for themselves. Secondly, the pound of influence of the private sector should not be underestimated. Transnational companies like Rebok and Levi Strauss have been positive forces in using safe and non-exploitive methods of production. All corporations should adopt such codes of conduct as an essential step towards eliminating child labor. The government of the United States has the potential to be a powerful force in the fight against child labor yet presently the government does not seem to be taking the appropriate actions necessary. If corporations can be called on to adopt codes of conduct, the more (unclear) the government of our country. The United States must sign a convention on the rights of a child. The government must work to regulate our nation's companies to ensure that child abuse is not a human resource in our nation as well. The government must include the basic rights of children as part of their agenda when forming free trade zones and when interacting with organizations such as the World Bank. I call on the U.S. Government to take a stance, to show us that hazardous child labor cannot be acceptable in any form for any reason. The exploitation of the world's children is an international crisis for democracy and justice and we need to do our part. Companies will go to the third-world countries where they can hire and they want to hire children because they can work faster and their hand-eye coordination is actually better when they're, you know, aged between 12 and 15 and they don't have to pay them anything. These people are being paid piece wages about 12 cents a garment. If it's a choice between paying someone 12 cents to make a garment in a place where there are no environmental conditions, no social regulations, nothing like that outside of the United States regular like restrictions on companies, they don't need to follow any of these rules. Bonded laborers--Icbow McSee is actually an example of one of these. Most of them are in Asia and China, Indonesia and Pakistan. If a parent needs to pay off debts, what they'll often do is they will sell their children to manufacturers who will collect these children around the ages of sometimes as young as four or five where they can never make any wages because they spend their entire lives paying off the debt of their parents, and often these children are made, forced to stay in their factories by being chained to looms, especially in the oriental rug market.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of my colleagues I would like to have printed in the Record these statements by high school students from Vermont, who were speaking at my recent town meeting on issues facing young people. Mr. White. The state government is not providing sufficient funding for higher education and the federal government is not providing the incentive for states to increase that funding; especially in Vermont, the state with the lowest provision for funding of higher education this has a profoundly negative impact. The students from Vermont leave the state as the out-of-state tuition at many other state universities is less expensive than the in-state tuition of that of the University of Vermont which is $7200 a year. The tuition at SUNY Stonybrook, U.C. Berkeley, North Adams State, U. Mass. at Amherst and almost all midwestern universities is lower for an-out-of-state student than that of UVM. This causes a drain of the best of the best students in Vermont essentially. With the best students leaving the state, industry does not want to come with so few educated workers for hire. With no industry there is no incentive for people to move to the state who would then bring in revenue. With less revenue the state has less money to pay for higher education, and it is quite frankly a vicious cycle that needs to be broken. Mr. Pappas. The federal proposals to offer help in paying for higher education do not remedy this problem. The 105th Congress law, HR 318 provides for federal income tax credit for tuition. There's a proposal of a $10,000 Hope scholarship tax deduction and one that would bring Pell Grant increases. Bill HR 2050 from the 104th Congress would restore the deduction for interest on higher education loans and permit penalty-free deductions from retirement plans. All of these proposals would bring relief if families are already saving or if they qualify for the grants that would help. However, all these bring individual relief only. They do not bring any state initiative to fund higher education. Ms. Black. We propose that when states fund higher education above a certain minimum percentage, the federal government will provide matching funds. These funds can be drawn from the federal income tax. This small, relatively small drain would have numerous benefits. This will allow for lower tuition costs making higher education available to more people in the State of Vermont as well as the rest of the nation. When you create a more educated work force, you bring in more industry, increase the economy and raise property values and with more funding of education, the more participation there is in the democratic process, and this would help. Mr. White. A loss of industry or a lack of industry rather because who wants to come and set up business in a place with no educated work force. It's not good for industry, it's not good for business and it's not good for the economy of Vermont. Ms. Black. There there's the cycle that if industry doesn't come because there's not an educated work force, we don't have any incentive for out-of-state families to move in because they realize there's not a future for their children here and then there are even less people in which case there is less of a tax base to help pay for the higher education and less people that will stay. Mr. White. The University of Vermont, for example, even for an in-state student, as we said, charges more than SUNY at Stonybrook or any of the--U.C. Berkeley. It's very expensive for a Vermont student if they want to stay in state or go to UVM or Castleton or any of the number of state schools. It's just far too expensive, $7200 in tuition. Ms. Black. In state and for students in the southern area of Vermont, North Adams State is almost closer than the University of Vermont and it's almost $2,000 less expensive for an out-of-stater from Vermont than in state in--in Vermont, so why would they stay? Mr. White. We're exporting basically our best and brightest out of state. In Europe, at least in Germany, they have a system where you can go for free but the only--the only-- the drawback to that is you have to be in the top of the top of the top. Not everybody gets an opportunity to go on to university in some European countries. Ms. Black. In the midwestern states there's both state and federal funding. Well, in every state there's both state and federal funding to public higher education, but in Vermont it's a lot lower. And if we had the process where the federal government would match state funds, it would give smaller states like Vermont more of an initiative to fund the higher education. Anybody who has the ability should be able to go to their state university. I mean, not everybody could get into the top schools, but everybody should have the chance to go to a school for higher education because it's getting harder and harder to get a decent job where you can make any sort of a living without a college education. Mr. Lafarge. More and more people are going to college every year, but even people that get say a four-year degree aren't even going to make as high a wage as would be expected, so people who just go to high school are going to be left behind and may be stuck to factory jobs or, you know, just---- Mr. White. The numbers, in fact, show the disparity between even a master's degree--a person with a master's and a person with a four-year degree and a person with a high school degree. It shows the disparity, the numbers which I don't have obviously, but there's a great disparity between the amount of money that each of those people would make. Twenty percent of our budget is spent on defense. Well, it seems to me that since there are no real wars going on, and not to parrot what everyone else has said, but it seems as though really defense should--shold and could be cut. Ms. Black. I think that even if it would mean raising income taxes and I know people are complaining that taxes are too high and that education is too expensive, but you've got to--you know, the public needs to understand the long-range effect of having education accessible because if they were willing to put up with a small increase in the income tax or the taxes that this money could be drawn from, then if people could go to college, they would--they could make more money and the economy would be increased as a whole and the property values would go up as a whole and in the long term that small increase would not seem as large. Mr. White. Plus it's cheaper to educate people and to have them get jobs than to support them on welfare or to support them in other ways when they can't find jobs down the line. It's a lot cheaper, it's a better investment. Ms. Black. I think in fact that--I think taxes are high for everybody now and I think hopefully what this raising the taxes would do would be to give aid to the people who couldn't normally attend college and you'd--although I know people who don't have as high incomes don't feel like they want to be paying taxes, it seems as if it would benefit them the most if they could help--if everybody had their taxes raised a small amount, it would benefit them as well.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of my colleagues I would like to have printed in the Record these statements by high school students from Vermont, who were speaking at my recent town meeting on issues facing young people. Mr. Campbell. In the next three years the United States will enter the 21st Century. We will fined ourselves faced with many challenges that will be difficult but not impossible to overcome. These challenges are overcoming the national debt, dealing with fossil fuel shortages, threats to national security and the future of the global community. As we near the beginning of the next century, we face a growing national debt. This debt is consuming more and more government money. We must act before this debt gets so large that it causes the downfall of our economy. In order to solve this problem, the government must raise more money. The most practical way to do this is to raise taxes or to implement a national sales tax. The added income from the tax increase or sales tax would greatly aid in the eradication of this debt. We will also face the problem of fossil fuel shortages. As we consume more and more of these non renewable resources, we will find it necessary to convert to alternate energy sources. We can utilize the energy from the sun to generate electricity. The most efficient way to accomplish this is to place satellites fitted with solar panels in orbit and then to have the energy beamed back to collecting stations on the earth. This would give us an unlimited supply of cheap electricity thus allowing us to gradually phase out fossil fuels. There will be many threats to national security in the next century. These threats will be both physical and mental, domestic and international. The mental threat to our society is the public distrust of the government. The members of our government must act to change this image so that people will once again realize that the government is there to make their lives better, not to destroy them. This could be accomplished through a series of speeches or an advertising campaign in which the representatives for a certain district or a state would answer questions from the people about the state of a government. Another threat to our society is that of terrorism. As the countries of the world grow more peaceful, violent people will have to shift to terrorism in order to get their goals accomplished. In order to combat this threat, we must devise better security measures to scan people entering the country. We can also work with the nations of the world to track down terrorist organizations before they can cause any real damage. To combat terrorism originating in our country, we must pass strong anti-terrorist laws that call for strict punishment of terrorists. By taking a strong stand on this issue, we can convince potential terrorists that if they want to reform the system, it needs to be done from within with the consent of the majority of the people. With the invention of the airplane, it became possible to travel long distances in short periods of time. This brought the world together and caused the formation of the global community. As this community expands, alliances will be formed. We are already seeing examples of this with the formation of the European Union and the United Nations. As the world continues to evolve, the people will eventually realize that it will be beneficial to form a world government. This government would be an expansion of the United Nations that would operate under a constitution based on that of the United States. This constitution would guarantee that all people will have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The creation of this government would all but abolish war. The armies of the world would be combined to form a large world army with each country keeping a smaller force to act as our National Guard does today. This would ensure that the rights of each independent country would not be abused and that, if necessary, the country would be able to defend itself. The world government would also eliminate the need for atomic weapons. This would allow us to destroy the weapons and to shift our scientific resources to things more beneficial than the creation of weapons. The world government would allow us to achieve peace on earth and it would ensure the rights of every man, woman and child on the planet. Mr. Lafarge. This government would be formed by an expansion of the power of the United Nations. It would be the job of this government to carry out the solutions to the problems listed above. First, all countries would need to form into a council modeled after the United States Senate with each country having two members. This council would need to choose a chief executive. The Executive Branch would be headed by the chief executive with a cabinet of seven officials. The seven departments would be Justice, Defense, Treasury, Space Exploration, Interior, World Health and International Transportation. The Judicial branch would be headed by an international Supreme Court. There would be a branch of the international court in every country. Then, once established, the government would gradually need to form a world currency. This would ease transaction and aid in the forming of a world stock market. This would also allow businesses around the world to merge and further unify the world. With the constant advances in technology, this government would need to play an active role in the development of these technologies. Space exploration and medicine are the most prominent areas of study. There could be whole space stations dedicated to one field or disease. Dangerous biohazards could be contained and controlled. The unique properties of a low G environment would enable us to do things that we cannot do on earth. Scientists could create more resilient strains of plants and then clone these to solve world food problems. Scientists could use accelerated cellular reproduction to grow food faster and allow for faster distribution. Through the implementation of these programs, we can bring humanity into a golden age where all men live under a fair, just government based upon principles in the Constitution of the United States. Mr. Campbell. I haven't seen much progress with just what I've witnessed from Congress. There have been attempts to balance the budget, and that's a good start; but even with a balanced budget, we won't generate enough capital to quickly pay off this debt before it can really start to affect our economy. I believe that eventually we're going to be forced to increase taxes in order to pay for this. There was the suggestion of cutting different programs, but the way that I see it is that we're already cutting so many programs as it is that if we end up cutting more programs, some of them are going to eventually have to be dropped and it may be unfortunate, but I believe that if we drop any programs, it will end up being stuff like education or entitlement programs and that would greatly harm a lot of people. We could cut back on defense a bit. I think we're spending a little too much on that. Other than that, I don't really see any that we can really make huge cuts in. A lot of people might fear that with the formation of a world government we could end up having a dictatorship or an oligarchy where only a few people would really have power. We would have to ensure that this would not happen through different actions before it was even implemented. The people of the world would have to evolve to such a point where they can actually deal with this and where we would be prepared to set this government up without having these dangers. We have to combat that now. If we can get people to trust the government of the United States if we decide to form a world government, we could encourage that--we could show people that the government would be there to benefit them and to help them, not to take over just for the sake of power. Mr. Lafarge. People might fear about the formation of a world government is the loss of culture and the individualism of everyone and that people like Africans maybe might start to lose their history or people just might feel that by moving in this step that they will become kind of like everybody else, and that's sort of a fear.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, according to the New York Times, a GAO report to be released later this week ``harshly criticized the Pentagon and a special White House panel over their investigation of the illnesses reported by veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf war, and has found that there is substantial evidence linking nerve gas and other chemical weapons to the sorts of health problems seen among the veterans.'' Frankly, as a member of the Subcommittee on Human Resources of the gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Chris Shays, which has been studying this issue for several years, the GAO conclusion is no surprise to me. Our committee has heard time and time again from scientists and scholars who believe very strongly that a major cause of Persian Gulf war ills is the synergistic effects of chemicals that our soldiers were exposed to, as well as drugs they were given as preventative measures, such as pyridostigmine bromide. Mr. Speaker, the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Illnesses was wrong when it concluded in December 1996 that chemical exposure was not a cause of Persian Gulf illness, and that stress was the major factor. That error has delayed and deflected necessary research and treatment for tens of thousands of veterans who are suffering today. Mr. Speaker, I am circulating a letter that I hope my colleagues will sign, asking the Presidential Advisory Committee to reassess its findings.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of my colleagues I would like to have printed in the Record this statement by a high school student from Vermont, who was speaking at my recent town meeting on issues facing young people. Ms. Wachtel. Two years ago an elderly New York City woman almost died. Why? She ingested too much medication because she could not read the prescription label on the bottle. This woman is not in the minority. One-quarter of the world's population, 905 million people, cannot read. One in five American adults is functionally illiterate and 44 percent of American adults do not read even one book in the course of a year. Statistics clearly show that illiteracy is on the increase and that fewer than ten percent of those in need are being reached. in 1985 Proctor and Gamble spent more on advertising than the U.S. Government spent on adult basic education. The truth is by cutting funding for literacy programs we are threatening the future of our nation. The cost of illiteracy to business and the taxpayer is estimated at 20 billion dollars per year. President Clinton has made literacy a priority with his America Reads initiative. He says such efforts will help us to reach a critical goal, that every American child will be able to read on his or her own by the third grade, but there are large numbers of people who cannot even read to their own children. Public awareness is key. Parents must realize the importance of education and of literacy. They must know they are their child's first teacher. Illiteracy is a very quite problem which needs attention. Illiteracy plagues rural areas, not only urban ones. Literacy programs are needed not just in cities but all across the country. Programs for employees can be installed at large corporations. The library system must be supported. It encourages and provides great opportunities for education. As President Clinton said, literacy is more than reading. It is about opportunity and giving people the tools they need to make the most of their potential. Literacy is one things that can never be taken away. It determines the future of us, our nation, our world. This is necessary not only because it's literacy but because we need literacy to understand all the problems that we face today, and without an understanding, we have no way of solving them.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of my colleagues I would like to have printed in the Record this statement by a high school student from Vermont, who was speaking at my recent town meeting on issues facing young people. Ms. Hayes. Writer Justice Conrad said the artist appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom, to that in us which is a gift and not an acquisition and, therefore, more permanently enduring. He speaks to our capacity to delight, for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives, to our sense of pity, beauty and pain. The arts cross geographical, ethnic and socioeconomic barriers to enter into the lives of both children and adults. The arts are the heritage we leave to our children and a vital arts environment helps the economic development of this country. You may not know it, but attendance there shows that throughout the United States more people attend art galleries, museums, ballet, theater, opera and symphony concerts in a year than go to all the major professional sports combined. That's good box office, it's good business and it's good for the country. In particular, I know how important funding is to the arts and the joy and happiness that exposure to arts brings to our residents. For the past six years I have performed in a traveling youth circus that has brought the thrill and antics of the big top to communities throughout New England. Our performances cross all age barriers. The child, the teenager and adults alike all share in the excitement of seeing live performances. If funding disappears, how will we provide that experience of such entertainment to the thousands of Vermonters who cannot travel to the big top in New York? I've heard people suggest that the Government has no role in supporting the arts and humanities yet in Europe, governments recognize that arts are part of the economy and add essential vitality to modern life. Most European countries support their museums, orchestras, dancers, poets and visual artists to a far greater degree than the U.S. Government has ever done. With the creation of the National Endowment for the Arts in the 1960s, we took a step forward in providing a rich cultural advantage to all citizens. Now in the 1990s we are faced with the attacks by foes who are picking insignificant battles and efforts to undermine the support of the arts. With cuts up to 40 percent survival is paramount. The focus on funding public arts programs will be on the projects of very wide public appeal and accessibility. Gone will be the funding for public programs of great scholarly significance but smaller audience draw. The proposals to shrink government by severely reducing or eliminating funds for the National Endowment for the Arts is also a move of far-reaching effects on the strength of all art programs. There are creative ways to fund the arts. In my research I've discovered many new and innovative ways already successful on the state level. In particular, I believe we need to take a look at endowment funds, income tax check-offs and lotteries. Together with local initiatives, we can guarantee support for the arts. Just look at what some state initiatives are, license plate programs, corporate filing fees, special tax districts, local option taxes earmarked for the arts and bond issues. Endowment funds offer long-term investment opportunities for the arts by using interest only to fund current affairs. Should we offer our wealthy citizens a tax haven through contributions to the arts endowment, we will build up a significant amount to fund the arts well into the next century. Just like the presidential campaign check- offs, let's allow our citizenry to express their support for the arts through a voluntary contribution of their tax refund to such a worthwhile cause. I propose to further these ideas through a regional petition drive urging Congress to support funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. I believe I recognize the problems that are going on within the United States, but I also believe that the arts provide a fundamental part of life. You can't really experience life without experiencing the arts because they really show the true human emotion and no human can live without emotion. I believe we can fund it through a number of the things that I listed which were the endowment funds and such, and I believe that if we really try, we can find funding for it if we realize that it is such an important part of our life. At Burr & Burton we've been provided a lot of educational things that have helped us out. We've had some dancers that have come, some drummers. We've also had plays that have been put on here in the Smith Center for us and I believe that it's been an important part of our school life. It helps us to just know that there's more out there than what we see every day. I believe that art is subjective and if the person that didn't like it should also recognize that now he knows what he doesn't like and he knows that--what true art is now. He knows what he likes to look for and he also knows what he will never see again, so it is also enriching his life. I believe that everyone should have the right to go see it if they want to. If they're not funded, then they may not be wide for public appeal and you may not even if you wanted to have the chance to go see it. You have the choice not to go see it and that's your choice, but by federal funding, it allows the people who may not be able to go see it. Like some people can't get up to New York to see the plays and everything and this brings it home to Vermont so everyone is allowed the equal opportunity to see these things.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of my colleagues I would like to have printed in the Record this statement by high school students from Proctor, VT, who were speaking at my recent town meeting on issues facing young people. Ms. Blair. Recently in December Hawaii ruled that the state must recognize single-sex marriages. Judge Kevin Chang based his ruling on the fact that there's no legal reason against it. He also ruled on the theory that sexual orientation is fixed at birth and denying them the right to marry is sexual discrimination. Because of this ruling about 20 states have passed laws restricting homosexual marriages. We intend to prove that there is no legal argument against it and that there are only moral arguments based on prejudice. Ms. Garner. Some people think of homosexuals as promiscuous or abnormally sexually active, but that has nothing to do with sexual preference. Homosexuals are very committed to their partners. A 1992 study showed that 55.5 percent of all gay men and 71.2 percent of lesbians are in a steady relationship. There are between 1 million and 5 million lesbian mothers and between 1 million and 3 million gay fathers in the United States today. Although the majority of children come from previous homosexual marriages, homosexuals are still acting as active parents. Homosexuals who have not been in a heterosexual relationship in which to have children have many options. Adoption, foster parenting or artificial insemination are also ways of becoming parents. Some people think that homosexuals will influence their children to become homosexuals, but 35 different studies have showed that the children of gay and lesbians are no more likely to be homosexual than the children of homosexual parents. Ms. Ouellette. Homosexuals have good reasons for wanting to marry. They don't want to marry just to make people mad or start an argument. Homosexuals want to marry for the same reasons heterosexuals want to marry: Love, companionship, shared interests, common goals, emotional and financial security and to raise a family. If we deny homosexuals the right to marry, they will not have the automatic right to medical, legal or financial decisions on behalf of their partner. They can be denied access to visit their partner in the intensive care unit or other hospital departments. Homosexuals want to feel emotionally and financially safe just like heterosexuals. Homosexuals can attain some benefits of legal marriage when many homosexuals do not have the time or money it takes to get legal aid. Until the United States allows same sex couples to marry, homosexuals will not have rights and benefits that heterosexuals have. By not letting homosexuals marry, we are denying them rights every person should have Ms. Garner. Prejudice is a common threat that people of minorities and different opinions face every day. Homosexuals are a large target. The way they live is constantly opposed by people from every direction. The battle homosexuals fight today for the right to marry is not unlike the battle fought nearly 40 years ago also for the right to marry. This was the case of Loving versus Virginia, a black woman, Diana Jetter, and a white man, Harvey Loving, because interracial marriage was banned in the state of Virginia. They went to Washington, D.C. and got married. Because of the law, when they returned to the state they were arrested and sentenced to one year in prison. This sentence was only suspended because they promised not to return to the state for 25 years. In today's society, most people would think this unheard of, two consenting adults unable to marry because of a petty difference? Maybe 40 years from now people will look back at the prejudice we are bestowing on homosexuals and ask how could we? It's not fair to sterotype that heterosexuals are immoral because of their sexual preference, that they should be denied access to plans or things that heterosexuals get just because of their sexual preference.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of my colleagues I would like to have printed in the Record this statement by high school students from Hanover High School in Hanover, NH, who were speaking at my recent town meeting on issues facing young people. Mr. George. By supporting affirmative action it is being demonstrated that content of character is less important than the color of skin. Students are being accepted not because they have the qualifications, but because they are Asian, African or Spanish. They are being put into an environment that they are not necessarily ready for. It is like putting a team of basketball players on the ice with hockey players and saying, All is fair; compete. The problem is not mixing minorities and whites so all are fairly represented, but rather the continuing problem of minorities being lesser qualified. They are being inadequately educated in kindergarten through 12th grade and the government doesn't step in until after graduation. It is not making amends for the injustices of slavery or separate equality but what it is doing is converting, covering up problems with the current system, problems of funding for proper books and classrooms in public schools. Public schools, that means it is the government's problem with money, not entirely of race. As of 1995, the University of California was accepting only about half of their students based on grades and test scores. The rest were a complex equation that awarded points to minorities and women, and while 565 black students applied to Northwestern in 1996, only 120 were among the entering class of 1,850. In 1993, out of approximately 400,000 black high school seniors nationwide, only 1,644 had combined scores of 1,200 and better on SATs. Finally, in 1995, Pete Wilson, Governor of California as President of the University of California's Board of Regents voted to end affirmative action programs that considered race, gender or ethnic origin on admissions. At the same time polsters of two-thirds of California's voting population and a growing majority of men opposed quotas. We need to stop compensating for the lack of early education and start teaching. Ms. Newman. Although the United States has made progress toward protecting its people from discrimination, our nation hasn't come far enough. If our goal is to create a society of equal opportunity, there are a lot of things that we as a country need to do to make that happen. Since the late 1960s our nation has instituted an affirmative action program. The purpose of affirmative action was originally to end discrimination in the workplace. It has been a futile attempt, however, to make up for years of neglect by our society and its government to do something about racism. One example of the inadequacy of affirmative action can be found in Texas. In 1994, the University of Texas law school was sued because it had to set up separate admissions standards for white and black students. In a mirror image of the 1950s, the different standards were not to keep out qualified blacks but qualified whites. The reason for this which the lawsuit revealed was looking at the LSAT results in 1992, only 88 blacks in the country had scores higher than the median for white students at the highly selective law school. On scores alone, the school would have admitted nine black applicants to its engineering class of 500 students. Yet affirmative action called for a certain proportion of African Americans to graduate from Texas colleges. This huge discrepancy between black and white scores has to do with problems that our government is neglecting to solve within minority groups. Ignoring the fact that the black scores weren't sufficient enough for admission will not solve our problems nor will the other laws that require businesses to accept a certain number of people from a certain minority. They only worsen them. They produce the feeling of inferiority among minorities and create negative stereotypes in the minds of the majority. White, educated, upper-middle- class residents are getting angry because they are losing their privileges. They feel that they are now the discriminated segment of our population. We have given affirmative action a chance to lessen tensions among the people who make up our society, yet it hasn't been enough. There needs to be a different approach to this program and it needs to be stronger than simply handing out privileges. Our government needs to focus on resolving issues of poverty, of unemployment, of public education and the collapse of family structures that face minority groups in America. If people start feeling good about themselves, if they start feeling like they have a chance to be just like anybody else without unfair advantages from the government, only then will they feel that they are an equal citizen of the United States. Only then will there be space provided for individuals of any color and any religion, any background in either gender to achieve the success that has to be won, not provided for. Mr. George. What they are doing now is unnecessary--they do not always accept people or advance people based on--they are doing it too much on the color or by their gender. Ms. Newman. I think it is definitely appropriate for the government to recognize that there aren't as many of the kind of person, a race in something like a police department or whatever, I think it is appropriate for the government to say maybe there is a problem, maybe there is discrimination, but for the government to make laws that say that maybe a certain number of white students cannot be accepted into a college because there has to be a certain number of black students, that is not appropriate. Mr. George. There are blacks that have achieved and there are Jackie Robinsons, there are Jesse Jacksons, I mean there are blacks that can succeed and if you teach kids in school that they can achieve just as much as a white student can, then they think it is a lot more possible. Ms. Newman. I do not think you can say ``tough luck'' but you cannot wait until people are--how do I say this? If you want to promote the feeling that I can be this kind of person, I am a women and even though I never see any women carpenters I can be that person if I want to, but that has to be promoted before. People have to work at that when people are young, when people--like using the black example again, if a black person says I cannot be this kind of person because I am black and because there is discrimination, that problem has to be solved not by giving that person an advantage which would be an unfair advantage, they have to solve that problem by fixing the situation.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of my colleagues I would like to have printed in the Record this statement by high school students from Champlain Valley High School in Vermont, who were speaking at my recent town meeting on issues facing young people. Mr. Gay. We are here today to discuss the benefit of school choice. We believe it is essential in a competitive world to have thoughtful, intelligent people. Granted, there are always winners and losers when competition is at hand, but that isn't to say that everyone cannot come out on top. The world is competitive; that we have established, and that is why school choice is absolutely necessary in an ever- changing democracy. Would not a true democracy embrace the true individual's right to determining their own future? If a student excels and finds joy in the vastness of literature, then the student shouldn't be restrained. If the student wishes and dreams in the analytical field of mathematics, the student shouldn't be shackled with other burdens. This is not to say that all liberal arts obligations should be ignored. Students should still be held to the absolute highest standards. A well-rounded education should remain required as it contributes to the student's overall learning. What it boils down to is the intrinsic need to better ourselves. If that student who loves literature sees that her school has no advanced placement English class, why cannot she take it somewhere else? See, we do not propose that students should be allowed to puddle jump between schools. We ask that the student find the school that best suits their needs and take all of the classes within that school's walls. We propose that a federal grant be issued to the State of Vermont allowing schools to bask in the freedom of school choice. Schools need to produce the absolute highest quality caliber of students for the betterment of our society as a whole. See, here is where it gets kind of tricky because we think that a lottery could be instilled making it fair to all students who feel that their school can suit their needs and to get to this lottery a lot of kids could say I do not like my school, I want to go somewhere else, but that is where an application process would be brought forth because the student would have to have a need. Like I go to CVU and to graduate from CVU you have to do a graduation challenge. So the sole reason for a student to want BHS instead of CVU shouldn't be because I just do not want to take the challenge. Mr. Burke. The grant would be used to support a study and to make changes based on the study's outcome. We cannot stress the point enough that we live in a competitive place. Competition doesn't mean that there are winners and losers; it gives a chance for everyone to do better. Mr. Gay. We aren't proposing that the parents get a check for $6,000; that is what the other group proposed, something along the lines of that. We are proposing the student picks the school that best suits their need that is a public school because as they said, there is a separation between church and state. The federal grant comes into play because the federal grant would be given to the schools that have the highest caliber of classes and the highest amount of students leaving the loser schools is the easy way to phrase that and the loser schools would get the grant to become winner schools. That is why no one comes out on top. Poor schools would take the money to become the best schools. I take pretty much anywhere from mild to hard classes, I excel more in literature and not all that much in math, and I think I would be better educated at a different school that would offer more perhaps history courses. We have essentially four history courses at my school and we never discuss, we never seem to discuss other parts of the world; essentially, it is all western philosophy courses, and I think I could do better somewhere else. But I think overall in a public system there has to be the best and the worse have to come together so where we are it is pretty good, but I have heard concerns from other students here today and it sounds like may-be we are pampered where I go to school. CVU is a pretty rich school; we have resources and a lot of them. I think it could be better. I think when it comes to education you always have to strive to do better because the future of this entire country and the future of preserving democracy depends on a group of intelligent people and you have to maintain that. Mr. Burke. I am the opposite of Neal, I excel in math and not so well in literature. I feel I could do better because we do not really have any type of like accelerated program at CVU. Most of the mathematics department, if you do really well in one class you still have to be there for the full time you take the course even if you might be accelerated enough that you could take it in less time or maybe a school that offers more courses in math, not just the basic languages. Mr. Gay. We are not a part of the educational process at CVU. To do that you have to be either--I think it is you have to be an elected official and at CVU the elected officials are essentially the same people that are on HS and all those higher track programs. I vent my frustrations toward my own school, I write for the ed section of the Burlington Free Press. I use that as my own stomping grounds to perhaps lock my opinions because I am not that well heard as a member of the student government. Seeing that it is our education and I think a lot of the time parents do not always know best, so I think the students should play a more active role in the hiring of teachers and perhaps the firing of teachers. Mr. Burke. I feel the same way as far as if the students had a say. I believe right now there are one or two students involved with the actual planning of curriculum and stuff and the way courses are, but they do not have much say because they are students. Mr. Gay. Thank you for hearing our concerns, Congressman Sanders.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of my colleagues I would like to have printed in the Record this statement by high school students from Hanover High School in Hanover, NH, who were speaking at my recent town meeting on issues facing young people. Mr. Gollub. Hello, Congressman Sanders. My name is Ian Gollub and I am here today to represent the views of my classmates from Hanover High School in Hanover, New Hampshire. Clear-cutting the forest in Vermont and elsewhere in our nation is very important to our Vermont-New Hampshire students. My classmates and I sincerely believe that clear- cutting the forests and woodlands not only inhibits future growth but dangerously jeopardizes other aspects of our ecosystem. The two main issues we have chosen to cover are the environment and economics. First the environmental issue: Not only are we destroying the forest's aesthetic beauty but we are injuring the long-term health of the forest as well. When we remove trees by clear-cutting, we tear up the ground and compress the soil. The trees are gone, leaving roots and subterranean soil organisms tightly compacted underground to stave and die. Necessary fungi and nutrients are killed by erosion of powerful sunlight falling on an open area for the first time. For the specific reason organisms, plants or animals are killed then any diversity is lost or impoverished by chronic reduction of regional populations said E.C. Pineau in the magazine, Nature's Companion. Which brings me to my next point. Large populations of animals are being driven away by the lack of shaded areas in which to live. With such drastic changes in habitat to the local animal populations and the deaths of many preexisting animals and plants we are retarding the rate of ecological regeneration by many, many years. While some efforts have been made to regenerate the cut forests we will never see the forests full again; just scattered arrangements of various flora growth with no relation to the region's ancestors. But the most typical resolution for the forest is a giant open wasteland, a wasteland which is comprised of dead roots and massive eroded mud surfaces. The conclusion of our argument confirms our assertion that in no way and no how is clear-cutting beneficial to our nation's flora and fauna life. I would now like to pass the remainder of my time to my classmate and end short. Ms. Schrocke. So long does the American dream become endangered as the huge logging industry strives to take control of our land. In Maine the large paper industries have reduced the spruce and fir populations valuable for paper production by 40 percent. Currently half of paper pulp is hardwood as a result; hardwood, which is traditionally used by the smaller local timber industries. These large corporations undermine the values of such industries as local sawmills, fishing and hunting, guides, river rafting companies and perhaps more important to Vermonters, maple syrup producers. These large companies ship an astonishing 24 percent of timber cut overseas as whole logs eliminating jobs for local mills. The name of the game is money, and if selling the timber to the Japanese makes 40 percent more money, that becomes the priority. These corporations yield the rewards while the human consequences are borne by the working people. If the clear-cutting continues millions of jobs will be lost because people care more about short-term profits than long-term preservation. Vermonters will be forced to pay millions of dollars to plan and instigate reforestation. The government of Alaska found out the hard way when confronted with the need to pay $40 million to reforest the Tongas. We must also look for further solutions when reforestation plans fail because the nutrients once prevalent in the soil have gone up in smoke and the wasted fields have been sold to condominium developers as many have in Maine. Loggers will become their own breed of endangered species if we do not do something now to preserve our forests for both ecological and economic purposes. Our classmates at Hanover High School ask that a government policy be instigated which would ban or greatly reduce the practice of clear-cutting in favor of a selected cutting policy. This policy would preserve our forests for future use by reducing soil damage and improper pruning technique which come hand-in-hand with clear-cutting. A law for the continuation of the natural habitat which has stood for centuries and provided for animal and logger both. Now is not a time for talk, now is the time for action. Mr. Gollub. When you decide that you are going to clear-cut your own property and you decide you would like to therefore ruin your land, the nearby land and surrounding areas, ecosystems and the plants and animals that might only be found in that area would be severely damaged. Ms. Schrocke. One of the problems is that we are not necessarily asking that private land be regulated so much as the public land because unfortunately as the logging industry and the timber industry cuts the trees on their land they are continually asking our government to sell some of our national forest which we consider to be national treasures. Mr. Gollub. Well as you might know actually the bill in Vermont was passed I think two days ago and actually I was reading it on the way up, and what it is saying is that when you want to clear-cut now you have within a certain number of feet from other people's harvesting area, you have to have that approved because if you just wanted to destroy your land and your own ecosystem that is not possible because you are influencing the surrounding area. Clear-cutting devastates the soil in the area where trees are cut because of the way the soil is compacted and the trees were removed from nutrients and the other soil organisms are killed and left to die; therefore, the area can be eroded by the sunlight and the water passing through. Ms. Schrocke. Saying people have the right to do whatever they choose is an okay argument only willing to think in the short term, but if you are willing to think in the long term and you are looking at the long-term repercussions of this, I would say it is more important to feed your family for a lifetime than it is for just a couple of years. And as things are going right now, we are not going to have any forests left for loggers to cut down.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to salute two outstanding young women who are being presented with the Girl Scout Gold Award by the Vermont Girl Scout Council. They are Lori Brown of Rutland, VT and Kathleen Lomedico of Colchester, VT. They were honored on May 29, 1997 for earning the highest achievement award in U.S. Girl Scouting. The Girl Scout Gold Award symbolizes outstanding accomplishments in the areas of leadership, community service, career planning and personal development. The award can be earned by girls aged 14 to 17, or in grades 9 to 12. To receive the award, these Girl Scouts first earned four interest project patches, the Career Exploration Pin, the Senior Girl Scout Leadership Award and the Senior Girl Scout Challenge as well as designing and implementing a Girl Scout Gold Award project to meet a special need in their communities. As a member of the Vermont Girl Scout Council, Lori Brown first earned badges in child care, reading, music, games, well being, and understanding yourself and others. She then used these skills to design and implement a series of Lenten workshops for the young children in her parish church. Kathleen Lomedico earned badges in artistic crafts and career exploration among others. After learning leadership skills through Girl Scouting, she served as the editor of her high school yearbook. As her Girl Scout Gold Award project she spent the past year organizing and leading a youth group for teens which meets every other week and a youth band which plays every Sunday night for her parish church. Ms. Lomedico wanted the young people in her parish to ``feel a sense of home in the church.'' Both girls used skills they learned in Girl Scouting to help the church of their faith. These two Senior Girl Scouts have earned my respect and admiration. I believe both girls should receive the public recognition due them for such significant services to their communities and their country.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of my colleagues I would like to have printed in the Record this statement by high school students from Essex Technical Center in Vermont, who were speaking at my recent town meeting on issues facing young people. Ms. Lavery. Teenage smoking is a pressing issue in today's society. We feel there is a need with the tobacco industry to try to stop the sale of tobacco to minors. In recent news a big deal was made involving the advertisement of tobacco. For many years the Joe Camel figure in Camel cigarettes has been under the gun. The government believes that advertising is promoting smoking to the young. This is a valid concern considering 3,000 young people a day become a regular smoker according to the 1994 report of the Institute of medicine from the National Academy of Sciences. The number keeps climbing and in 1995, 4.8 percent of students said they had smoked in the last 30 days. Two years earlier in 1993, 3.5 percent said they had smoked in the last 30 days. Two years earlier in 1993, 3.5 percent said they had smoked within the last month. Most of these students admit to buying them without showing proof of ID. Should the responsibility of cracking down on selling be the sole job of the police? For now it is. It also has to do with store owners and enforcement of punishment and fines. Steps to put more responsibility on store owners are being taken such as the new photo ID law and carding everyone who looks under 27. As a 17-year-old I can tell you I have bought cigarettes when I was younger and had no problem. I have noticed a change in carding more now than I did when I was 15. The problem is that cigarettes are too accessible to kids. We took a survey at Essex Technical Center on Do you smoke, why or why not? 64 percent of the people said that they had smoked. 35 percent said that they started because of peer pressure. The majority of the non-smokers said they did not smoke because it was gross and it kills you. We have a tape of interviews from students. We also have those surveys that we did that we can give you and we did. Perhaps we should also show you why the percentages chose to smoke. I feel I have smoked previous in my young years and I quit it because I do not feel I want to die like that. I think it is a disgusting death. Ms. Bedel. Yes, it causes cancer, lung cancer, emphysema, and for young kids it is mostly the fact that the health is-- you know, in physical activity, you know, people aren't involved in sports as much and I think it is social. It really has to do with the social part of school. Ms. Lavery. A lot of it is peer pressure. They see their friends doing it and everyone picks on you if you do not do it and you get curious and you try doing it and then it is very addictive. Ms. Bedell. I do not think it has to do with people picking on other people about it, I think it has to do with like the younger grades in the high school see seniors or juniors in high school smoking and I think that that has a lot to do with it. I know at the Tech Center we go to you are not allowed to--well you cannot smoke on any school property anymore and we have to go off school property to smoke, and I think it is just--it is not a privilege because we do not have a privilege, we have to leave, but I think the younger students see it as a way to get out of school or a way to try to fit in with the older kids. Government control over smoking is going overboard but the money that is spent on smoking is outrageous and kind of ridiculous considering the fact that more and more teenagers are smoking each year. And I agree with the new photo ID law, I am all for that, but I do not think it is being watched enough, I do not think it is being used in many cases in small businesses, and I think it has to start at home, that the government has to take it out of the police's hands and like storeowners' hands and put it into the homes and you know, teach parents how to talk to their kids about smoking because it starts at home.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted that the House passed an amendment that I offered yesterday demanding that Ngawang Choephel, a young Tibetan who studied music at Middlebury College in Vermont, be released immediately from a Chinese jail where he is being held on trumped up charges. Unfortunately, however, Ngawang Choephel is not alone as a political prisoner in China. In fact, there are large numbers of them. According to the U.S. State Department's own human rights report released earlier this year: All public dissent against the party and government was effectively silenced by intimidation, exile, and the imposition of prison terms. No dissidents were known to be active at year's end. Mr. Speaker, Congress should not be supporting most-favored-nation status with China when that country has absolutely no respect for civil liberties. Congress should not be supporting most-favored-nation status with China when we have a $39 billion trade deficit with them and when corporate America is throwing American workers out on the street as they move factories to China and hire workers there for 20 or 30 cents an hour. Let us say yes to the freedom of Ngawang Choephel and no to MFN with China.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of my colleagues I would like to have printed in the Record this statement by high school students from Canaan High School in Vermont, who were speaking at my recent town meeting on issues facing young people. Mr. Fillion. Congressman Sanders, fellow students, we are here today to voice our opinion on the legalization of industrial hemp. Industrial hemp is not a drug, it is not marijuana; it is a relative of the marijuana plant, but contains virtually no delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the mind-altering drug found in marijuana. This means that industrial hemp cannot get anyone high, even the most stubborn pot smoker. There are innumerous benefits to be gained from the cultivation of industrial hemp. If only 6% of the contiguous United States were used to grow hemp, it could supply to us all of the electricity, heat, and all the fuel we need for our cars. Hemp could also be used to make stronger and more moisture-resistant paper which would stop paper from shrinking, curling or deteriorating as easily. An acre of hemp can produce four times as much paper as an acre of trees, saving this country's diminishing forests and the rainforest. Vermont definitely could benefit from industrial hemp's legalization. If Vermont's agricultural and dairy farmers would turn to industrial hemp as their main asset, the farmers could quadruple their agricultural income. These are just a few of the ways that industrial hemp can be utilized. We would like to know why we are striving if this invaluable resource can help us so tremendously with our problems today? Mr. Paul. Hemp can be used to improve so many of the products that we use today. It can be used in ropes and sails for ships; stronger papers and materials ranging in quality from burlap to silk; and healthier, less fatty foods, especially meat substitutes and birdseed. Hemp can be used for fuel with a 95% efficiency conversion, and unlike fossil fuels (petroleum) or nuclear power, it is a renewable and replenishable resource, and it is extremely easy to grow in nearly all climates, including Vermont's. Hemp fiber needs little more than nitrogen to grow. Even here in Vermont hemp and other cannabis plants grow wild in ditches and forests. In fact, Australia survived two 19th century famines on the seeds and leaves of industrial hemp alone. Mr. Fillion. Many officials believe that legalizing hemp would lead to the legalization of marijuana and eventually even harder drugs such as cocaine and heroin. There is no basis whatever for these assumptions. Industrial hemp, as we have stated, is not a drug, so how do you go from legalizing harmless plants to legalizing hard-core drugs? There is no connection between the two. It makes no sense to be afraid of a plant that has been grown for thousands of years around the globe. In fact, industrial hemp was grown in the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was made illegal in 1937 by the Food and Drug Administration, but only years later during World War II, it was relegalized because of economic troubles. It makes more sense to be afraid of not having it. Industrial hemp's roots are strong and very extensive, and have been shown to hinder and ultimately prevent erosion in such erosion-prone places as China where hemp, but not marijuana, is legal. We are not for the legalization of marijuana; we are for the legalization of industrial hemp. The government already knows the great benefits of legalizing industrial hemp. Our question is, what's the holdup? Mr. Paul. Because they do not really know the facts. There are a lot of differences between industrial hemp and marijuana, but because of the world hemp a lot of people have come to believe is a slang word for marijuana. They confuse the two and believe that they are the same thing. Mr. Fillion. Industrial hemp is a biomass like many other plants, and by using a procedure called porolysis it can be diverted into something that can be used for fuel and into things such as crude oil or oils close to vegetable oil and petroleum.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of my colleagues I would like to have printed in the Record this statement by high school students from Essex Technical Center in Vermont, who were speaking at my recent town meeting on issues facing young people. Ms. Dupuis. My name is Danielle Dupuis and I live in Colchester. This is Philip Bidwell, he lives in Underhill but attends Essex Technical Center. Rebecca Johnson and Troy Hibbard cannot be here with us today. We did a survey on teenage drug use in our school and we found that 50 percent of the students in our school use drugs, we found that 21 percent of them use them on a daily basis. The top two drugs in high school were marijuana and alcohol, and they are both used by 50 percent of the students. We feel that teenage drug use in this country is a rising problem. Everyday in and out of school students are using substances whether they are legal or illegal. We feel that a required high school level drug education class would be a way to solve this problem. Mr. Bidwell. Basically we think that it is more and more of a problem everyday in the school systems and we think that in order to resolve this we should have a class that is required in the school system for drug education because it is not that the fifth grade students have a class where they are introduced to drugs and what the effects are and stuff, but as teenagers these get more and more into peer pressure and they need to be brought up against anything that can happen. it is not just a fact of people doing them but people are dying from them. Ms. Dupuis. We found that 25 percent of the students that use drugs use them in school. Mr. Bidwell. I think that students, if you go up and talk to somebody like a student, that is just not normal to anybody else, but if they are going to somebody the same age just like them they are more open about it. Ms. Dupuis. They feel more comfortable. Other drugs were used, but marijuana and alcohol were the main concerns. We surveyed marijuana, cocaine, speed, acid, alcohol, mushrooms, hashish and we then had another category and those were all low, they ran about five or six percent, in that area. There is such a big campaign against drugs but yet there are so many students that are using drugs, you want to know what is the big deal, what is it like? I will try it once. And they try it once and that is it, you are addicted for life. I think a lot of it has to do with just being cool, too.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I would just certainly agree with the gentleman that clearly the task of Congress is to represent the vast majority of the people and not just the very few who are wealthy and powerful. But I think that that is very often not the case. Let me just point out one example of that in terms of tax policy. In fact, we are debating that right now in terms of the budget that was recently proposed by the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Archer], which would give huge tax breaks to the wealthy while at the same time we would cut back on Medicare, certain Medicaid programs and very significantly, by the way, on veterans' programs. In terms of tax policy what has gone on in this country people should know that from 1977 to 1990, the Social Security tax was raised nine times, and today, people are paying, if one is self-employed, one is paying 15 percent before one pays any income tax and a FICA tax. And yet during that same period, while taxes on working people through the FICA tax went way up, taxes for the wealthy and the large corporations went way down, and the Federal Government ended up collecting significantly less money, which helped cause us the deficit problem that we are trying to address right now. I would just conclude by saying that the gentleman is absolutely right in suggesting what I think the vast majority of the people would agree with at a moment's notice, and that is the function of this institution is to represent the overwhelming majority of our people who are not wealthy, who work hard, who are struggling to keep their heads above water. Unfortunately, that is not the case now. The people have the money, have enormous power and enormous influence over this institution. What I would hope is that in the towns and cities all over this country, people begin, must begin to get involved in the political process, must study the issues. What is our trade policy? Is it working? Is it not working? Why is it that we have such an unfair distribution of wealth? What about our tax system? Does it favor the corporations and the wealthy, or the middle class and working families? I would hope that ordinary people begin to study the issues, get involved in the issues, and play a much more active role in the political process, because God only knows, we certainly need their strength and their energy in order to influence what goes on here. I thank the gentleman very much for allowing me to join him in this special order.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I think that would be of enormous importance, and I think as the gentleman knows, I am an Independent.

Mr. SANDERS. General Electric is one of the companies who is busy running to Mexico, I think they have been investing in China, they have laid off significant numbers of workers. They come before this body every day trying to figure out a way not to have to pay taxes, leading the efforts against organized labor. Well, great shock of all shocks. NBC does not have a feature on the decline of the middle class. They do not talk about it too much. O.J. Simpson, we can get thousands of hours. Every airplane crash that ever happened, we can see the great visuals. But the fact that the average American worker has seen a decline in their standard of living, struggling just to keep their heads above water, somehow that story, gee, they just did not get it. Well, what about ABC? We flip the dial and maybe ABC will give us the story. But who owns ABC? Why, that is the Disney Co. The Disney Co. is busy running to China, they are in Haiti, they are paying people in those countries pennies an hour to produce products that come back into America. I do not recall seeing too many features on their station about the trade issue, or about the exploitation of Haitian or Chinese workers. I do not recall that. Maybe we will go to CBS, we will get a better story. Well, I guess not. That station is owned by Westinghouse, or maybe we will go to the Fox network that is owned by that strong, progressive Rupert Murdoch worth many billions of dollars. No, I do not think we will see it there either. So I would argue that one of the reasons that the American people are not seeing the pain of their lives being reflected in the media is that the media is owned by very large multinational corporations, many of whom are taking our jobs to Mexico and China, and the media would rather, what is the word, obfuscate, perhaps, rather give us a lot of entertainment and game shows and soap operas rather than discuss with the American people the important issues, and that would be one reflection I would have on the gentleman's question.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, one of the reasons that I am an Independent is that I feel that to a large degree, both political parties are dominated by big money interests and it would be very hard for that candidate who is prepared to stand up to the large multinational corporations who have so much influence over our economy and over the politics of what goes on, it is no great secret. I mean as the gentleman well knows, we hear a whole lot of discussion about the influence of big labor on the political process, the gentleman is aware that corporate America puts in seven times more money than labor does.

Mr. SANDERS. Yes, we turn on the television. Let us look at that for a moment. Who owns NBC? Well, General Electric Corp., one of the largest corporations in America. The gentleman mentioned them, among others.

Mr. SANDERS. I think you raise a very, very important point, and I tell you that it is a very--the theme that you are talking about suggests to me very frightening and dangerous times, and this is why. The average worker reads in the paper that the economy is booming; right? That things are going well? And he says to himself or herself: What is the matter with me? Everybody must be doing well except me. My wages have gone down, I do not have health care, I cannot afford to send my kids to college, I am working longer hours, and I do not see it on the paper. So it must be me; right? I must be the only person in America who is suffering economically. And as you indicate, of course, it is the vast majority of the people who are hurting. Now you raised the question: Why is it not talked about? Well, let me offer the gentleman a suggestion on another issue equally important that we also do not discuss. Where do we get our information from?

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, as the only Independent in the House, let me raise a few issues which I consider to be terribly important but which unfortunately do not get discussed all that much here in the House Chamber. For a start, I think maybe the most important issue as a country that we have to wrestle with is to what degree is the United States of America today a vital democracy. Sounds like an easy question. We have the right to vote. But, really, to what degree are our people involved in the political process? To what degree do people have faith and expectations of the political process? Mr. Speaker, I would remind my colleagues that just 4 years ago, in 1994, the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Gingrich] and his friends took over the House of Representatives. We had an election in which 38 percent of the people voted. Sixty-two percent of the American people did not vote. And in that election and, today, we continue to have, by far, the lowest voter turnout of any industrialized nation on Earth. Why is that? And why do we not discuss this issue? Why is it that millions of low-income people no longer participate in the political process, no longer believe that this Congress deals with issues or makes decisions which are relevant to their lives? Why is it that young people, in leaps and bounds, no longer pay attention to what goes on politically and do not believe that the political process is relevant to their lives? We do not talk about that issue, and I think it is important that we do. And I think the answer is twofold. First of all, I think there is a great deal of discontent with the two major political parties, and I think that millions of Americans think that both political parties end up representing the wealthy and the powerful. Second of all, even deeper than that, I think there is a growing belief that real power does not lie within the political process; that it almost does not matter who gets elected, which party controls Congress or State legislatures, but real power rests elsewhere. In my State of Vermont and throughout this country we see large corporations saying, well, we would like to pay less in taxes within our city or within the State, and if the lawmakers do not give us a tax break, we are going to move to another State or, more likely, we will move out of the United States of America. And what does a mayor or a Governor do or a legislature do under that scenario? It does not matter what party controls the legislature. Essentially, what people understand is that real power rests with the people who have the money. And if the people who have the money are not pleased, do not get the tax breaks that they want, they are going to move elsewhere. When that happens, people say, why should I vote, it does not make any difference. Politicians really do not have the power. So I would argue that this country faces a major political crisis. During the 1960's the Beatles were talking about what happened if they started a war and nobody came, nobody fought in the war. My fear is that the day will come where we are going to have an election and people will not come out to vote. In 1994, we had 38 percent of the people voting in the national congressional elections. Last year, when President Clinton was reelected, I believe we had about 49 percent of the people voting. My guess is the next national congressional elections, in 1998, we will have about 35 percent of the people voting, and the voter turnout will go down and down. It is up to this institution, the U.S. Congress, to stand up and try to understand what is going on and figure out a way that we can reinvigorate democracy. We talk a lot about education. Everybody agrees, conservatives and progressives, on the importance of education. But if we are not talking about education for democracy, the right of people to control their own future, what are we talking about? The second issue I briefly want to touch on is the issue of the booming economy. Mr. Speaker, we cannot open a newspaper without hearing about how fantastic the economy is doing. Some of our Wall Street friends here say, my God, it has never been so good. We cannot imagine it getting any better. Yet, when we look at the fine print which appears on page 68, somewhere beneath the sports section, we find that the real wages last year for the American worker was up 3.8 percent when inflation was about 3 percent. And if we know that the low-wage workers got a boost because of raising the minimum wage and the upper income workers generally do better, what we conclude is the average middle-class worker continues to see a decline, a drop in his or her real wages. The economy is booming, but the average American worker continues to get poorer. That has been going on for 20 years. So I would suggest when we talk about a booming economy, let us look at the middle class and the working class of this country. And then, my friends, the economy is not booming so much.