John Shadegg

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Chairman, listening to my colleague talk about tools to build livable communities, I would point out in the Clinton-Gore budget some things they do for tools for livable communities. The Clinton-Gore budget cuts State and local law enforcement assistance by $758 million. It reduces funding for State prison grants from $729 million to only $75 million. It eliminates local law enforcement block grants. And here is a great one. On January 28, 1999, Vice President Al Gore announced the Department of Justice would provide $28 million to help law enforcement agencies hire more police officers, the Community Oriented Police Services, COPS. Three days later, on February 3, President Clinton's budget, the budget we are debating right now, cut funding for COPS by $155 million. It does not seem to me that that is going to create more livable communities.

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Chairman, I would like to point out that the gentleman who just spoke said we are not talking about the Clinton- Gore, the President's, budget. Quite frankly, he candidly said we do not want to talk about the Clinton-Gore budget. In reality, this is the Clinton-Gore budget and it is, in fact, what we are offering at this time on the floor. Our position is this deserves to be discussed and to be debated. Millions of dollars were spent to develop this budget. If the Democrats do not want to offer it, we want to offer it and at least have some discussion of what is in it. So I understand the gentleman's embarrassment about not wanting to talk about the President's budget, but the facts are the facts. So let us talk about that budget. My colleague, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Minge), on the other side, pointed out that the President's budget double counts the Social Security surplus and actually spends that amount of money twice. Let us talk about what the Republican budget versus the Clinton-Gore budget does with Social Security. We save, as my colleagues understand, I hope, by now, 100 percent of that surplus. Beyond that, the President, by contrast, as scored by CBO, spends $158 billion of that surplus. I do not know how anyone can tell the American people they are saving it when they are spending $158 billion of it. The second point I want to make is that one of my colleagues who just spoke on the other side said, well, I think the Republicans are ultimately going to bury the budget caps, after all, I do not think they are really going to live within the budget that they proposed. I simply want to make the point that he can speculate all he wants about the Republican budget. In point of fact, this chart right here shows quite clearly the Republican budget on the floor today does not break the budget cap. We entered into negotiations in 1997, and we set statutory spending caps. Our budget on the floor today does not break those caps. So my colleagues can speculate, but the fact is the President's budget does break the caps by $31 billion.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I rise in very strong support of the bipartisan Tiahrt-Goode amendment. Mr. Chairman, I want to begin by complimenting the Committee on Appropriations on their work. They did a tremendous job of offsetting 85 percent of this supplemental appropriation and they are to be complimented for that. But in point of fact, it is possible to offset the balance, to offset 15 percent. I think the most eloquent spokesman on that point was my Democratic colleague the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goode) who pointed out quite clearly that if we went home to Americans and asked them, do they want this additional $195 million which would be offset by the bipartisan Tiahrt-Goode amendment, do they want that taken out of the callable capital account, an account which has never been used by the World Bank, or do they want that taken out of Social Security, their answer would be very clear, they do not want it taken out of Social Security, they want it taken out of the callable capital account. There is a very good reason for that. This is an account which is there for the World Bank to draw on as a backstop. But as the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan) pointed out earlier, the United States is unique in the world in its funding of this account. Every other country participating in this account pledged their credit to fund the account if ever called upon. The United States by contrast put up the money. The money is sitting there and right now not being used for any purpose. It can clearly be used to offset the remaining 15 percent of the bill, of the emergency spending bill, and protect Social Security. For the gentleman from Alabama who says we should not do this and for the chairman of the Committee on International Relations, I would point out that in 1994 an amendment passed this House, sponsored by Mr. Fazio of the other side, going into the callable capital account to the tune of $902 million. Now, if it was okay in 1994 to dip into that fund for $902 million, tell me why then it is not appropriate to keep our word to the American people on Social Security, to dip into it now for a total of $843 million which is the figure which would occur if the Tiahrt amendment passes? The simple truth is that we can dip into that account, the callable capital account, and protect Social Security. To my friend from the other side who was very offended that we are breaking our word to the world by not funding this account, where is it more important, that we would break our word, which, by the way, we are not breaking our word because we have put up the cash--the rest of the world has only put up their promise--but what about our promise to the American people that we would fund the Social Security trust fund? I suggest that the Tiahrt amendment keeps faith with the American people. It keeps faith with our national accounts. The callable capital account is an account which has never in its 40-year history been dipped into. I suggest that Members of this body interested in protecting Social Security without a risk should support the bipartisan Tiahrt-Goode amendment.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. I thank the gentleman, and I started out by saying, talking a little bit about my disappointments and my disappointment that we do not have more tax relief in this legislation. There is some technical tax relief that is there. We would have liked much more. But then I turned to the fact that there are many positive things in this legislation, and I thought maybe what we should do is list off a series of them very quickly, and then after we list them off, let us walk back and go through them and talk about how important they are one at a time and perhaps build the case for why we think those positive things are so good and so good for the country. My quick list just runs down like this: You begin, and our colleague from Illinois just mentioned, number one, you begin with the fact that this legislation strengthens our national defense. It has dollars for readiness and dollars for ballistic missiles. So national defense is number one. No. 2, it enacts a ban on Internet pornography, and I will tell you I have very strong feelings about that issue, about the evils of pornography and about the fact that young children in America today can access pornography, indeed can be teased on the Internet into looking at pornography. This will stop that conduct, make it criminal, put a block in place and do great steps in that direction. So that is another key feature. Another one to be added. There is tough anti-drug legislation in this particular bill. There are, I think, six different anti-drug initiatives in the legislation which will become law which our negotiators fought for. There is one of particular interest to me, and it has to do with providing a particular type of helicopter, Blackhawk helicopters, to our friends in Central America who desperately need those helicopters in the War Against Drugs, and we can talk in detail about that. But there is the anti-drug piece of this measure. And then another huge one is the education issue. You know, we have seen the President step forward and make his demands on education, and we have seen our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, our Democrat colleagues, say this is a wonderful bill for education and that Republicans caved to their demands. The reality is that is not true. It is in fact a wonderful bill for education but precisely because we battled against their initiative to nationalize education and take control away, and I want to talk about that issue. I particularly want to talk about the fact that one of our Democrat colleagues said last night on television that this bill makes parents, teachers, schoolchildren, students, school boards, everyone interested in the education of our children across the country the winners. I think he was right about that, but right for the reasons that we fought for, and I want to talk about the importance of the fact that when this bill came forward, when the President made his education demand, he would have taken control and authority away from parents, teachers, principals, students, local school boards and even State school officials, taken all that authority away. It was our battle to give rights back to those people that was extremely important in this legislation. There are many other good things, but I thought that would be a good list to just walk through.

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I just want to make it clear, we talk here on the floor about nationalizing education. I am sure a lot of people are going, What does that mean? What it really means is the sad fact of moving all the decisions about education to Washington, D.C. If my colleagues think every decision that is made in Washington, D.C. is a wise and prudent decision and they would like to surrender control over education to Washington, D.C., then they like national testing, they like the President's agenda of hiring all of those teachers here in Washington. If they think sometimes they can make wiser decisions at home about their own life, including their children's education at their own school, then they have to oppose the President on that issue. I want to turn, in the time that is remaining, to talking about the drug war. I mentioned earlier that there are six pieces of legislation in this bill that I think dramatically advance our fight against drugs. I want to talk last about one that is personally important to me. Let me just first rattle them off or list them off. Number one, there is a ban on needle exchanges. There is a prohibition against the Federal Government taking American taxpayers' hard-earned money and giving free needles to drug addicts across America. I think that is a tremendous step forward. The idea of giving free needles to drug addicts is crazy. There is a prohibition against medical marijuana. I think that is another important step in the right direction. There is a provision called the Life Imprisonment for Speed Trafficking Act. Nobody in America cannot be concerned about this crime. I know in my own State of Arizona, and in my own community of Phoenix, there are many labs where this drug is created. It is doing immeasurable damage to our kids across America and we need tough penalties for it. There are also some programs that help kids in this area. There is the Drug Demand Reduction Act which block grants funds to the State for Drug-free Communities Act and other community-based programs. And there is also a Drug-Free Workplace Act to support small businesses that have drug-free workplaces. My brother is in the construction business and drugs are a serious safety threat on the job. But the most important bill I want to talk about has impact on me personally. It is called the Western Hemisphere Drug Elimination Act. And there is a significant piece of this bill that I care about. Earlier this year, I had the good fortune to go to Central America and to visit Colombia. We flew into Bogota, Colombia, and while we were there we met with Jose Serrano, General Serrano, who is a legend in that country for his fight against drugs. He is the head of the Colombian National Police and a true hero in the fight against drugs. He took us on a tour of the hospital he built for his troops who were engaged in the fight against drugs there in Colombia. We have to understand that in Colombia, the drug war is literally a war with machine guns and rockets and anti-aircraft missiles and lives being lost every day. As we toured the hospital and witnessed and talked to his colleagues who had been shot and hurt, he made a plea to us. He said, Congressman, we desperately need Blackhawk helicopters. And in this bill, we give the Colombian National Police and General Serrano six Blackhawk helicopters to fight the drug war. It is a gigantic step forward. Mr. Speaker, some of us have been fighting to get those helicopters to Colombia for now over a year, almost going on 2 years, and this is just critically important.

Mr. SHADEGG. I think the gentleman is completely right. It reminds me of a story. Both of my kids are in public school in Phoenix, Arizona. I have a 16-year-old daughter who goes to Thunderbird High School. I have a 12-year-old son who goes to Mountain Sky Middle School in Phoenix. I care about public education. Interestingly, both of my sisters are public school teachers, and until our second child was born my wife was a public schoolteacher. Last summer, one of my sisters called me up and said, John, would you come over to an in-service for all of these teachers and talk to us about what is going on in Washington, what is going on with the education issue. I went in kind of thinking that maybe I would have an adverse audience. I just walked through what we have to say, what Republicans have to say, about education, and this was a whole room of teachers. I am sure many of them were members of the NEA or the AEA, which is the Arizona version, and right down the line, when I talked to them about my concerns about education, but most importantly when I talked to them about this issue of local control, of letting parents and teachers at the school make decisions, they were adamantly in agreement with me. They do not want Washington bureaucrats telling them how to educate the kids in their classrooms. It just makes common sense. How many of us in our regular jobs would like it if some Washington, D.C. bureaucrat came in and told us how to do our job? And yet that is the divide on this issue. It makes me turn to one last part of this puzzle I want to talk about, and that is the issue of national testing. There was yet again this year a fight over national testing. The President wants one national test written in Washington, D.C. administered to every school child in fourth and eighth grade in America. When you survey parents about ways to improve education, they generally say they like all these ideas, computers in the classroom, they like it; better teacher training, they like it; teacher testing to see if teachers are up to the standards and teacher performance standards, they like it. When you ask them if they approve of national testing, parents across America say that is a great idea; national testing sounds like a good idea. The problem is that while it sounds good, in reality it is a terrible idea. The teachers that I talked to last summer, who were all public school teachers in Phoenix, Arizona, said to me, Congressman, you are absolutely right. We do not need to give our kids yet one more test. They are already tested and tested and tested and tested. But they went beyond that and made it clear to me what they think is wrong with Bill Clinton's idea of a national test, one national test, stuffed down the throats of every single school child in America. They said, John, if there is one test, just one test, we are going to have to teach to that test. Teachers are parents and human beings. They want their kids to do well. If they understand that there is one national test, written in Washington, D.C., deep in the bowels of the Federal Department of Education, with some of the most radical ideas in education in it, like, for example, whole math or new math or new new math, where kids are not expected to do multiplication problems or addition or subtraction problems because they might fail those, that is really true. That is in the version of the national test that is already written, but if teachers understand that their students are going to be expected to take this one national test they have got to teach to that one national test. What does that mean? That means the curriculum, what kids get taught in your school, right down the street from where they will go tomorrow morning when the alarm clock goes off and you get them dressed and send them to school, what they will be taught in that classroom in your district, in your neighborhood, will not be decided by the principal at your school or by you and the school site council, it will not be decided by the local school board. It will not even be decided by the superintendent of public instruction or by the state legislature. It will be decided and dictated here in Washington, D.C.; once again, the Federal government telling people what is best for them, the Federal Government saying the only way to educate our kids is the way that we say to educate our kids in Washington, D.C., because they have got to pass this national test. It is a bad idea. It would hurt education. I grant that the proponents of this idea may believe it is a good idea but, in fact, it is a very dangerous idea that would nationalize student curriculum and this legislation blocks the idea of a one-size- fits-all national test written here in Washington, D.C. To our negotiators, I think that is a huge step forward for education in America and it will protect our kids and make sure that they do not get a curriculum crammed down their throats from Washington, D.C.

Mr. SHADEGG. I could not agree with the gentleman more, and I think it is important for us to understand that the bill moves in the right direction on that issue. The other issue, of course, which is very important for people to understand, is to know exactly what is going on with education. We have heard the President; we have listened to the headlines. We know that he stepped forward and said, I demand. In fact, I think he said, I will not let this Congress go home until they fund my education initiative. In reality, we are not funding his education initiative but we are funding a vitally important education initiative that has a component that he is for, and that component is funding more teachers for America. I think it is very important for people to understand this dynamic. As I mentioned, I watched one of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle last night come on television and say, this day, this bill, the American people, parents, teachers, students across America are winners. His answer was that they are winners because teachers got funded. Quite frankly, I think he was right, that they are winners, but he is right because our negotiators did not back off, and it is important to understand why. In America, we have always had one abiding principle on the issue of education, and that is that education was a matter of local control. The truth is, and I believe this to the depth of my soul, that the parents, the students, the teachers, the principal and the school board that runs my school know better how to educate the kids at my children's school, in Phoenix, Arizona, than a bunch of bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. I think it is extremely important for every parent in America and for every teacher in America and for every school principal in America and for every school board member in America to understand that what this bill does on education is it strikes a compromise. The President wanted 100,000 new teachers but he wanted to hire them from Washington, D.C., with all of the decisions being made by Federal Department of Education bureaucrats. That was the detail of his demand, and as they say the devil is in the details. Republicans said, Mr. President, we care about education. It is vitally important to us. There is no parent, Republican, Democrat, minority, otherwise, who does not care about his child's or her child's education, but, Mr. President, we believe in people. We believe that education is a matter where local control is vitally important. Why does that matter? Our colleague, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) recently did a year-long study on education, what works and what does not. In that study, they found one important factor: Schools where parents are involved are the best schools of all. The problem with the President's idea was he wants to run education from Washington, D.C. The sad thing about that is that it will send the message to parents, to students, to teachers, to principals, to school board members, indeed to superintendents of public instruction in the various states, that they do not really know the right way to do it. We in Washington know how to do it. Because we fought and we won the fight for local control, this legislation says, yes, we will have more teachers but, yes, they will be hired at the State and local level and the decisions as to which ones are hired to teach which subjects will be made by people closest to where those decisions will impact. That is, parents and teachers and school administration officials right there in the local school district, and I cannot emphasize how important that is.

Mr. SHADEGG. I could not agree more with the gentleman. On this same tour we were in Saudi Arabia. We visited our air base there where all of our pilots fly from to enforce the southern no-fly zones, Operation Southern Watch. We also then went up to Turkey, and we met with the pilots in Turkey who fly out of Turkey to enforce the northern no-fly zone. And the gentleman's point is absolutely correct. Those pilots are being asked to fly so many hours and so many missions and being sent back again and again and again that we are, as the gentleman knows, losing many of our best pilots because they are being simply pressed beyond the limits. They are not getting the training they want, but they are being asked to do missions that are beyond the call and with equipment that is not up to the task. We have to have a national defense that works. We have cut it too long. This bill has critically needed dollars. Now I know my fiscal conservative friends are going to say: But, Congressman, there is more spending in here. There comes a point when you have to stand and you have to say we support additional spending for worthy causes. Even when you do not like the way we have been forced into doing it, you do not like the fact the President would not give us offsets for all of that that we would like to have offset. The national defense spending in this bill is vitally important. The second one I want to talk about is what the gentleman just mentioned, and that is ballistic missile defense. I do not know how many of our colleagues understand. Sometimes I wonder that even they do not understand. But I am convinced the American people do not realize that if any missile were launched against America today, we could not knock it down. You know there is this great television commercial that was aired, prepared and I think aired on a few occasions, where the phone rings, and it is the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and it is the President on the other end, and the President, the Joint Chiefs of Staff says: Mr. President, I have to advise you there is a missile that has been launched. Now we could expect that from almost any rogue nation, and it is heading towards the United States. Then the President says, well, let us shoot it down, and this fictional character in this television ad says, Mr. President, we do not have the ability to shoot it down. It is simply inexcusable for us to allow the American people to remain in a vulnerable position where they could be subject to a missile defense, to a missile attack from some foreign rogue nation and we have no ability to knock it down. We can develop the technology. We can implement it. This bill puts a billion dollars toward that task and I think it is essential that we move forward on that. It is another piece of this legislation, admittedly not perfect. I admit this is not a perfect bill. This is not the bill that I would have written if I could write it all alone, but this does make major steps in the right direction. Two of them are adding dollars for our military readiness and adding dollars for ballistic missile defense.

Mr. SHADEGG. Yes, if the gentleman will yield, I just want to talk about those two issues. You just raised the issue of our national defense and also the issue of ballistic missile defense. I think it is very important for people out there across America looking at this piece of legislation to understand those two points. We all know that this is a dangerous world, and quite frankly, while we like to pretend it is not growing more dangerous, it is in fact growing much more dangerous. Our troops have had their ability to fight on our behalf weakened for far too long. I cannot tell you how many people in my district come up to me and say: Congressman, you have done too much. The Federal Government has gone too far in weakening our national defense. We need dollars for readiness. We must be prepared. Our troops cannot be out there with weapons that do not work. They cannot be placed in the handicapped situation. We cannot put them in harm's way with the equipment and the preparedness that you are giving to them right now. It is critically important. And I want the listeners to understand that of this in this bill there is $9 billion in emergency spending for defense and for intelligence needs. Now I was in the Middle East last November. We took a tour all through the Middle East. We looked at the issue of force protection. We looked at Khobar Towers. We saw the site where so many of our courageous young American men were killed. If we had had better intelligence gathering information, if we had known what was going on, those American boys might, and men and women, might be alive today. You just simply cannot make this point too strongly. We need these dollars for readiness, we need these dollars for intelligence gathering, and they are in this legislation.

Mr. SHADEGG. Let us do that. I will keep notes.

Mr. SHADEGG. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I wanted to join you this evening and express my thoughts about this important piece of legislation and make it clear how strongly I believe that this is a good piece of legislation on balance and that it is something we need. Legislation is often difficult and the process by which we get to it is a struggle. It is always a compromise. I think when we address this issue, we are going to hear from some of our colleagues that they are disappointed in some of what is in this legislation and they are disappointed that the President won some battles. I think in assessing that, you need to understand that the President has the veto power and that he was willing this time around to use that power to shut the government down if necessary if we did not agree to some of his provisions. But I think it is extremely important to look at the good in this bill and to focus on that. Let me begin by discussing a disappointment, an aspect of this bill that disappoints me and I know disappoints my friend from Georgia (Mr. Kingston) and is something that we would liked to have seen. We all believe that the American people deserve tax relief. We feel strongly that it would have been important in this legislation to have given the American people some relief from the marriage penalty that is imposed on them. That was an issue that we surfaced some time ago. We passed out of this body a piece of legislation to give the American people tax relief. Now, why? Why tax relief now? I think it is important to understand that Americans are being taxed today at the highest level in American history. Federal taxes are at a near all-time high, they have only been higher than this at one point in our history and that was right at the end of World War II. But State and local taxes are much higher than they were then, so taxes are at an all-time high. Why then did we fight for tax relief? To give some relief to the hardworking American people and let them keep their money. I am disappointed that is not in this bill, but it is important to understand why it is not in this bill. It is not, that is to say, tax relief for the American people is not in this legislation we will vote on tomorrow because the President opposed it. He made it clear, he told America he would veto any legislation we sent him giving the American people tax relief. I have got to tell you that is a huge disappointment to me and I think it reflects that there is a disconnect between this administration and what the American people desperately need. It is also important to understand the President's position on this issue. At the same time that we were fighting for tax relief, the President took the ground of saying no, you cannot give the American people tax relief because that would be spending a portion of the surplus. Now, I want you to understand, that is one position. It could be a principled position. If he had said under no circumstances can we raid the surplus for tax relief, that could have been a liberal, Democrat position which said keep the money in Washington, do not let the American people keep their own money. But it is important, I think, to discuss the fact that on this issue, the President is in fact not being square. As a matter of fact, I believe there is hypocrisy going on here. But at the same time he was saying no tax relief for the American people 2 weeks ago because that would raise the surplus, in this piece of legislation he is demanding that we spend that surplus, that very same surplus on bigger government. So before we focus on the good things in this bill, and there are many and I want to talk about them, it is important to understand that the President denied us the ability in this critical legislation to give the American people tax relief because he said we should save the surplus and instead in the negotiations over the last few weeks took that selfsame surplus that he has denied us the ability to give back to the American people in tax relief and said, ``I want to spend that surplus on bigger government.'' In fact, at the end of the day because of his veto power and because he was willing to threaten to shut down the government, there is no tax relief and sadly we were forced to agree to some additional spending in this bill which I know will disappoint some of my constituents. I know there are a number of points I want to talk about, good things in this bill, although I think several of my colleagues would like to talk on the point I have just raised.

Mr. SHADEGG

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

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, we are all aware this is a Sunday afternoon. As one of my colleagues noted earlier, we would rather be somewhere other than here. I, for one, would like to be home with my family, and with my children. I would have liked to have been there last night, when he played goalie for his soccer team for 2 games in a row, because the other goalie was out sick or had an obligation. But instead, we are in Washington, D.C. working on the Nation's business. I noted with interest the President's speech yesterday. The Nation's business at this point is finalizing our budget process and coming to agreement. Yesterday we held a little press conference out on the steps of the Capitol. We called on the President to join us, to join us in resolving our differences in getting the Federal Government funded for the next year and to move on with the Nation's business. Unfortunately, we have not been able to achieve that because there is disagreement. We should not set aside our principles. We disagree legitimately on the scope and role of the Federal Government. We believe that we need a smaller Federal Government. The other side believes we need a larger Federal Government. We believe we need more local control. The other side believes we should federalize almost all of the issues. We have reached a point, though, where we must find a common middle ground. The President has decided that we cannot reach that middle ground because, he says, the Republicans are failing to pass his education initiative. It really is sad that the dialogue in this country becomes partisan and no longer holds the truth. In this case, the Republican record on education is one that the Nation should be proud of, and one that the President actually, I believe, supports and has supported. In the 105th Congress, in this Congress, this Congress has sent the President seven different measures which he has enacted and signed into law: The Higher Education Act, the Special Education Fund, the WorkForce Investment Act, the Loan Forgiveness for New Teachers Act, the Quality Teaching Grants Act, The Emergency Student Loans Act, and The Prohibition on Federal Tests Act. We also have seven additional bills waiting for the President's signature: school nutrition, charter schools, quality Head Start, vocational education, Community Service Block Grants, $500 million plus for special education, and the Reading Excellence Act. This is a record of which every single American should be proud, a record of the Congress doing its job to fund education. Yet, I was saddened to hear in the President's radio address yesterday this issue made partisan. The President, it seems, wants his ideas imposed on education. What does he want specifically? Number one, he wants national testing. Number two, he wants new teachers, 100,000 new teachers, but he does not want them hired under Title I, the existing Federal program that funds the hiring of teachers. He wants them in a new program, the Bill Clinton new teachers program, and he wants 5,000 new classrooms. He wants those in the Bill Clinton New Federal Teacher Construction Classroom Act, so that he can have his name on it. That is what this issue is about. Yet, let us look at the record, because the record is one in which Republicans have an excellent record on education, and in which the history of education is actually quite sad for the Federal Government in total and for the Democrat Congress in particular. Let me talk specifically about the issue of special education. We all understand special education. We understand the IDEA Act. We have talked about it. I recall very distinctly standing on this floor last year and fighting for more funds for IDEA, for funding for children with special education needs. Let us talk about why I was fighting for that, where this Congress stands and where this country is, and why what the President says he wants is not what this Congress did under Democrat leadership, and is not what this Congress is even doing now when we are trying to get funds into special education. Let me make this very clear. Current Federal law, passed under a Democrat Congress, says that 40 percent of the cost of educating, that is, the increased cost of educating a special education child, a child with special needs, 40 percent of that cost is supposed to be borne by the Federal Government. The remaining 60 percent is supposed to be picked up by the State and local governments; 40 percent Federal, 60 percent State and local. That is what the law says, in theory, passed by the Democrat Congress and Congresses before the 104th Congress. But what is the reality? The reality is that when the Republicans took control of this Congress, only 6 percent was being funded by the Federal Government. Now we have moved that up to 12 percent, but we are falling millions of dollars short. This list shows how many millions. We are falling short in Los Angeles Unified District by $60 million every single year. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues, if we will fund IDEA, the districts can take care of their own education needs without passing the President's Federalization initiative.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 4151, the Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act of 1998. Let me begin by thanking the distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. McCollum), chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime, for his strong support of this legislation, and the distinguished chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), for his support, as well. I also want to thank my colleagues on the opposite side of the aisle. As Members will hear tonight, many have worked very hard to secure passage of this legislation, and it is indeed truly bipartisan. I also, most importantly, want to thank two of my own constituents, Bob and JoAnn Hartle, of Phoenix, Arizona, who were themselves victims of identity theft. They took this tragedy in their lives and turned it into a positive experience by becoming instrumental in passing the first State law in the Nation to criminalize identity theft, and by becoming instrumentally involved in passing this legislation. Mr. and Mrs. Hartle suffered the devastation of identity theft when a convicted felon took Mr. Hartle's identity and then went out and made purchases totaling over $110,000. With Mr. Hartle's identity, this individual obtained a social security card, a driver's license, numerous bank accounts, and credit cards, and did even more. He bought, as a matter of fact, trucks, motorcycles, mobile homes, and appliances, but, incredibly, it did not stop there. Using Mr. Hartle's identity, he obtained a security clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration to secure areas of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, and beyond that, he used Mr. Hartle's service record in Vietnam to obtain a Federal home loan and, stunningly, he used Mr. Hartle's clean record to go around the Brady gun law, and this previously-convicted felon obtained handguns through his theft of Mr. Hartle's identification. Mr. and Mrs. Hartle, as a result of this victimization, were forced to spend more than 4 years of their lives and more than $15,000 of their own money just restoring their credit and reestablishing their good name, because at the time that these acts occurred, there were no criminal penalties for this conduct. The Hartles were left with no meaningful remedy whatsoever. Ultimately the individual involved was caught and prosecuted, interestingly, for making a false statement to procure a firearm. He was sentenced in 1995 and served a brief period of time, having been released earlier this year. Most importantly, he was not required to and he did not make restitution to the Hartles. Tragically, the Hartles' story is far from unique, as I am sure we will hear tonight. Identity theft is the fastest growing financial crime in America. It is one of the fastest growing crimes of any kind in America. There are thousands of Americans victimized by this conduct every day. Indeed, I think, to the surprise of all of us involved in cosponsoring this legislation, after its introduction we were contacted by hundreds of our constituents who have come forward and told their own stories of victimization, including numerous Capitol Hill staffers who have been victimized by this conduct. Identity theft ranges from individual instances, like the Hartles', involving sometimes small dollar amounts and sometimes large dollar amounts, all the way to large organized professional crime rings involving multiple States and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Indeed, one such crime ring established a fictitious home improvement company and then a credit bureau account, and using that credit bureau account and a computer link, downloaded over 500 credit reports, and then, using that information, stole more than $250,000 from an array of victims. Incredibly, because there were no laws punishing this conduct, the leader of the ring could only be charged with the crime of breach of computer security. He was sentenced to only 2 years of probation, no jail time, and fined just $500 for the theft of over $250,000. These, sadly, are just two examples of the thousands, no, tens of thousands, of identity thefts that occur each year. H.R. 4151 is critically needed to punish this kind of conduct, which wreaks far-ranging emotional and personal financial damage on its victims. It is also needed to deter those who are tempted to engage in this conduct in the future. In 1996, Arizona became the first State to enact criminal penalties for this conduct, and this year seven additional States also enacted criminal statutes for this conduct: California, Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, Wisconsin, and West Virginia. H.R. 4151 complements these State laws already in place. It also, most importantly, provides Federal law enforcement officials, particularly the Secret Service, with the tools to prosecute and prevent identity theft. In testimony before the Congress, the U.S. Secret Service testified that under current law, `` * * * law enforcement must wait for an overt fraudulent act or creation of a fraudulent document before it can intercede in a case * * * involving identity {theft . Establishing identity theft as a criminal violation would enable law enforcement to prevent the fraud before it starts. It would'', in the Secret Service's words, ``be a proactive answer to what is now being handled in a reactive manner.'' To understand the dimension of this activity, we simply have to look at one national credit bureau, where in 1997, over two-thirds of the reports to that credit bureau were about identity theft, a total of over 300,000 reports in one year. The cost of this activity is monumental to victims, to financial institutions, and to taxpayers. Those costs have skyrocketed this year more than $2 billion. H.R. 4151 prohibits the transfer and use of personal identification information such as a person's personal name, their home address, their social security number, and other information to acquire the individual's identity. It will enable law enforcement to investigate and apprehend these crimes before they occur, before the individual has obtained credit cards, checking accounts, home loans, or purchased vehicles, furniture, or appliances, or even handguns, or, in the case of Bob Hartle, obtained security passes to go to secure areas. This is incredibly important and critical legislation which will prevent thousands of dollars of financial loss in the future. More importantly, it will prevent future victims from having to endure the months, perhaps even years, of trying to clear their credit and reclaim their good names. Identity theft is a critically important crime. This is essential needed legislation. It enacts stiff penalties for identity theft and even stiffer penalties for trafficking in someone's identity when the offense is connected with drug offenses or violent crimes. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, which has truly bipartisan support.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 1154, the Indian Federal Recognition Administrative Procedures Act of 1998. The bill would overturn the fair and thorough process which is currently used to determine whether a Native American group should be formally recognized as a tribe by the federal government. It would replace this process with one which is politicized and would lower the criteria for recognition to the point where tribal recognition would have minimal bearing on whether the group is a legitimate tribe. H.R. 1154 takes the recognition process away from the non-partisan Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and places it in the hands of a commission of individuals appointed by the Administration. This commission will be hand-picked by the Secretary of the Interior without the advice and consent of the Senate. These are radical and troubling changes. The BIA will not longer be in charge of a process which requires professional expertise and clearly falls within the purview of the Bureau. Furthermore, the failure of the bill to require that the Senate provide its advice and consent to the appointment of commissioners circumvents the system of checks and balances imposed on the Executive Branch by Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution. Furthermore, this bill lowers the criteria for recognizing a tribe. Currently, a candidate group must be able to trace its lineage back to the point that it was first contacted by settler. The group must further prove that they have been identified as an American Indian entity on a substantially continuous basis since 1900. These are important criteria: recognition as a tribe, and the significant benefits which come from such recognition, must be given only to groups which truly qualify as tribes. The effects of bestowing federal recognition on a tribe are substantial. A federally recognized tribe is granted special rights including the status of a legally sovereign entity. This means that the tribe may no longer be sued by individuals without the tribe's consent and thus takes away the individual's right to obtain legal redress from the tribe. Sovereign status also allows tribes to avoid collecting state sales taxes on gasoline and other goods: a problem faced by my state of Arizona and many other states. Furthermore, federally recognized tribes are entitled to benefits which are not available to non-Indians including increased funding for medical care and education. The most troubling effect of federal recognition is that it allows the tribe to apply to conduct gambling on tribal lands under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA). Congress has chosen, through IGRA and other laws, to tightly control gambling because we recognize that it often leads to problems with gambling addiction, increased crime, and disfunction within families. Few of us want to see a proliferation of new casinos, yet this is a likely result of recognizing new tribes since few tribes can resist the lure of the quick and easy profits to be made from casino ownership. While IGRA does act as a safeguard, the most effective way of limiting the number is to limit the number of new, unqualified tribes.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this amendment. First of all, this is not a ban on needle exchange programs. What this is is an amendment that says we are not going to use Federal taxpayer dollars, taxpayer dollars taken from people in Arizona and across the country, to send the message that it is okay to break the law, that it is okay to destroy your lives with drugs. I want to cite Dr. James L. Curtis, a medical doctor and a clinical professor of psychiatry at Harlem Hospital Center, a black American himself. He says point blank, ``There is no evidence that such programs work.'' I also want to cite Dr. Janet D. Lapey, medical doctor, president, Drug Watch International. She points out that in Montreal, deaths from overdoses have increased fivefold since that program started, and in fact, they now have the highest heroine death rate in this country. I also want to cite Nancy Sossman, who appeared before our committee, and who explained how these programs work in the real world. It is not in fact an exchange. She asked for needles, and was given 40 needles without surrendering one. With regard to programs cleaning up the situation, she said she was a short-term user. She just started, and they did not even encourage her to go for treatment. In the real world these programs do not work, and we should not subsidize them with government dollars.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time and I rise in very strong opposition to the Mollohan amendment. I oppose it because it is dangerous, I oppose it because it is fundamentally unfair to minorities, and particularly to the most undercounted minority in the last census, and I speak from experience. In the 1990 census I worked as a lawyer in the Arizona legislature advising the legislature on restricting. I worked every day on census tracks and census blocks. I can tell Members that while sampling, or polling, as the proponents of the Mollohan amendment want, may work in theory, in practice it will not work. And beyond that, the census sampling proposal by the Census Bureau this year is fundamentally unfair to minorities. Let us start with the beginning. Number one, many of my colleagues have pointed out that sampling is less accurate in small areas. The most important part of sampling is redistricting. Redistricting is built from very small census blocks, which can be as small as 10 or 20 people or as large as thousands of people. But when you go and work on the maps as I did in 1990, and you are working with tiny little blocks that have 200 or 300 people in them or less, guessing, or sampling, will produce incredible inaccuracies. It is in that regard less accurate. Second, they propose that we are going to do an actual count of 90 percent and then guess the last 27 million people, another 10 percent. My 12-year-old son can tell me, ``Dad, how do I know if I've got 90 percent if I don't know what 100 percent is?'' Their answer to that is, ``We're going to guess at what 100 percent is.'' Therefore when we say we have gotten to 90 percent, that will be a guess. That is a massive invitation for fraud and problems. But let us talk about the human motivations. Since the founding of this country, we have told Americans, ``It is your duty to turn in your form and to tell the government about your family, fill out your census form.'' This year we are going to send a very different message under the Mollohan amendment. We are going to tell people, ``Send in your form but, oh, by the way, it doesn't matter because we're not going to count you.'' As a matter of fact, as was pointed out earlier by the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas), we may even take you when you turn in your form and reject your form. But let us talk about the most important issue, fundamental fairness to Native Americans. Their proposal, if they were concerned about fairness, is insane. They say that the current system undercounts minorities. The single most undercounted minority in the last census was Native Americans. Yet under the Census Bureau plan, for no rational reason, Native Americans will not be sampled. We will sample Hispanics, we will sample blacks, we will sample inner cities, but Native Americans we are going to actually count. We will not even sample for them, yet they were the most undercounted in the last census. Their proposal is fundamentally unfair to the most undercounted Americans in this Nation. I urge my colleagues to reject the Mollohan amendment as unfair and flawed.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I have an amendment which seeks to solve a problem in existing law. That problem is that under the way the FEC laws are currently written, if a campaign law violation occurs in the last 90 days before an election is held, there is essentially no remedy. That is, that violation goes by and cannot be remedied. The reason for that is that under current law, the only existing remedy is to go to the Federal Election Commission in Washington, D.C., file a complaint and under the FEC guidelines no action, absolutely no action is to be taken on that complaint for a period of 90 days. What that means is that during the last 90 days of a campaign, there simply is no remedy for many of the violations which occurred. Indeed there is no remedy whatsoever. The FEC cannot get to it before the election. Oftentimes such complaints are rendered moot by the election and, therefore, there is a gaping hole in existing law. What my amendment would do is to solve this. It solves this problem by simply saying that for any violation of the FEC provisions which occurs in the last 90 days before the election, a candidate involved in that campaign would be able to pursue a remedy in Federal District Court in their district. And it requires that the Federal District Court give that candidate expedited review of their complaint. What that means is that when an egregious violation of law occurs during this key last 90 days of the campaign, the candidate would have an option to go to Federal District Court, file a pleading, request a remedy, ask the court to give them a remedy, and say, yes, this is a violation and provide an answer to the problem. It is, I think, an eminently fair provision. It would bias neither side, but it would solve the problem in the way the current Federal Election Code is written. I urge my colleagues to adopt this amendment. It is good sense. It would provide the court with the authority to grant injunctive relief if necessary, and it requires the court to both act on an expedited basis and if possible to resolve the complaint before the election. I think it has tremendous merit. I urge my colleagues to support it. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the expression of support from both this side and the other side. I think it is an improvement in the current law that will benefit the system and help to clean up elections in America. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Chairman, is it my understanding the amendment has been accepted?

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I too would like to join the others in this Chamber complimenting both the majority and the minority in drafting this bill, but I rise in very strong support of the gentleman's amendment. Let me try to clarify the issue with regard to HUD funding. It is true that these HUD funds have in the past come from a different account. Indeed, for the past 7 years, FHA has used mandatory spending to meet these costs. But the OMB put out a report saying that in the future, one of two things would have to happen: Either, the OMB said, you must find discretionary funds to meet these costs, or you need a statutory change in language to continue to use the mandatory funding. The point being that while the gentleman argues there is no funding increase, in point of fact there has been no funding cut anywhere else; and if we appropriate this 50 percent increase in discretionary funding, we will in fact be spending more money. It does not have to happen. We can in fact fix the statutory language, avoid a 50 percent increase in HUD funding simply by changing the statute, and fund a cause that is extremely important. So having talked about the fact that we do not need to increase spending by 50 percent, we do not need to spend an additional $304 million on non-overhead expenditures, administrative expenditures at FHA, we can continue the practice in the past with a mere statutory change in the language, I want to talk about why using this fund for VA health care is important. I recently visited the VA hospital in Phoenix, Arizona. I was embarrassed to walk through that facility. In the southwestern United States, we face a difficult problem. Many of our Nation's veterans are retiring to the Sunbelt, to the South and the Southwest where it is warmer and they want to spend their final years. That has put an incredible burden on our veterans hospitals. As my colleague has pointed out, we are underfunding our commitment to our veterans. This bill is a painless way to add $304 million critically needed to those VA health services. It is important that we step up to the plate. All my life I have been kind of a fan and an aficionado of D-Day and the sacrifices that were made there. We all know that in this Capitol just a few days ago, a sacrifice was made to protect the people in this building. Our veterans have all made a sacrifice in their lives. With all due respect to the chairman of the committee and the ranking member, the gentleman's amendment will enable us to honor our commitment to provide health care to our veterans without increasing the spending at FHA simply by fixing the problem at FHA that OMB identified in a very simple administrative way. It does appear to be the same method that the Senate plans to use. If I can, I urge my colleagues, in the strongest possible terms, to join me and to join the gentleman in supporting this amendment and in honoring our commitment to America's veterans and to the health care needs that they have.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much.

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I would like to engage in a colloquy with the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Health from the Committee on Commerce. It is my understanding that the gentleman, along with most of our Republican colleagues and leaders, would agree with me that the biggest problem with health care today is that the Tax Code encourages employers, and not individuals, to be the purchasers of health care. Indeed, employers have a tax incentive to offer health care benefits for their employees, and individuals do not have that same benefit, so they are discouraged from purchasing their own health care.

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